 
I, Writer

By Anthony North

Copyright Anthony North 2013

Cover image copyright, Yvonne North 2013

Smashwords Edition

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission

Other books by Anthony North

Beginning in 2019 I'm publishing 14 volumes of my fiction, inc 7 novels in most genres, & 21 works of non-fiction covering cults, politics, conspiracies, religion, disasters, science, philosophy, warfare, crime, psychology, new age, green issues & all areas of the unexplained, inc ufology, lost worlds and the paranormal. Hopefully appearing at the rate of one a month, check out the latest launch at my bookstore at http://anthonynorth.com or buy direct from Smashwords for all devices at: <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/anthonynorth>

In addition to the above, you may like my 'I' Series – 8 volumes of flash fiction (horror, sci fi, romance, adventure, crime), 4 volumes of poetry & 5 volumes of short essays from politics to the unexplained. Available from same links as above. Also check out my bookstore for news of my books out in paperback.

CONTENTS

Introduction

FLASH FACTORY

Stories 1 - 6

Stories 7 - 12

Stories 13 - 18

Stories 19 - 24

Stories 25 - 30

Stories 31 - 36

Stories 37 - 43

POETIC INTERLUDE ONE

WRITING TIPS

Tips – Pt 1

Tips – Pt. 2

Tips – Pt. 3

POETIC INTERLUDE TWO

MEMOIRS

Life – Pt. 1

Life – Pt. 2

POETIC CONCLUSION

List of Stories & Essays

About the Author

Connect With Anthony

INTRODUCTION

This is an introduction to my other eBooks – 7 volumes of Flash Fiction in most genres, 4 of poetry & 5 of essays, inc the unexplained. This volume has over 40 pieces of Flash Fiction + Poetry, Writing Tips and Memoirs – a dip-in volume to read at your leisure in a fast world. Here's hoping I slow you down a little.

FLASH FACTORY

Stories 1 – 6

(1) Criticism of Style (2) Moon Ladder (3) Outrageous (4) Time For a Change (5) Invasion Alien (6) Harvest

CRITICISM OF STYLE

No style!!? Me? What's he talking about?

I put down the paper – well, I scrunched it up and threw it in the fire. Any paper that could publish such a review of my latest book was unworthy of being read.

No style? What nonsense is this? Okay, you can say a writer's style is good, brilliant, indifferent or absolute rubbish. But no style? How can a book – anything – NOT have style – a pattern? If he didn't like me, fair enough, but to obliterate me from existence!

Several days later, I had not calmed down. He had gotten deep into my mind and evil thoughts just would not get out of my head, and I wished him nothing but bad luck.

'I wish him bad luck,' I eventually said to a person I spoke to in the bar.

It was the following week that I read of the car accident. He wasn't dead, but he did have a broken leg – which made it very difficult to escape the fire in his house the week after that.

He did escape, of course, with some rather painful burns. But he would live – to be scooped up onto the bonnet of the car during the hit and run...

And so it went on. Just a simple curse and it is done. It seems that this is how the enforcer got his reputation – and I have to say he was quite cheap, considering.

'Ah,' said the detective when I pointed this out. 'That's because he always follows the same incompetent pattern and he's soon caught. Along with the person who hires him.'

So there it is, folks. I'm writing this from prison. And there's one thought I just can't get out of my head:

If only he'd had no style...

MOON LADDER

'Build a ladder to the moon.'

Reynolds remembered the words – and it was hard to imagine it was only twenty years ago. And now, as he manoeuvred the shuttle into Earth orbit, he looked down on the result.

It had taken a couple of years to thrash out the principles, but once the basic tech had been designed, and the money had been allocated, the project was on. And at last, thought many, the Earth's industrial and energy problems were over.

It had first been thought up by science fiction writers in the mid-20th century. Matter Drivers, they were called – a kind of huge electronic pulsed cannon, firing a constant stream of matter into space from the moon. It could be ore, anything that could be mined, and with no atmosphere to impede its acceleration, the journey to Earth would be cheap and effortless. Indeed, the only problem seemed to be the rungs – electronic pulsers to give the matter an extra boost on its journey to Earth. Indeed, working out the exact positions in relation to the orbit of Earth or moon had been the main stumbling block.

But Reynolds had been there on the moon when the first stream had been fired, and he had followed them in the shuttle as they journeyed, and he had watched the way they were aimed to enter the atmosphere gently, only burning up half their mass, and ending up in the collectors on Earth.

It was the most ingenious answer to man's industrial insanity, they had said. But maybe the people should have known all along the vindictive nature of man. After all, with the equivalent of a constant meteor storm aimed directly at Earth, it was inevitable that something would eventually go wrong. And as Reynolds looked down on the Earth, its cities shattered, its oceans vaporized by the impacts, the idea entered his head that maybe mass suicide was intended all along.

OUTRAGEOUS

When I think back to how it was, I can't believe it happened to me. There I was, a nobody, living a typical life of a teenager. Eighteen years old, a girlfriend, a job – of sorts – but mainly boredom. And then I auditioned for the TV talent show.

I knew I had a good voice. I'd even been told I had 'presence'. And well, we know how it went from there.

I won! Millions voted for me, and suddenly I was the star.

Oh man, how life changed. It was incredible. The girls, the adulation, the crowds screaming like that!

It's hard to explain how it is to BE somebody, to have people know your name, to have people aspire to be like you.

The money poured in, of course.

It was hard work, but I deserved that money. And okay, some people think I became rather outrageous, and I suppose I did – a larger than life character, bedding all those girls, the booze, the drugs, the statements on life, the universe and everything...

Oh, what the hell – I enjoyed it! It was great! I was the luckiest man on Earth!

Yeah, right!

Well, mom, if only I'd been allowed to live as me, rather than that soulless image that was created for me, I wouldn't be writing this suicide note....

TIME FOR A CHANGE

'Well I think I'm ready for a change,' said Jack.

'Why's that?' asked Pete.

'Well, look at it?' Jack was resting by the garden fence and gestured to the panorama that was his neighbourhood.

'What's wrong with it?'

'What's right with it?' A sigh. 'Lousy neighbours – yourself excepted, of course.'

'Thanks for that.'

'And the noise. Kids always terrorizing the place. Cars flashing past...'

Pete didn't recognize the place like that, but said: 'Really?'

'Oh yes – and I'm fed up with it.'

'So you want to change it?'

'I do. It's having such an effect as well.'

'In what way?'

'Well, my job for a start. This place gets me down, so the job isn't going right.'

'I see...'

'And my relationship with the wife is suffering.'

'It is?'

'Oh yes. We hardly get on any more.'

'And changing your home will sort all this out, will it?'

'It will.'

Pete became philosophical. 'Well, it seems to me that it isn't your home you want to change.'

'No?'

'No. What you want to change is yourself.'

Jack walked off, deciding it was time to change his friend as well.

INVASION ALIEN

When the flying saucer first landed, there was obvious curiosity. But when the little bug-eyed alien came out of the starship and began zapping everyone, fears grew of Invasion Earth. Armies were massed against him, but to no avail, and people began to crowd into churches, fearing Apocalypse.

Something obviously had to be done. And this occurred when a priest appeared out of an old B-Movie, walked into No Man's Land, held up his hands and said: 'Please, stop!'

The little bug-eyed alien thought a moment and lowered his blaster. He silently cursed, not realising until this moment that he was killing sentient beings.

Within hours the little bug-eyed alien was no longer surrounded by armies, but scientists, eager to learn all about his technology, culture and psychology. However, no matter how hard they tried, the little bug-eyed alien's ways were, for want of a better word, alien.

True, he could easily build a particle beam blaster, understand the properties of quantum gravity, build an anti-grav drive, teleportation system and work out Godel's theorem, but in all other areas his alienness became a handicap.

The greatest minds on the planet came together to decide what to do with the little bug-eyed alien, and finally a decision was made. Convincing him to give up his toys, he was adopted by a nice family, and it is hoped he may soon be starting school.

HARVEST

Tony Brand knew the moment had come. The woman had moved away from her husband - left him by the lake and headed for the ice cream vendor. A hundred yards – that's all Brand needed. He was good, and that would be enough time to kidnap her before the husband could get near. After all, kidnapping her was what it was all about.

When he moved, it was fast, sweeping up the woman in one arm while another went to cover her mouth. By the lake, the husband was immediately alerted and began to run towards them.

He was good, too, thought Brand, as he reached his car, opened the door, took out the gun and held it to her temple.

The husband stopped in his tracks. Two pairs of professional eyes bore into each other. And the husband knew this was not the time.

Brand pushed her into the car and in a moment sped off.

The husband put down the phone, the arrangements made. He was sat in his London flat, and the strain showed on his face. He had met his wife a year ago in Paris, and it was love at first sight. She soon agreed to marry him, even though, by then, she was aware that he was a rising agent in the Russian FSB, his job as a London embassy attaché a mere cover.

He was alerted by the door bell. Opening the door, he guessed who it would be.

Dooley, sixty years of age with a face that reflected the shadow life he had led, walked in. Said: 'If you want her back, we want the names of all your agents in Britain.' He smiled. 'Time for a harvest, I think.'

The Russian smirked. 'And what's the point of that? We'd remove them straight away, and you'd be no better off.'

'Ah, but we would,' replied Dooley. 'Your mother country is flexing its muscles again. And it needs a message. We're still here, you know.'

The husband knew it made sense.

It was an hour later that the door bell rang and Brand opened the door of the safe house. Dooley walked in, looking smug.

'Is he cooperating?' asked Brand.

'He's thinking about it,' replied Dooley. The old man opened another door. The wife was inside, sat on a chair, her hands tied, a gag over her mouth. Dooley smiled. Shut the door once more.

And as Dooley left the safe house Brand checked his gun for the hundredth time. He never left anything to chance.

Outside, the man in the car padded his mobile. 'I've followed Dooley to the safe house,' he said. 'We know where she is.'

It was dark when the two men crept up to the building, jemmied open the door and silently, but professionally stormed in.

Brand was taken by surprise, and before he could reach for his gun, a bullet slammed into his chest.

He fell back, blood pouring, his eyes staring into space.

Quickly they freed the woman and were away. Within the hour, husband and wife were on a plane, destination Moscow.

Dooley stared down at the still body of Tony Brand. He held a hard expression. Finally, he snapped: 'Oh do get up, Brand. Don't milk it.'

Brand always did as he was told. He stood, took off the bulletproof vest and blood bags. 'Did it work?' he asked.

Dooley replied in the affirmative. 'They're on their way to Moscow. His cover is blown, but his loyalty confirmed, so it will be a desk job for him. After all, it was a grave risk to his wife going straight to his masters – as we knew he would. And in ten years he'll have risen to the high echelons of FSB HQ. And all that time with a wife who's a sleeper in more ways than one.' He smiled. 'And I feel she will harvest a good amount of information from him.'

Stories 7 – 12

(7) He's One of Them (8) Live Wire (9) He Isn't There (10) The Recipe (11) Finger of Suspicion (12) A Perfect Christmas

HE'S ONE OF THEM

Miss Standing, the Headmistress, had admonished the boys the morning she heard them talking about Mr Smith.

The boys had got it into their head that Mr Smith was a vampire. Indeed, it had got so bad that they'd avoid class rather than come face to face with him. And as for extra curricular activities, you'd never find THEM in the school after dark.

It was his rosy cheeks that first drew their attention to the problem – that, and the distinct sharpness of his teeth. And then there was the delight he seemed to have dissecting little animals in the lab. Indeed, that was always a sticky situation. But nothing proved it more than the night they saw him in the darkened staff room, towering over Miss Jenkins, and lowering his mouth to her neck.

The next day, she seemed almost comatose, and more than a little pasty. No, there was no doubt he was one of them. And as the boys had noticed, rumours of all manner of spectral goings on at night had been reported since he arrived.

And when they spied Mr Smith taking Miss Jenkins to a secluded corner of the school, they decided they had to speak out again.

Miss Standing admonished the boys once more as they told her, but realizing a 'situation' was developing, she followed the boys to the suspect's haunt. Going in by herself, a red faced Headmistress finally emerged, and the rumour following said they were two teachers down due to 'inappropriate behaviour', with several other women teachers on warnings. But as Miss Standing later pointed out: 'Don't worry, boys, it won't be many years before you're little vampires, too.'

LIVE WIRE

We all know him.

He starts off at school. He'll maybe play football the best, and he'll be leader of the gang – after all, he needs an audience so he can perform.

I'm a psychologist. I study him thoroughly. I know him inside out. And as he gets a little older, he'll be the dare-devil – the first to climb that wall; the first to kiss that girl. And as his hormones click in, he'll more than kiss her – and many more besides.

He'll have to do this. He's enslaved by his psychology. He may be from a broken home. He may have been abused. He may simply have been ignored – how dare they? – but he'll be broken inside. Somehow.

Years back he'd have been thought a naughty boy who needs a smack. In the deep past, he'd have the devil in him, and be exorcised. Today, he'd be hyper-active and given pills; pampered. Made worse.

He leaves school, and he's known as the live wire. He'll succeed in everything he does. He'll work the hardest, party the wildest, and there won't be anything he doesn't know about. But the girl who gets close – she'll know. She'll see the vulnerability, the anger, the under-confidence that drives him on to succeed, 'cos he has to. He was made that way.

But others know him as the swell guy, the leader of the pack, ultra-smooth, ultra-confident – the man they all want to be. But they don't see him cry at night; don't see him shake before that confident act. Don't see the man behind the mask.

Not like I've seen – time and time again. Not like I've seen them rise in politics, or business, or sport, or entertainment, or any other career that exudes confidence!!

Well, I've had enough for today. I stop the computer model – it has run enough times today – cut off its live wire, as it were.

I'll run it again tomorrow. Circumstances will change. Paths will differ. But the psychology is always the same.

Show me a confident man and I'll show you a wreck.

