

One Hour Stories

\- It's a clutch of stories that were written in an hour, isn't it? -

One Hour Stories is an extremely simple formula. Didn't you see the title page? It can be repeated anywhere, with any number of people, for any purpose.

A small group of people get together, a title or a theme is picked, and everybody writes for one hour exactly, on that theme. No editing or deleting is allowed. When the hour is finished, each person must read out their story, without hesitation, and without any verbal correction.

At times, it's horrible.

We are a group of three writers, annoyances and gimmickeurs who decided to do just this, every now and then, and _record the results as a podcast_.

Here are our first five titles, and one guest title that Rob Gordon conducted with two of our friends on a trip down to Devon. The stories are presented as we wrote them, only editing them to make them legible; your fingers get very sweaty, during that hour, and you often slip.

It's been very good for us, and we hope it will be good for you too.

Rob Gordon, Rob Sherman, Paddy Johnston

  **The Writers**

Rob Gordon is a writer from Sussex. A Masters graduate from the University of Exeter, he spends his time writing fiction with the aim of making people feel deeply uncomfortable. He is steadily adding short stories to a collection that can best be described as 'Baby's First Palahniuk' or 'Ersatz Easton Ellis' in style, and is also writing his debut novel, entitled _Original Form_.

Alongside his fiction, Rob also plays in a variety of musical acts. Since he is a bassist by trade, this mainly consists of pouting. He works a variety of uninteresting jobs with thankfully excellent people.

Paddy Johnston is a writer, cartoonist, musician and academic from South London. He is currently studying for his PhD in English, writing his thesis on comics books, graphic novels and labour.

His bands include Palomino Club, The Black Birches and Softball, and he has a day job in book publishing. He likes to write short nonsenses on Twitter, where you can find him @paddyjohnston.

Rob did a thing called the Black Crown Project, then he did another thing called The Spare Set, and in between and before he plopped out a couple of smaller nurdles which can be found here and here.

He is now the Writer-In-Residence at the British Library.

Cameron Stanley is an MA in Creative Writing at University of Exeter. She graduated from University of Arizona with a dual degree in Creative Writing and Political Science.

Her thesis, _Distemperantia de Amare_ , explored the damaging aspects of love and affection. She is working on her first novel.

Jules Gill is a man beast from Exeter who loves playfully bounding into thick fogs and getting caught on out of focus camera equipment.

When he's not busy living a life of such opulence that makes even the crystal king of Sapphire moon jealous, he enjoys eating beans on toast and watching EastEnders. In his spare time he also hosts a Youtube gaming review channel called TFUShow and writes for Pulp365.com.

The First Title

_'Barry Makes A Hideous Discovery'_

Barry's mother hated pinecones.

She didn't see the point of them. This was partly because she had failed to pay attention in biology, and bobbed through life ignorant of the intricate artistry of seed dispersal and the proliferation of forests, but also because of the simple fact that she did not look where she was walking.

When she was pregnant with Barry, she and Barry's father (whose name, as you will come to see, is the least important part of this story) lived in the grounds of her parent's house, in a conifer forest. It was a beautiful little conifer-wood cabin, with hand-split slates on the roof, and she hated it. She dreamed of a house with white-washed walls, tile floors and a veranda looking out on the Caspian Sea, but her Mum and Dad had very selfishly decided not to buy her one. And so, every time she walked to the main house to steal some milk, waddling under the weight of Barry's growing head and feet, tired from the internal suckling that he was engaged in, she would tread on every pinecone available. She would spend twenty minutes sat in the light of the fridge, picking fragments out of her heel, and swearing very loudly. Her mouth was often pressed against her enormous stomach when she did this, which might explain why Barry's vocabulary was rather wide when he did pop out.

The day of that popping, Barry's mother's water broke as she was eating a huge curry in front of the television. She had envisioned herself collecting water from a stream, or on a crowded bus, or somewhere more exciting when the big moment did finally come, but there was nothing for it; they had to go. Barry's father, a whimpering, parasitic sort of man, helped her out to the car. It was late summer, and the pinecones were clustered like granola, which, being greedy and stupid, she hated.

She resolved to dodge past every single one of them, and on livid purple tiptoes, one hand across her stomach, she did so, until she was trying to lever herself through the passenger door. She slipped, and one foot went down, splintering one particularly vicious specimen all through her foot. She screamed, cried, and in that one moment turned all of her hate inwards on her baby. She was not a monster; she didn't punch herself, or try and throw him down a well. He lived a very normal, quite populated childhood, and she never left him along with the curling tongs, just to see what would happen. She had a small mind, however, and the worst thing that she could think of, the very best way to scapegoat him, was to give him the name which has weighed him down his entire life.

Barry hates Barry. He has had girls laugh at him, prospective employers breeze past him, and life generally pass him by. He became a builder, just because he could not think of anything else that a man named Barry could possibly do with his life, and when he did finally find a wife, she insisted on calling him "Bare", which was somehow even worse. They rented a diabolically ordinary flat in Mile End, and he could not remember the last time his wife had not seen him splattered with paint. His wife's name does not matter, either. What would come to matter, as Barry would discover, was Barry.

Barry was in his early forties when he made his hideous discovery; it was two weeks after his birthday, when he had got so drunk that he had wept like an opera singer, before sobering up very quickly and telling his boss' wife that she looked like Colonel Gaddafi. He had been sacked on the Monday, and was now working cash-in-hand somewhere in marshes of Essex, retarring a roof for a mad old artist. It was awful work, the sort of work that, had Barry not thought that a man named Barry shouldn't read someone like William Blake, that William Blake would have ascribed to his poor little children. Hot, curling flakes of tar, like liquorice, would land on his arms, fusing all the hair together in little dreadlocks that he had to cut off with nail scissors when he got home. This was invariably after midnight, and as he stood on the inadequate scaffolding (he was never very good at fitting it together, but then what do you expect, he wasn't allowed Lego as a child) with the sun going down on his back, smoking all over like a rather morose, fat hellhound, he did what men have been doing since they stood up straight and strode out of Africa; he looked up at the stars, and considered his lot.

It wasn't an appalling life. His grandparent's wealth had filtered down to him in part, when his mother had finished spending it by kindly dying, and his wife had parts of her that were still pretty. He didn't have any peculiar sexual urges, and he could still see his knees when he bent over in the shower. Life was, if not good, at least life. He thought about the legions of starving Guatemalans that he had seen on the news last night; the war was dragging on, he dimly perceived, and he had felt embarrassed by how disgusted he was by their gummy mouths, dripping noses and gushing sores. Things could be a lot worse.

Of course, there were not many stars this close to London. When he peered over the gable, he could see a few more. He did not know their names, or which constellations they were part of. Nobody called Barry became an astronomer. Only men called Tycho or Artemis became astronomers. But, still, he could appreciate them, and he set down his tar gun, pulled off his ridiculous little felt hat that kept his balding pate warm on nights like this, and moved his eyes between them, one after another.

He wasn't sure what it was about them, but something felt wrong. He looked back and forth, roving, trying to capture the sensation again. But it was no use. He sighed, and leant back, and then realised just how shit he was at putting up scaffolding. It collapsed, quietly, and he fell two storeys to the ground below.

The pain was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. He desperately searched his mouth for blood, but there was none, and in his delirium he considered biting down on his tongue, so that he could spit out a mouthful of blood as they did on television, and flash a gorey spread of smile, but he didn't, in the end. He lay there, his broken back ignored by the zooming cars, and the deaf, possibly stoned artist in his armchair in the loftspace, and began to die.

He could see more and more of the stars now, and it was then that something very important, and very hideous, was revealed to him. His brain seared back through time to the very beginning of the universe, or at least what he assumed was the beginning; he had heard that one's life was supposed to flash before their eyes, and he was certain that he had never been a small amorphous blob of protein, in a sea of methane. Back and back it went, the earth shrinking underneath, the magma bubbling, floating back into space, and then slipping down a plughole larger than anything Barry had ever seen. And then, there it was, hung like a drop of semen in the nothingness; the potential universe. Barry tried to whistle, but farted, instead. The broken back had done more than make him hallucinate; it has re-plumbed his insides as well, apparently.

And then the universe began. An explosion that Barry could not describe, did not have the words for, that nobody had the words for. But, just before, at the very moment of release, he heard a quiet sound, the very first sound that there ever was.

BARE

It began to pick up speed. The earth was formed, he whisked past the blob of protein again, saw fish, reptiles, animals mating, meteors, fire, skeletons, ash, a cathedral of some kind, a man stood before a crowd of thousands, his own birth, his death, here tonight on the lawn of the artist beside his plastic flamingo, and then on, the future, spacecraft, bizarre creatures and then –

The end. A drifting, vapid winking out of life. As the last bacteria curled up and crinkled, and the universe became its own morgue, he heard another sound, the complement to that first, the sound that ends all life.

REE

BARE and REE. Barry took a moment, and then realised what you and I already have. His name was the universe. Beginning and end, alpha and omega (a phrase he had heard his grandfather say at the dinner table, but did not understand), Barry was all. He was briefly proud, at the cosmic sentience of his mother, but then he remembered that he had never really liked her, and besides his back was broken, and he might have soiled himself after that fart. And he knew something else, then. Something worse. He did not know how he could know it, but he did. He remembered that his wife had never called him by his full name. The night he had met her, she had been drunk, and immediately saddled him with the contraction, and he had never corrected her. That single syllable, the birth of the universe, had accompanied her llama-like laugh all through their relationship.

BARE. BARE. BARE.

He barely remembered what colour eyes she had, sometimes, and now he remembered that. A new scaffold of pain shot through his shoulders, and he marvelled at how interesting it was, to feel something. The pain brought something else. Another secret.

He knew that his name was important now. More than important. And unwittingly or not, his wife had performed a function as galactically important as the supernovaing of stars; she had never said the fateful syllable. If she had, if she had ever finished his name, she would have finished everything. It was just as well that she was so annoying; all this time, she had saved the universe every day.

He knew that everything would be alright. She would never say it. His name was the cipher of everything that had ever been. He held the code that would destroy galaxies in his ridiculous, spiteful name, the name that his mother had given him because she had hated pinecones so much.

Later on, when he had lost a lot more blood, the ambulances came. The artist must have looked out through his fug of smoke to see his builder spreadeagled in the grass. He heard the women, all the paramedics women, murmuring that they couldn't lift him, that he would die if they lifted him, and they stood around awkwardly, waiting for the crane to arrive, while the artist crept between them with steaming mugs of tea, trying to invite them up to his bedroom.

He was on the cusp of going, his eyes fluttering shut, safe in the knowledge that everything would be alright without him, when his wife appeared. She leant over him, eyes full and crinkled, lip quivering, apparently in love with him. She did not say it very often. Her tears fell on his lip, and he wished more than anything that he could move, and wipe them away.

The blue lights danced in her highlights, and the strange, growling whispers of the female paramedics provided a background hiss to what she whispered to him, just as everything stopped.

"Oh, Bare. Oh my precious Bare. Oh, Barr-"

Also Titled, _Milk_

Barry the milkman had one thought every morning: who the fuck still gets milk delivered? Seriously. It's right there in the supermarket. Why was he necessary? He should have been made obsolete a long time ago.

It should be noted that Barry had an almost impressive amount of self-loathing. He did not care for the intricacies of human life, that some people would prefer tradition, or the personal touch, or even not having to put up with the one-half-second of disgust when opening a plastic milk bottle and having that slight resistance from milk crust. No, Barry was objective. And that, like most people who claim objectivity as the most important trait a human can have, meant that he was a dull, dour, stubborn husk. Barry did not like emotion. He would rather watch the superbikes.

And as such, he was the rebel-without-a-cause of the milk delivery world. No pleasantries with customers. It was a transaction, not a friendship. He would have his headphones in, listening to rock music. Calling it classic rock would be doing it too much of a service – it was merely old. If he saw a customer outside of the work environment, he would blank them. At Christmas, he would be left tips, which he would refuse. You would not tip the checkout girl. Why should he be any different? At best, he confused his customers. At worst, he terrified them. He did not gain any pleasure from this. After all, he was an objective man.

That all changed one day, thanks to Mrs Tillman. Sweet old Mrs Tillman. A kind old lady. Almost a stereotype of the retired madam. She had been a customer for fifteen years. During that time, Barry had grown fat, bald. He had been to the doctors to get five warts removed. His wife had left him. Her decision to leave him for Derek, the James Hunt of the world of postmen, was entirely objective. Each of the cacti Barry had bought since had died – seven, in total. Meanwhile, Mrs Tillman had remained the same. Just tall enough to still be allowed on rollercoasters, not that she had ever been on one. Hair grey, still with a hint of blonde. Thick-rimmed glasses, exaggerating the slight and constant worry in her eyes. She was lovely. Barry had no need for her.

However, one morning, he had a problem. He delivered her milk, two bottles, and went back to his cart. It would not start. He tried several times. Barry fancied himself as a bit of an electrician on the side. He knew he could fix it. He just needed a bit of help. He went back to Mrs Tillman's house, knocked on the door. It was early, but as said before, Mrs Tillman was the archetype of the little old lady. She was up. She was bound to be.

And sure enough, she answered, already shalled in an oversized cardigan.

"Yes? Oh, hello Barry! How are you, my dear?"

"Hello. Cart broken down. Could I borrow a tool kit?" Deadpan. Objective.

"Why of course! Come on in." She exclaimed, pulling the door wider. Barry entered, no word of thanks, his belly pressing past her. Mrs Tillman picked up her milk and followed him inside.

"I believe it's in the other room. Sure Arthur had one lying about."

Barry did not know who Arthur was. Dead husband. Son who left home. Dead son.

Mrs Tillman went down the main entrance hall, into a back room covered in shelves. She started rooting, mild clangs and thuds as she searched.

There was no flirting behind Barry's next statement, you understand. Only curiosity. He just wanted to know something. A fact.

"Mrs Tillman," he said, "how do you stay looking so young?"

The clanging stopped. Mrs Tillman shuffled into the next room.

"I mean, you've looked this way for fifteen years. Around mid sixties. But you must be at least eighty, ninety by now."

"Well, you are very kind to say so, dear. And I do have a little technique. Would you like to see?"

