Fiction

The wonders of Alice’s blue, blue eyes.

Matt1 Comment

Dear friends,

I hope my last two letters greeted you soon enough on your doormat.

The artificial nights and days have merged so much that I’m not entirely sure I’m sane anymore, but should a person ever be so sure they are sane?

The Mammamarians took a keen interest in my relationship with Spoon after initially turning a blind eye.
To be truthful with you, I can’t get it up with them watching so intently.
I told Spoon, ‘I’m impotent towards you now; it’s over.’
Spoon didn’t cry; he just said, ‘I’m an android; I don’t care if you’re important.’
I repeated to him, ‘I’m impotent.’
Spoon turned to me and said, ‘Alright, big head.’

Since Spoon and I came to an end, they have introduced a new android, a female one.
She’s called Alice.
‘Hello, Alice, I’m Holden’ I introduced myself awkwardly, not daring to look into her very blue eyes.
‘Hello, Holden,’ She said, ‘Would you like to be my lover?’
I thought to myself this is very forward and quick on the draw.
‘I don’t know about that yet,’ I told her.
She looked over at Spoon, and when she turned back to me, she frowned, ‘You prefer the men?’
I shrugged, ‘It’s not so much that, it’s that I barely know you.’
At this, she smiled, ‘I heard you didn’t know Spoon that well before you spooned him.’
I thought on that a moment, and she did have a point.

I took a few days to get used to Alice’s presence.
Spoon kept glaring at me and then walking heavily around the tank.
‘I meant no harm,’ I told Spoon.
‘You can’t harm me; I’m an android.’ He told me.
‘You are acting pretty hurt,’ I told him.
He’s been like that with me ever since.

Now at night, when the Mammamarians turn off the artificial sunlight, they flash strobe lights as if I am out clubbing and then Alice starts dancing and trying to entice me closer to her.
But if she is hearing music, I do not hear any!
Which only makes her dancing appear more strange to me!
I asked Spoon one night when I felt like I was disassociating from reality, ‘Is Alice real or a hallucination?’
Spoon just nodded and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Which one are you saying yes to?’ I asked him.
He just sneered at me, lay himself down, and went to sleep!

Then last night, all things seemed to come to a head (quite literally), legs were tangled, and hair was ruffled.
And in the deep blue pools that were Alice’s eyes I lost myself in the moment, and alas, I came to with a shudder, and she looked up at me with an ever so wistful smile, ‘That good for you?’
I hesitated to reply; my humanity and thus, inability to not keep my animalistic passions in check was burdensome on my shoulders.
I must admit to feeling like Frankenstein’s monster, as her human-like blue eyes reflected her regret at me.
‘It wasn’t so good for you.’ I replied.
‘I’m an android; it neither felt good nor bad.’
And what a jarring reply! Yet despite her supposed neutrality, the misgivings afflicted her face with an all too human expression.

When I awoke, Alice was nowhere to be found in our little domesticated fish tank.
I have asked the Mammamarians where Alice is through Spoon.
And Spoon did speak with them, but I can only trust his word that he did ask on my behalf.
He told me that the Mammamarians told him, ‘Alice’s whereabouts are of no concern to us.’
Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.

And so I am left with Spoon and the other androids who pay me no mind, talk none and flit around the tank like goldfish.
I may be foolish enough to hanker after Spoon’s company again come artificial night.

Yours faithfully,

Holden Mcgroin

Another letter from Mammaroon

Matt1 Comment

Dear friends,

I’m writing again to tell you more about my life on Mammaroon since being abducted.

We have artificial days and nights, and all concept of time has become meaningless.
They turn on a sun lamp and turn it off when they please.
It has a routine, much like the days and nights on earth. But some days and some nights feel so long and tedious that I can’t be sure it’s not just random!

Loneliness hit me sooner than I thought it might, given my propensity to be alone.
But alas, I felt driven mad by loneliness; perhaps it was the lack of certainty of time.
Anyhow, the reasons as to why don’t much matter in the scheme of things.