HE ISN'T THERE

The Techno-Lord looked once more into the eyes of the Heretic. 'He isn't there,' he said. 'Say it. Say it! He isn't there.'

The Heretic sat within the force field. Immobile except for his head, his body was covered in probe holes, where the 'treatment' had been inserted. His eyes still held, within them, the after-shock of expression as he remembered the pain.

His head seemed to hang from his shoulders. But still he found the strength to raise himself. His eyes burned into the Techno-Lord with an intense heat. 'He IS there!' he declared, defiantly.

The Techno-Lord shook his head. So many of them, he thought. So many retain the delusion.

A gasp came from the audience. It had been his last chance. And now, the Techno-Lord pressed the button.

Slowly, the juice flowed down the tube. The audience watched it with a mesmeric intensity. Eventually, it entered the body of the Heretic and his eyes closed.

He seemed to float, then, for so long. Where he was travelling he had no idea, but knew that soon he'd know whether his death had been in vain.

Eventually, the floating stopped, and he opened his eyes...

THE RECIPE

Chef was feeling mystical, and whenever this happened he decided to cook one of his special recipes.

The other chefs watched as he began to include the ingredients. Sauces, vegetables and even stranger concoctions went into the pot. 'What are you looking at?' snapped Chef, followed by a profusion of insults.

This began an argument between two of the other chefs. Chef said, from memory:

This tasty dish needs plenty of fish,

a modicum of meat, and garlic's a treat

Then he goaded the others some more; suggested maybe one knew the secret ingredient. The argument became more heated, stopping only momentarily as Chef said:

A plant's secret node, a leg of toad,

stir by moonlight, quite a sight

Coming back in from the rain, he placed the pot back on the stove. The argument turned into a fight. Chef stirred on, in more ways than one, before saying:

The secret addition, to bring it to fruition...

He left the words standing, as if a question. Tension heightened, chefs will be chefs, and implements were drawn....

Finally, a hushed silence. Chef bent down by one his colleagues. Said: '... _The blood of a chef, close to death...'_

FINGER OF SUSPICION

Oh, life can be such fun – at times. Well, in this 'time', at least. You see, I'm a bit of a rogue – okay, some would call me a vindictive super-criminal, but I deny that. Although that didn't stop the Time Directorate pronouncing sentence once they caught me. I gave them a good run for their money, escaping into century after century, but when they did, I was banished to the early 21st century – you know, close to the end of the Age of Barbarism.

They often sent us back to this time, locking us out of the future, 'cos they argued there was so much mischief going on, our own antics would hardly be noticed. Except, that is, for Dixon. Now Dixon was one smart cop, even for this age. And always he was on my tail. No matter what I tried to do, there he was, and to be honest with you, I'd had enough. I tried to fix him several times, but the reality was he was too smart to be fixed in his time. And that's when I hatched the plan.

I still had enough tech and know how for brief jumps into the past, and it was this I was going to manipulate. And sure enough, I planned it just perfect, arriving exactly 42 years, 243 days back in time. The mother was asleep, and as I looked at the new born child, I took out the surgi-knife...

Well, that was me off the hook – although I had quite a shock soon afterwards when I bumped into Dixon. We got talking. He was a salesman, but had always wanted to be a cop. Which he would have been if he hadn't been born with a finger missing.

A PERECT CHRISTMAS

I look over the world and what do I see?

I see battlefields where no weapons are fired, where no soldier is killed, where no one makes war, and where everyone feels imbued with hope.

I see people all over the Third World with plenty, with multi-nats in decline, and sensible government thinking of the people instead of personal greed.

I look at our thinkers and I see toleration between religions, people and lifestyles. I see an explosion of diversity as cultures are reborn, yet without hatreds and everyone loves their neighbour.

I see families, together, their differences forgotten, their eyes full of hope for the future. I see them as part of solid communities where everyone looks out for everyone else, and crime and poverty are banished.

I see a thriving planet, where species are unthreatened, where the atmosphere is pure and nature explodes in perfect delight.

I see a possible future, but at present I write fiction.

Stories 13 – 18

(13) Got the Bug? (14) It's Good To See You (15) Scandalous (16) The Return (17) Too Much Reality (18) I Knew Instantly

GOT THE BUG?

'So has he got it, doctor?'

'Yes, I'm afraid so. He's got the bug.'

The parent looks apprehensive. 'And what does that mean, exactly?'

'Well,' says the doctor as he leans back in his chair, 'it seems to attack the neural pathways in the brain. The first noticeable symptom is a reduced attention span. This can lead to acute speech impairment. But then, it gets worse.

'There seems to be a change in learning patterns. Due to short attention span, concentration seems to change to quick bursts of fact learning, rather than rationalizing what you actually take in. And as the person grows, another factor seems to take over. Because of the rigidity of the symptoms, and the environment the sufferer is forced to exist in, initiative becomes impaired, and there is a danger of becoming an automaton in the work place.'

'I see,' said the worried parent. 'It's quite a problem.'

'Indeed,' the doctor agreed. 'I understand it's about to be declared a pandemic.'

'And is there any treatment?'

'Oh yes! I recommend three doses of books per day.'

'And this will help?'

As the doctor was about to reply, there was an involuntary spasm from the patient...'Log on!'

'Bless you,' they said in unison.

IT'S GOOD TO SEE YOU

'It's good to see you...'

I stand by the mirror, a survivor. And as far as I can tell, I am the last man alive. Of all men who ever were, I am the last...

I stand by the mirror. Observe my many faces in the cracked glass, a paranoid image reflecting a paranoid species. But I survived the megalomaniacs. Fractured? Yes. Disjointed? Yes. But I am the last man alive...

How did it happen? Does it matter? Does it matter if it was rockets, genes or climate change? If it was rockets, the fallout would affect the genes. As to climate change, did the rockets tilt it over the edge, or did its tilt cause the scrabble for less land, sending the rockets?

It is irrelevant. All that is important is the lesson – that the weapon is ignorance and the motive greed.

I am the last man alive. I am hopeful.

'It's good to see you, too,' says the last woman alive.

I turn to kiss her. We prevail.

SCANDALOUS

'Fame is good,' said the celebrity. She cast her eye at her audience. She felt like a lecturer, disclosing the secret of life.

'It began for me when I was a contestant on the reality show, and I knew this was my big chance. And I starred – boy, did I star!'

A question: 'You mean you had sex with a fellow competitor on camera?'

'So what? That was my talent – my notoriety. Who the hell ever said you had to be a great film star or musician to be a celebrity? We live in a world of equal opportunity now, not elitism!'

She removed the venom from her expression – assumed a posture of sweetness and light. 'And after that, the contracts came in. I was photographed everywhere and the whole country was talking about me, and I was famous, and I felt complete...'

A question: 'But it would only have been 15 minutes of fame if not for...'

'I know what you're going say. Yes, it seemed to be lessening, and it was then that the wolves began to gather...'

A question: 'And did you feel complete with THAT?'

'It was horrible. There was one journalist in particular who really had it in for me. It was him who was tipped off about the cocaine, and then he started stalking me, and he took pictures of me falling over drunk, and he wrote stories about my three-in-a-bed antics, and he caught me talking all that garbage about what other celebrities had done, and the whole media turned...'

A question: 'But you turned the tables on them?'

'Of course I did – 'cos once you have fame you never really lose it, and the less mainstream channels took me on, and I was outrageous, and from then on, I was always in the papers again, and my life was complete and I was whole, and I could be who I wanted to be...'

A Question: 'But at what cost?'

'Look, any publicity is better than none.' The celebrity smiled. 'As for the cost? About £20,000. At least, that's what I paid the journalist.'

The psychiatrist had asked the last question for the day. But he already knew the cost was far greater than that.

THE RETURN

It was hard to live in a post-Apocalyptic world. How it was before the cataclysm seemed like a parallel universe. Oh, I could remember how it was, but now, as we scrapped a living from the land and attempted to rebuild a society, it seemed so alien.

And HOW we had tried to rebuild. But every time we did, the Marauders would appear. We'd try to fight them, but it was impossible, now that he was no longer here.

We began to dream of his return.

Indeed, I thought about him always – what he would do, how heroically he would fight. But, as he taught us, we never gave up, and began to build again, yet every time it was knocked down.

The Marauders finally came back for the last time. As they came over the hill, fear gripped us, but picking up our weapons, we began the fight.

It was in the midst of the battle that he returned. It seemed surreal to watch him, as if he was 'other' than us. He wielded his weapons magnificently, and the point came in the battle when the Marauders realized we were touched by the gods. And then it was them who were fearful.

They withdrew, blooded, never to appear again.

After the battle, I went to his grave. And thanked him for inspiring me to be as he would have been.

TOO MUCH REALITY

Reality sucks. I always knew that, but today I just feel it all the more.

He was stood in front of me, I remember. 'So you DID do it,' he said.

'Well,' I countered, 'I suppose that depends on your view of reality.'

'How's that work, then?'

'Well, its relative, you know. What you think happened, and what you think may have happened can often get confused.'

'So you didn't do it?'

'Well, I suppose in some parallel universe I must have. And it just COULD have been this one.'

'So you DID do it?'

'As long as we don't take the probability of quantum theory into account.'

'A real wise guy, huh.'

'In a relative kind of way...'

I never got to finish the rest. Reality hit me all at once. And then Dad sent me to my room. And I'm just not gonna listen to them wise-ass teachers any more.

I KNEW INSTANTLY

I knew instantly I began to write that nothing would come. Why I knew, I didn't know. I remember thinking, I should know, but I didn't.

Flashes of memory came to me. They suggested it had never happened before. Writers' block was unknown to me. They told me that throughout my life I'd written, incessantly, prolifically. I'd written through illness, through heartache, through war, as well as the more joyous times. Somehow I knew that. But now...

I sat back, wondering why I couldn't write. I looked across the room. I noticed a woman who seemed vaguely familiar, and she gave me a sweet smile, and I knew there was love in that smile, and I knew I maybe loved her, but I wish I knew who she was.

I knew instantly that I couldn't remember what I had just thought, why I was by this computer, why I was in this strange room with pictures of me around it.

At least, I think it was me. Then another flash of memory came and I remembered what I was – for an instant; and a tear rolled down my cheek, and the word 'Alzheimer's' came into my mind before...

Damn it to hell! The only thing, bar death, that finishes a writer off.

Stories 19 – 24

(19) Watching Closely (20) The Candle (21) A Daddy Story (22) A Vision Thing (23) Planet Zero (24) The Formula

WATCHING CLOSELY

I watch them. I watch them all the time. I watch them closely – intently. We can learn so much from them.

A pair approach – male and female. The male is a definite alpha male, protective of his mate - as becomes obvious as another male approaches. Will it end in a confrontation?

Tension builds. They stare at each other. The female seems uncomfortable – makes strange guttural sounds. But eventually the alpha male wins the day and the other departs.

Others approach, go their way. It is a strange society and pecking order I observe. Sometimes a social hierarchy can be seen, whilst at others, there seems no society at all – only chaos. Or is it that I just don't understand their ways, no matter how long I watch them.

I suspect this may well be the case. After all, I notice how carefree and self-assured they can appear. Which is totally at odds with their need to keep me locked up in this zoo, watching.

THE CANDLE

I looked at the candle again. It all depended on the candle. If it went out, that was it. I knew it would be the end...

The images flashed through my mind. Mallory was chasing the demon. He'd already foiled its plans once, but now he was heading towards the castle, the seat of his magic – and he knew that if he reached there, the world could never be the same again. Ideas flashed through my own mind – how could I help him? What could I do?!!!

But I knew I could do nothing. What was is written, despite my intent to try and change it. And anyway, I had further problems of my own. The lady, you see, she was coming, prophesying the end.

If I could only keep her away from the candle...

The demon was approaching the castle, now, and somehow I was sure the lady was with him, helping him, delaying my hoped for conclusion. I willed Mallory to hurry, get there in time, and as the demon approached the drawbridge, Mallory came round the corner, a Herculean effort spurring him on and on, the gap closing, the demon beginning to perspire, Mallory drawing his....

The lady reached the candle then. Blew it out.

I sighed, closed the book and wished my mother goodnight.

A DADDY STORY

A Daddy story?

Huh! That's a laugh. I thought he was mine – I really did. I was never told he was mine. After all, why would I be? I married, she got pregnant – he was mine!

I brought him up for all those years as mine. And it was only when he was sixteen, and my marriage came to an end, that she told me.

He wasn't mine.

My whole attitude to him changed. My old ways returned – the arrogance, the determination, the unwillingness to accept other views. And he wasn't mine.

He'd come and see me, shout at me, cry at my refusals to accept him! He'd stalk me. He'd goad me! He'd infuriate me!!!

But he wasn't mine. He wasn't. He was someone else's.

'No I'm not!' he'd declare. But facts were facts. He was someone else's biological offspring. 'But that means nothing!' he'd demand.

Never a respite. Never!

His arrogance, his determination, his unwillingness to accept other views!

Damn him. We hug.

He's mine.

A VISION THING

Mother and son had finished the shopping and decided to go to the zoo. 'Yea! Great!' said the son. Then a frown. 'Now you're sure you'll find it. You know your vision's blurred and you need glasses.'

'Don't be ridiculous,' said the mother, who knew her vision was a match for anyone.

Predictably, following a few wrong turns, they made it to the zoo. Stopping for a snack, the huge bird in the cage caught the mother's attention. She walked over. Watched it. Then she noticed the sign: 'To feed this eagle.'

Pulling a piece off her snack she held her hand out to the eagle.

The son looked on in shock. And as the eagle took it, the son advised if that was wise.

'Don't be silly,' she said, 'a hamburger never hurt anyone.'

Consequently, the eagle adopted a rather strange look, fell off the perch, somersaulted a couple of times on the ground before vomiting.

'Oh, look, dear, he liked it,' said the mother. She took some more, held it in her hand, which just passed into the cage.