Barry agreed. For science.

"Well, come along then!" Mrs Tillman beckoned him, led him upstairs.

Barry noticed the smell as they reached the first floor corridor. A festering rot, one thousand unclogged drains, offal left out in the sun. He held his nose, didn't want to speak in case of inhaling more of the foul stench than necessary. Mrs Tillman led him to a door, floral patterned, and pushed it open. The bathroom. The smell overpowering. The room was immaculate (and lavender) except for one thing. The bath.

It was filled to the brim with a congealed mess. A layered congealed mess. Built over time.

"What is this?" Barry asked, speech muted by the fingers still over his nose.

"This is my secret!" Mrs Tillman sighed, sweetly. She opened the new milk bottles, and poured the two pints on top of the substance. She then took off her cardigan, and everything else. Naked, she sprightly hopped into the bath with a slurp of suction, and let out a long exhale. The secret to her youth – fifteen years of delivered milk, built up over time.

"Well," she said, playing with the slop. "Don't be shy. Hop on in."

Barry was usually the first person awake in their house, but he slept in the Monday before Declan, his son, started secondary school. It being that rare British treat of a bank holiday, a Monday not spent in the office, he felt he deserved it even though he rarely slept in, his body conditioned to rise for work even when work was held off for a day. He'd gotten to bed late on the Sunday before, however, as he'd been kept awake by the sounds of foxes in their garden.

Despite his best efforts to keep the beasts away and the ever increasing amount of money spent on repellent products, he couldn't get rid of them. Most nights they could be heard, screaming and howling like dogs being boiled, but last night had been a cacophony like no other - a foul, violent orgy from the sound of it. When Barry eventually slept the months of weariness built up from commuting finally hit his body, and he snored for almost ten hours.

He was awoken by his wife, Suzanne, around ten in the morning. He opened his eyes to find her face, beautiful despite the morning's red puffiness, looking sombre.

"The foxes had quite a party last night." She said. "Did they now?" Said Barry, sitting up.

"They...got to Benny and Billy."

"Shit. Did Dec see?"

"I think so. When I came down he was looking out of the window, and then when I came in he just turned around and said Good Morning as if nothing had

happened."

"And now?"

"He's reading in the sitting room. I told him to stay in there until you came down."

"Keep him in there, I'll sort out the garden." "Thanks." She kissed him on the forehead. "Coffee?"

"Sure."

He hauled himself out of bed, put on a dressing gown and followed her downstairs.

He found Declan in the front room, still in his pyjamas, curled up on the sofa reading The Hobbit, which had been a gift from Barry for his birthday last week. He was engrossed, so Barry didn't disturb him; he was keen to see the damage done to the garden and to clear it up as quickly as possible. Benny and Billy had been Declan's guinea pigs, and they'd both died two weeks ago and caused a flood of tears and howling from Declan that Barry hoped never to see repeated.

Barry knew as soon as he entered the dining room and saw the garden through the French windows that there was no way Declan hadn't seen what had happened. The lawn, which he'd cut last week and was still short, was littered with what could have been miscellaneous, nondescript garbage from a torn binbag as usually was found after a fox party, but were unmistakably an assort ment of small, grey bones. It could, perhaps, have been the remnants of a KFC, but the sheer quantity was staggering; Barry had no idea that guinea pigs had that many bones. What was clearly not, or had never been, part of a chicken was the roughly tennis-ball sized lump of brown fur that sat, surrounded by flecks of crayon-like blood, on the beige stone patio, not a foot from the door.

Barry looked closely and then wished he hadn't; past flies and protruding bones he spotted a grey streak in the fur above the ear that marked it out as Benny, and his eye connected with Benny's, staring in death as it had done in life, blank but nervous, black and empty.

Further back were other patches of fur and flesh, and parts he could identify as Billy's hindquarters and paws, and behind them a hole underneath the hedge, the grave from which the pets' corpses had been dug up. The two sticks that Declan had arranged in a cross to mark the grave were torn asunder.

Barry sighed as Suzanne placed his coffee down on the table. "Why today, of all days?" He asked. Suzanne offered no words in return, but rubbed his shoulder before going off to play with Declan.

Barry got a pair of rubber gloves and a bin bag from the kitchen and set about picking up the bits of flesh and bone from his garden. He scrubbed the patio clean, gagging at the smell of death and fox piss. He filled in the grave, now empty, and replaced the sticks. When he came in and had washed is hands and disposed of the guinea pig bits, Suzanne called to him from the other room that Declan had something to show him.

He entered to see his son in secondary school uniform for the first time, beaming as Barry hadn't seen him beaming since before the death of Benny and Billy.

"I'm ready for big school, Dad!" he said, excitedly, thumbing in the pockets on his shiny new blazer, resplendent with the school's crest on the pocket.

"You sure look like you are!" Said Barry.

"Can we play in the garden now? I need to practice my passing for football."

"Sure, let's go. But not in your uniform."

Declan changed into shorts and a t shirt and they returned to the garden. Barry was hoping Declan wouldn't ask anything, and he didn't for the whole time they were out, passing the ball back and forth. When they finished and were heading back inside, Declan took one last look back at the grave.

"Dad," he asked, "Did the foxes dig up Benny and Billy?"

Barry looked down at his son, expecting to see him welling up, his eyes big, his lip trembling, but he was calm - nothing unusual except the flush of exercise.

"Yes, they did. I'm sorry."

"That's OK. I'm sad they're gone, but I know the foxes didn't mean to upset me. I'll miss them, but I know they've gone to a better place."

"That's right."

"What's for lunch?"

"Ask your mother?"

And, as Declan went inside, that was the end of the matter. As he closed the French window, also taking one last look at the grave, Barry knew that when Declan had told him, in his blazer and tie, that he was ready for big school, that he had been right.

The Second Title

_'My Favourite Gland'_

Jacob prayed every night. He did not have a religion as such, instead thinking of himself as a religious grazer, a jack of all faiths and a master of none. Around his neck he had the symbols of all the major creeds, and a few of the minor ones. He was ordering in some voodoo pendants to add to his growing collection. Jacob was not truly a man of prayer. But he felt that he was entitled to ask as many for help as possible, and then would pick the best deal later down the line. After all, what market doesn't need a little healthy competition? Jacob saw it as capitalism in work.

He prayed for the same things each time. For good health, for good wealth, for good food, for his children to be safe and secure, for his ex-wife to fall off a cliff onto jagged rocks, for his clothes to keep from tearing in embarrassing moments. But most of all, he prayed to his favourite gland. The pituitary gland.

See, Jacob had a job that is frowned upon in modern circles. He liked to think of himself as an ambassador for the anti-PC, a hero of the old ways of entertainment. In reality, he made money out of exploiting some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Jacob ran a freak show. So, he prayed to the pituitary gland, the gland that in certain unfortunate people would go haywire, expelling extraordinarily large – or small – amounts of human growth hormone. It was down to the pituitary gland, that tiny sack of flesh, that Jacob had the largest caravan in the commune.

Because, sure, he had other freaks. Joan, the bearded woman, always pulled in a fair crowd in each town they visited, always a mixture of those repulsed and the one of two men who were there to proposition her, a rare chance for them to live out their fetish. Marty had hard, bony spikes protruding from the left side of his face. He made the other freaks laugh when the working day was done by spearing pickled eggs on them. But on stage, in a cage, he was all about the drama, a sorrowful expression as children cried and adults looked away, embarrassed.

The best freak of the lot, though, was Arnold. Arnold, the seven-foot-five giant. Picking up kids with one hand, using oversized, novelty tools, sitting in his modified utility vehicle, the front seats taken out to give him more leg room. He was loved by the crowds, seen as a hero, a brave soul. Constantly calm, constantly chipper, constantly happy. A gentle giant.

Only, Jacob and the other freaks knew better. Sure, that was the cliché. The giant, yet gentle soul, plagued by their life. And there were plenty like that about. Jacob knew of a troupe in Paris that had Gerard, the vegetarian. A more noble soul you could never meet. Arnold was different, though. He bucked the trend. He was violent, he was mean-spirited, he was cruel. And to top it all off, he was a diva. If Jacob didn't need him to keep living in the standard of living he had grown accustomed, he would have given him his marching orders a long time ago.

The worst was what he did to Catherine. Catherine, a true gentle giant. Loved by all, particularly Jacob. They had dated, briefly, until they realised that they both needed that separation of work and private life. That, and Jacob could not bear to be the little spoon, as comforting as Catherine's six-foot-nine frame was.

But it was not just them. She was loved by the other freaks, too. Always one of them, a great protector. When on the streets of Crewe, Joan had been accosted by a group of youths, throwing what remained of their greasy, dripping lunch at her, seeing if food stuck in a woman's beard as well as it did a man's. Catherine arrived, out of nowhere, and with one threatening growl the lads ran, scampering off towards some other poor sod to target. Catherine looked out for everyone.

And this angered Arnold. He could not bear that he was not the centre of attention. Even on carnival posters they were placed alongside each other, married for the sake of entertainment. In truth, they hated each other. But that made them no different from most celebrity couples. They barely spoke, only remaining in the same tent for their own shows. Afterwards, Catherine would return to her friends and colleagues, and Arnold would go to bed, alone.

One night, Arnold decided to get his own back. He pulled favours, threatened, bribed the other acts, got all the items he needed. Ether from the fun house, a clown's hundred, tied together handkerchiefs, a ghoul's mask from the ghost train, and most importantly, two blades from the magician, Zork, capable of cutting through flesh and bone. All parts of his devilish plan procured, he broke in to Catherine's caravan.

You wouldn't think it, but giants can be quiet, stealthy, when needed. They are not hulking beasts, but are capable of controlling their slender frames with great subtlety. Perhaps that is why no-one noticed him as the caravan door swung open and gently closed.

The rest of what happened is guesswork. But Jacob knew this much. Arnold was seen leaving the caravan at five in the morning. Catherine was awoken late, at ten. It was time for them to leave, as Doncaster beckoned. The poor assistant screamed, immediately in floods of tears. Catherine had been reduced to a paltry six-foot-four, her legs removed from above the knee. Two crude tourniquets, multicoloured handkerchiefs now covered in darkened red, were tied above each wound. On her face, a ghoul mask, stinking of ether.

Thankfully, Catherine survived. Jacob rushed her to the hospital, where she was put in intensive care. But there was no time to wait. The show had to go on. Jacob would occasionally hear from her, by note from other carnivals, but he would never see her again. Like so many of those for whom the pituitary gland had acted overeager, her life span was dramatically reduced. The loss of her legs did not kill her, but the tumour did.

And all the while, from the day after her attack until the day she died, Arnold was there, safe in the knowledge that he was all they relied upon. He was visibly happier from the first show that he had been able to do alone. A smugness that never left him, the self-satisfaction that only one kind of person can have – one that realises that they can treat others as simple commodities and get away with it. Arnold's happiness did not make him a kinder man. Instead, he was crueller, more vicious. He threw Saffron, a dwarf with six fingers on her left hand, into a wall after she beat him at a game of Rummikub. He broke the arm of a poor carnie boy after the child had accidentally spilled hot toffee from his candied apple stall on Arnold's shoes.

But worst of all was his act. Arnold, the poor widower, bravely continuing in spite of the tragic attack on his wife. He was more loved by the audience than ever before. Whenever he was pitied, he would simply state "well, the show must go on" and was met by a plethora of sympathetic sighs. He took a new partner in each town, and spent the evenings making love to them within earshot of Jacob's caravan. It was worse in the cold months.

So Jacob did what he could to get by. He tried to distract himself by throwing himself into camaraderie with the other freaks, but there was still that divide of the employer and the employee. He tried the other tents, but he was viewed by suspicion by the other carnival controllers. So, he mainly prayed, every night before he went to sleep. Praying to the pituitary gland. Praying to have another giant as kind as Catherine.

One night, though, he prayed for something else. He prayed for forgiveness for what he was about to do. After he finished, he went to the other attractions. There were no favours to pull, barely any words to be spoken. He saw the shame in eyes of the other acts, saw that they would help how they could. A hammer from the roller coaster attendants, nails from the hall of mirrors, a box large enough for a seven-foot-five frame from the team of carpenters that followed the carnival. The keys to the digger from the carnival chiefs. And lots and lots of ether.

He entered the tent of the other freaks. They all knew that it was their time, as soon as he uttered two, simple words.

"For Catherine."

I'd been wanting to ask Melinda out for some months, but hadn't found the right way to do it. I'd had the same conversation over and over with all of my friends: "Just, when you're walking out of class," they'd say, "just stop her and ask if she wants to go for a drink. That's it. Simple as that."

But it wasn't that simple. She could read that any number of ways – that I'm an alcoholic (I'm not – I barely drink); that I enjoy bars and clubs (I don't); that I want to get her drunk (I don't). It just seemed wrong: too cheap, too obvious, and not a good way to express my feelings for her. It seemed inadequate, insubstantial. I'd also not had much luck with girls before, though it's difficult to ask them for a drink when you're seventeen and all the bards in town have bouncers that menace the night's revellers like rhinoceri, even if any of the local girls had been interested in dating a sixth-former still trying desperately to grow stubble that didn't look like he'd drawn it on with a Sharpie.

I'd thought I'd been in love before, as teenagers do under the influence of Morrissey and Flaubert, but I knew I hadn't been once I found Melinda. She sat next to me in our first lecture as medical students, exuding the nervous energy of not knowing whether to sit in the seat next to me, as the lecture theatre was likely to be full, or to leave a gap and remain aloof. In the end she sat next to me and smiled, and the consistent brush of her hip against mine throughout the lecture proved fatal to my ability to take notes.

After that day it seemed she was everywhere I went: in all of my classes, in the queue for the campus café, in the bookshop in town, under the tree in the field between campus and town. I began to wake up every day wondering if I'd see her somewhere in the coming hours, and as the term drew closer to Christmas I knew I had to take my flatmate's advice and "make a move."

I was, of course, still unsure as to whether she liked me as more than a friend. All of our coursemates, or at least the ones I'd spoken to about it in the small hours after evenings out, thought she did. We laughed together in class, at the professors' bad jokes and the bizarre illustrations in our textbooks. She was warm, and I felt relaxed in her company, but we'd never been together for more than a few minutes in a social setting. I still needed to find out for sure whether she liked me, and eventually a way to find out with just one simple question appeared in my head.