When on earth amongst other humans, it’s easy to forget you are human. But on an alien planet with aliens watching you like in a zoo, your own humanity dawns on you and beckons you back to earth.
If only such psychological beckonings could be a form of transport!

In a state of loneliness, one artificial night, I crept into the bed of Spoon and began to spoon him.
He didn’t flinch at my touch; he didn’t seem to mind.
I could be confident of this impression when he started grinding up against my crotch.
But it was through these bodily explorations I came upon a stark truth!
Spoon was no man, no fellow human!
Spoon is, of course, an android!
‘It feels like this is something you should have told me,’ I said to him.
‘It is not protocol for me to tell you. Indeed it is not protocol for any of us to tell you.’
‘Any of you?’
‘Yes,’ He rolled over in the bed to face me, ‘All of us here in this tank,’ he nodded his head at me, eager for me to complete that conclusion.
‘There are no other humans in this fish tank with me!’ I said.
‘Correct,’ Spoon smiled at me.

Of course, it all makes more sense now! I wondered how Spoon could translate the alien’s communication technique, which to my ears, is entirely silent!

Despite my low mood spurned by loneliness, the Mammamarians still treat me well.
I am fed, and they allow me to shower once a week which is more often than I did at home! Although showering while they watch me can be pretty disturbing!

The Mammamarians also appear to be turning a blind eye to the filthy things I do with Spoon in the artificial nights!

And so, all in all, I can’t complain too much!

I hope this letter reaches you well!

Yours faithfully,

Holden Mcgroin.

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow

Matt1 Comment

Dear Friends,

I am writing to inform you that the Mammamarians have abducted me.
Their name, ‘Mammamarians’ originates from the name of their planet, Mammaroon.
And the planet is called Mammaroon because it is shaped like a pair of boobs.
It’s called Mammaroon because calling it Mammarygland (pronounced Mamaryg land) is too on the nose. (This I was told by another abductee named Spoon. I don’t know why his name is Spoon; he isn’t shaped like a spoon).

To keep you abreast of my situation, I am being looked after by the mammamarians, (Did I mention that they are shaped like boobs too)? However, I have yet to be anally probed. (much to my disappointment).
The Mammamarians communicate via antennae from nipple-like nubs on their heads. In addition, they have cilia (like little bits of hair) around what I will call their areolae, which are very sensitive to their environment.
Picture if you will, a woman lying down, her breasts pert and nipples erect and pointing to the sky. This is essentially the shape of the Mammamarians but with six legs sticking out, three on each side.
They have me contained within a fish tank-type arena whereby many mammamarians stand and watch me.
Spoon says he was one of the first to be abducted, and never once have they mistreated him, so if I can take Spoon at his word, it seems like my life here may be relatively simple and without much concern. In fact, it so far has been easier than my life on earth!

We are fed, and each abductee is provided with his or her own bosom pillow!
It seems the mammamarians took that song that sang ‘everybody needs a bosom for a pillow’ very literally.
They have asked me (their weird form of communication translated to me by none other than Spoon) what a brimful of asha is. I was unable to answer their query.
They slammed on the glass of our tank angrily at my lack of knowledge which alarmed me, but then they scattered away.
It’s not like I can fault them; we all get irritated from time to time.
The following day they came back and were pleasant as breasts again, with no residual tension felt or seen.

And so I write to you in high spirits, and long may that continue!
I hope this reaches you in high spirits too!

Yours faithfully,

Holden Mcgroin

Of flesh and earth, we were torn – 500 word story.

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On the space station, there is another me in the flesh.
I am down here to explore the recovery of the earth or the lack thereof.
I have seen that the land is parched, and no life is in sight.
Any trees still standing are in the long drawn, out process of death and decay, leaning precariously.
I trailed a camera into the holes of such trees, and there was nothing.
Like staring into an abyss.
There was no life in that death.
This is not what death is supposed to be.
My big metal feet journey through vast expanses of land.
Death used to mean something, life. It meant life of some kind or other.
Now it means…nothing.
Which in turn makes life mean nothing.