The eagle approached slowly, cautiously. Jumping onto the perch, it thrust a bulging eye in her direction. Then, moving a beak slowly towards the hand, the eagle dived, taking off a finger at the lower knuckle.

The son said 'yuck' as the blood spurted everywhere. The eagle flapped its wings and squarked in triumph as it spat out the finger.

Seconds later the zoo attendants pounced, carting the mother off, first, to the hospital, and second to the optician, before placing a £100 fine upon her. The finger followed later, the eagle showing a vindictive attitude and refusing to give it back. But at least, with a brand new pair of glasses, the mother was safe in the knowledge that next time she saw a sign saying 'to feed is illegal,' she'd eat the hamburger herself.

PLANET ZERO

The Explorer looked down upon the battle-scarred planet. He could see all the signs of high civilization. Cities, highways, everything an advanced culture required. Yet, it had all been reduced to rubble years ago.

The thought entered his head that he should pass this planet by, but the insatiable curiosity of the human got the better of him. What had brought a civilization to this? And could it teach us anything about ourselves?

He had not landed long when he found himself surrounded by heavily armed humanoids. Immediately suspicious of him, their aggression was obvious. Indeed, he thought he was going to die there and then. And no doubt would have if another group of humanoids had not approached and opened fire.

The battle didn't last long.

There were casualties on both sides, but the first group withdrew, leaving the Explorer with the second.

He asked why they fought, and the answer was typical. Something in their deep past had happened – they could not remember what – and the god-form, Consensus, demanded the battle carried on. Indeed, the only thing he could definitely find out was that the enemy was 'different'.

This puzzled the Explorer, as over the coming weeks it became obvious that both sides were identical in every way.

His opportunity to stop the madness came a month into his time on the planet. Following a battle, a group of wounded from both sides were resting close to the battlefield. It was with relief that they saw the Explorer shake hands with each in turn and say: 'friend.'

It took but a week for Consensus to die, and reason to be born.

THE FORMULA

'So, the formula is correct.'

The professor sat back, satisfied. 'It seems so. And it works perfectly.'

It was publicized as the greatest achievement of all time. Its benefits would be incredible, even though there were side effects – perhaps dangers. And mysteries still clung to the subject. But with the wealth it could bring...

Well, surely a chance worth taking. And yes, it would mean the end of the present order – a new way of doing things, the collapse of governments, of institutions, perhaps even of religions. But we must, mustn't we?

The reaction was swift. Religious leaders condemned it. Politicians demanded it be banned, even though they didn't really know what it was. And even on the streets, people were disturbed.

The riots were many. And when the assassinations began...

Indeed, the true death toll may never be known – the absolute cost to the economy unimaginable. But it had to be done. We had to know.

'And the formula was what, professor?'

'Quite easy my friend. Take an air of mystery, combined with the promise of wealth and power, spice it with a touch of fear, and leave the rest to man...'

Not for nothing was the professor the greatest sociologist of all time.

'... and before long it doesn't matter whether it was a lie or not.'

Stories 25 – 30

(25) The Bounce (26) Behind the Door (27) The Long Walk (28) She's Perfect For Him (29) How I Met My ... (30) No Journey's End

THE BOUNCE

Some things it is best not to understand.

I never thought I'd hear myself say those words. After all, I'm a scientist. Ha! That's a laugh. Perhaps I should say, WAS a scientist. But no more...

'The principle is simple,' my colleague said as he surveyed the apparatus in the laboratory.

It was a valid experiment, of sorts.

It is known that tens of thousands of people disappear each year without trace, and he had a simple hypothesis for it:

'Time is measured, and seeing it is measured, it is broken up into units. Now, is this simply a man made concept, or does time, indeed, have gaps between its units? I think the latter, and if so, can we disappear – bounce, as it were – out of our time and into a parallel universe running alongside this one, but occupying our space?'

He discovered a means of attempting to find out in the mysterious world of particle physics, where energy seems to exist in 'packets', or quanta, hence the term 'quantum'. And as he set the machine in motion, and stood within its confines, I doubted his sanity in attempting to move beyond the time unit we experience ourselves.

Well, predictably, he disappeared. He simply dematerialized before my eyes, and I somehow knew I would never see him again.

Until, that is, that very night, when, awoken from my sleep, he stood before me, translucent.

It was soon apparent what had happened. Whether that parallel world existed, I don't know. But I do know he now existed just out of time, forever unable to catch up.

As for me, I'm no longer a scientist, plagued always by his form, his echoing, far away screams, and the knowledge of my knowing that ghosts DO exist.

BEHIND THE DOOR

Jessie was fifteen and impressionable – just getting to the age when childhood was giving way to womanhood. This was a confusing time for her as she tried to negotiate the psychological maze of interaction with others. And typically, she often got it wrong. Indeed, her friend, Roxy, told her this time and time again.

'You're just a witch,' she told her, 'always ruining things for me.'

Maybe growing up is the same as being young, thought Jessie, because she'd thought herself as a 'witch' before.

To get away from it all she went to visit her Nan for a couple of days.

And as she sat on the bed, the 'witch' thing came back to her with a new intensity. After all, it was in this very room that the wardrobe stood – the very wardrobe around which her Grandfather had told her so many stories before he died.

'There's a witch in there,' he used to say scaring her half to death. And even now, at fifteen, she had never dared open the door.

Of course, the fantasies were many. Was this the entrance to the magical land of Narnia, as C S Lewis would have us believe? Or was the 'witch' of a much more sinister nature?

Well, thought Jessie, it is time to put childish things away and open the door.

It was with a sense of trepidation that she approached the door. Reaching out, she noticed her hand was shaking, but steadying it she gripped the handle, pulled open the door, and looked into the mirror.

THE LONG WALK

To say my feet ached would have been an under-statement. What with blisters and bad circulation, I began to imagine they would never survive the walk.

Well, I call it a walk. It was more like the long march. Why I agreed to do it, I don't know. Well, that's not true either. I did it because Rod goaded me into it – super-fit Rod, out to get one over on me, again! And like a fool, I rose to the challenge.

Or so I thought. But once into the tenth mile, my error became obvious. Rod was fit. I wasn't. But on and on I went, Rod constantly going a little ahead, and then coming back to pretend to encourage me onwards, but actually patronise me.

That incensed me, of course, and I decided I was going to complete this thing – AND, ahead of Rod.

By the twentieth mile I was in quite a state. My second wind had come and gone a long time ago, and I was like an automaton, simply plodding on as if a machine with nothing else to be done. And it was then that Rod made his mistake. Walking backwards just a little ahead of me to goad me more, he tripped over a fallen branch and twisted his ankle.

Well, that appeared to be Rod out of the game and I marched on with renewed enthusiasm. Until, that is, Rod passed me, hobbling along and held up by the branch that had made him fall.

Anger seemed to take me over, then. Indeed, it was a rage. And I was just about to quicken my pace when the realisation hit me, and I stopped and left the game.

Defeat, I suppose, is no shame if you're only taking part due to ego – and a goading fool like Rod.

SHE'S PERFECT FOR HIM

She was beautiful. Her long blonde hair flowed, encompassing her angel face. Bright blue eyes, full of life, were fixed upon him, and her lips formed for the kiss she knew was about to come.

Before approaching her, he took in the sight of her tight, trim body, and imagined his arms around her, his body pressed against hers – and it felt so good.

But she was more than her outer self. She was perfect in every way, her personality shining with the same beauty, her dedication to him complete, and his to her. And he approached her, her arms opened, welcoming him, and their lips met in a moment of unimaginable passion...

Then he leant back against the chair and sighed. He'd written enough of his story for today. And again he went out in search of her.

HOW I MET MY....

It is hard to know I've got it absolutely right, but looking back over so many years, and with these newly discovered letters to guide me, I'm fairly sure that what follows is accurate.

She had left her previous relationship a while ago – a brooding, sultry relationship. Yet, with so much unresolved, it had taken a long time to be trusting once more. But when HE appeared in her life, it was like a breath of fresh air – at first.

I can imagine her initial delight at meeting someone new and so uncomplicated – so different from the circumstances that led to my temporary incarceration a short time later.

But I digress. They seem to have been happy. But doubt entered her mind about the same time as the man first appeared in the shadows. She would spy him occasionally, undefined, stalking, and she imagined him to be obsessed. And although she feared this unknown element to her life, she seemed to place it alongside the disquiet rising over her relationship.

It must have been a dark place to find herself in – almost as dark and disorientating as the place I was later incarcerated. But just as it was inevitable I would end up there, she inevitably found her life being turned upside down. Indeed, my circumstance inevitably followed from the outcome.

Her new man, you see, was a bore. He had everything a person needed, except that spark of life that offered excitement, passion and more.

Whereas the man in the shadows was of a different order, she was sure. And no matter how much she feared him, she was drawn to him.

Slowly, whenever she caught a glimpse of her stalker, she would encourage, not caring what fire she was playing with. And it was obvious that one day he'd come to her, disclose himself, and...

Well, on the day he did, her shock formed a scream which was soon cut short...

They kissed passionately as she recognized her previous lover, who could never have left her for good. And nine months later I escaped my incarceration, travelled to the light and met my parents.

NO JOURNEY'S END

Manders looked out the view screen and sighed. It had been so long since leaving Earth. Of course, it hadn't taken its toll on his age – deep-space travel had sorted that problem out centuries ago. At least, he thought it had. But...

He felt the chill as he turned away. He remembered having to go 'out there' – when the engine blew. It had taken so long to fix, and it had been damn cold. Space, he knew was far colder than you can image.

But that had been the least of his problems.

The starship ambled on. The journey should, of course, have ended by now. But the repairs had not been complete, and only a quarter of the power was available. Which meant the journey may never end.

And then there was the drop-off they couldn't make. 'We'll cope,' the skipper had said as he brought Manders round for his watch. Yes, 'we'll cope'. But Manders knew it wasn't to be.

And it was now his call.

Power, you see, was depleting once more; and all those extra people who missed the drop-off, here for eternity, or at least the extra ride? Until the power depleted once more. Until he had to begin shutting off the systems one by one.

Manders sighed once more as he entered the room, and he knew the chill was worse than he had experienced 'out there'. Yet it was a chill within his very soul. But how, he wondered, would he select?

He looked at the faces in their cryogenics chambers one by one. Eugenics suddenly seemed a far more ugly word - but if there was any hope of finishing the journey, a dozen simply had to go. For fridge space he simply couldn't afford.

Stories 31 – 36

(31) The Big Office (32) The Greatest Change (33) Message On a Bottle (34) Getting There (35) The Fool (36) Nuts

THE BIG OFFICE

He had been here an eternity. But he would have, wouldn't he? He could survey his entire creation from where he sat, behind the big desk; and it was a creation bigger than mere mortals could imagine. Oh, they had written about him from time to time – tried to capture its majesty, his power – but could provide only a mere reflection.

He controlled it all from his Big Office. And the office itself could be anywhere he wanted it to be. Today, it was among the stars, where he felt he really belonged. Distance was irrelevant when you were this powerful; when your creation was so much of yourself. And anyway, his assistants Michael and Gabriel had little difficulty making sure his whims were met.

Eventually he decided it was time to leave the office for the day. He walked outside. To his left, Peter stood by the gate, his face shrouded behind the big white beard. He was busy checking the dead-looking people as they walked through. And as the man from the Big Office joined the queue, Peter felt only pity.

Perhaps he had been a nurse at the Big Biz CEO's rest home for too long. After all, they all ended up here.

THE GREATEST CHANGE

They say you're always alone – you know, for those times of change – those times when nothing can ever be same again.

I don't have to be alone – not physically. I could have support around me; help in what has to be done. But it is all irrelevant, for I know it is me, and me alone, who must raise the...

Raise the what? Courage? Understanding? Raise the what?!

The thought of it makes me dizzy. The knowledge that from now on I must be the super hero. The knowledge that it is down to me.

Down to me to conquer my fears. To go forward with such responsibility. With such...

It's momentous. I'm frightened. No! I'm terrified!

If only I could have got the training to do what I've got to do. But is there such a thing? Can it be learnt?

I take deep breaths. Realise that it has been done before, and will be done again.

Yes, that is the key – the knowledge that whilst I am alone in this, others have been alone, and succeeded.

As I will succeed.

I stand. Open the door. And take my new born child in my arms.

MESSAGE ON A BOTTLE

It seemed crazy. I know I wasn't myself at the time, but this?

I've no idea where I was. It all seemed so hazy, but it was a hot, dark place and I felt so disconnected from ordinary life. But then again, I suppose I was, wasn't I? Not myself. Not part of life at all.

The bottle was just floating there. It looked so cliché, as if straight out of some satirical story. It floated there, and I thought: I wonder if there's a message in it.

Slowly, painfully, I picked it up, and it was immediately obvious there was no message in it. Then I looked at the label and realised the message was ON it, not inside – and it was stark:

OPEN THIS AND YOU'LL DIE

Well, what can we say about that? Was it meant for anyone or me in particular? And if me, how did the sender know I'd be here? And anyway, when did I ever listen to advice?

I held the bottle a while, and eventually I opened it. I was just about to put it to my lips when I suddenly sat bolt upright, screaming, covered in sweat...

Yea, even more clichés. It was a dream, and I guess the sender knew it would be me – it was my unconscious. And I suppose I tried to obey, but as the shakes began, and I saw the half full bottle of whisky by my side...

GETTING THERE

The urge had to come. He'd been just lying around too long. And when it came he just dived. Down the shoot he went, not stopping, now, for anything. The impulses drove him onwards and downwards, and when he exited into the light, he looked at all the happy faces, but knew his birth was only the beginning of getting there.

He moved further to getting there when he started school. He always felt better than the rest, and soon asserted himself, becoming the leader of the gang. And the impulse didn't stop when he reached adolescence and realised the value of – well, you know – girls!

Of course, they didn't distract him from getting there, and at university he simply had to be the best, getting his first class honours degree. Which certainly helped him to get the best job around. Yet still he didn't feel he was getting there. But he knew he would.