We'd been studying glands that week and learning all their various locations and functions. We'd laughed at some of them, pulled mock-sick faces at others, and caused our exasperated professor to sigh. The one that made us laugh the most, for reasons only half understood, was the sweat gland. It was most likely the illustration, a zooming in on a fat man's armpit, that caused it, setting us off giggling for some minutes. Remembering this, I decided to ask her just one question. After the next class, I would ask her:

"What's your favourite gland?"

If she said the sweat gland, I'd know we had a true connection.

When we got to the next lecture after I'd made my plan we fell in together and sat together, like the day we met. Her hip rubbed mine again, closer this time, for longer, and once again I couldn't concentrate. I glanced over at her and she caught my eye and smiled. She'd never looked more beautiful – flushed cheeks beneath defined cheekbones, eyes large and chestnut, still wearing her beret from outside, her hair long and tousled from the rain. I couldn't wait until after class.

I scribbled a note to her on a page in my notebook and tore it off noisily. I passed it to her whilst pretending to concentrate on the lecturer, looking straight forward. She saw it and snorted with laughter, drawing the yes of the professor and a few other students. She maintained composure, however, and put on a front of deep concentration while she began to doodle on the note. I glanced over and she hid the note under hand, not wanting me to see her working. Eventually she passed it back, looking forward like I was. I glanced down at the note when the professor's back was turned.

She had drawn, in a surprisingly lifelike yet pointedly cartoonish style, a shirtless moustachioed man, with an arrow pointing to his armpit, which was overflowing with long, bushy hairs. I sniggered and wrote hastily on the paper, "mine too." And then, pausing only for a second, I wrote underneath it, "drink after class?"

She paused after reading this, looking at me, still one the edge of giggling, and simply nodded.

As disgusting as it sounds, the sweat gland is now my favourite gland, because it reminds me of the moment I knew she liked me back. Now, whenever I treat a particularly sweaty patient, I think of my wife, and it makes every second of a difficult job totally worth it.

And then the wave came. Out beyond the lagoon, in the open ocean, it looked enormous, but the two headlands jostled it and moulded it into a lazy burp that barely bobbed me as it came. I sat two hundreds metres out from shore, sat in the ground-shell sand, and my chin still did not go below the water. I was so warm, I wanted to fall asleep, but I did not want to become a legend.

There were others, who had died in this paradise. They had come here to bathe, and shout and splash, but the beauty of the place, the trees clinging to the rocks, the vines trailing in the water, the occasional rodeo of rainbow parrot fish that shoaled in, hiding from the sharks, made them just stop, and sit. They would watch the recreational light, never put to anything as commonplace as illumination, over the water, the sun dipping, and before long it would be night, and they would be floating facedown, bobbing in that lackadaisical surf.

No, I had to remain alert. I pinched my arm, rubbed the powdered coral over my insect bites, snapped my bikini strap. At any minute it could appear, reveal itself with a wave. I had been looking for him for over twenty years, in amongst the bowels of rats, the pituitaries of rare insects, some of which, in Borneo, had been the size of rats, and even in the torsos of men. Willing men, of course. I was a scientist.

But no matter where I looked, my favourite gland in the entire world remained elusive. I did not know its colour, what shape it was, where the veins and the sphincters joined it, but I knew that it was out there. I had tasted it.

Borneo, that was it. The rats had reminded me. I had visited so many tribes over the years, been drawn in a sort of pulley rickshaw through cloud forest after cloud forest, that even the term 'cloud forest' ceased to hold any pleasure for me. I had walked around Uluru naked with a group of very patient Aboriginals (I refused to call them anything else) and eaten the hot blood out of a trapped lion's neck in Chad. I had endured every pointless ritual laid out before me, as part of my search. What nobody knew, and perhaps one of the reasons that I was often alone, was that I had had something done my labia, in Kenya, which still made it difficult to go to the toilet, and which I decided never to look at again. Down there, it was all just so much waste now, like butcher's cuttings. The sea here, as all seas have, was dulling the throb, and I could think a little better.

After the rituals, after the humiliations and the cackles at the white woman's thin arse and all the other strange confidences of people in their own villages, in their own time, there was usually a trip to be had. The hallucinations were sampled through a variety of pipettes – a sharp stick inserted into the arm, a smoke inhaled, a drink, a cake of blood and herbs, spit passed from mouth to mouth. I had done it so many times, that I was inured to it, and I saw it as just another part of the job. My employers wanted this gland that I had made my favourite very, very much, and were willing to pay me, and to a lesser extent the natives, an awful lot of money to procure it in quantity. Unfortunately, they did not know where it could be found. All they knew is that it existed, and that what it excreted, as all glands do, was a complete nightmare.

It wasn't they who had made the gland male; it was me. I was a straight woman, and I knew that it would annoy my dopehead father to reinforce the patriarchy like that. When I was drunk, in some bar or sitting on a dirt airstrip waiting for the last plane to land, I would often doodle it with a moustache and top hat. That is what a man looks like, I thought. That is what I can reduce him to.

The waves are getting up. That storm they promised on the news is coming.

When the visions came, wherever I was, I knew what I was looking for. It was looking; the gland's liquor gave you a certain something, a certain warm glow which buoyed you up higher than anything that a dullard, whinging popstar might ingest. In colours, it was a deep green, a manly green, a green of my father's old leather chair, an ironic tribute to his father the Tory Whig. I had tasted it, from a petri dish, in my employer's labs. That petri dish represented the greatest collected quantity of the gland's expression anywhere in the world. That petri dish could have paid off much of the national debt that had accrued in the Western hemisphere since the Second World War, and a large dollop of it had been placed on my tongue. It was clear, of course, but I was soon thrown up against a wall of green. The hallucination was not religious, or sexual. It was almost marine; green, swaying fronds, as if I was underwater, and then a hand, reaching out to take mine. It was bigger than mine, a man's hand. I would never forget those twelve hours that I was gone, and when I came back, I had my mission, and the next eighteen year's of my life mapped out before me.

Find the gland. Locate the animal. Bring back a sample. Make ten men and women very rich.

Eighteen years of travelling, of having ten houses where I did not always remember where the shower was. Of doing cabin safety demonstrations in my sleep, of knowing where to buy a gun in every airport. On and on, through trip after trip, drug after drug, ceremony after ceremony. I would approach the next village, the locals full of that eager arrogance when they saw the white woman approach, so naïve and innocent. They did not know how riddled I was. I never had the chance to become an addict, as I never tried anything more than once. The morning after the drug was administered, I would note its origin, the effects of my trip, and move on, rubbing at new scars or stemming a new nosebleed.

Every transcendent experience I have ever had, with the exception of that one time in a clean lab with a pipette suckering my tongue, has been brown. Brown and female. A fug of bad breath, vomit, stupidity and getting stupider. Many of these products form religions around them, priesthoods who are the only ones allowed to toke, or inject, or sniff or suck. Every one is the same, all across the world. It is a little depressing, actually. I haven't the heart to tell them how boring it all is.

I don't know why I see drugs in colour and gender. Perhaps it is why I was employed. But there is something very primal amongst all these primitives, and it is not a good thing. It is boring, like tobacco. It is venerated blindly, as women have been for thousands of years. Venerated because they are different, because there are more holes, more architecture to them, because they are so very mysterious and coy. It is all a lot of rubbish. I am a woman, and I do not feel like a goddess most of the time. I just feel very very tired. I have been prodded and poked and groped and administered for most of my adult life, and I do not feel like anybody should form a faith around me. And yet they all do, and they scrape leaves or burn roots or bleed frogs to find a good trip to go with it.

I rock on my rump in the water, keeping my arms flat at their sides, oddly relishing how hot it still is, under each of them. The waves have a little white to their crests now, and it looks more like home. I am a long way from home. I hear monkeys in the trees on each headland, calling to each other like competing lighthousemen without the gumption to make fire, and behind me there is the complaint of a rhino, static in the forest like a ruin. It is not time to go back to shore just yet.

Tomorrow, after eighteen years of searching, I will be fired. I am not supposed to know this. Somebody back home sent me the papers by accident. They will be fired too, but it won't change a thing. Eighteen years of investment, of travelling the world, of trying every ethnogen under the sun, and they do not have their potion. The clear liquid, from some hidden organ, for some hidden purpose, that will make them extremely rich. I have nothing to give them, and I cannot lie. I have ruled out the primates, and because of its effects I am sure that it comes from a male animal. I have even done microscopic analysis of every pool of mud, every latrine, that I could find south of the equator, in case the liquid did not come from a gland at all, but was rather a cocktail of something sewer-like. But no, I'm sure it is from a gland.

A bird? Something that helps them fly?

A snake? To make their prey pliable and placid?

A man? An organ forgotten, hidden under the pelvis, as useless as the appendix?

I sit in the water, and it all does not matter. I am very lonely, anyway, and it might be nice to try something else. There is not really much else that I could experience, though. That thought does not warm me up, with the Indian ocean spicing over me, losing heat with every second closer to night. I will receive the phonecall in six hours, I think, as I hug my knees up to my chest. There are no stars, just clouds, and I look at the scars on my arms, where once there were sores, and more bug bites, and nips from village dogs tied to a brieze block with string. I was never very attractive to begin with, and all this journeying has only made things worse. I am not old, and cannot get too pensive; I might live for another fifty years. But, with everything I have taken, that is a lottery at best.

I forget, in that instant, about all the fascinating people I have met, transformed into boredom by their sheer weight; the pierced lips and ears, the stretched necks and lobes, the scarified breasts and legs, the mutilation, the grinning, the different-coloured skins. All mixed together, they only make that same brown that I still see, every time I shut my eyes. And so I think of green fronds waving, and a man's hand reaching out to take mine.

And now, all of a sudden, there it is. My eyes are open but the beach and the lagoon and the clouds and the sea and the storm are all gone, and I am against that wall of breathing, masculine grass. It does not smell of anything, but it treats me so well, so kindly and gently, I just fall into it. I forget about the job, my pending unemployment, the wasted life, and just let it caress me. I feel like a tiny fish, caught by an anemone, injected with a poison that just makes a little sleep, and I go limp, I stop breathing, I wait.

And there it comes. The big hand, reaching out of the wall, five fingers splayed, coming to take mine and lead me away.

I am so very warm, and I cannot feel the water anymore.

But then, there are the clouds, and the waves are gone. The water only ripples. I look below the water, and see that there is a hand, indistinct and pink, taking mine. I am clutching it as if we are walking along at night, like lovers. It seems to grow out of the pale sand, as if that someone that I have always been looking for has found me. The fingertips press to mine.

The starfish coils around my palm, and from each of its suckers a droplet of clear liquid, each worth as much as I would make in a lifetime, swills into my veins.

I let it twist and coil, and all of a sudden feel very, very safe.

The fronds dance.

 The Guest Title

Conducted Away From Home Base, In Devon

_'Death Of A Clown'_

Most people have something to say about the issue of parents. I've seen politicians on TV talking about how important mothers are, how good the work of a parent is to support a family, and how much of a backbone families are to this country. Off of the TV, I think a lot of people rely on their parents. Parents love their children and would do anything to keep them safe and happy. Children learn about the world from their parents. I guess most people think families are full of love and warmth and in the end we all want to keep each other safe.

I never had that type of relationship with my own parents. On the first hand, mum was dead, and it was a bit hard to bring a corpse along on field trips as chaperone or to invite your friends over for corpse-baked bookies after school or have your corpse mum drive you to your football games after school. So that was a bit different. And dad did his best, I think, but once he realized it was just going to be the two of us sailing into the sunset for all eternity I think he started to go a bit weird. Or maybe he was always weird and it's just that I got old enough to finally see it. But it was a bit rough to explain to my friends that I couldn't come round their place because I had to help my father practice his clown routine. Most of my grade-school lunches were marked with the cheerful and inevitably awkward conversations following the lines of, "My father the fireman..." and "My mothers, the veterinarians..." and "Well, my father, the clown..." None of the other kids quite knew how to respond to that, and soon, I wasn't sure how to respond to it either.

We did all right on our own, my dad and me. It was weird, without a doubt, but I know he loved me in his own way, whether it was the traditional whoopee cushion gag at the breakfast table or a trick flower to greet me when I got home from school. Sometimes I think maybe he just didn't know how to be normal, and that was as close as he could get. I don't blame him for not dropping his career the minute mum left. I think a man can hold down a job and raise a kid at the same time. But I do think it went to his head a bit, whether it was the clown job or just mum's death. But sometimes it was hard knowing every other kid had a normal childhood and mine was filled with facepaint and slapstick humor and general buffoonery.

I admit that I had grown a bit resentful during my teenage years, and I might have been a bit harsh with him at that time. His career was pretty sad, and he never got much work, probably because clowns had jumped the shark and become a dated trapping of "the good old days" and times gone by. The new trend in the clown business was horror, and more and more of his friends were shipping out for haunted houses and corn mazes. Not dad, though. He wanted to stay true to the nature of the art, or so he said. Personally, I think he just wasn't cut out for all that gory business, especially not after mum. So he struggled on, landing the odd birthday party here and there, visiting elementary schools and practising his pie-in-the-face routines and probably hoping every day that things would get better. It was pretty bleak.

By the time I started attending community college, I knew better than to tell people about my dad's job. Hearing about a dead mum was bad enough on people, but hearing about a clown father morphed that pity into something grotesque. One time I was really serious about this girl Lauren, after we'd spent an entire semester failing mathematics class together. We liked to go and get coffee after class and make fun of our teacher, a bearded lady from Tallahassee with a thick German accent. One time she came round to get a coffee after class and Lauren and I just about died from the hysterics. Anyway Lauren came over to my place one time to work on a presentation, and I was leery about the whole thing because of my dad, but I'd gone ahead anyway because he was supposed to be out at a gig. Well what would you know, just as I'm offering Lauren something to eat my dad squishes in, half-naked and dripping onto the kitchen floor, hollering at the top of his lungs about doing parties on riverboats. Needless to say Lauren was out of my house before I could say 'boy howdy,' and after that she didn't talk to me much.