And so up there myself in the flesh amongst others in their flesh, they are cocooned from the truth.
This is where I depart from myself, my soul, in the space station.
Where I become someone new.
We travelled different terrains, and new paths were forged inside ourselves.
He is of the flesh; I am of wheels, oil, plastics and metals.

‘Fox,’ Came the voice in my ear.
‘Max?’ I replied.
‘meet me at the mother tree.’

The mother tree is a huge colossus of a tree; it is dead. Its enormous girth leaning now to one side.
A massive hole within where even we humanoids can fit.

‘An earthquake or something is approaching,’ Max told me.

Earthquakes were common.

There were no birds, and my flesh self loves watching the birds in documentaries. My flesh self has never seen a real bird, nor have I.
He thinks one day he will be able to come back down to earth – in the flesh – and see the birds.
I don’t know what to tell you, Fox.
There are no birds, and none of our namesake either. I’m sorry.
I wish to tell you better news.

Max and I stood in the hole of the mother tree, and she groaned from inside like a tormented soul. It was painful to listen to.

In my head, I imagine contorted faces made of wood, a mouth open with screams unhearable to the human ear.
‘It’s time we tell them, above,’ I told Max.
Max nodded.

We signed off our lousy news with, ‘The only thing left of the earth is you.’

The truth is, fellow humans, you didn’t see yourself as the earth enough, so you used it like a commodity, not as a relationship between reciprocal beings.
The world was your oyster; the sky was the limit.
But you didn’t even stay to that supposed limit either, did you?

We all have and had an aversion to death which was only natural, but now I have seen there is no worse fate than the death of death.

Will the world ever recover? Maybe. But not in our lifetime. It’s too late for us.

And in my metal body, there are no tears I can cry.

An experiment: Fall

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I feel like a computer that has eaten space cookies
sitting here on cloud 0.9
it’s like a hammock contouring to my body
holding me afloat
in the middle of the storms that are ever looming
and when this cloud bursts full of rain
I will fall head first
as if a rain drop
and on my advance, I will feel the exhilaration of falling
heartache exuding via sweat
I a fellow humanoid, being part of the fall
my heart soaring the skies of summer
before the drop of autumns blunder
and as I fall into winters backdrop
Christmas carols erase my desperation
as it travels to their voices
and colours the world in Christmas hopefuls
anything to colour the winter with something akin to joy
lest the bleakness remind humanity
of its own downward trajectory.

And as I plunge
to the place in which we’re all destined
I feel more certain than I have ever before
it’s something we all know
and it’s this moment that counts
as the seeds of my life disperse
not a nullification of my form
but a nutrient-rich dust
in which I become
Becoming the fall
and feeding the seasons
of the coming years.

The Frankensteins

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Meredith sat in her rocking chair by the fire, without looking up from her knitting she said, ‘I wish you’d stop rolling your eyes at me!’

‘Well if you would talk sense I wouldn’t need to’ Alfie remarked.

Stopping her knitting for a second she reached under the chair and pulled out one of his eyes, ‘I’m tired of finding them all over our wonderful house!’

‘I’ve been looking for that eye!’ he replied.

‘Well if you’d mind them better you wouldn’t lose them would you?’ she lifted her head toward the direction Alfie’s voice was coming from, her eye sockets empty.

Patting her knitting on her knee she began, ‘now then, when are we going to the body shop, like we said we would?’

‘I’m waiting for you to go now! I’m all ready!’ Alfie said dripping with impatience.

‘I wish you’d calm yourself down!’

‘Wish you’d bloody hurry up! Now come on! Chop, chop!’ He clapped his hands together and turned to the mirror over the mantelpiece. Pulling some fluff from the eyeball Meredith had previously found under her chair he plopped it in his right socket.

‘You’re going with odd eyes in aren’t you?’