Getting there was more than just career, though, as you can imagine. Getting there also included getting the perfect wife. And I suppose this is where it was frustrating trying to get there. At least, that was his excuse for his four marriages and four divorces. Although he did seem to get there with his children – three of them. Although they doubted he had got there, especially as they had trouble remembering what he looked like.

He began to think he had come close to getting there when he made his first million, but almost as soon as he'd made it he realised he wanted to make another. Getting there, it seemed, was a bigger thing than he'd ever imagined.

Which was maybe why, in his fifties, he had such a big midlife crisis. Never mind the Porsche – he had to have a fleet of Ferraris – and young girls by the... well, quite a lot.

It was as he was in the midst of his midlife crisis he suddenly realised something profound. Namely, getting there just wasn't worth it. And that's when he became the philanthropist and took a small cottage in the country looking at life for the first time. And you know what?

Finally, he got there.

THE FOOL

It was hard for him living there. Where is not important. All that is important is that he lived there, and so did others. And it was those 'others' who were the problem.

Well, I say 'problem', but not to him, but themselves.

He'd just get on with his life, in his own peculiar way, doing this and that just as he felt he should. And the 'others' would watch him, and think: 'what a fool.'

Now why would they think that, you might ask? And the answer was quite simple. They thought him a fool because he did things differently to them. And in doing things 'differently' he simply had to be a fool. After all, didn't THEY know how to do things properly?

Of course, he never realised they thought this of him. After all, if he did, he really would have been a fool – 'cos only a fool would live among fools.

So which is this 'fool', you may ask? Well, it's him, and him, and him; oh! Don't forget him. Yes, they were all different, and in this, they were all the same.

NUTS

'Choice! That's the key.'

The speaker looked around at those gathered close to him. To his front, the object of his words. 'What action do we choose to any event? We think we decide, but how much is down to the event itself? Are we really of our own mind, or that of the society to which we belong?'

The man to his front seemed awkward, as if facing a crisis. His eyes darted from left to right. A slight perspiration appeared on his brow.

The speaker continued: 'Nuts! Insane! Mad! A Lunatic! Simple words, but meaning so much. Labels we place on those whose behaviour is different from the norm. But who decides what behaviour is normal or abnormal? What IS insanity?'

The man to his front seemed on the point of running. It was not how it should be. Paranoid thoughts raced through his mind, and he had no idea what he was likely to do next.

'It is down to those choices we make – or are made for us. How we behave is so often the key. But are people's opinions of our actions down to the behaviour in the person, or their discomfort at what they see?'

At last the man to his front saw a conclusion to the situation. The nurses appeared. He said to them, 'all I asked is nuts or fries,' and carried on serving the next patient.

A tear appeared in the speaker's eye as he was escorted to his room. The choice had been too much today. Which was increasingly normal.

Stories 37 – 43

(37) Gone (38) Spirit of the Underbaby (39) Misguided (40) The Richest Man In the World (41) Smiler (42) Window On Death (43) Money For Old Rope

GONE

It feels good. I can't tell you how good it feels. For so long it's been with us – all of us. Clinging to us, restricting what we do.

Of course, it was Pete who came up with the solution. 'We catch it,' he said. 'We collect it all up.' He produced a box. 'And we place it all in here.'

At first, we looked at him, astounded – we thought he was mad. But he insisted - which immediately presented the problem of how to collect it all up.

'Well, it always begins with a wish – a hope that we can do it.'

So that's what we did. We wished it to be so, and in no time at all, it was banished to the box, and Pete firmly taped it up.

We looked from one to the other - said: 'What now?'

Pete collected lots and lots of stones. 'We stone it,' he said. So, there were we, repeatedly pummelling the box with stones.

Soon we were exhausted, and in a way refreshed, changed, as if we had said farewell. And when Pete took out the battered box and set it alight, we knew there would be a celebration, for it had finally gone. And we would forever be grateful to Pete for allowing us to conquer our fear.

SPIRIT OF THE UNDERBABY

To say Johnny was confused when his son was born is an understatement. After all, he was only eighteen, and not ready for fatherhood. And he always had the suspicion that she got pregnant on purpose, anyway. He had been warned that there were women who just had to have kids, no matter what.

Of course, he tried his best to be a good father, but no matter how hard he tried, it just didn't seem to be for him. Baby seemed to sense it all, too. He just never seemed to relax in his father's arms, and Johnny soon became convinced his son just didn't like him.

Hence, it was inevitable that Johnny would take flight. And I mean literally. After all, he had always wanted to go backpacking around the east.

It was in the fourth month of his travels that he found himself in the middle of nowhere, a chilling sound coming from behind the bushes. Oh, no, Johnny thought as he heard the cries of a baby.

He soon found it, and decided it must have been abandoned. With no one else around, his first thought was to leave it, too, but there was some humanity deep down, and it seemed to stop crying straight away when he picked it up...

Well, to cut a long story short, Johnny looked after the baby for two weeks, using all manner of initiative to feed it, change it, love it. And he managed to take it out of the wilderness and to civilization.

It was a totally new Johnny who arrived back with mother and son, ready and willing for fatherhood. Of course, it would take her some time to accept her partner back, he knew. Indeed, he supposed he had to prove himself. And for nearly a month he tried to work out how to change the nappy before baby did poo all over him; how to pick him up without baby screaming; and how to move him aside before projectile vomit covered him. But somehow he never managed to perfect it.

Maybe that's why Johnny took flight once more. And as mother cuddled her contented son the night he left, and vowed she would not have him back, you could almost see the sense of triumph in baby's eyes.

MISGUIDED

The private detective entered the hotel with a sense of completion. As soon as the beeper had gone off and he'd called in, he knew his associates had found him. And even though he felt something of a social worker, he knew it would be a profitable enterprise.

He found him, scruffily dressed, in an ante-room to the kitchens, mop in hand, washing the tiled floor.

As the detective coughed, the man stopped. The blank expression was soon replaced by a realization. 'You've found me then,' he said, aware of the kind of man in front of him.

'Yes,' said the detective. He paused. 'You know you've got to go back, don't you?'

The man stopped what he was doing – walked off down the corridor, the detective following. Finally entering the staff quarters, he sat on the bed in his hotel room.

'Why did you do it?' the detective asked.

The man thought a while. Said: 'Desperation. Is that it? Yes, I suppose it was.'

'But there were consequences.'

The man laughed. He remembered his life up to that point. And he remembered what he had done to escape it. But what now?

He thought quickly, aware that he could not go back. Finally, he lunged at the detective, pushing him over, and on his way out he pressed the fire alarm.

He escaped in the confusion, but knew he had to hide himself even deeper now. He took the press cutting from his pocket – Billionaire Tycoon Missing – and realized they would never stop searching. How could they? Only insanity could have made him turn away from it all like that.

Later, he left the town and sat in a wood, peace and tranquillity all around, and realized he may well be the last sane man alive.

THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD

That's right, you be jealous of me. And so you should be. What wealth I have, what splendour I can create. Yes, your jealousy makes me feel good, for I have become greater than any of you.

Oh, I know you think I had it easy. Born into a rich family – a silver spoon in my mouth. Oh, get over yourselves!

I rose way above that. My business empire is the envy of all. Millions? Billions? Petty cash. Even trillions doesn't give true justice to what I am.

I am the head of a global empire, you little minions. Yes, you may hate me, but you scurry to buy what I offer, don't you? You perform like good little serfs.

It is always the way, with people like me - GREAT people – of which I, of course, am the greatest.

And in that greatness, just look what I've created! Look at my palaces, my castles, my COURT!

And the politicians come to pay homage to me. They come to gain my favour so I'll invest in their little economies. Not for nothing am I also the most POWERFUL man in the world...

What did you say? You can't be serious? Well get the best doctors you have. I have money. I have power. What is cancer to me?

What's that? You mean – I can die?

SMILER

He sat, remembering the past. So many events, so many relationships, so many intrigues. Yet, despite it all, he couldn't help but smile.

So much that he couldn't deny...

He smiled as he thought of the women – of the brunettes, the redheads, the blondes. He'd had relations with them all. And he remembered them all with equal gratitude.

His mind turned to his adventures, then. Some of them were uncomfortable – most of them, infact – but his smile remained as he remembered the locations – so far and wide he had travelled.

His smile became grim as he thought of the murders. Again, so many, in so many ways. He remembered intimately the stabbings, the strangulations, the shootings... and all without regret.

And then he remembered the things he didn't want to remember so easily. The hauntings, the ghosts, and terrors beyond imaginings. And his smile bordered on insanity. Yet, he could not resist. YOU could not resist – the writer of short stories with a twist.

WINDOW ON DEATH

He was walking, slowly, the weight of the world upon him. It was night, and the dark shrouded him like a veil of death.

He had to stop by the shop window. His legs could have carried him no further. He looked at the window, but not through. What was in there had no interest for him. Only what was happening in his mind. This was of another order. Stark. Vivid. Yet, at the same time surreal.

A picture formed in the window, and reflected back to him.

And a tear formed.

The door opened and she came out. She seemed so full of life, and so beautiful, her long blonde hair, her shapely figure, her sheer elegance, tinged with that mystical sexuality.

The tear ran down his cheek. She had been unfaithful, and always there was eventually a price. But...

He saw it as if a shadow floated and stood close to her. Momentarily, she looked in that direction, but as the gun materialized from the shadow, the shock hit home.

And seconds later, she laid dead, a pool of blood around her.

The image disappeared from the window, but the tears continued to flow.

How long he waited before he heard the door open, he didn't know, but she seemed so full of life, and so beautiful...

He turned as he raised the gun...

MONEY FOR OLD ROPE

His mother told him, when he was a little boy, that he'd be a great businessman. 'Money for old rope,' she said, referring to the old English saying. And he certainly believed her.

He first made money selling vinegar-soaked conkers at school; which immediately put him in the top league of tycoon – you know, not quite legal. And when he opened his first stall at the market, the pirated CDs went down a treat.

He moved into his first shop after the owner understood he had no choice but to sell. After all, could you argue with a baseball bat?

He won his first enterprise award shortly after that, the public not realizing the tangled web he weaved to keep his assets in profit.

Shop after shop followed, then a factory or two; a hotel and haulage firm made him a pretty packet.

Of course, it was handy that the bank was prepared to lend him so much money, and even as his debts ran into the millions, he knew he was a rich man, not caring for the people he trampled on, nor the fact that the pressure turned him to drink, and stopped him from sleeping at night.

Private life became a fleeting affair for him as the millions turned to tens of millions. Indeed, it seemed that whenever he acquired yet another corporation, he did so by shedding yet another wife.

But that didn't matter to him, for his business acumen was true - until, of course, the inquiry, then the trial, then the bankruptcy.

He wasn't sure how many lives he ruined in his search for profit, except his own, for which he now cried and cried.

He didn't take well to being a pauper, so it was with his last one pound that he bought the twine that held up the trousers of the down-and-out. And as he slung it round the beam, placed it round his neck and jumped, his mother's words echoed in his buzzing ears.

'Money for old rope,' she had predicted. And it was true.

POETIC INTERLUDE 1

TELLING TALES

Began at the camp fire

Stories told

Tales to inspire

Make us bold

Became a reflection

Of who we are

For closer inspection

We go far

Best with a sting

To challenge the mind

Or enticing fling

For morals to find

They bare our soul

Revelation sought

Make us whole

Cut a long story short

THE ORAL TRADITION

Poetry thrives, it always will,

Man can never have had his fill,

Of words that say so much to all,

Making us great and never small;

Sometimes it seems this isn't the case,

Poets, after all, have been displaced,

By radio, TV, CD and more,

Getting your words heard becomes a chore;

Oral tradition seems a thing from the past,

No one wanting to hear, alas!

But it's so alive, a magnificent success,

Everywhere you hear it, and not under duress,

From its beginnings by the campfire, creating heroes and myths,

Through Medieval ballad it continually exists,

Perfected by Romantics, the hippies of old,

Going on to be song lines, oral poetry unfolds,

Changing its medium, but not its zap,

You hear it always, from ballads to RAP;

So often the poet feels maligned,

Searching, searching, an audience to find,

Speaking the verse to echoing halls,

Few people there to be enthralled;

But competing with its success needs ventures anew,

To popularise its pure form, break through,

And the answer is never, ever, be glum,

Reinvent, adapt, make poetry fun!

TAKE IT EASY

Take it easy, you're doing too much,

You've got to do less, as such

Good advice, I know it's true,

But I love to write for me and you,

Stories and poems with endings hidden,

How can they become forbidden?

So a poem, today, will not be done,

Even though it would be such fun...

Damn

PARADOX IN A POEM

You'll find it here, or maybe not,

It depends, I suppose, on what you've got,

Eyes to read, mind to think,

An answer there within a blink;

If, of course, it's really here,

And not a mystery upon which to fear,

An enigma with no answer at all,

A psycho-maze to enthral;

But that's the thing about a paradox,

Hard to wrap up in a box,

It's here, it isn't, can we interdict?

Maybe, or not – I must contradict

BOOK MARKET

Buy this book, it's very good,

Sometimes I think it's written in blood,

So much effort has been expelled,

I really think I have excelled

It's all very well to say it like that,

But as a publisher I have to ask,

Are you an expert, or maybe a celebrity?

If not, it's not a publishable entity

But look at the words, the form, the style,

It really goes the extra mile,

Original in all it says,

A whole new way it does display

But will it get an audience, I ask?

That is really the only task,

You writers come here with ideas anew,

But what of my profit margins? Now shoo

But profit comes from originality,

The reader finding something new with glee,

That's how culture marches on,

Singing to the writers' song

What a load of romantic crap,

The reader is someone to entrap,

If you want to really get on,

Do something sensational, excite the throng

This is not how literature should be,

But it's clear you're not going to see,

So I'll take your advice, they'll say I sang,

Do you like my gun? Bang!!!