After that there was a bit of strain on our relationship and I didn't think there was much going back. But the next week wouldn't you know, my dad went to the pound and brought home a terrier. At first I didn't believe him, because when I was little, every time I'd asked for a pet he'd made me one out of a balloon, and these balloon animal pets never lasted more than two weeks because the air ended up escaping and the balloon started going limp, like my kitten or bird had suddenly started losing limbs. So that was pretty bad. But then my dad brought home this real live dog, and at first I thought it was an honest effort to repair our relationship, but then he started trying to teach the dog all sorts of tricks as if hoping the dog could help out with his routines. I loved that dog, and I think it kind of worked, only the dog was terrible with all sorts of tricks so unless my dad wanted to make the kids laugh by being purposefully inept, it wasn't going to work out. So my dad gave up and let me keep the terrier as a pet, and that was the first time we really saw eye to eye about something without the help of a serf lens.

My dad knew things were getting bad when he went three solid months without getting a gig and then it was time for my graduation. I didn't want to graduate, but mostly because when I had graduated high school he had shown up in his clown outfit and tried to entertain the guests. Then on that morning he said to me that he was thinking of applying for unemployment. I said, dad, you just keep looking for work. I'll get a job and we'll make it work. I guess that was pretty sweet to him because he didn't answer but toddled off to the couch. Later, when I got home from graduation, I saw that he had left behind his disguise glasses so I tried them on for a bit and actually liked them.

He didn't last for much after that, I hate to say. After I got a job helping out at the waste treatment plant down the road, we had enough money to get by, but he couldn't get any more jobs for a while. Finally I nudged him into trying out for one of those haunted houses and he got it on probationary status, but he blew it after the first night when he pulled out a banana cream pie instead of a chainsaw. So that was rough on him and he started to live on the couch a bit more, with the terrier at his feet and his props scattered around him as if he might jump up and start playing again at any time. But he never did, and pretty soon, he was dead too.

I still sit on the couch sometimes, and the terrier keeps me company. He chewed on dad's old trick flower for a while, but once it got him right in the face, so he left it alone after that. I think about dad sometimes, and all of the things I must have missed out on, like camping trips and chaperones and take-your-kid-to-work day. Sometimes I resent it, because it seems like I never got to be a normal kid, and sometimes I think maybe Lauren might have stuck around if my dad hadn't come into the kitchen that one time. But then I get to thinking, and remember that at least it was pretty cool that I could wear a disguise to school and the teachers didn't recognize me behind me new nose and moustache, or that I had as many pets as I wanted, or that when all the other kids were stopped from eating all their candy I had pies and pies and pies. Sometimes I'm not even sure if I miss my dad or if I'm glad he's gone, because it's been years since I've had a pie smashed in my face, and I haven't seen a balloon in ages. Sometimes I just want to sit on the couch for a bit and wear my disguise glasses because I think that's what he would have done.

The funeral march blared, played on a collection of novelty car horns, shrill, sharp. The hearse had just arrived. A Mini Cooper. Black. The doors opened, and Bobo pulled himself out, his normally vibrant rainbow suit replaced by monochrome. The red, blue, yellow polka dots were white on the black polyester. His face paint, normally thick, red lips, was instead a variety of subtle greys, the fabricated smile instead turned down into a frowning maw. Bobo wiped away a fake tear, and stepped aside.

Another clown left the Mini. Coko, his rotund frame forced into a suit, cummerbund straining. Then Archie. Then Isembard. Six clowns later, and finally the Cooper was empty. Except for one thing. Bobo, with Isembard's help, reached into the back of the car, and pulled out the coffin. Poor Tito. He had left them too soon. It was always the way with the extreme slapstick clowns. They burned so brightly, and so fast, a blaze of barb wire cream pies and acid seltzer.

Bobo pondered, as he carried the coffin into the big top tent, an accordion's slur calling from inside. His feet so small inside their giant, polished shoes. Tito was gone. One of his oldest friends. Yet there was something wrong about the way he had passed away. It was not the usual accident – no catastrophic balloon animal failure, no fifty-foot fall whilst tumbling in dangerous conditions. No, there was something off.

Tito had been found impaled by seven throwing knives in his training room, strapped to a spinning wheel. This was not the problem – everyone knew that Tito was working on a new act, something normally only reserved for the magicians of his show. But the issue was: how exactly was Tito able to skewer himself? They did not find an automaton, a modified baseball auto-pitcher. Unless Tito had somehow created boomerang knives, someone else must have thrown them.

The detectives did not find anything. They never did, when a clown died in suspicious circumstances. There were too many oddities on show, too many variables. One time, the wonderful Alfonso, a poet of the world of clowns, full of whimsy and zany actions, was found dead in his summer house. His novelty door buzzer, which normally sprayed water, had been spiked with anthrax. The police had no leads. It must have either been his last great prank, or perhaps a jealous ex-lover. There are a number of people who refer to themselves as the Clown Groupies. They did not take rejection well.

Then there was Chuckles. Overdosed on laughing gas in his apartment. They had all expected it of him, to be honest. He had always been the black sheep of the clown syndicate, turning up drunk to children's parties, deliberately using the consensus feeling that clowns are a little scary to spread fear in communities, wearing his make-up and outfit outside of work hours. He broke many parts of the clown code, those laws passed down from the great post-war clown masters. But still, he was an intelligent man. He knew his limits. And there was the matter of the duct tape wrapped around his hands and feet, and across the breathing apparatus feeding poison into his lungs.

Jemima, queen of the clowns, neck broken in a tragic trapeze accident. Camembert, the high-society fool, choking on large quantities of fois gras. Doctor Funnybones, the educational clown, teaching children about the dangers of the world of silent entertainment, found electrocuted by his novelty defibrillator.

There were too many deaths, over too few months. It could not just be coincidence.

Bobo placed the coffin down. Oh, Tito. The tears started to flow now, as he went to take his seat and placed his aching frame on a whoopee cushion. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, which turned into a string of hundreds. He passed it down the line of his brethren, each passing the lead cloth to the end of the row. They blew their noses in unison.

It was a beautiful service. All the speeches were mimed eloquently. Even the priest, who had always been a reserved man even though his parish moved with the carnival, was in the clown spirit, setting off a string of fireworks that spelled out Tito's name. Eventually, it was time to leave. Tito had wanted to be cremated. There was no place in the ground for clowns. The coffin was pushed into the furnace. It would be used to power at least some of the acts – the cotton candy machine, the grills, the fun house. It was what Tito wanted. He was returned to the carnival to which he had given his all, and that had given to him in return.

And with that, it was time to leave. It was only a matter of time before someone broke character, spoke out loud, and Bobo did not want to be around for that. It was not becoming. Instead, he went back to the Mini Cooper, opened up the boot, and took out a tricycle. His transport home.

It was dark by the time Bobo arrived back to his flat. The journey had taken hours, but he did not mind. It had given him time to think, and the exercise involved was what kept Bobo in his svelte form. Clowns have pride in their appearance, too. For they are not always in make-up. He thought about de-clowning, going through the strenuous process of removing all traces of his true self, and returning to what has now his alter ego: Malcolm Peterson, 48, mild-mannered former accountant. No family. A small abode above a Chinese takeaway.

Instead, he wanted to live the dream a little longer. He kept his outfit on, the oversized shoes flip-flopping up the stairs, slipping on the last warning bills that had come through his letterbox. He jiggled his key in the lock, accidentally squeezing his miniature car horn keyring. Tito had given it to him, a present, long ago. It made him cry once more. The door opened. He stepped inside.

He went straight to the refrigerator, opened it, the dull glow showing where the makeup had run, revealing crow's feet that stretched around his eyes. He avoided the spoiled milk, the stale bread, the green meat. There was beer at the back, ice cold. He took two, went to his armchair, put the beers in his lap, a hammock formed where his oversized trousers kept shape between his outstretched knees. He turned on the television, cracked open one of the drinks.

Bobo never watched comedies at home. They did nothing for him, nothing that could match the thrill of what he tried to achieve every day. Instead, he turned to the soap operas, losing himself in the soft-focus, the emotion. But it was too much for him, now. He could not handle it. Instead, he turned the television off, sitting in silence, the only light source coming from his still-open fridge.

That is when he noticed it, in the reflection of the black screen. A shadow behind him. Right behind him. Two hands on the back of his chair. He turned, but was stopped, the hands holding his head in place. He tried to move, but he could not get his form even an inch from the chair. He looked down at the elastic gunk that stopped him from even turning to see his assailant. Silly glue.

Instead, all he could do was sit, straight ahead, as the figure walked around to face him. A black overcoat, trilby pulled over the face. In his hands, gloved, a hand buzzer. A classic prank. Only, this one was hooked up to a car battery.

Bobo looked up to his killer, mouthing the word "why" over and over. The killer dropped his method of death, threw his hat to one side, dropped his coat on the floor. A black and white striped jumper. Thick, tight trousers. White and red makeup. A mime. The murderer grinned, shark teeth, and made jazz hands.

And Bobo understood. Old tribes. Old enemies. The old ways die hard.

"Thank you for your kindness."

Steve brushed down his coat and staggered to his feet. People continued to rush past into the mouth of a nearby tube station, ignoring the gaunt man in full clown makeup who slumped against the wall.

They knew he was drunk, he knew he was drunk, and the rapidly advancing policeman definitely knew it.

"Are you okay sir?" He asked Steve, as he fluffed his fake flower back into shape. His tone was anything but concerned.

"I'm...fine," mumbled Steve. "Just slipped, that's all."

He pointed down to his feet and the oversized shoes that squeaked and wheezed.

"Not the most appropriate footwear, sir."

"Yeah well, your hat makes you look like a tit, so neither of us are the King of Spain, are we?"

"Move along sir. Get some rest, and if you're feeling up to it, get a better job."

With that, the policeman disappeared as Steve was left murmuring abuse to no-one.

"I'll have you know I graduated the top of my clown class and got my Masters in balloon animals. Bendy Steve they called..."

Steve waved his hand dismissively.

"Ah, fuck it."

Steve stumbled past the glowing lights of the tube entrance and felt a warm stale air rush up to meet him. More people surged past, the few teens in the crowd pointed and laughed at the drunk, multicoloured mess. Steve curtseyed as they guffawed and mocked, and even smiled as they took photos. One went up to him and posed for another shot, and Steve whispered in his ear.

"Keep laughing, just keep laughing."

The boy quickly moved away, rejoined his friends, and disappeared into the latest rush of commuters. Music began to resonate along the hallway, and as Steve rounded another tiled corner he spotted a young black musician furiously pressing keys on a ragged Casio keyboard. His voice was beautiful and Steve felt a warm surge through him. As he relaxed, he could feel the notes permeate his being, and the warmth rose even more.

It was only at the point where his stomach heaved that he realised this warmth was vomit: thick, heavy vomit that lurched from his mouth and throat, and onto the floor. It splashed up to the musician's lap and flecked his face, causing him to stop instantly. He looked at Steve, shocked and furious. Steve raised his hands in apology but his words betrayed his regret.

"Please don't take the vomit as a sign of my disapproval, 'cause you're actually," he wiped his mouth, "pretty good."

The musician continued to stare in disbelieve as Steve advanced, slipping on the now viscous floor. Steve pulled a string of hankies from his right sleeve and reached over to the young man. The musician suddenly roared into life and punched Steve square in the face, sending the clown flying.

"Lovely voice, terrible attitude though."

Steve dabbed his nose with one of his many tissues as he stumbled along another nondescript hallway. That had been quite a scene back there, he thought, but one punch had knocked him senseless, and when he came to he was alone in a space with only his sick and a bloody nose.

Some very pretty girls swept up the opposite way to Steve, laughing amongst themselves, walking at such precise speed. As they approached, Steve tipped his patchwork hat, revealing his painted bald head.

"Ladies..." He slurred.

The group of girls attempted to give him a wide berth, and one wittered.

"Oh god, clowns scare the shit out of me."

Steve turned and yelled, "There's nothing to be frightened of!"

Unfortunately he spun too far and clipped the backside of the final, leggy blonde in the group. She shrieked and the girls descended on him with a fury unmatched. Yelling at him, pushing, one even kicked his balls inside his head, and another reached inside her bag.

"I'm so-" Steve's apology was cut short as he gargled an entire content of a can of pepper spray. He dropped to the floor and curled into a ball. A stiletto heel poked through his skin on his side and the combined pain was astonishing. The clatter of heels echoed down the hallway and he was left alone for ten minutes. Not a soul passed, and for ten more minutes he writhed in agony.

Then came a laughter. Not from anyone else, but from Steve. It rose into a broken cackle and then a hoarse yell.

"People can't take a joke."

He choked, tears mixing his makeup.

The Third Title

_'A City Underwater'_

Also Titled, _Fat Fingers_

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In that first year, my fingers were slender enough to open the door, and once I realised that I was growing, that every year passing meant another ring of fat and muscle, I treated those holidays in Devon like a steeplechase, where I had to get as far as I could inside that house in the rockpool, before we had to pile back into Mum's bilious Ford Focus and drive back to Bristol. There I would wait, not really paying attention to my young life, growing bigger, like all children, wasting time.

Mum had never really forgiven her parents for being baby boomers, for sort of 'falling into' their first house at the age of 23, as they put it. It was a detached slate cottage near Totnes, within earshot of the River Dart, and she had grown up there, resenting them, knowing that she would probably never own a house of her own. The economy was always tripping over itself, and took her by the trouserleg with it, and so she never quite saved enough money, or raised enough funds, to give us somewhere permanent. Of course she did like good wine and food, and travelled a lot, but that was 'necessary', in her words. And so we lived in a bedsit in Clifton, the sun always slatted through our one dirty window by the pylons of the suspension bridge, and lived a life.

Of course, in the summer holidays, we would go down to Devon. My grandparents lived there until their death, and we would make the journey a day after school broke up, the whole way Mum making augurs as to which hideous plants they would have planted in the driveway. They always did things wrong, and she would draw them in the palpy dust on the dashboard.