‘I might be!’ Alfie said.

‘It’s always odd eyes and odd socks with you!’

The body shop had a sale on everything, a sign in front of a shelf full of boots and shoes read, ‘buy a pair of boots and get one soul free.’

‘Look, Mer!’ Alfie lit up like a child in a sweet shop, ‘they have buy one get one free on all colours of eyes!’

‘You’ve enough eyes at home!’ Meredith scowled and plopped two golden eyes in her sockets from her handbag, then took out a pair of big jam jar like glasses. The glasses enlarged her golden eyes as she bent down and looked towards the shoes and boots.

‘I could do with some new boots!’ Meredith started, turning to a woman who worked in the shop, ‘do we know whose soul we’ll get?’

The woman shook her head, ‘No, you get whatever soul comes with the boots.’

‘That’s a shame’ Meredith tutted to herself, ‘What do you think, Alfred?’

‘I think you need to stop calling me Alfred in public! You know I don’t like it!’

‘No about the boots!’ Meredith said ignoring his plea.

‘You have a right boot at home, get a left one.’

‘But if I only buy one boot, I shall not get the soul!’

‘You’ve got your own!’ Alfie laughed.

‘I like to wear someone else’s essence every now and then!’

‘You know they’re not anyone else’s soul right, Mer? They’re manufactured!’

‘Well, anyway,’ Meredith bunched up her hair, ‘I like to wear the essence of another soul every now and then!’

‘Just get the right one. It’s not like you can choose what soul you get! What if you get a piss poor one, full of vulgar language?

‘I suppose you’re right, Alfred.’

‘Pardon me,’ Alfie started with a big grin, ‘I’m…I’m right for once? Well, that’s a bloody first!’

‘You won’t be right for long, carry on with that attitude!’ She said slapping with him her handbag.

Some teenagers were prowling outside the shop like a pride of young lions.

‘Hey,’ one of the lads hollered, ‘Look ‘ere we got some Frankies!’

The other kids laughed.

Alfie sighed and muttered under his breath, ‘like a pack of hyenas, they are!’

‘Come on Alfred, we’re going home!’ Meredith pulled at his arm, going pale all over, stumbling and mumbling as she put her glasses back in her bag, ‘I don’t want to see such folly!’ She proclaimed dramatically and took her eyeballs out.

‘Ignore them!’ Alfie told her, his eyes having caught a top-shelf he could just about reach, ‘They’ve got some top of the line penises on sale!’

‘Yes, well,’ Meredith said as she fiddled about blindly trying to fasten up her handbag, ‘I’ve got a bog-standard vagina so you don’t need one of them fancy things!’

Hurriedly she shrugged her way out of the shop

‘Fuckin’ Frankies! Rich cunts!’

‘If we were Frankies me nanna would be alive!’ one of the teens shouted.

‘yea! And me sister is on a waiting list for 100 years on the NHS,  She won’t even live that fucking long! meanwhile you Frankies just go to the fucking body shop! Fucking rich bastards!’

‘FRANNNKIIIIIEEES’ they all shouted.

Alfie followed swiftly behind Meredith, overtaking her, his face red with rage till Meredith suddenly stopped and cried, ‘They’ve taken my bag! And snatched off with my arm too!’

Alfie spun on his heels, ‘Come here you little thieving rats!’ his eyes bulged out of his head, ‘Get back here you little rats,’ he repeated.

But the kids were too fast as they emptied her handbag leaving a trail behind them.

Alfie took off his left arm and threw it at them.

‘That’s an assault that!’ one of the kids yelled.

‘I’ve got a right to bear arms when you’ve stolen our property!’

The kids laughed and dropped her handbag along with Meredith’s right arm.

‘Stolen property?’ one of the older kids couldn’t resist shouting back sarcastically before turning a corner, ‘You rich cunts own everything!’ he could be heard shouting as he was lost to their sights.