ECO-FUTURE

The eco-message is still too thin,

The real endeavour yet to begin,

Reducing the intolerable carbon footprint,

We haven't, yet, got the hint;

Tech must change, that's for sure,

In order that we can ensure,

An acceptable future for our kids,

No matter what Big Biz forbids;

But how to do it, that's the key,

How to make people really see;

It's down to the message, draw a line in the sand,

Reveal carbon footprint through literary hand

THE EXPERIENCE

The greatest experience I ever had,

Crowning my life, never sad,

Changing the way I can be,

Fulfilling my ultimate destiny;

Before it I was simply a man,

Knowing my life, having a plan,

But now the world is changed for ever,

Bending to my ultimate endeavour;

Never can life be the same for me,

For now I think I really see,

It's laid before me, in my sight,

The day I realised I could write

IF ONLY I HAD TIME

I've got to rush, I've got no time,

But I want to make it so sublime,

I want to get it absolutely right,

Before the seconds start to bite;

If they do I'll have to leave,

'Cos once they're gone you can't retrieve,

That part of life is in the past,

All you can do is offer a gasp;

I'm almost there, nearly done,

Rushed, I know, but so much fun,

No time, even, to rehearse,

But tell me, did you like this verse?

Z IS FOR... ?

What am I? I can't decide,

Help me, please confide,

How you think I should be,

'Cos I simply cannot see,

The difference in how you think of me,

So go on, answer my fevered plea;

It's left me quite a nervous soul,

Never reaching my ultimate goal,

Of doing what I simply do,

Making things easy for you;

So tell me, what am I supposed to be,

Am I a 'zed', or a 'zee'?

WRITING TIPS

Tips – Pt. 1

(1) You're Not Mad (2) Love the Word (3) Tech v Literature (4) How To Do proper Research (5) Writers' Block (6) Write What You Know?

YOU'RE NOT MAD

This is a difficult one. You've lived life for some time and you've decided you know enough to write down your thoughts and become a writer. And what does your family say: 'What? You must be mad.' And guess what. You are.

Writing, you see, is a form of therapy; a way to extinguish your demons; to decimate fictional lives in order to make you feel good. Writing is egoistic, the writer the creator of his own worlds to be transformed or destroyed.

The writer will soon become a bit of a loner, skulking into that private piece of the house where others go at their peril. In the little hideaway, mind creations flow, and words refuse to express and you curse, and it sounds like you're talking to yourself.

Communicating with the family will become tiresome. They think you're just sat in the chair doing nothing, so they want to talk. But... you're thinking! You're plotting the next tale. You've descended to lonerdom, but you have a real world to live in.

How do you tell your family you're not mad? How do you convince them that you are the same person you were before you began to write? How do you explain in words what you so easily put on paper? You can't. Because you are.

LOVE THE WORD

Aspiring writers are often kept at bay by the insistence on the perfection of the word. Of course good, inspired English is required, but the literati have got it wrong when they say the word is all important.

Maybe there were too many unemployed writers; maybe they put pressure on universities, etc, to bring out the dreaded academic writing course. But the reality is, somewhere along the way, the word became more important than the story.

The perfect prose style was the result. From stream of consciousness to gobbledegook, the only writers worth acclaim were those who buried the story beneath literary balderdash and piffle.

I repeat, good English is important, but not at the expense of the story. The beauty of the word should be restricted to poetry, allowing the novelist to do what they do best – write a story, with a beginning, middle and an end.

Of course, the literati will now be calling me a philistine, but hear this, ye purveyors of good words. The purpose of writing is, above all else, to communicate. Using perfect prose to impress a snobbish elite is not communication, but indulgence.

TECH v LITERATURE

I've only been using a computer for a short time, but I've noticed something about my writing. In one way, I feel it has got worse. In another, I guess it has just changed. How can this be?

It reminds me of an argument I heard many years ago – can't remember where, but it was a good one. Basically, the argument goes, the quicker the means of writing, the less eloquent your words become.

The most obvious reason why is that the faster you can write, the less time you have for thinking about what you're writing. In the past, they had plenty of time, and had the space to think up beautiful words. Now, we can write faster than we can think, so words become more basic.

This is borne out by history. In Shakespeare we have pure poetry. By the 19th century, prose is beautiful, but at long last it IS prose. With the introduction of the typewriter, we see prose becoming more compact, with less descriptiveness. And with the computer, much description has disappeared completely.

Today's prose tends to be functional, whereas in the past it was a true craft. Mindst you, I can't say this is a bad thing – all too often prose was overwritten in the past. But I still ask, was my writing better before the computer? Or maybe you'll decide it's academic – I'm rubbish, anyway.

HOW TO DO PROPER RESEARCH

Writing non-fiction, whether article, essay or book, can be a nightmare. This is principally because they contain facts; and believe me, there is no such thing as an absolute fact, no matter what Gradgrind said.

With every 'fact' there is an army of differing opinions. And if a particular opinion is held strongly, all other treatments of the fact will be rubbished. It is a situation you cannot win, so make sure you have broad shoulders. And it gets worse.

This will often become clear when your work is published. If you've made a major blunder, someone will tell you. If you haven't, some smart ass will find something obscure to quibble with. Ignore him or he'll drive you mad.

Sometimes, though, he will prove what a fool you are. This is usually due to a 'fact' you have used because you know absolutely that it is right. Indeed, so sure are you that you didn't even bother to look it up. This is a big mistake. We're all delusional at times.

When deciding what a 'fact' is, the best place to begin is with the two most opposite views. From there, go to sources taking you ever closer to the centre. You still won't please everyone, but at least you can convince yourself you've covered the subject.

This said, sometimes you can research too deeply. Spending hours on dozens of books and websites for an article is ridiculous. Similarly, it is too few for a book. If you know the subject well, you can form a balance. If you don't, welcome to hell.

In the final analysis, if you want to write non-fiction you have to have discipline above the mere story writer, for the critics are even more severe if they think themselves an expert on the subject. Believe me, that's a fact – or maybe not.

WRITERS' BLOCK

Writers' block. I've heard of that. It's some strange affliction where a writer suddenly finds he has no ideas and no ability to write. It can, it seems, be quite apocalyptic. Hemingway blew his brains out when it afflicted him. Or so some say.

Personally, I've never had it. Yes, there are days when I don't feel like writing. There are even days when I can't think of a thing to write. In the former, I give myself a kick; in the latter, I take out my copious notes and get over it.

Maybe that's the secret to writer's block – plenty of note writing every time you get an idea, and simple willpower to say, 'I am a writer; that's what I do.' And then get on with it.

Of course, if this is so, then we can argue that writer's block is no such thing. It is simply the mood you've gotten yourself into. It is a reaction and a rebellion against who you are. Either that, or you're not a real writer – at least, not a writer with passion.

You see, writing is so much a part of my life that my life wouldn't be whole without it. It is my way of coping with life and understanding that life, and all the little bits that go with it.

With such an attitude writer's block cannot enter the writer's world. So if you seem to be suffering writer's block, then you're not passionately a writer, or you're just being self-indulgent.

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW?

Write what you know. That's what we're told. If we don't know about it, how can we write about it? Actually, quite easily. Life is full of experience, and we have a mind to relate those experiences into many areas of our lives.

Vital to this mental process is common sense. This is a faculty of mind we can all rely upon. It's like a little piece of intelligence up there in the brain, constantly telling us how to relate to this or deal with that. It is one of the writer's best friends.

No matter what the subject, we are bound to have experience of it. And from that glimmer of understanding, thoughts can so easily come, ready to be noted and finally written down. But of course, there will be breaks in your knowledge of this subject you don't know about. That's where research comes in.

Contrary to belief, in many areas of writing, research is not the central tool of the craft. Experience is. Research is the thing you do to fill in the blanks and allow the final piece to be co-ordinated and whole.

Write what you know. What a load of rubbish. It is the one piece of advice that stops many writers reaching their full potential. Yes, the finished piece may be rubbish, but it's up to publishers and readers to decide that. Not you.

Write what you know. Never has such a terrible piece of advice been given. Writing what you DON'T know may be the secret to unlocking the area of writing you're best at. So ignore the advice. It is only used to keep you out of other writer's genre.

Tips – Pt. 2

(7) Let Me Give You Some Advice (8) The Best In the World (9) Every Psycho Should Write (10) After the Last Story (11) How I Became a Writer (12) A Writer's Power

LET ME GIVE YOU SOME ADVICE

Oh dear, don't you just love them. You tell them you're a writer and they're only too eager to offer advice. You can decide they don't know what they're talking about, but sometimes they are writers themselves. You've got to listen, haven't you?

No – not necessarily. Writing is different for everyone. Some do it one way, some another. There are many styles, many habits, many reasons for writing in the first place. Just because someone is a writer, it does not make them an expert for you.

Yes, it goes without saying that some writers can offer invaluable advice. Take me, for instance. Or maybe not. But some are simply bores, and you can get very confused indeed if you don't know how to balance what makes sense and what does not.

The dreaded situation, though, is the writer who decides you have merit and takes it upon himself to nurture you. This is the worst offender, for this type of writer is usually a dysfunctional loner who doesn't know much about it. Except me, of course.

THE BEST IN THE WORLD

They say that writers have big egos. In one sense this is quite true. But I suppose you have to be arrogant in order to separate yourself from the masses. After all, if you think you're just ordinary, then you may as well sell the computer and take up stamp collecting.

That's why I consider myself the best writer in the world. Yes, I know, this appears to be arrogance above the norm. But hold on a minute. If you don't aim for the top, you'll never get half way.

Ego, you see, is not what it appears to be. Indeed, I have a mantra when it comes to psychology – show me a confident man and I'll out the wreck. For it seems to me that confidence is so often a façade to hide inner insecurities.

Hence, when I say 'I'm the best in the world,' it is really an aspiration based on a psychological need to succeed. And that, good reader, is the opposite of true arrogance.

Unless, of course, I am.

EVERY PSYCHO SHOULD WRITE

I sit down to write, and so often I think, who shall I kill today? Who has really angered me – who deserves to die? Of course, I'm not thinking of real people, but characters I've devised. But isn't there something of the real in all fiction?

Don't worry, I'm not a psycho. I'm quite an easy going fellow – not so quiet that I build up and explode, but quiet enough. Rarely does a violent feeling rise inside me – except often when I write.

I used to be short tempered, but that all seemed to change when I began to write. It was as if any aggression was channelled into the craft. And it seems to be a general rule. Writers, artists, musicians rarely kill, it seems. Yes, they can be erratic, but Caravaggio aside, I cannot think of one famous murdering creative type.

Writing, I think, should become a therapy all its own. It curbs your aggressions, and is perfect therapy for the mind. Now, how do I feel? A short story I think. All those characters. Do I feel God-like? I'll kill them all.

AFTER THE LAST STORY

The answer's obvious. After the last story, the next one – and pretty damn quick. You see, there's nothing quite like reading the finished piece, knowing you've created it – the plot, the characters, the descriptiveness, the dialogue.

Sometimes it will have been written in a methodical kind of way, whilst at other times creation is a fever of activity, your fingers whizzing round the keyboard as if a concert pianist. Perspiration is not just through physical work.

Sometimes a thought enters your head like 'am I ever going to pack in this storytelling game?' But the answer is immediate. Not on your life. Even if, at heart, it occasionally becomes tedious – and believe me it does – you know you'll carry on.

You have to – you know you have to – because it's an addiction. It's an addiction worse than any drug, because the need for the next high is immediate, and there's no hope of therapy to help you break the habit.

If I'd known what it would be like after the last story, would I have begun the first? It's pointless looking back. But a thought for the future: what comes after my very last story? That's easy. My funeral.

HOW I BECAME A WRITER

If I did, of course. I guess that's up to you to decide, dear reader.

Where did it all begin? Well, as a kid I was good at English Literature. I don't know why – maybe it was just natural. Maybe that's how it has to be with a writer. But after school, life took over and it never entered my head for... years.

Not until I was 27, infact. In that fateful year I came down with chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS. Suddenly my fast lifestyle turned upside down and I was left with a very different life. But a life has to be filled.

The first glimmer of my new life came when it was clear no one had the faintest idea why I was ill. I didn't like mysteries just standing there, waiting for attention, so I began to research the subject.

I never found an answer, but I found out an important fact – which was 'facts' rarely exist. Indeed, not only this, but most experts hadn't a clue what they were talking about.

This arrogant, egoistic conclusion led to me having a thirst for knowledge – basically, I wanted to know everything, and see just how bad our state of supposed knowledge is. And well, once you realize a thing like that, writing is the obvious way of getting your thoughts out.

That was the first clue to how I became a writer...

... if, of course, I did...

But it suddenly dawned on me that I'd done quite a lot in my life, and there were great experiences to fall back on, for the good or bad. And in realizing I could analyse my life, I also realized that, perhaps, I could analyse others.

And in such a way I became an observer. Infact, it was just too easy, 'cos half the time I wasn't capable of actually experiencing life to the full, anyway.

And observe, I did. Everything. And then I learnt to turn it around in my head, and I ended up producing, not just essays, but stories...

So that's how I became a writer.

If, of course, I did.

A WRITER'S POWER

Well, the title's wrong for a start. I don't think a writer can ever have 'power', but I use the word because I like snappy titles. No, the word I'm really looking for is 'influence.'

Now this is a different matter. So okay, this is a piece about 'a writer's influence.' And let's face it there hasn't really been a great human movement without a book behind it.

There are two arguments over the influence of a writer. Does his craft 'reflect' or 'define' our culture? Just take a typical Soap Opera. Issues that are relevant to the day are played out in – well – sensational fashion.

It is correct to say that, here, the writer reflects society – this is where he got the idea from. But is it possible that, in reflecting something in sensational form, he 'defines' it? Basically, does the social 'story' being played out make it more likely that it will happen in society more often, and more dramatically?