That first year, it was a palm tree that she predicted. And she was right. As we pulled up the driveway, it stood in its own circular lawn, like a roundabout, fluttering in the air off the Atlantic. After her own mother died, and her father went away to a home and the house was done up as a holiday cottage (which we had to rent from the new smug Turkish owners), Mum would take to kicking that palm tree, firmly, in its roots, every time we came. I'm not sure Grandad could have taken such a shoeing, and so we should have been grateful, I suppose, that the tree got it instead.

It was only a ten minute walk along the A-Road to the nearest beach, and it was not a handsome one. A whole caravan park had collapsed into the sea the year before I was born, and they still found windbreaks of yellowing plastic or faux driftwood of formica in the sand. The cliffs were not high enough, the dunes were receding in line with Grandad's hair, and the wind always made the sunshine entirely pointless. But myself and my sister always loved it there. We would build sandcastles, but smooth off their battlements in order to replicate the modern architecture we saw on television, and chase each other in the swash, swearing the worst swears we could think of; the worst that I could think of, I remember, was 'damn shorts!', first said breathlessly when I could not pull my costume on one year, and therever after we would scream it at each other, over and over, and giggling at Mum's obliviousness.

The rockpools could not be seen from the main beach; you had to clamber around a pavement of bitter-black volcanic rock, where the waves could lick your calves, before ascending to the terrace where they were formed by the boldest spray. That first year we braved them, climbing up and into the first as if it was a hot bath. Tamsin wandered off, to find crabs to torture.

That pool, I remember, stunk of rotting seaweed, the edge upholstered with an orange anemone which, looking back, was most likely just one large creature, grown in a ring around the crevice. It was not very deep, perhaps only up to my ankles, but I squatted in it like a gangster searching for cigarette stubs, fish teleporting out of the reach of my tiny fingers.

I suppose that I never really considered the size of my hands at that age; they were just there, little bony playthings that just happened to swim into my vision every now and then. I dipped them in the water and gurgled in curiosity at how they turned purple, and imagined having hairy hands like Grandad as I let the kelp billow over my knuckles. My nails were furrowed with little white pits; Grandma said it was because we didn't eat enough vegetables.

I found the little door carved into the rock as I was tapping pebbles on the floor of the pool, trying to warn any sleeping crabs that my sister was about. It was the doorhandle I felt first; about the size of a thumbtack. I thought at first that it was a winkle, and tapped it, but then I found the seam. It ran to one side of the handle, and on the other side, there, I felt another. And I followed that seam, up and down to each side, with tiny hinges, pointed like a church door.

I would give anything, now, to have those hands back. Fingers no thicker than a pencil, no calluses in the pads (Mum could not afford guitar lessons) , I could feel absolutely everything.

I knew that it was a door, and I don't think I found anything odd in that, at the time. In fact, I got up and forgot about it, decided not to open it, and went to find Tamsin. I had been lectured at, for a long time, about how I must never open any door if it is not my own, as I never know what is behind it. I think Mum was worried about us disappearing into the Whippet And Nail at the bottom of our road, but I did listen, and so the day passed, the door still untouched, and we ate the worst fish and chips I have to this day ever eaten, that night.

The next day I came back, just for a feel. It was all still there, and try as I might I could not find any other doors, or windows, or roofs or walls or anything that might denote a tiny, submerged building. The door was built into the rock itself. Tamsin had not come with me that day, wanting instead to talk to Mum about a new kaftan.

I gripped the door handle between my delicate fingertips, and turned.

Without a noise, without a ripple in the water, it opened. There was no squeak, or trail of bubbles. I opened the other one, and looked down through the murk, at this new black hole, disappearing back into the cliff, the exact shape of a church door.

I remember reaching forward, with my index finger, smaller then than even my pinky is now, and sticking it straight into the hole.

I didn't have my sister's fear of the sea, or the beasties that you might find it; I had never wondered, as she had, why the human finger had evolved to look exactly like a worm. I just delved straight in.

The door opened out onto a hallway, a tunnel bored into the rock. I felt as far as I could, but my fingers were only short in those days and so I brought it out and sent in my whole hand, streamlined like a spear. The hallway continued, up to my elbow, I realised that all of this was quite ridiculous. I began to bring my arm back slowly, feeling around the walls.

There were other doors, other nubbins of handles, other seams. All leading off this hallway.

I felt carved shapes, spheres and cuboids, with rough patches that felt like patterns, but I was too young to know what they might have been. I had seen bas-relief carvings in the Bristol Museum, but some clever administrator had put them next to the satellites hanging from the ceiling, and so there was no chance I would take any of their intricacies in. There were other carvings on the wall, and from the ceiling little stalactites hung, but even then I could tell that they were not just stone.

They were chandeliers.

Mum was screaming after me then, thinking that I might have drowned, and so out came the arm, as carefully as I could, and we went back to Grandma's house. There was something wrong back in Bristol, and we had to go back, the next morning, but I never forgot about the doorways, or the hall, or the carvings or the furniture. I tended them over the next year, until I could come back.

But even then I was losing.

I discovered Tunnock's tea cakes that year, and Mum earned a bit more money, and so I entered my 'puppy fat' years. When we visited Grandma and Grandad in the summer, I found that when I came back to the rockpool (I had closed the door behind me, politely, the previous year), my chubby wrists could not fit past the lintel. I sat there, in my costume, and grizzled, wriggling my fingers impotently.

The next year, Mum was nearly arrested, and we did not go to Devon. I screamed and probably made things an awful lot worse. There was a period when they were going to send me to Borstal. I never told anybody about the door, not even Tamsin, and so I was on drugs for quite a few years.

The year after that, we came back, and I had been jogging and laying off sweets in preparation.

But I was thirteen by then, and puberty had made me so gangly. My arm fit, all the way up to the very end of the hallway, where an identical door stayed closed. But my fingers were too thick by then; I couldn't get a purchase on the handle, and I threw such a tantrum that when I pulled my arm out it had been tattooed with scrapes and splinters from the hallway's eaves.

I'm not sure, the next year, why I told Tamsin. She was a year older than me, and already planning for her first ashram, just like Mum, but I was desperate. I had been charting my growth obsessively since the day we had returned from Devon the previous year, and perhaps I thought that she might be able to help me. She had some tweezers for her eyebrows, and a candle-snuffer that was long enough to reach. I thought that she might be able to help me. I'm not sure why. I had read these kind of stories before. Big sisters always ruined things.

And so she did. She snorted when I first told her, and then sauntered up there with me while I clambered, standing on tiptoes, practising. When I showed her how the door opened (though even that was getting difficult now) she pretended not to care, but when I pressed her, when I pleaded with her to put her arm inside, she did. She had always been bigger than me, a little chubbier, though nobody liked to admit it, because of the rages she followed (perhaps there was something in our family) and I'm not sure why I thought she would be any daintier.

We both heard the crunch as the rock broke. The handle snapped, and drifted to the bottom.

I screamed, I think, and she screamed back, and tried to pull her arm out. She had visions, I am sure, of a prank gone wrong, of losing her beautiful, fat arm to a moray eel. But she twisted, as it came out, and through the fog of blood, sending all the attendant mussels and guppies and shrimps flinching, I saw the door collapse.

The rock made a tiny slide, a slump, no more than a clattering of pebbles. But the doorway was covered. I had seen it collapse, from inside, the chandeliers fall, the carvings obliterated.

I called my sister a lot of rude things, much worse than 'damn shorts', though that may have slipped in, in my fury. She shouted back at me, nursing the tiny cut on her arm, and we both ran back to Mum, though there was nothing that I could say. I did go back, the next morning, before anybody had got up, but the door was still buried, still riven.

We did keep coming back, until we both got too old and Mum took her inheritance money and just bought the place anyway. The palm tree was there, on its roundabout, until she died; she was always too lazy to get rid of it, even though she complained about it every time I went to see her.

I do have a bit of a problem with food, just like Mum. It might have been the teacakes, or it may have been the doorway, and all the other doorways, but I've always eaten quite a lot. I have diabetes these days, and need a special car into which they can mould me, like bread dough, when I do go outside.

Not only could I never hope to get back up to those high rockpools, only ocassionally serviced by the sea, I'm not sure what I would do with myself when I got there; I look down at my pale, chubby hands now, the varicose veins creeping up like ivy from the wrists, and the sores from my watch, and my bitten nails with those same white plots of malnutrition, I know that even that first door would be impossible.

I can just picture the rockpool itself, and even that seems too small now.

I'm too clumsy for all that nonsense.

Mum will be eighty, next year, and the house, with all its tiny interfaces, the tiny knobs on the cooker, the slender bannister, the minute buttons on the phone, is a mess. I can't clean it. Tamsin lives in South America. I can't afford a cleaner.

I'm thinking that I might pop Mum in a home, just to be safe. She never liked the house, anyway. It reminded her of Grandma and Grandad.

A nice home, one with a ramp for me, and good food.

Somewhere where the phones have big buttons, and the doorhandles aren't so fragile. I broke the one in the French door, last time I visited.

Somewhere posh. She's never lived anywhere posh before.

Somewhere with a chandelier.

She rose through the mud, the gunk. Seaweed tugging at her ankles, foam and debris scattered amongst the glue of the sea, begging her to return. She did not. She fell to her knees, the remains of her suit, tatters, falling into the dark sand. It was night. She passed out.

And the next morning, she awoke. Five around her, faded yellow jackets, flood pants, boots soaked, grime-laden. The smell of salt, of fish. She rose, slowly, weighed down by the thick, dense blanket that had been placed around her. She stumbled, and felt several pairs of hands come to her aid.

They helped her walk the half-mile back to the bay, to the few fishing vessels, to the broken walkways and the single, run-down café. She removed her war-paint, the sand stuck to the right hand side of her face where she had slept so deeply, in a toilet accompanied by the steady drip from a weakened light fixture. She was given waders two sizes too big, an extra large jumper, but a pair of boots that just fitted. They belonged to the wife of one of the men who had found her. One size too small. There was nothing she could do about the smell. The land was strange. She would have to cope.

When she returned, she told them what she could. An expedition, investigating strange anomalies. A substantial government grant. Signals, deep in the sea. Not the general call and response of sonar. A repeating message, the type they had never heard before. There had been fourteen of them, in total. Two boats, two exploratory submarines. They had been designed around deep sea squid, around fluid motions in the dark. They had been worth a lot of money, she said.

She did not remember how she had reached the shore. She did not remember how she had left her submarine, or how she had survived the journey to the surface. She remembered the start of her trip, leaving, going deeper and deeper, the bastard whalesong of pressure moulding the joints of her ship, groans and aches, the feel of warm piss in her wetsuit a primal comfort instead of embarrassment.

She remembered seeing it, the towers of coral, spires coated in anemones, membranous windows pulsating. She remembered the strange feeling of being watched, but the total emptiness of the buildings. There was nothing there. Amongst all the life of the place, there was nothing to communicate with. She sent out her own signals, a beat of sonar, a calling card. And waited in place. She remember seeing a flutter through the towers, figures moving fast, and then a large shadow above her. She remembered the sea floor moving, clouds of sand kicked up, and then nothing.

She turned to look to her audience. Grizzled faces who had seen too many lean winters, men who had lost friends in the storms of the coast. All the hardships removed, instead replaced with wonder. They asked how they could help, if they could help her return to her folk. Sincerely, she replied yes. She had expected them to ask for a reward. But there was not only a curiosity there, but a sense of a noble duty to assist in mapping the seas. These were men who lived out above a world they could never see. She, and her team, were doing them all a service. Exploration to answer great questions. They would be happy to help however they can.

Some elements were hazy, but she remembered the coordinates with clarity. They set off, in one vessel. The eldest of the fishermen, who had lent her the waders, had the largest ship. If something had happened to her, something could have happened to the others. If needs be, his ship would be needed to take them home. It did not look like much – a monument to rust and dried fish guts, all serrated edges and puncture wounds – but it was sturdy, and it would fit enough bodies to stop them from needing to make another trip.

They set off, watched from the shore by the café owner, a woman of sixty, face wrinkled and salt-soaked-dark, rheumy-eyed. She never knew those men, any more than she knew the woman who had come to shore. But she served them, just as she had served countless others. She kept a note of where they had gone, along with one fisherman, the youngest, left behind in case the worst happened.

The sky was thick with rolling, grey cloud, threatening to pop and spill further water onto their voyage, but the seas themselves were still. It was the most calm they had been in a decade. None of them made the connection to then, to when three of their comrades had set off one morning and never returned, exploiting the good form of nature to gather enough food to last another year. Of course, it was hard to remember that. So many had been, and gone. Not just gone missing, or died, but drifted to other seas, to warmer climes, or moved inland for more comfort.

She became more excited as the journey continued, remembering more and more of the events, her fog dissipating. She remembered the faces of her crew, their roles, the importance of two team members, her sister and her beloved husband. And she remembered more of the underwater city, of the pearls that lined the towers, of the giant, docile fish that could be theirs if they reached the destination, of the boon that could be theirs. And as she grew more awake, her accent grew stronger, from somewhere inland no doubt, and her eyes grew wider, wilder. She moved around the boat, pacing constantly, moving her arms, the smell of inland replaced with the familiar stink of the deep. She was nearly back there, back to where she remembered. With no-one looking, she kicked off the boots. They were too constricting. She longed to be with her loved ones again.

According to read-outs, they had reached their destination. The seas were still, the boat itself barely rocking in the water. And around them, debris. It was hard to tell in the dark, as the skies grew deeper, thicker, but there were pockets of solidity in the water. The lead fisherman cast an eye around, asked for another to turn on the lamp. And with a spark, they did. He expected to see wood, steel, supplies around them, expecting the worst by now. Maybe even the bodies of her crew. But instead, he saw reflections. Reflections of eyes, in the water, all around them. The debris was instead beings, surrounding them, looking inwards, eyes white and cream, arms too long for men. Behind him, she threw aside her shirt, her waders, and grabbed one of the fishermen. She whispered into his ear, and he nodded, walked to the side of the vessel, and jumped in.

The lead fisherman took a step back, reached for something, anything, to protect himself. A flare gun, clipped to the underside of the deck, along with three harpoons. As he fumbled, one eye still on the bodies that were moving fast, too fast, towards his ship, he missed his two other friends diving into the water, missed their hands being taken by the creatures and being dragged under the water.