‘Quick, quick,’ Meredith uttered, ‘collect everything up,’ she blushed a bluey colour that only the living dead could, as people rushed and gave them a wide berth on their way to their many errands.

Neon noose

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The neon world shone through the mist, the creatures called ‘humans’ or more scientifically, ‘homo sapiens’ were becoming like the dragonfish of the deep, deep ocean. Though their physical biology refused to become bioluminescent they were compensated for this by their adaptability and creative abilities.
The mist had become an ocean in which they constantly lived and had planet earth been a sentient being it may well have regarded humanity as its greatest mistake.

Their evolution of super adaptability meant they externalised many traits and habits other animals had inbuilt. With delusions of grandeur on a mass scale, the homo sapiens had no regard for animals, despite being one themselves, the animals in their linguistic headspaces had become ‘other,’ and expendable. Some homo sapiens had come to the conclusion they were making too many mistakes, indeed in one cartoon (something they created with an implement known as a pen) that caught my eye the homo sapien had drawn a dinosaur with a meteorite falling from the sky, one dinosaur looked to another and said, ‘We should do something about that,’ and the other said, ‘We can’t, it’ll hurt the economy.’ This cartoon was supposed to be something called comedy.
The laughing matter is that the cartoon was pointing out a real phenomenon. To the homo sapiens, the ‘economy’ was more important than saving their lives. And I have wondered ever since what sort of diety this ‘economy’ must have been to them that they were willing to sacrifice their lives for it. They worshipped this God called ‘economy’ and the thought of hurting this God was baulked at more than their own demise. Perhaps they believed in some kind of afterlife. They appeared trapped in a hell of their own making, the air was dense with all sorts of stuff they pumped into it daily. But they could not or would not help themselves. I believe they were all (a term they used) addicts.

They had divided such a line between themselves and the expendable others that they ironically othered themselves as a consequence.
They had mind-bending ideas that meant they figured anything ‘man-made’ was not nature, for they were above it or in some minds below it.
But the species were so fractured that although they lived by this principle even many of the homo sapiens who purported to be ‘at one with nature’ would baulk at ‘man-made’ progress and they didn’t see how this was a contradiction.
They figured themselves enlightened and the ones who would take them back to nature and none of them stopped to question, ‘When did we leave?’
Was it when they first harnessed electricity? Was it when they first landed a man on the moon?
If it was the earth that had birthed them in the whole scheme of things, then ‘man made’ need not be excluded from being called natural.
After all, it was their evolved capabilities that naturally gave them these abilities.

Homo sapiens by my alien (alien to them) observations, were addicts who were so out of fear of death.

If Homo sapiens were just mere natural beings then they too would perish, they too came from and were part of the dirt.

The homo sapiens were to the earth what the metallic starlings were to poison-dart trees.

Homo sapiens had the disadvantage that they were harmful to all of the earth, but the supposed advantage was their tendency to be highly adaptable.

But too many chose to ignore the signs, too many chose to ignore the men and women shouting and screaming that the world was on fire.

Because they were addicts.

All for fear of the thing they only brought more of, death.


And now, in their misty neon ghettos, they try to forget their inevitable demise, looking into the halo of a neon noose.