Of course, I'm not saying, here, that the writer can directly affect a person and make him do something. It's more subtle than that - more a probability of society moving in that direction.

I think storytelling acts as a conduit for social currents. The writer intuits something happening in society, and in creating it in cultural form, the culture moves forward – or backward – as the writer suggests.

It is all to do with the 'symbol'. For as semiotics is showing us, we follow them, don't we?

Tips – Pt. 3

(13) Literary Trends (14) Shakespeare's Secret (15) A Novel Character (16) How To Write Twisty Tales (17) How To Create a Character (18) Originality Be Damned (19) An Emotive Writer

LITERARY TRENDS

Okay, I read a lot of modern fiction. It's one way of keeping up with literary trends. But time after time I ask myself: will this writer survive the test of time?

And time after time, the answer is no.

To me, this is a depressing state of affairs. I can see, in a couple of hundred years, people could well look back at our culture and see something approaching a Dark Age.

In art, we have the 'conceptual'. This is where it starts to go wrong. Art is becoming non-permanent – a brief exercise in sensationalism and then it's gone. Of course, this IS art. After all, art is supposed to be a symbol of society. And isn't our society becoming increasingly faddish and sensational?

And an obvious outcome of this has rubbed off on the novelist - whereas art has become totally an expression of the individual artist, so, too, with the writer. The literary novel has become autobiographical, often without a story. And also much more...

Stories are also about society. This is a point often missed in literary fiction today. Great novels are, in a sense, Arthurian, in that they concern a 'hero', who experiences change, and somehow places that change in his society.

With the individual as centre of his own story, this vital link between character and community is degraded.

Of course, there are exceptions – in both art and literature – but as a general trend, I think this holds true. And I just don't think the experiences of an individual alone will be enough to hold people's attention down the centuries.

Or am I wrong?

SHAKESPEARE'S SECRET

Okay, I've conned you. If you've come to learn some amazing secret about Shakespeare's enigmatic life, then you're not. Rather, I wanted to grab your attention, and in doing so I used a classic storytelling device.

No, the secret I want to impart is why Shakespeare remains the most popular and well known classic writer of all time. One answer people don't realize is 'availability'. The plays were quickly collected into a single folio, so he is easily accessible, even if his actual writing isn't.

Shakespeare is a psychologist's dream. This in itself is an important point. His characters can be mad, often ridiculously in love, or hungry for power. They don't begin with this, so the writer explores the points of transition from sanity to madness. We are fascinated by the reasons for this.

Similarly, his characters are 'archetypes'. By this, I mean they fit a standard type of character. He writes about classic heroes and heroines, villains and buffoons. A glimpse of each exists in our own minds. Hence, they filter straight through the words and bury themselves deep in our psyche.

His plays revolve around situations. This may seem an obvious point. Most stories do. But Shakespeare tells them in the raw, unaffected by incidences of place. His love affairs, schemes and conspiracies – his murders and supernatural events – are timeless and fit any place at any time.

Shakespeare is therefore universal. He delves deep into human situations, the reasons, the impulses. And in doing so he speaks directly to the person. And through this, his plays apply directly to you, be you sat in an Elizabethan audience, a modern theatre, or the medium being used in a thousand years hence.

More than any other writer in history, Shakespeare understood the eternal now.

A NOVEL CHARACTER

A good male character in a novel is not as novel as you think. Indeed, he seems to follow a simple path through the chapters. And rule number one has got to be, don't make him nice.

Nice is yuck! Boring. Think of Pip in Great Expectations, and how boring a novel it would have been if Dickens hadn't filled it with marvellous, eccentric, and deeply flawed personages.

The best characters are on the borderline between moral and not. Infact, much of the good novel is about how he copes with this contradiction, trying to do right, but so often failing.

And the crux of the novel is invariably about change. This is why the character must be how he is. If he had a simple, straight-forward mentality, then there would be no doubts as to his actions. It is the doubt that makes the novel great.

If I had to pick a favourite character from a novel, it would have to be Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights – very bad, but very intriguing. But also set close to the place of my birth. Which makes him so – how can I put it – fictitious.

This most passionate of romantic heroes actually exists in one of the most down-to-earth, unromantic places and communities you could find.

HOW TO WRITE TWISTY TALES

No form of writing appeals to me more than short tales with a twist. I love to read them, and I love to write them. Poe was perhaps the first to define them in themselves, and writers such as Roald Dahl raised them to an art form.

Essential to such tales is the importance of a sense of humour. Indeed, I don't think you can work out the important slants on life that make the twist without one. If, after you've written one, you don't go 'he he' to yourself, then it maybe fails.

Which brings me to the second point. That laugh will be pure sadism. And I suspect there must be a touch of this in the mind-set of the twisty tale writer.

Another essential ingredient of the twisty tale is that you must give hints of the twist somewhere in the storyline. Hence, when re-read, it becomes obvious. This is not always achievable, but the best tales have this ingredient.

This makes you, of course, a conman - which is what the twisty tale is all about – fooling the person into a wrong assumption, and then hitting them with the one you want. And to be successful in this is to give a buzz as good as any conman in other fields.

And this is best achieved by placing, in the story, a kind of 'comfort zone'. Make the reader think they know what's going on, and also make them comfortable within the narrative. Achieve this, and the twist at the end becomes a twist indeed.

HOW TO CREATE A CHARACTER

Stories need characters, but if you simply match the character to the story, then it will fail. To create a successful character you need to be much more subtle, and take advantage of a rich storytelling culture that has been around for millennia.

We are told that stereotypical characters are cliché, and this is quite true. But an advance on the stereotype can provide a character that can literally get under the skin of the reader, and if successful you're a winner straight away.

It is all to do with the archetype. The psychologist Carl Jung realized that archetypal characters exist in dream and myth. Principal archetypes are the sage, the mother, the hero, the child, the seductress and the trickster.

You will find them throughout myth. The sage ranges from Jupiter to our image of God. Now guess who he is in Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Why are those characters so good? Because they take their form from myth.

Throughout life we constantly soak up images of these mythological archetypes, and we do so because, in reality, they are expressions of stages of our lives. The mythological character is our psyche writ large.

The writer who can successfully transfer this image to a story is helped by a lifetime's enculturation. Consider the hero of myth, the loner, coming from nowhere, vanquishing the monster and transforming people's lives. Hercules? Or James Bond.

ORIGINALITY BE DAMNED

It disgusts me to have to say this, but if you want to write original material, you're wasting good stamps sending it to a major publisher. Apart from the fact that it's impossible to get your manuscript through the machine, originality is out of style.

Once upon a time publishers were at the cutting edge of innovation and originality, always on the look out for something new. A rich culture was the result, running parallel with a healthy publishing industry based on ideas.

Most of those publishers have now been swallowed up by the big money men, and a once proud industry has been reduced to accountancy. New ideas may be failures and that is bad for the bank balance.

Gone are the days when a publisher would nurture a writer through two, maybe three, market failures, safe in the knowledge that, if the third or fourth was a success, the others would follow through. Now, formula novels are the only likely way of getting into print.

This situation will change eventually. One day, small presses will break through their anonymity and hit the reading public with a new style of publishing and writing. But until then, the second oldest profession is the only way to the top.

AN EMOTIVE WRITER

Every writer worries about being liked. And as a writer I confess to this psychological problem. Nobody wants to be hated, do they? But perhaps they should. Perhaps writers should forget about sentiment and aim for an audience that would hate them.

This seems a ridiculous proposition, but think about it a moment. The job of a writer is to entertain and inform. But it is also to create controversy. After all, if you're not noticed no one will read you and you can neither entertain nor inform.

There is a mantra that all publicity is good publicity, and this is very true. There is nothing worse than no publicity at all, for you have not reached an audience, and this is usually because you have not aroused emotion.

This is the key to good writing. There is nothing worse than not causing emotion. Indifference, you see, is death. And there is one way you know you've made it – when people declare they hate you. Because for everyone who hates your work, there is another who loves it.

POETIC INTERLUDE 2

GOD SCRIBE

What insanity, this writing thing,

Creating people, plots that zing,

After a time you become inured,

Thinking it real with every word

It's so true, I give my word,

Reality created from man to bird,

Dripping life, no need to rehearse,

It comes natural in every verse

Ending with your own uni-verse,

You've started life but it's often a curse,

Plots so real, your life you crop,

Only ending with a full stop

It's unlikely you'll ever stop,

A magician, you will never drop,

Your ability to make those characters grovel,

With twists and turns in every novel

And once you're a writer life is novel,

Even if poor, living in a hovel,

Scribbling away from brunch to tea,

You've created your own personal entity

MY LIFE'S GOAL

For thirty years I've written each day,

Hoping for success without delay,

Honing my craft, getting it right,

Then realising its errors the following night;

My goal is two-fold in all I do,

Perfecting my craft and communicating to you,

A message, a philosophy, a reason to be,

My muses like invading entities;

I was once on the verge of making it big,

Two books sold, published, but life's a pig,

Publishers changed, wanting celebrity alone,

I festered a while – they didn't atone;

My pile of rejections became quite high,

But I kept sending manuscripts on the sly,

'Cos to feel success slip through fingers so,

Gives you a thirst to bath in that glow;

Each year I began with this thirst intact,

A yearning, a need, to interact,

But now it's declining, this goal of mine,

I'm a blogger! I'm read! And I feel fine

DIARY

We write it down, what we have done,

Today immortalised, the trials and fun,

At work, at rest, and even at play,

A whole life, in words on display,

A remembrance of how we lived our life,

With a touch of wit – sharp as a knife,

The weather, other people, all is there,

Our secrets, hopes, dreams and despair;

Year after year we write it down,

What made us laugh, and what caused a frown,

But reading back to the past just to see,

We think: Oh my word, was that really me?

TACTILE WORDS

Touch!

Words in all their majesty,

Communicating thoughts from you to me,

Touching our minds, making us whole,

Abstract thought their ultimate goal;

Touch!

Modelling our world through concept true,

Written words pass from me to you,

Ethereal in their conceptual van,

But leaving a world that we can...

Touch!

CONFESSION

Confess!! Did you do that?

All was life, and then splat!

Confess!! All was going well,

But then you had to tell;

Confess!! You're so sly,

Was it you? But why?

Confess!!

'Twas me

But what is that you call?

Bang your head upon the wall?

'Twas only a story, after all

NEVER ENDING

It cannot end – goes on and on

Forever with its poetic song,

Stunning with its majesty,

Recited, always, after tea,

Inspiring others to follow its way,

Writing feverishly without delay,

Placing thoughts within the mind,

Sparking intuition, you'll find;

The poet's words are magnificent,

Sometimes almost heaven sent,

How can it end, it's so sublime,

Packed with metre, rhythm, rhyme,

Often with its unique blend,

Oh, the word,

It cannot end....

AN INVITATION

Come and join me in my home,

Beware, it's such a scary zone,

Lots to give you a terrific fright,

Especially when it turns to night;

Come and join me, meet my friend,

His teeth are sharp, I won't pretend;

He'll bite your neck, as he should,

And I'm afraid you'll be quite lacking in blood;

Come and join me, meet my pet,

I'm afraid he devoured his last vet,

He's all hairy and howls at full moon;

If he takes a leg, try not to swoon;

Now you've joined me and can't get out,

At dead of night there'll be no doubt,

As ghosts and ghouls you're bound to find,

By morning you'll have lost your mind!

So thanks for coming – did you enjoy yourself,

Taking tales from my shelf?

There's nothing to fear, not even the birds,

I'm just a writer – they're only words

A LITERARY MIND

I sit here, thinking – in my usual space,

My mind's eye takes me to another place,

Where the books about me speak out loud,

Of writers, ancient, so very proud,

Of characters, creations, denouements great,

Of moral dilemmas to relate;

Poe and Hardy and Dickens, too,

Shakespeare, Lawrence, take me through,

Stories that come from mighty minds,

As brilliant plots begin to unwind,

Genres proliferate as they write,

Space trips, detectives, no respite,

As genius is portrayed in glorious prose,

Love stories, tragedies, heroes repose,

Within the pages until read,

Coming alive as your mind is fed;

Inspiration, one and all,

Constantly they do enthral,

The wannabe writer such as me,

Surrounded by literary divinity

MEMOIRS

Life – Pt. 1

(1) A Life of Change (2) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - The Beginning (3) Finding a Place (4) Me and the Cold War (5) The Invincible Land Rover (6) Get In Line (7) Working My Ticket? (8) Hills of Fire

A LIFE OF CHANGE

Our life changes as it goes along. Yet change in life is more than biological. It is social, cultural, professional, psychological. As a kid I was a very different person to what I am now. Yet maybe that kid is still with me, inside, rising up in my mad moments.

I do hope so. We should take that child with us into adulthood.

As childhood gave way to teenage years, I changed a great deal. Girlfriends helped, but the main change was becoming lead guitarist in a local rock band. Things certainly changed – and I can even remember some of it.

But teenage hormones don't last forever. Hence, the band went and I changed into the young man, entering my father's business. But this was most likely a period of transit, because I was never happy in this life I'd changed into.

The transition ended when I changed and went off to London.

The big city was a change indeed, especially as I'd lived in the countryside. The next couple of years I spent drifting from one change to another, until finally my life seemed mapped out.

This change led me into the Royal Air Force, and I was no longer the drifter, but doing a useful job. But I guess I'd just got used to changing, and eventually I changed when I came down with chronic fatigue syndrome.

That was one very big change. I turned from action man to barely being able to do anything. It was a change that was hard to cope with until I changed – realized this was the new me so get on with it.

That was in 1982, and cfs is still with me. And I suppose one of the most fundamental changes that came along with it was a thirst for knowledge and writing.

It was then I realized I'd had the perfect life to become a writer. All those changes, you see, led to experience – the stuff of the writer itself. And maybe a certain wisdom. After all, is a life truly lived if it doesn't change?

CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME – THE BEGINNING

I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I'm often asked questions about it, but apart from the occasional mention, I haven't really written about it. Why that is, I'm not quite sure. Maybe it is too close to the real me. But I've decided to take the plunge.

People often ask what causes it. Many ideas have been put forward. These include stress, a viral infection, exposure to chemicals such as organo-phosphates, and even radiation exposure.

Can any of these factors be found in my contracting the condition? Well, in the two years prior to it I was in a very stressful job. During that time I had viral infection after infection. And it doesn't stop there.

I was in the Royal Air Force at the time. And for those two years I was on emergency overseas reinforcement. Hence, I'd been inoculated against every disease known to man – apart from CFS, apparently – and I worked on a site with acute radiation hazards.

So take your pick. But life finally came to a head following a 3 day military exercise in which I'd had practically no sleep. I'd also cracked two ribs a couple of weeks before. Finishing at 8am on the morning, I jumped in the car to drive 200 miles for a period of leave. After 20 minutes I passed out at the wheel. To this day I don't know how I stopped that car. But I've never felt 'well' since.

FINDING A PLACE

Okay, you're 20 years old and full of life. You actually live in one of the most beautiful, serene places on the planet, but that's boring. You've already gone off to the big city in search of adventure, but that was a dead end.

That was how I felt at 20. I had to get away. I remembered an ex-girlfriend – a forces kid, staying in the area – and she spoke of an interesting life. So I made the decision. I, Tony North, was going to join the Royal Air Force.

I'd seen all the films.

It seemed such an exciting life. See the world, and all that. So off I went, to York, my local city, to find the Careers Information Office, where I knew you had to go to join up.

Now, I know York quite well. I'd been there a lot. But it is such an ancient city that, although small, it is a rabbit warren of tiny streets. So could I find the place? Afraid not. I searched high and low, asked plenty of people, but to no avail. So what was I going to do? How was I going to realize my dream?

I decided to phone them up.

Exiting the phone box, I felt good. I'd used my initiative. They'd like that. And armed with the information, I found it easily.

For a time, I hovered outside, just like a jump jet. Was this what I really wanted? Of course it was. I needed the adventure. So I took a deep breath and walked inside.

The sergeant behind the desk looked an interesting fellow and I was sure we were to get on. He offered a wry smile. Said: 'Are you the fella who just rang to ask where we are?'

Great. He'd appreciated my initiative. 'Yes,' I said, beaming.

He leaned forward. Grinned. 'You're not wanting to be a navigator then.'

Oh well. The initiative would come, I was sure.

ME AND THE COLD WAR

I was in the RAF from 1975-84, and my trade was in administration – i.e. I flew a desk. But for five of those years I worked on two of the 20 or so air defence bases that protected UK air space. And sometimes that got very interesting.

At least once a month the siren would go off.

When this happened, we knew it was exercise time. My blue uniform was swapped for combats, beret for helmet, and pen for 7.62mm SLR. Because, when that siren went off, I was part of the defence of that thin blue line.

How important was that line? Well, British forces contributed 4 divisions to the effort in Germany, whilst the rest of the forces were responsible for UK air space and keeping the Atlantic open for re-supply from America.

The unsinkable aircraft carrier.

US forces first called Britain that during World War Two, and it was a fact that had the Cold War gone hot, Britain's importance would have been just as great. For if British air space fell, then no American reinforcements or supplies could ever get to Europe, and the Soviets would have won.

Hence, that thin blue line of the RAF would have become crucial. Those bases would have become among the most violent places on Earth, constantly attacked by bombers, missiles and infiltrated Soviet SPETZNAZ special forces.

I was only a very, very, very small cog in all this, but that was what we were training for in those exercises. And they often got scary as well as very, very funny.

THE INVINCIBLE LAND ROVER

We knew it was going to get hectic as soon as the message came in. It was a normal RAF Land Rover that pulled up at the checkpoint at the far side of the airfield. But as it stopped, the top came off and machine gun fire wiped out the guards.

Over a mile away, I was defending the fighter dispersal. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, the few low, dark green buildings were surrounded by the dispersed Phantom fighters. The call came in. Stand To.

We saw the Land Rover come racing down the airfield.

The Army loved fancy dress when they attacked RAF bases during exercises. Usually, they pretended to be guerillas, complete with bandanas, and I could have sworn one had a huge cigar in his mouth.

I saw the first post fall. They fought back with rifles and GPMG (bloody big machine gun), but were overwhelmed amid the sounds of gunfire and thunder flashes. And it went on and on as that damn Land Rover approached the dispersal.

I was taken out close to the entry point.

I put up a good fight but was outflanked and caught in the crossfire. As I laid there 'dying', I saw them gain entry, the last pathetic defence being when a dozen fighter pilots rushed out waving their little pistols in the air.

This part of the exercise was, of course, to check out our firing positions, and the reality was, that Land Rover wouldn't have got past the first checkpoint. Indeed, we could realistically say it was wiped out at least 20 times - which meant, of course, that our defence had taken out half a company.

That felt good. But you always had the mouth of inexperience amongst you. 'It's not fair,' he protested, wiping dirt from his combats. 'They wouldn't play dead.'

GET IN LINE

I did some strange jobs during my time in the Royal Air Force, and few were stranger than when the call came out from the local police for help. This usually concerned recruiting 'bodies' to appear in an identity line up.

Much has been said about the practices of detectives during the 1970s in the UK – Life on Mars fans will know what I mean – so maybe these activities can offer a personal insight.

I was based just outside London at the time.

When a line-up was required at the local police station, the call would come in, and a rough description of the suspect given so that those chosen would in some way reflect what he looked like.

I remember once getting the instruction, small and scruffy. So it was obvious I'd be in the line. However, scruffy, in the RAF, meant 'casual', and if we were scruffy haired or unshaven, we'd be in trouble.

So, many casually dressed airmen stood to attention next to...

... well, scruffy wasn't in it. He seemed to come from a different planet to us, and I remember thinking, even if he was innocent, he'd be picked when compared to the rest of us.

Would this system lead to possible miscarriages of justice? Quite possibly. And the fact that witnesses were in the same room as the line-up in those days, tapping the chosen person on the shoulder, didn't help.

But our good detectives were always appreciative. 'Right, come on fellas,' they'd say after the job. And off we'd go to the pub next door, whether open or not, safe in the knowledge they'd make sure we'd never remember leaving.

WORKING MY TICKET?

I came down with chronic fatigue syndrome is 1982. I was 27 years of age and had two years left to serve of my nine years in the Royal Air Force. And I can tell you, it was quite an upset to my previously active life.

Regularly I would try to do too much and end up unconscious on the floor. Of course, the condition was almost unknown, and the doctors scratched their heads. Life, I knew, would never be the same again.

But it was different in many ways. One of those ways was an inability, by many, to admit that I was ill. Rather, they accused me of 'working my ticket' – a term given to a waster who wanted out of the forces, but couldn't afford to pay, as was then required.

There were many stories of ticket workers, often pretending to be mad to get a medical discharge. One was said to refuse to salute officers, saying: 'If I salute one of you, I've got to salute you all.' It is not known what happened to him.

Then there was the one who pretended to be a monkey.

He would jump about from time to time on his haunches, making funny noises. It is said he was once tested on his monkeyness by being tossed a bunch of bananas. He ate them, skin and all. It is said, when he finally got out, he really was mad.

But I was not working my ticket. And to prove so, I completed every last day of my service – medically downgraded as I was. Of course, by doing so, I no doubt missed out on a medical pension.

I was not working my ticket, but I think I ended up mad.

HILLS OF FIRE

I'd only been in the Royal Air Force a few months in 1975. I was beginning to think, this is boring. My basic training was great, but now I was in trade training, and I hoped my career would be more exciting than this.

Then, just before end of class one afternoon, a Sergeant ran in and ordered us out, and quick. Double marched to a number of trucks, we were thrown overalls and told to get in, and off we sped as fast as the trucks would go.

We reached our destination in an hour.

This was some nearby hills, part of which had caught fire, and if it managed to crest a hill, a town would be put at risk. Issued with shovels and pick axes, it was the beginning of a 12 hour fight with nature.

It was a bit precarious on the slopes of that hill. We were there to dig a fire break. It was a long way down, and the heat, smoke and dust made it look like the pit of hell down there. But there was a job to do and we did it.

The heat went under our feet.

That was the scariest bit – and for a while, it caused undergrowth to ignite behind the trench, and we had to start all over again. There were regular breaks – there had to be. We hadn't been issued goggles, and we had to have our eyes chemically cleaned regularly.

There was a vision of heaven at these moments. Somehow, the Salvation Army had got a field kitchen up there, and their brews were marvellous. But finally, at 4 o'clock in the morning, we beat it.

Filthy, pained and full of pride, I remember marching down a path to the trucks, our picks on our shoulders, singing 'hey ho, hey ho, it's off to work we go'.

As we entered the town, I recall a window opening and a voice saying: 'Shut up, I'm trying to sleep in here.'

Oh well. I knew I'd made a difference, even if he didn't.

Life – Pt. 2

(9) I Wasn't Lazy (10) Finding Peace (11) The Quest (12) Fate or What? (13) The Name's Bond (14) Born To Be Wild (15) The Moment (16) Optimistically Speaking

I WASN'T LAZY

When I was in my teens I was often accused of being lazy. I worked in my father's newsagent shop – a business I was eventually supposed to part inherit, but decided I didn't want it. But it seemed I was rarely in it.

In actual fact, one week out of two I wasn't in the shop during normal working hours. I was up at four o'clock in the morning, working on the paper rounds, and then from five o'clock in the evening until we shut.

But this wasn't all I was doing.

No, I was lead guitarist in the best rock band in the area – well, I would say that, wouldn't I? Apart from the occasional gig, we also practiced three times a week in a hay loft above a barn behind a pub in a sleepy village.

There was no heating in the loft, so in winter it was rather cold. I used to argue I learnt my manic stage antics here as a means of keeping me warm so my shaking fingers could feel the fret board.

And then those awful ladders.

Entry to the loft was via a vertical, fixed ladder and through a small hatch, or opening the hay doors and leaning ladders up to them. Going to and from a gig involved sliding drum kit, heavy speaker cabinets and the rest up and down these ladders.

It was a tiring affair, especially at two o'clock in the morning, in the dark, after a gig. And finished, I'd often get home just in time to open the shop and begin the paper rounds.

Lazy? I don't think you CAN be lazy over something you love.

FINDING PEACE

Looking back on my life I can see certain crossroads that led to the person I am today. And one such crossroad began on a lovely Sunday afternoon in the early 1980s when I lived in Norfolk.

We'd just moved to the area, and at that time I was an unthinking person, living the material life. However, I often took the family out for a Sunday drive. It wasn't planned, and we just decided to go where the mood took us.

At about four o'clock we decided it was time to eat.

I stopped the car on the outskirts of a village. We got out and decided to explore and find a café. However, it soon became clear that we were being affected by this place. I think both my wife and I noticed it at the same time.

A feeling of absolute peace settled upon us, and I can honestly say I was uplifted in mood. But more than this, it was the first time in my life that I had experienced a spiritual connection. I suddenly felt a deep belonging, and the whole thing was surreal.

As we advanced into the village we began to see Catholic imagery.

This surprised me, and as we neared the centre, quiet religious music was playing. We noticed a hospice, and a ruin in the centre of an open space. And it was at this point we realized it must be an important Catholic shrine.

It was, infact, a place I'd never before heard of called Walsingham, site of one of the earliest visitations of the Virgin Mary, and place of Catholic pilgrimage. And for the first time in my life, I realized there was more to existence than the material world.

THE QUEST

I left school when I was 15. Since then I haven't undergone any formal education at all, and have never gained an academic qualification in anything. Neither have I ever read a 'how to' writing book, or attended a writing class.

For many years I was quite happy with my lack of education. I could read, write, do sums, and a good memory meant I remembered a lot of 'facts' from school. This, along with common sense, seemed to get me through life quite adequately.

It all changed when I came down with CFS.

I belonged to the 'school' that thought too much education was not required for normal life. I had managed to hold down jobs, advance in a career, hold a conversation on most subjects, and was generally considered 'intelligent.'

Becoming ill with CFS, and the experiences that followed it, caused me to change this view. And this was based on a realization that, if no one could tell me what was wrong with me, I should find out why.

For this I needed knowledge, and that meant self-education.

Suddenly I found myself, at the age of 27, devouring books of all kinds in an attempt to educate myself. And the more I delved into learning, the more I realized that much of our knowledge was a con.

Basically, knowledge, today, is based on specialization, but the more I studied these specializations, the more I realized that it was just one type of knowledge. Modern learning had little to do with 'holism', or seeing things as a whole.

I suppose it began a quest. And I'm on it still.

FATE OR WHAT?

When I was about 10 years old I walked into a shop one day and the lady behind the counter asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without thinking, I replied: 'A writer, a soldier and a Dad.'

Now, I hadn't really thought about any of these prior to this statement. Yet it was a fact that, as life panned out, I became, to a certain extent, all three. Is it possible that we can instinctively know our future at such a young age?

We could put it down to fate.

But I don't like this word. It suggests that there is no free will, and whatever you do in life, it is inevitable how it will go. It makes me ask: what is the point of it all if we're slaved to the inevitability of life?

I could take an existentialist view and argue it was my choice to do these things. But even here, it doesn't work. Things happened later in life that led me in these directions, and cannot be related to the statement I made as a kid.

In this sense it's a social thing.

We can claim to make choices, and be satisfied that they are our own. But the reality is we are categorized by our society and culture. Whatever choices we make are based on events in society, and interpretations of how society sees us.

But we can stack the odds in our favour; we can follow a certain path out of the multiple paths that open up to us. But I think we do this unconsciously. Deep inside, there is a real 'you' who knows better than 'you' what you want out of life.

I think the real 'me' was active early, making me say things such as 'a writer, a soldier and a Dad.'