He gripped the flare gun in both hands, ready to fire off a warning shot. Instead, he felt his shoulder being stroked, strong yet sensual even through his coat, his jumper, the cold of the winter day. He turned, to face her. Her form no longer of a woman in anything but shape, her body smooth, undefined, her hair, ears, nose gone. Her mouth, wide. Her eyes, creamy white. She whispered to him, accent even thicker, and he felt it, deep within, his stomach turning unlike anything he had felt since that first kiss with his first love. And he understood. He took her hand, and in tandem they jumped into the icy water.

He looked around to see the beings, pale green, shimmering, taking apart the boat, ripping it to pieces, and felt rain fall on his already-soaked head. The waves were coming, the seas growing strong again. He turned to her, and she kissed him, blinked, and then dragged him under.

Beneath him, he saw it, then. She had not lied. The city was there, the coral spires glistening beyond a simple reflection of the light above. There were no large fish, no pearls that he could see, but it did not matter. Not now. She kissed him again, breathing into him as they spiralled into the deep, towards the sea floor, and he marvelled at the sights around him, not minding the throb, the crack, of pressure that blurred his eyes and broke his back.

As they reached the sand, its ripples like a desert, he saw it begin to move, but he was not afraid. He was not afraid as the sinewy talons reached out at him. He was not afraid as the eyes, in their millions, blinked in unison at him. He was not afraid as the fleshy tentacles gripped hold of his feet. He was not afraid as he saw the rows and rows of circular teeth, covered in acidic spit. He was not afraid as he saw the spires move, not afraid of the realisation that this was not a city, that they were not spires, but were just the back of some ancient being he could not comprehend, that moved slowly along as it had its last prey in his grasp. All he did was keep his eyes on her, as she drifted away, her pearl eyes looking at him as he fell further and further into the dark as the mouth closed around him.

I had always meant to sell Shelley's kayak on eBay, but I just never got round to it. Part of her reason for leaving for Australia was that I spent too much time on my work, and that only increased once she was out of the picture. Coming home at ten or eleven most nights I only wanted to get drunk, watch sitcom repeats on the mid-number satellite channels, and fall asleep. I might have been more enthused if it had been worth a significant amount of money, but it was old, battered and covered in stickers, quite aside from its bilious green colouring. So I tucked it into the corner of the living room, propping up a bookcase, where it eventually became part of the furniture, until the day the rain came.

Nobody thought anything of it at first – jokes abounded on Facebook about the typical British weather, the soft London folk complaining about a short weather pattern that happens year-round in Scotland, and so on. By the third day of the incessant, hammering rain drains in my road were overflowing and the roads were filled with giant puddles, miniature urban lakes in which dogs played excitedly and into which spiteful children pushed their siblings. I didn't really pay attention, though. If I'd picked up the cheap free newspapers that are thrust at every passenger as they enter a tube station I would have seen headlines predicting some kind of apocalypse, but even then I probably would have ignored them, thinking them to be standard tabloid hyperbole. The tube was still running and I could still get to work, though when I came home I did notice that there was water dripping down the stairs at Finsbury Park and flowing, slowly but surely, onto the platform. The next day was when the chaos truly began.

I woke up and flicked through the emails on my phone, and found that my boss had advised us not to come in to work today as the transport was all down and there was a severe flood warning, so I opened up my laptop to work from home, had a cup of coffee and started working. The rain thundered against the windows, but I'd gotten used to the sound by then, so I didn't open the curtains and look outside until mid-morning, when the power went out.

The water level in the street had risen, overnight, from a couple of inches to what I guessed must have been five or six metres. All the cars and vans were submerged, and the level of the water was above all of the front doors of the terraced houses, the majority of which were open, with water flowing into the houses. Living in the top floor flat of a Victorian conversion, I was still a good twelve feet from the water, but it did appear to be rising steadily, and it was filthy – a writhing, churning brown mass full of unidentifiable debris, like the Thames had come alive and was seeking revenge on the city in a b-movie climax. A knock came at the door.

It was John and Angela, from downstairs; I didn't know them well, but always said hello in passing. They were pale and visibly shaking, and didn't speak right away, so I ushered them in silently and went to put the kettle on, before remembering the power was out. I still had gas, so I put a pan of water on the hob and sat down at the table with them.

"We didn't think it would get this bad," said John, slowly, quietly.

"I know," I said, "I've been really busy with work this week, I haven't really been following the news or anything. I'd just assumed it was the usual British weather. So what's the cause of all this?"

"It's a combination of things," said Angela, "Apparently this is the worst rainstorm to hit England for centuries, so there's flooding everywhere, but it's the worst in London because the sewers are full. We never cleaned them out, so apparently they're full of grease and hair and stuff. It's like when your plughole gets blocked, but on a much larger scale."

"Yeah," I said, "I don't think Domestos can sort this one out. So that water is full of sewer crap?"

"Yeah," said John, "It's like an ocean of shit."

"Nice."

I made them cups of tea and we tried to talk about what to do, while I checked for advice and news on my phone, which still had 3G signal. The official government advice was not to swim in the contaminated water, and that the Army, Air Force and Navy had all been mobilised and would rescue you in due course if you made yourself visible.

"So I guess we just have to lean out of the windows and shout, and eventually a helicopter will pass and pick us up?" said Angela.

"I guess so," said John.

"I'm not sure if I want to wait around while that shit's rising." I said.

"Well what else do you suggest?"

"I don't know. Hey, SHIT! – what happened to the guys on the ground floor, did anyone check on them?"

"They're on holiday in Italy," said Angela, "I've been going down to water their plants. Didn't need to today. I went to this morning and found the water was already at the top of the stairs. It's probably getting into our flat now."

"FUCK," said John, "My records! My guitars!" and he ran out and into corridor. Angela and I followed.

As soon as we crossed the threshold of the door a powerful stench assaulted us, that of decay, mould and excrement. John had started to run down the stairs, but had stopped halfway. The water was pooling at the bottom of the stairs up to my flat, and had evidently already had its way with John and Angela's, as John was leaning over the banister and looking into it, his face red and livid.

We returned to my flat and closed the door and the smell followed us in. It was then that I spotted Shelley's kayak in the corner, and a plan formed in my mind.

"Guys," I said, "Do you still want to wait for the military rescue?"

"I don't know that we've got another option, unless you fancy a swim in that?" said John.

"Well, I think I might try and make my own way out, as I've got a kayak over there." I gestured. I remembered then that I also had a wetsuit, which Shelley had bought me one Christmas in an attempt to get me to join her surfing. It hadn't worked and I'd never used it, but damn was I grateful for it then.

"You're fucking mental," said John. Angela nodded her agreement.

"Look, I'll leave you guys my phone. You can make calls and try and get someone to pick you up. You can get onto the roof through the fire exit out of my bedroom window if you need to. But I can't stay here."

"OK, thanks." said John. He took the phone and began Googling while I went through to the bedroom and put on my wetsuit. I packed a backpack with my essentials and returned to the living room, where I pulled out the kayak and opened the window. I thought I'd gotten used to the smell, but it hit me anew again as I clambered through it, and I stumbled and nearly fell. It was a couple of metres to the surface of the water, and I dropped the kayak down onto it before lowering myself carefully from the window ledge. In the distance I could hear sirens, screams and chopping of helicopter blades under the constant low drumming of the rain. Just as I was about to let go John shouted from the window.

"Someone's calling your phone!"

"Who is it?" I asked.

"The number isn't recognised, but it's long and starts in 61...must be foreign." 61, I knew, was the code for Australia.

"Leave it," I said, "But thanks anyway. And good luck!"

I lowered myself into the kayak and used the oar to push myself off from the house. I paddled furiously and headed north, hoping that the water would at least begin to drain away by the time I hit the North Circular.

The Festive Title

_'Christmas'_

Fred, as always, was the last to arrive on Christmas Day. He rolled in a little after one in the afternoon, just as aunt Frieda was putting on the kettle and his younger cousins were finishing the building of their new Hornby train set. This year's family gathering was the largest for a decade, and it took him a full five minutes to get around everyone and greet with hugs and kisses, the constant refrain that he'd grown since last year despite being only a few months shy of his thirtieth birthday. He accepted a cup of overly milky tea from Freida, protesting that he didn't mind that they only had decaf because Albert really gets affected by it, you see, and settled down to show the kids how to change the points on the Hornby set.

After he'd sorted the trains out, Frieda asked if he'd go and get aunt Gwen from upstairs. He was about to knock on the door of the bedroom where Gwen had been hiding when he heard her voice, in conversation with aunt Pat and uncle Roy.

"I see approaching thirty hasn't improved his dress sense," she said, and aunt Pat giggled, schoolgirlishly.

Uncle Roy chuckled too, before intoning, "apparently he's had another major breakthrough with one of his inventions, and this time it's really going to take off!"

"Hmm, let me think, where have I heard that one before? Oh, right. Same time every year. Just like the cracker jokes!"

"I wonder what crackpot idea it is this time? A disposable toaster?"

They descended into cackles once more, and he decided to leave them to it and risk Frieda's wrath falling upon them.

Descending the stairs he ran into his cousin Sasha, who really had grown this year, from a shy eight-year-old into a confident, animated nine-year-old with braided hair and a surprisingly competent singing voice, which she carried everywhere with her. She had a sad face on, however, her bottom lip stuck out sulkily.

"What's up, Sash?"

"Well, I learnt how to play chess this term, and I really want to play with Grandad. I can't play now because we'll be having dinner soon, but every year after dinner he just falls asleep. He promised me we'd play, but I know he's going to fall asleep."

Fred smiled a knowing smile.

"Well, I have a pretty good feeling that he's going to stay awake this year. I'd be willing to bet on it."

"What would you bet?"

"50p."

"OK." And with that, she ran back into the living room, where Fred followed.

Frieda caught him on the way in.

"I hear you're unveiling your latest invention after dinner, and that it's been quite the success," she said.

"We've had a significant investment, yeah."

"Well, I look forward to it."

She asked him to make the gravy, which had been his one thing to bring this year, while she grabbed Gwen, Pat and Roy from upstairs. He did so, and within fifteen minutes they were all sat down at the table together, Fred perched on the retractable end, the bridge between the adults as they discussed interest rates and immigration, and the kids as they discussed Justin Bieber.

When dinner was over, his mum tapped a spoon on her glass and the table fell silent. Fred was a little embarrassed, but he could see Gwen sniggering, so he stood up to reveal what his new invention was.

"I know you all think I'm some kind of deranged inventor, or a nutty professor," he said, "A regular Caractacus Potts. And yes, I've had some failures. But this invention has secured a sizeable investment, and I'm happy to tell you that it'll soon be on the shelves in your local Sainsbury's."

Gwen stopped sniggering at this and her eyes rounded on him with genuine interest.

"And in fact, you have already experienced the invention. You ate it, without realising, in your Christmas dinner."

The attentive faces turned, unanimously, to concerned ones with raised eyebrows. "Nobody protested, so I know you couldn't tell, but the gravy was caffeinated."

A couple of aunts and uncles laughed, a few of them gasped, others shrugged, and the colour drained from Gwen's face.

"Each serving is basically the same as having an espresso," he continued, "Just think! No more Sunday afternoon slump after your roast." He was falling into his well-rehearsed sales pitch, but Gwen cut him off.

"You little bastard! You tricked me. You tricked us all! I'll be up all night now, and you know Albert has trouble..."

"Oh, come off it Gwen, it's caffeine, not crack. A little bit won't kill you," interjected Frieda.

"So yeah, that's it," said Fred, weakly. "Coming soon to a...Morrisons...near you." He sat back down, and there was a brief silence, before Frieda started a round of applause, and everyone joined in apart from Gwen, who gave him her strongest Medusa-like glare.

The effects of the caffeine manifested themselves quite soon after the end of the dinner, with the kids running around the house excitedly and an overly expressive game of charades, followed by an unfortunate incident of After Eight throwing and a huffy exit from Gwen. However, after this short period of festive chaos, things quietened down, and Fred settled down on the sofa to explain his business model to uncle Albert, who had quite enjoyed his caffeine boost despite his previous trouble with it in tea.

Halfway through their conversation Sasha ran up to them, with a chess board under her arm, and fell onto him, giving him the hug he was sure a bear cub would give.

"Grandad's still awake! You did it!"

And she headed over to the table, where Grandad was waiting dutifully with a cup of tea and the chess pieces. He caught Fred's eye and winked as Sasha sat down opposite him.

"Merry Christmas, lad," he said. "You did great."

Also Titled, _Christmas Number One_

Fucking go again, she says.

You fucked it up, she says.

The mix all wrong you knobhead, she says.

Rudolf lowers every knob on the board with a sweep of his arm, and peers through the murky window into the recording room. The woman, whose name he has already forgotten, looks like a belching, angry lizard in a vivarium. He motions at her to wipe the window. For some reason, she brought several Thermos flasks of eggnog, which she has left bubbling on the various chairs and tables, gouts of eggy steam giving the room where Stevie Wonder and Cream once jammed all the atmosphere of a coastal cement factory.

What a fucking joke, thinks Rudolf. The last plane back to Munich before Christmas Day left two hours ago, pulling itself up through the hot rain that London has donned, and he is stuck here with this utter rhinoceros of a woman, as dense as stollen, barking orders at him through the microphone.

Even her complaints are out of tune.

Just three more hours, he thinks, as he listens back to what they have recorded already, muting her gluey whines about levels and bass and all the things that she has heard on the television but does not really understand.

Of course there is no Santa Claus, thinks Rudolf. If there was, he would have sent this woman a car crash for Christmas, rather than the winning ticket. He scratches at the red, pompom hat that he is contractually obliged to wear for the remainder of the day.

It had been a special Christmas lottery draw, a partnership between Gesundheit Studios and the worst of the television talent shows, one which reminded him uncomfortably of footage he had seen on his parent's television, stood at the bottom of the stairs at midnight at the age of three, of the culling of disabled prisoners in Serbia. They had screamed just like the talent had, stood on the revolving star in the centre of the stage, learning of their fate.

Win the ticket, and record a Christmas number one at the world-famous studios, with the world-famous producer. It was guaranteed to go to at least the top ten, but no closer; Rudolf had been handed the song structure, the lyrics months ago, and had recorded the melody, sleigh bells and all, in September.

This creature had won the drawer a week ago. He looked forward to finishing her fetid noise and making that flight back home, to see his brother and his children.

But then had come the congenital heart defects. The complaints that she had made, of the stress of travelling to London from Somerset. The recording had been delayed by weeks, and she had remained a barrel of complaints, screaming at Rudolf down the phone that this was her right, and that she wanted to write her own song. She had been persuaded down from this lofty height, but still the recording had been pushed back, and pushed back, and now it was Christmas Eve, almost midnight. They would not finish the song at the stroke of Christmas Day. It would drag on into the early hours, and it would awful, and he would have anxiety attacks relating to his involvement with it.

All she had to do was sing the fucking chorus. They had managed the verses, her parping it out at such a variety of pitches and keys that even the autotune gave up. She sounded like a sort of sad robot whale on record now, but there was nothing to do about it. The backing singers for the chorus had come in three weeks ago, and laid down their parts. True professionals; the recording room had smelt of aftershave, the seats dusted with talc, when they left, as if they were only ghosts leaving behind designer ectoplasm.

But no, she had her own ideas for the lyrics.

She had a daughter with narcolepsy, didn't he know.

He did know. It had been reported on the news.

She wanted the song to be for her.

The song was called 'Wide Awake For Santa', which he thought might be a little cruel as a dedication, but he did not argue with her.

She wanted to change the lyrics.

The pitch was all wrong for her voice.

Her little girl was not going to like it at all.

She wanted her number one. She wasn't going to lose out to that ironic black metal group from Finland, or that Mexican teenager who had never even released an album, and yet had 'speculatively' sold more of his 'speculative' music than Michael Jackson had in his entire career.

She was not the worst person, to reach number one.

She tried again, at his request. It was dreadful.

Nobody else was left in the studio. All of the lights were off, apart from in these two rooms. His studio manager had already taken down the tree, so that it wasn't waiting for them, sullen and shedding, in the New Year.

She tries again. It is dreadful.

He lowers the board again. She takes a sip from each of the eggnogs. He can almost smell it through the glass.

It passed midnight ten minutes ago.

The reality show executives have told him that he is in breach of contract, that it is his fault that she cannot sing, that she will not cooperate. He must finish tonight, or they will initiate proceeding.

He puts the board up again. She is screaming again, saying that it is all no good, that they have to start again. He needs to call the backing singers.

The backing singers will not come. They are sleeping on memory foam in the beautiful homes, with nose clips and throat sweets, with tastefully wrapped presents under real, non-drop trees.

There are no windows. He cannot tell if it is snowing, but it was sunny today, and there has been no snow in London in years.

She asks if he is listening.

She tells him that he better stop dreaming of the Christmas Markets and get his Kraut balls out of his chair and fix her microphone and headphones.

They are making her sound all wrong, she says.

He leans his head against the soundproofing, pretending that it is memory foam, and that he is horizontal, and that there are no lights on at all in the building.

She is pretending to cry now, showing him a picture of her daughter through the glass. The eggnog bubbles on, and like a witch she tries to conjure some sort of festive demon, some crepuscular magic, something that two people might share, alone on the eve of Christmas.

She wants him to learn a Christmas lesson.

He mutes the board. She pounds on the glass.

He shuts his eyes, and he is no longer, in his mind, in bed with those seraphims, those sprites and pixies who had wafted into his studio weeks ago and done their job perfectly.

He is aboard a plane, with a large cup of something cold and decidedly non-festive. He is flying through the night skies, through the clouds luminous with the lights of wide-awake children below.

In his reverie, he looks out of the plane window.

At the tip of the wing, at its very nose, the warning lights flash red, red, red.

His last two Christmases had been spent in hospitals. Surrounded by tubes, wires, pallid greens and blues, steady beeps, gentle electric humming, the stale smells of disinfectant and mass-produced hot meals. There had been little difference in December to the rest of the months of the year, aside from a fake Christmas tree, and unobtrusive lines of tinsel, catching the windowless, halogen light.

This year, it was different. Jacob's father was gone. There had been no visits to the ward for five months, no kindly looks from nurses, knowing looks from other visitors, that grim acceptance of the inevitable. There would be no card exchange, no chance for Jacob to give another bumper haul of easy-read, large print novels. Instead, he had received a present, of sorts, early. His father's bookcases, hundreds of books, half of them never read. Jacob remembered that his father had once noted that, if he managed to read a book a week, it would have taken him twenty years to read every novel he owned. He had never had that much time.

This year, Jacob had another place to go. Somewhere warm, inviting, the smell of cinnamon and hot chocolate almost melted into the air, a traditional roast instead of plasticine-like slices of Turkey, a real tree, a log fire. He was dreading it. He would almost rather have been at the hospital. It was his first Christmas spent with Suzie – every year since they had met, they had gone their separate ways over the holiday period. But this year, he had nowhere else to go. It was not Suzie that was the problem, of course. It was her father.

Gerald Carey. He was obviously a caring man. He supported his wife through a difficult redundancy. He set up Suzie with a good flat, a "base of operations" as he put it. When his son, Gareth, split from his wife, he was there to make sure that he got all the support he needed. He was a man of strong morals, of decency. And that was why it pained Jacob so much that Gerald seemed to dislike him.

His communication with Jacob was generally nothing more than a series of grunts and one-syllable words. There was no interest in his life, his background, his potential as a partner for his only daughter. When they had first met, Jacob had expected a firm handshake, some kind of veiled threat if he ever dared to hurt Suzie, but a gradual acceptance. Instead, the handshake had been limp, non-committal. There had been no threats, but nothing else either. A passivity that Jacob had never witnessed Gerald have for anything else in his life. Not for his family, not for his friends, not for his job, or for his passions.

And Jacob knew that Gerald was a good man. Jacob had been loved by his own father, but - in his darkest moments – he admitted that his own father had not been a good man. He had realised this at an early age, a row over gambling debts, a slap, his mother crying. This had become his norm. A broken family held in place by a mixture of stubbornness and genuinely having no better life options. His own brother had left when he could, and the two barely spoke. It was not only the separation of continents that caused it, it was the feeling of abandonment, of Jacob himself being left to the wolves, of Jacob being left as carer for two parents that had always hated each other.

Because how could he have left his father? In spite of all his faults, Jacob had still loved him, a habit unable to be kicked by rationality, by the pull to escape. It was not just the violence, the gambling. There was the fraud, the debt to sharks, the racism. The fact that his father had been stealing money from his own son, taking advantage of the only person he had left. The destruction of a repaired lung by continuing to smoke after a series of operations to save his life. And that final death rattle, the phlegmy laugh as he tried to grope his female doctor.

A true role model.

Truth be told, he had never had a real Christmas. His childhood had never had a day of a safe haven. There had been the culturally-obligated necessities – the tree, the lights, the presents, some kind of roast – but the problems had still remained. That one day had never been different. They had never listened to the Queen's speech, never had a lazy, afternoon nap with the _Bridge Over The River Kwai_ blaring in the background. The only sleeping was that of his father's, a drone, a snore brought on by brandy.

Jacob had no idea how to act. He had a knowledge, gleaned from Christmas specials on television, from the books had he had read to escape during holidays, from stories that his friends had told him. It was amazing how easy it was to gain enough to put up a barely noticeable façade. He had grown good at it over the years, the one skill that he truly believed in.

So he did what he could. He packed up the car with his gifts. He wondered if there was a difference between a birthday gift and a Christmas gift, whether there was any nuanced sentiment that separated one from the other. He hoped not. He threw in the mulled wine, a series of more and more tasteless jumpers, a multicoloured hat. Suzie offered to drive. He declined. They drove away, Christmas songs blaring in one last effort to shell-shock his brain into activating festivities. It failed. Suzie kept a hand on his knee for most of the drive. It comforted him.

When they arrived, two hours later, it was beginning to rain. It was a mild day, and it was going to remain so until the New Year. The small threat of snow had been eradicated with a true British efficiency. Suzie's family was there, waiting. She jumped out, ran to her mother, her brother. When Jacob joined her, he was met by Gerald, with a nod, another weak handshake.

And then, after an awkward moment, a brief, strong hug. Gerald cleared his throat, and muttered, barely audible, a "Merry Christmas, Jacob. Welcome." And Jacob smiled, for the first time in a long time.

The Fifth Title

_'A Letter Opener'_

That Title Again

_'A Letter Opener'_

The Jamesons are my favourites. Peter, the father. 47, five foot nine, 270 pounds, balding, IT consultant. Diabetes, asthma, arthritis. In debt. Miranda, the mother. 49, five foot three, 90 pounds, died blonde colour 279b, part time health and safety analyst. Sister on the other side of the country, with a history of drug abuse problems. Getting clean. Archie, the son. 17, five foot seven, 170 pounds, head shaved, flunking math. Asthma, crabs. Receives pot in the mail. Idiot. Cassie, the daughter. 12, four foot eleven, 60 pounds, ADHD. Teen Voice magazine subscription.

I love the Jamesons. They had the most love, the most hope. I saw all the families within five blocks, all those 2.4 children assholes claiming normalcy, living the endless one-upmanship battles of the extra Prius, the added conservatory, the outside hot tub, and they were the only ones that mattered.

You have the Batemans down the road, their only daughter off at college and them opening up her spare room as a BDSM play room. They had swingers' parties, fifteen positive replies, two negatives. We heard it all. We got the whole office together for that one. Then there was the Simmons family. Four kids, two elder and a set of twins, all normal enough. But those parents, fuck me. Dad a Nazi memorabilia collector, got his magazine once a month and at least three items to go with it. Mum hooked on mail-order uppers.

And just around the corner there was the reason we were there, the El Abds. Nice couple, it seems. Nothing out of the ordinary there other than a bi-monthly order of French wine which I'm sure their parents would disapprove of. That and the occasional sex toy. But nothing out of the ordinary, all run of the mill. The job would be over soon. Nothing of value, no information of interest.

Let me explain, briefly. We look after you, the public. We make sure that you are kept safe. And occasionally, that means breaking a few rules. Going over the heads of a few people, here and there. We like keeping tabs, and sometimes that means the occasional liberty needs to be... readdressed. There's nothing to worry about. If you aren't doing anything wrong, there is nothing to fear. Even if you're doing something wrong, most of the time we don't care. We have a specific number of traits we are looking for, a checklist, and most of the time even minor illegal activities don't matter.

So we got a flag. El Abds, moving to within twenty miles of an area of strategic importance. It's not racism, it's not jingoism. It's just a statistical probability. No-one cares about stop and search, so why should this be any different? Anyway, a team of five of us, told to look over the neighbourhood. We all get set our tasks. Agents one and two (no names, please) install the wire taps, keep tabs on phone calls, internet usage. Hard to sift through all that pornography to find anything of real worth but it's what they're paid for. Agent three keeps up visual and audio surveillance. Hell of a task and it's where 60% of our office space goes, that old, run-down building next to the bus station. It's not the best place I've ran an operation out of. Leaks here and there. No air con. Agent four is the delivery guy, does all the physical work, maintenance of everything we've set up. Keeps us in check with the powers that be, keeps the operation flowing.

I'm agent five. I'm the letter opener.

You see, too many people think that paper mail is dying. That it's unimportant, that everything's done via email. I call bullshit on that. In the last five years I've helped bring down four potential dissidents alone. The rest of the team only has three between them. Just for the record, we don't know what happens to the people we call in on. We like to watch when the teams come in, huddle around the monitors, watch as the figures come in, in the dead of the night, bag their heads, shoot them full of tranquilisers and lead them out into a van. Better than any thrill a movie can give you, I'll tell you that. Feel bad for the kids sometimes, but I'm sure they'd know about their parent's activities and they should have ratted them out.

Funny thing that every film gets wrong. You don't kick down a door head on. You give it a donkey kick, stand with your back to the wall and kick backwards. Why? Because you're not going to kick it down first time. It's going to take a couple of goes, and in that time someone's likely to wake up, and if you're up against some mean son-of-a-bitch with a grudge against good-old-fashioned justice, they're going to shoot through that door to get at you. The bullets won't go through a wall, though. Most of the time kicking down the door isn't even needed. They'll find the back door unlocked. You'd have thought potential terrorists would be less trusting.

Anyway. I've enjoyed this contract. Turns out it's been a false call. The El Abds are fine, Alex works in publishing and Sophia at a college. If they weren't the main targets of our investigation I might have chosen them as my favourites, but we've got professionalism to think of. Sophia has lovely handwriting, same as her mother's, and I'd love to give Alex the address of a vineyard he needs to visit down near San Diego.

But the work is dull, you know? You need to keep yourself perked up and there's only so much that coffee and cigarettes can work before you feel like a 70s caricature of a national agency worker. So I have a little game I play for each contract. I pick a favourite, and I get to know them. In this case, it was the Jameson family. I get to know their health records, their work, their families, their education, their internet search history, their favourite movies, their favourite books, their favourite TV shows, their hopes, their fears, their loves and their hates. I pull an extra hour every so often and go through the video footage. Sometimes I take it home with me. It's dedication, is what it is. It's good that there's someone like me there, caring for these people. For good, wholesome families.

And sometimes I pull little surprises. Poor Miranda doesn't need to know about her sister's new scumbag boyfriend. I edit it out. Peter's prostate exam? No, thank you. Archie close to getting kicked out of school? The letter vanishes. I pay a visit to the school, change the records a little bit and it's all fine.

Cassie is my pride, though. I never let anything happen to her. Reminds me of my own daughter, back home. She gets presents in the mail. New clothes. Once, a new phone. Bugged, of course. She was friends with troublemakers and I needed to make sure they didn't lead her down the wrong path. I've seen it happen so many times, to all these families, these little junkies and sluts warping the minds of the youth, leading them through adolescence with that delusion that being an adult means taking fifteen years off your life through bad life choices. At first I kept myself separate, let people make their own decisions. But then I realised. That's not what we're here to do. We're guardian angels, taxpayer funded. If we don't help people, what's the point?