THE NAME'S BOND

The Name's Bond – James Bond.

That's what I used to say. After all, I was just a little kid. The Bond movies had just begun to appear, and I was that man. Every day was an adventure as I tried to save the world from the bad guys.

I'd find bad guys everywhere, and with my spud gun I was invincible, finding them in gardens, on the streets, all over the place. But I was never appreciated. Usually I was just told off as people removed potato pellets from their clothes.

That's the thing with secret agents. In the real world they're never thanked.

But why did James Bond become so successful?

That was a question I asked myself many years later, when I'd begun to write. What was it about Bond that made him rise above all the other fictional heroes? Was it his sense of Britishness, or his daring-do?

It was learning a bit about Ian Fleming, and later reading Carl Jung that the answer came to me. And it begins with the 'archetype'.

Bond gets under your skin and jumps into the mind.

This is because he is the archetypal 'stranger' – a mythological being in the modern world, appearing to vanquish evil, and then disappearing just as swiftly. It is a story as old as mankind, and it seems we are wired by culture to be attracted to such ancient stories the most.

This, I discovered, was one of the central tools of the successful storyteller. It was not enough to communicate through words. You also had to tamper with the mind by placing ancient symbols that filter into the deep unconscious.

Fleming, and the later film makers, understood this, too. Bond was the stranger entangled in a battle between good and evil. That evil was SPECTRE, with all its supernatural connotations. And Blofeld, the arch villain?

Just look at the pictures of infamous occultist Aleister Crowley when he was older, and you'll see Blofeld staring back.

Why, they even gave him a familiar with his pussycat.

BORN TO BE WILD

Was I born to be wild? I don't know. Are we born to be anything? Or is what we do decided by the experiences we have, the choices we make? I don't know, but I certainly went towards the wild side in my teenage years.

Maybe that's why, when I became lead guitarist in a local rock band, we usually opened each gig with – you've guessed it – Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild. And I think we communicated with our audience, even though the next number was usually Led Zep's Communication Breakdown.

Looking back at those years, I always offer a smile. We weren't a famous band – just a group of local lads trying to make it big, but never getting further than school or village hall gigs.

I tended to look the part, my hair over a foot long and backcombed, my clothes the latest velvets and tie-dyed t-shirts, my shoes, huge platforms from which I quite often fell off. Ah, what we do for fashion still.

I couldn't afford my dream guitar, a Gibson Les Paul, so I was satisfied with my copy. And boy, did I torture those strings. With a hundred watt stack behind me, my instrumentals were always improvised and loud.

It seemed to have the required effect with the audience. They made me feel I was almost as good as Page or Hendrix. But many years later, I suppose it was put in perspective, when a member of that audience said, in middle age:

'You were certainly enthusiastic.'

Nothing about my musical ability then?

Oh well. Sigh.

THE MOMENT

They say life can change in a moment, and I think I'm lucky to have experienced a truly life changing one. It was the moment when I turned into a writer. Well, actually, it took years of practice to become one, but you know what I mean.

It was about six months after I'd come down with CFS. I was in the RAF at the time, and when the symptoms refused to go away, I was diagnosed with a 'mild anxiety state' and shipped off to hospital for 'relaxation therapy.'

It wasn't a cure, but it did make me very relaxed.

Many weeks later, I left hospital and caught a train back to base. However, an hour into the journey, the train broke down. An announcement said it would be two hours before we were moving again.

I, being perfectly relaxed, sat back to enjoy the view, but soon the other occupants of the carriage caught my attention. To a man, and woman, they were becoming increasingly agitated.

It was like Jekyll turning to Hyde.

Believe me, this is no exaggeration. I saw a whole carriage of people go through various emotions and states which could only be described as mildly neurotic. And what had caused this display? These poor people were going to be late.

The implications for my life didn't dawn on me at that moment, but it crept in slowly. The simple fact was I could only see this because for a while I'd been taken out of society.

Previously, I would have been one of them.

I had had a unique glimpse of a 'madness' lying just below the surface of society. Of course, it wasn't the only thing on my 'journey' to becoming a writer, but I suppose it put experiences, past, and yet to come, into perspective.

It had given me a basis for a quest to understand human nature and society. And once realized, it drove me on to understand... and it drives me still.

OPTIMISTICALLY SPEAKING

I'm one of those people you hate. You know, full of optimism. The world is delightful, and nothing can get me down. I've heard people like me talking to others, and I've thought: 'what a...'

Well, we won't go into that.

But nothing, good reader, is how it seems.

I was optimistic as a kid. Not inside, you understand, but how I reacted to life. I suppose today I'd have been classed as hyper-active and put on drugs. In earlier times, I'd have had the 'Devil in me.'

I was the kid who would see a high gate... with spikes on top... in the snow... as a challenge. As I hung there, a spike through my hand, I said: 'Ouch.'

I was the kid that nothing could touch. Hence, I wasn't looking that Christmas Eve morning when I went tumbling into the electric fire.

Optimism is such trouble.

Two years and nine surgical operations later, my optimism – my indestructibility – was still there. It wasn't inside, but it WAS on the surface, where it counts. And as adolescence came and went, the optimism transferred to the opposite sex.

Sometimes I was successful, at other times not.

You mean I wasn't a babe-magnet?

That's the trouble with optimism. It's a good outlook to have, but it causes misjudgements and calamities.

I realized this eventually, and decided optimism must be tempered with pessimism. It is not a depressing outlook to have, but a means of survival.

Nowadays I live by a simple mantra: plan for the worst and hope for the best. I do this because I've realized life must be a balance or it's a bitch. And with this outlook, most of the surprises are good ones.

POETIC CONCLUSION

POE-M

In the gutter he died,

After days on a ride,

Drunken stupor his game,

His fame unproclaimed,

His mind in a mess,

Forever distressed,

His lover apart,

Oh, his damned tell-tale heart!

He was not very mature,

His burial so premature,

Dupin would have swooned,

He was really a baboon,

For deep in his mind,

William Wilson you'd find,

Causing epileptic fit,

A pendulum from the pit!

A genius to enthral,

As the House of Usher did fall,

During a literary assignation,

No better creation,

Of horrors untold,

Imagination so bold,

Stories never so honed,

As Annabel Lee would have known!

In the gutter he died,

After days on a ride,

Where a black cat licked his face,

And the raven

Flew his soul

Into space

INSPIRATION

Did he have to do that? I can but say,

Images assault me as she lay,

Prone and ready for his way,

Acrobatics without delay

Inspiration comes in many forms,

Poets write of love, of mind, of storms,

Observing life in all its vibes,

How we react in different tribes

Is this possible? I have to ask,

Man is surely not up to the task,

She adorned in a tight basque,

He is hidden behind a mask

But more than life a poet needs,

Inspiration from which to feed,

Words that come from another's call,

Even etched on the toilet wall

LOST IT

I've lost it – damn! Where's it gone?

I know what it is, where it's from;

I had it before, I'm sure I had,

If I find it, I'll be so, so glad!

You'd enjoy it, too, I'm sure you would,

Believe me it is very good;

You'd find it is exceeding fine,

With a marvellously melodious rhyme,

But I've lost that damn last line...

SHADOW LIFE

I want to be here, so let me out,

I want to exist, not as doubt;

I'm real, if not completely defined,

Give me life – please be kind;

There's room in there for me as well,

No need for fear on which to dwell;

Give me space to thrive and grow,

To stop me would be a cruel blow;

I may not be as corporeal as you,

But this is so with all things new;

I'll grow, I'll thrive, I'll adapt in time,

And now I'm complete, I rhyme

NO TIME

No time to write this poetry thing,

Got to get on, really zing,

Make it quick, let it sing,

I've finished – Ping!

But...

This is silly, it's not that bad,

Rush it too much and it could be really sad;

We don't want to make people so full of doom,

That all they think of this poem is gloom;

But that's tough luck,

Life can suck,

I've really took,

Oh...

Now stop it!

Such a precious thing is time,

Think it out, make it rhyme,

Ignore the clock, don't listen to the chime,

Produce the words,

Make people think,

Sublime

HAPPY ENDINGS

Happy endings, we love them so,

In a story we love to go,

From beginning to end in a frenzied haste,

Providing the villain, he is displaced;

And hero and heroine, they come together,

After adventure, adversity, endeavour;

The writer's job is thus to define,

The threads of life that do entwine,

People and circumstance, good or bad,

As long as we get that cruel cad;

But wait a mo, is this really so?

Must the bad guy always receive the blow?

Of course he must – it's the way to end,

Or belief we would have to suspend,

In the moral truth of good beating bad,

But isn't this simply revenge?

So sad

TRANSFORMATION

You think it through, you write it out,

A majestic craft, there is no doubt;

A person will read, planting a seed,

Of change that will never recede;

His actions are imbued by your word,

Coming first, and never second or third;

Your thoughts are out in society,

Made real, made true, growing just like a tree;

The thought branches out, noble and great,

Defining other people's fate,

As through your mind, your pen, your quill,

You transmit, to all, your will,

As your noble craft,

You do fulfil

DEAR ED

I am a writer, I think you'll agree,

So here, I send an MS to thee;

It's not in a bottle for you to throw,

That was the way of Edgar Allan Poe;

I know you'll sigh! You always do,

It must be submission one hundred and two;

I know what you'll say in reply:

Not for us, but nice try;

Your reasons for rejection will be fey,

'I don't think there's an audience today';

Well, this is my final attempt,

Don't treat with contempt;

I know it's unsolicited;

I know I'm untried;

I know I'm not a celebrity,

Or an expert, it's true;

But find enclosed photo, from me to you;

Make my day and my life will be brighter,

Yours sincerely, a writer.

....

A good poem to Ed, you can't deny,

And here's what I got in reply -

'Dear Sir, lovely picture of me in bed,

In an embrace with my lover,' said Ed;

'Now tell me what you intend to do?

Send to my wife? Surely this isn't true;

'Dear Anthony,'

'Please find enclosed a contract for you.'

LIST OF STORIES & ESSAYS

FLASH FACTORY

Stories 1 - 6

(1) Criticism of Style (2) Moon Ladder (3) Outrageous (4) Time For a Change (5) Invasion Alien (6) Harvest

Stories 7 - 12

(7) He's One of Them (8) Live Wire (9) He Isn't There (10) The Recipe (11) Finger of Suspicion (12) A Perfect Christmas

Stories 13 - 18

(13) Got the Bug? (14) It's Good To See You (15) Scandalous (16) The Return (17) Too Much Reality (18) I Knew Instantly

Stories 19 - 24

(19) Watching Closely (20) The Candle (21) A Daddy Story (22) A Vision Thing (23) Planet Zero (24) The Formula

Stories 25 - 30

(25) The Bounce (26) Behind the Door (27) The Long Walk (28) She's Perfect For Him (29) How I Met My ... (30) No Journey's End

Stories 31 - 36

(31) The Big Office (32) The Greatest Change (33) Message On a Bottle (34) Getting There (35) The Fool (36) Nuts

Stories 37 - 43

(37) Gone (38) Spirit of the Underbaby (39) Misguided (40) The Richest Man In the World (41) Smiler (42) Window On Death (43) Money For Old Rope

WRITING TIPS
Section One

(1) You're Not Mad (2) Love the Word (3) Tech v Literature (4) How To Do Proper Research (5) Writers' Block (6) Write What You Know?

Section Two

(7) Let Me Give You Some Advice (8) The Best In the World (9) Every Psycho Should Write (10) After the Last Story (11) How I Became a Writer (12) A Writer's Power
Section Three

(13) Literary Trends (14) Shakespeare's Secret (15) A Novel Character (16) How To Write Twisty Tales (17) How To Create a Character (18) Originality Be Damned (19) An Emotive Writer

MEMOIRS
Section One

(1) A Life of Change (2) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - The Beginning (3) Finding a Place (4) Me and the Cold War (5) The Invincible Land Rover (6) Get In Line (7) Working My Ticket? (8) Hills Of Fire

Section Two

(9) I Wasn't Lazy (10) Finding Peace (11) The Quest (12) Fate or What? (13) The Name's Bond (14) Born To Be Wild (15) The Moment (16) Optimistically Speaking

About the Author

1955 (Yorkshire, England) – I am born (Damn! Already been done). 'Twas the best of times... (Oh well).

I was actually born in the year of Einstein's death, close to Scrooge's Counting House. It doesn't mean anything but it sounds good. As for my education, I left school at 15 and have had no formal education since. Hence, I'm self-taught.

From a family of newsagents, at 18 I did a Dick Whittington and went off to London, only to return to pretend to be Charlie and work in a chocolate factory.

When I was ten I was asked what I wanted to be. I said soldier, writer and Dad. I never thought of it for years – having too much fun, such as a time as lead guitarist in a local rock band – but I served nine years in the RAF, got married and had seven kids. I realised my words had been precognitive when, at age 27, I came down with M.E. – a condition I've suffered ever since – and turned my attention to writing.

Indeed, as I realised that no expert could tell me what was wrong with me, I began my quest to find out why. Little did I realise it would last decades and take me through the entire history of knowledge, leaving me with the certainty that our knowledge systems are inadequate.

My non-fiction is based on P-ology, a thought process I devised to work with patterns of knowledge, and designed to be a bedfellow to specialization. A form of Rational Holism, it seeks out areas the specialist may have missed. I work from encyclopaedias and introductory volumes in order to gain a grasp of many subjects and am not an expert in anything, but those patterns keep forming. Hence, I do not deal in truth, but ideas, and cover everything from politics to the paranormal.

When reading my work I ask only: do I make sense? Of course, an expert would say: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I agree. And an expert has so little knowledge of everything.

I also write novels and Flash Fiction in all genres. Check out my bookstore for more details.

Connect with Anthony

Smashwords Author page: <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/anthonynorth>

Anthony's Website: http://anthonynorth.com

Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/Anthony-North-184587364887515>

For details of more social media, check out my website