So Cassie is falling in with the wrong crowd. I pull a few favours, turns out the area where these kids live is under surveillance too, and one of my agency pals is in the team. Ask for a couple of things, a bit of evidence planting, a bit of a change in details of online activities, a whole lot of strange items being sent out in the mail. Make a few calls to the cops, let them know what we've seen, that there's a whole gang of kids, sociopaths, trying to start a massacre. Maybe racist, definitely on some nasty shit. Cops thank me, they head down, take out these five punks. Makes national news, shooting averted. Don't say exactly how they were able to find out this shit but no-one cares and the kids go away for a while. Heard one of them hung himself in jail. Tough break.

Cassie's upset for a while, sure. But when she's older, she'll be grateful she wasn't friends with those kids. They were too old for her, anyway. What kind of creepy fourteen-year olds are friends with a goddamn twelve-year old anyway? There was something wrong with them. I just made sure Cassie was going to make a good start in life. The other guys agreed, too. We're all in it together. We can help make this country into a better place, and that means rooting out the weeds.

I'll miss them, though. We've got two weeks left in the area before we're shifted to Illinois. Hoping for something a little more interesting. Maybe some real dissidents to deal with instead of the usual dark side of family life. Shame I can't take the Jamesons with me. But I'll be sure to bring some souvenirs. A few photos, a couple of bank records. Add them to my collection. It's nice to keep track of the families you can count on to make America a better place.

The electric letter opener sat on George's desk for almost a month after Christmas day – not removed from its box, still shrinkwrapped. It would have stayed there for many more months, eventually been consigned to a drawer and one day taken down to the village charity shop were it not for today's visit from Eric, his grandson, who had given him the letter opener for Christmas.

Eric was dutifully paying a visit to his grandad, on his mother's orders. Their history with Christmas gifts was somewhat fraught, as the previous year Eric had given his grandfather a quite expensive set of golf balls and tees only to find them, still wrapped, on the floor of his grandad's filthy garden shed, underneath the power tools, with evidence of mice having proved their incontinence upon the once fancy box. Eric hadn't said anything, but had obviously been upset, and George had resolved to use his next product and let Eric know he had done so.

His grandad was the only person Eric knew who used a letter opener. Whilst George had recently discovered e-mail and had been sending Eric lots of them without ever managing to turn off caps lock, letters were still his favourite and his preferred method of communication, as he never tired of explaining to Eric or his other grandchildren as they sat around at family gatherings Instagramming, Snapchatting, and other such words which George assumed were made up to mock him and test his patience. So the electric letter opener seemed the perfect gift to Eric.

But to George, as he sat at his desk with the pile of post, waiting for Eric to arrive and staring at the electric letter opener in its box, he couldn't see the point. He had a perfectly good letter opener already. Why didn't the boy just get him a tie or a jumper or a book by Max Hastings or Antony Beevor, like the rest of the family? Or even book tokens. He got the boy book tokens every year. Why couldn't they do the same for each other?

George picked up his current letter opener – a small, elegant bronze dagger – and used it to cut through the shrinkwrap, after which he opened the box and slid the electric letter opener onto the table. It was smaller than he'd thought it would be, but it still seemed oversized. It was an ugly black rhomboid with a credit card-thin slot, presumably housing a blade, through which one was supposed to slide the mail, after pressing a button on the side to turn it on. George hated it. It looked to him like an oversized pencil sharpener, an arrogant bit of overpriced office tat with ideas above its station. He knew he only had to use it once to prove to Eric that he had enjoyed his gift, however, so he picked up his least favourite envelope of today's post – the one with the badly-designed corporate logo of Scottish Power stamped obnoxiously on its corner – and leant down towards the machine, pressing the button.

Just as he was leaning down with the letter and the machine began whirring he heard the scraping of wheels on the gravel, and broke off from his action to look through the window to see if Eric was pulling onto the drive. He had just a second to spot his grandson's car pulling in before he felt a tugging at his tie and heard a loud, urgent, waspish buzzing. He looked down to see that the letter opener had grabbed him by the tie and appeared to be attempting to eat it whole, dragging him down slowly. He pressed the off button and dropped the letter to the floor, and the doorbell rang. He tugged at the letter opener, but it would not budge – it held tenaciously onto his tie, pulling down his neckline into a near-strangle. Not wanting to tear his tie, but being able to think of no other solution, he pulled on a sweater, which covered the dangling office parasite, and headed downstairs, placing his hand in front of the strange bulge the letter opener created.

George opened the door to Eric and said "my dear boy! do come in!" without fully revealing himself, hiding behind it as Eric gave him a quizzical look, wondering where his usual handshake had disappeared too. He crossed the threshold and George hastily turned around to close the door. He then stayed facing away from Eric, unsure what to about his baggage.

"Grandad?" said Eric, "are you alright?"

"Yes, fine, dear boy, absolutely fine! Why don't we go through and have a cup of tea?" he responded, brusquely.

"OK," said Eric.

When George turned around he had expected to see the back of Eric as he headed through to the kitchen, but instead he found himself face to face with his grandson, who looked utterly baffled.

"What's that under your jumper?"

"Nothing, boy, nothing."

"Grandad, there's something there. Are you alright?"

"YES! I'm fine!" said George, starting to shout. The letter opener then spared him any further confusion, by falling out from under his jumper and onto the floor with a ragged portion of his tie stuck from its slot like an absurd tongue.

Eric looked down at it, looked up at George's red face, and burst out laughing.

"Grandad," he said, "is that the letter opener I got you for Christmas?"

"Why yes, dear chap. I suppose it is," said George. Neither of them moved to pick it up, but both stood staring at it, as if it were a pet they'd been forced to look after and weren't really qualified to do so. Eventually, Eric bent down and lifted it up. The piece of tie dangled forlornly from its mouth.

"I'm sorry it got your tie," he said.

"It's like all these new-fangled contraptions, can't be trusted. I was perfectly alright with my old one."

"I know. I wanted to get you something you'd really use, but I should have known you wouldn't use it right. Tea?"

They shuffled through to the kitchen, where Eric dropped the letter opener into the bin with a loud thud.

"I'm seventy-five, boy," said George, "It's too late for me to change my ways. Just get me some books next time."

"Well, seeing as it ruined your tie, I guess I could replace that for you next time?"

"That sounds marvellous."

When the next Christmas rolled around Eric received book tokens, as always, and George received a new tie. In between, Eric had visited more often than he had before, and they'd laughed about the letter opener eating George's tie. When they sat down for Christmas dinner it was recounted as a classic family anecdote, and grandfather and grandson laughed together. George was glad to have gotten it out of his system – that is, until he received another electric letter opener from his cousin Pat.

Also Titled, _The Corkscrew Of Cork_

There was once, in a land much apart from other lands, at the bottom of a giant's well, where the stars were only glowing moss that grew where the water dripped, a princess. Her ancestors had ruled before her, for as many dips of the bucket as had been recorded, and her descendants would rule after her. Nothing in her life could be unexpected. She had even toyed with donning her father's armour and setting out as an adventurer, keeping her visor low and her voice husky, and rescuing damsels. What phases the young endure.

The kingdom was a barren one; atop a floating cork that the giant had dropped, once when he had been drunk, the great castle rose, the town beneath it huddle tight about the cork's middle. Beyond it lay the corklands, and then came the edge, and then the great ocean. The princess' people were a simple lot; they had invented gods for all sorts of things, and prayed to every single one when the great bucket lowered, and the water cascaded over its sides when it was dragged skyward, and many of them drowned.

A simple folk often devotes great pains to the simplest of tasks, and on the cork it was in adoration of their royal family. The princess had a sneaking suspicion that her royalty was only won by luck, back in the mists of time, and that any other one of the minute, miserable peoples of the cork could have ruled; however, things were how they were, and why change them? Things were bad enough. The only things to eat were only what drifted down from the sky, and the day was far distant, the sun a perfect, blue circle that never moved. Without its passage across the sky, time was an illusion, and many of the little people barely knew whether they were coming or going. Some of them sometimes set out in little cork boats, hewn from the cliff-edges of their home, using the dots of moss in the sky to guide their way, in search of a more fruitful home. They never returned, and the king had since outlawed the making of boats, so bad was the subsidence.

So, apart from fishing, and trying to stay upright in their little bobbing empire, most of the populace occupied itself in the fanatic joy that came from writing the princess letters. Every day, a thousand of them poured in, written on tiny scraps of bark dug from the ground below. The princess, of course, read every one, as she was a princess and was polite and literate, and even if she had wanted to be an adventurer there was nowhere to adventure. Every morning she sat upon her cold stone bench, said to have been brought from the farthest wall of the well (though, as we all know, as we are not so tiny, wells are round, and all walls are just as far away as any other. Or is it only one wall?) and read each and every one. Most were lovingly sealed in tight little envelopes, eked out since the last time that the giant had dropped his roll-up down the shaft, and she pried at these over and over, reading every one, until her eyes were red and her fingers bled. The rest of the day was spent in writing books, and then reading them, just for something to do.

And then came one day, as there always does, as I did not intend to spend an hour telling you about this sad little race languishing at the bottom of a giant's back garden. This one day came, and began as any other. The first drip sounded, an elemental plop, and the groans and mewlings of life starting up began to drift towards the princess' window. There is Mr. Grushlump shouting his breakfast, she thought. His letters were often about his ugly wife, and how he wanted to throw her off the cliff and see if she led them all to the wellwall. And there is Lady Peeneelamp, a distant cousin, whose letters would often ask her to send her father down into the town for a little chat. One after the other she heard them waking up, all of her penpals, and she knew them by their treads and their complaints and they way they chimed their cutlery against their juice glasses.

And she thought of last night, when she lay sleepless. She did not sleep very much. It was making her plain, and though she did not care, she thought that she might like a husband one day, and her race was a very superficial race. She did not sleep because of all the writing. All of them, all through the night, one after the other, scratching with their pens, writing her letters speaking of her wisdom, or her family's glory, or the never-dying wonder of the cork. And then would come that horrid slurp, as the envelope was sealed, and left by their bedsides until the morning.

The second drip sounded, some way out to the west. The sun rolled passed, a circle of blue covered in clouds. She flexed her hands, mottled with eczema. They were so dry from all the paper, the nails already bleeding at the thought of opening all of those letters. She barely thought of it anymore. And, despite herself, she could never let herself leave one unopened.

The postman came, with a flurry and a bow, after her breakfast of scum from a silver bowl. The letters were left in a mountain by her chair, and she began. Sure enough, here was one from Mr. Grushlump, asking her to run away with him to the other side of the cork, though not before boiling up his wife into a sort of porridge with which they could fuel their marvellous new existence. Angletrop the gardener, telling her in closest confidence that her grandfather had kissed the flowers in the palace garden every morning, as tenderly as he could. She knew that one. Angletrop had told her before. Angletrop was forgetting himself.

A hundred more, her wounds opening again, the discarded envelopes filled with blood. She tried not to curl her fingers, or grip too hard. And then, near the bottom of the pile, she found something curious, just as the eighth drop sounded, a big gulp over in the eastern seas, and the town beneath the palace stopped for lunch.

In the silence as every one of her subjects stuffed their faces, and her father guffawed in his banquet hall in the floors above, the princess lifted the envelope. It was not like the others, blowing in the wind. It was heavy, with some object inside.

It was a present. She had never received a present before.

She turned it this way, and that in the light. Something glowed inside, like a seed in a segment of fruit. Long, and thin, and solid. It felt cold through the parchment.

She was intrigued, but vowed that she would finish her day's work before she opened it. She would save it til the very last, when the sun turned purple and its circumference was dotted with white.

And so on she worked, opening and reading, feeling the pages rasp over her chapped knuckles. She never wrote back to her subjects (such a thing would unseemly, and, of course, princesses on the cork were never taught to write) and after many hours, when the last kiss was signed on the last page in the last pen, she turned to her envelope. The light was failing, and the stars were coming out, lodged high in the walls.

But, when she came to open her gift, she found that she could not. She tugged and filleted and pulled, but her hands were too broken. The blood poured, and she let it fall to the ground with a a thud more than once. Tearing was no good, and she just opened new cuts if she tried to slip a finger into the fold. She tore at her golden hair in frustration, turning it the colour of peach. And she tried again, and again, until she fell into a dreamless sleep at the foot of her chair, exhausted, the gift still unopened beside her.

The next day she tried again, all day, letting the blood dry first, using her thick teeth (her grandfather's teeth, Angletrop used to say) to pry it open, but nothing worked. Days past, and the letters built up, unread. Rumours spread through the town that the princess had stopped caring for them, no longer deigned it necessary to read their letters, and soon the scratching at night stopped. A few small riots broke out, a few threats to burn the cork and the entire kingdom, but these were not taken seriously. After a while, the letters stopped coming, and the princess did not care. She was still trying to open the present, after all this time, deep in the canyons of letters that the postman had brought, every day, until people had stopped taking the time to write her.

Until, one day, she had an idea. She crept rustling through her room, through the ranges of letters glowing white along their edges with the early morning sun, to her father's chamber. He snored peacefully in bed, lying in the deep, fat groove her mother had left behind. She stroked his cheek, and stood on his enormous belly, reaching up above the headboard. There was kept Corkscrew, his famous sword, the sword of his ancestors, the sword which, if the stories are to be believed, he tamed the kingdom of the cork. She lifted it down, seeing the rusty light glint of its curves and its jewels. And then she snuck back to her room, cradling it in her hands, and tumbling through the piles of letters, until she found the gift.

In at the fold, went Corkscrew's tip.

A rip.

Her hands rejoiced at the respite. She sucked at her fingers blissfully.

With a clang, her gift fell to the floor. A curved hook, a grapple, ending in an eyelet.

And there, a note.

_My princess. I adore you. I hate the cork. I wish to climb to the sun with you. I will send rope, in the next few days, much rope. I hope your arms are strong. All my love, your damsel._

The princess turned, her bleeding hands already staining the hem of her gown, as she looked over the piles of post, all of it addressed to her.

She smiled, and began to wick each one open with Corkscrew, as quick as you liked. Her hands felt wonderful against the cold metal.

Outside her window, the sun beamed a faultless blue.
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