The men who ate themselves

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The world was smothered in white, a trees gnarly limbs pointed to the sky in accusation with curled fingers.
‘I can’t breathe out here,’ I reported.
‘Get back!’ Mack’s voice came through the static.
‘I can’t,’ I told him, ‘I can’t,’
‘You’re gonna die out there!’
My footsteps trailed behind me, I wanted so bad to cover each up, cover my tracks, ‘Soldier down,’ I said breathlessly.
‘Flint, If you don’t get back here now I’m gonna kick your fucking arse!’
‘soldier….down…’ I gasped.
‘Flint you fucker! We’re right here! Just walk back. Crawl back. Do anything and get back here, right fucking now! Don’t make me come out there!’
‘Mack, I’ve seen it.’ I fell to my knees, ‘I’ve…’ between each breath I uttered my words through gritted teeth, ‘seen it, Mack,’ a gush of wind blew the snow in circles around me. ‘He ate himself, Mack,’ a tear ran down my cheek, froze solid on its way down.
‘Flint, You cared too much. But it’s over, you need to let go.’
‘I can’t,’ I fell headfirst into the snow-covered ground. ‘I’m so tired Mack, I’m so tired of caring. The anger, the pain…’
‘Flint, if you let go you can get back! Let go!’
‘I can’t Mack. He’s a husk, a ghost. I never believed in ghosts but now I know they’re real.’
‘Right, that’s it!’
‘Don’t come out here!’ I screamed into the static, ‘Don’t come out here!’
Ghosts aren’t what you think they are, they aren’t the spirit of the dead they’re sadder than that. They’re living people who are helpless not because no one can help them, but because they won’t accept the help.
‘He ate himself, Mack,’ I cried into the void.

The snow slushed underneath me, my body leaving a trail covering up the footprints of the man dragging me.
‘You need to get out of his headspace,’ Mack was droning on, ‘he’s got you caged in his head.’ He paused and bent over winded trying to take a breath. ‘It’s an illusion, Flint,’ He coughed, ‘he got into your head and projected his own. you’re in his headspace inside your own headspace. You can let it go.’
I sat up and opened my eyes dazed and confused, he shut the door and switched the oxygen on, sat down next to me to get his breath back.
‘You don’t have to care all the time, Flint.’
But I knew I would. And I knew it would hurt and I was angry he saved my life.

I saw a man eat himself like the way the critters eat my mind. He ate me too, and now the critters in our heads eat us and we eat us and we’re all just consumed.

The Tree Houses

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From a distance, it looked like a forest but upon closer inspection, you came to rows and rows of houses that became known as the tree houses not because they were the old traditional treehouses of old, but for their mimicry with their green pointed roofs.

Some people claimed the place is beautiful but I have to politely disagree. Though politeness may get me nowhere when the truth was so ugly.

Perhaps I should have pushed harder, derailed them from their illusions of utopia.

The roofs were plastic green and not a bird was in sight, the water that surrounded these damnable houses did not contain fish. There was no wildlife to be seen, and the doors of the house opened up like the mouths of monsters consuming all tenants who moved into them.

Many a house was haunted, not with the imagined ghosts but with the debris of collected psyches. The human form of the tenants may have left the houses but they were never the same, the houses had consumed them from within. The houses were tyrants and no one left them upon their own whim, they could only leave when the houses spat them out.

In one such house, an empty chair rocked, animated by a previous tenants anxieties.

Pictures hung in jaunty angles on the walls and the eyes of previous paranoid tenants peered through from behind the frame, though those men had left, their eyes never would.

The stairs creaked as you stumbled up them, or so it seemed. But that creaking sound was not the faux wooden floorboards, it was the sound of a madman. His essence, his humanity had been absorbed into the walls and his many cries and voices spoke for the house.



291 words in 6 minutes

Absence

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The night was different shades of black with gold specs, and the moon was a silver goddess shining brightly onto the world when she left.
A fleeting love that died like the wilted roses of winter as snow blinkered all our colours in white.
The train came at 21:05, and that was that gone in a haze she was just a face staring back from a window with a tear writing sadness upon her cheek.
The snow of winter turned grey as it was muddied by the boots of people trudging their days away mindlessly while I noticed every little wish unfulfilled in the stars.
A plane shot through my vision, pointing as if it was going to the moon, a trail behind it that is poison in its own polluting way.
It occurred to me then that life itself was pollution, everything was spinning on this globe, and everything was interacting within it.
Yet we pulled ourselves outside of it with our distractions and words, but I know now it was only ever an illusion.
That we are the earth, as are the birds and the other beasts that share this world.
And the train shook on the tracks, our goodbyes said only in our staring eyes as the train rushed past, and I knew I’d never see her again.
yet she was still the earth as was I, even after the train tracks drew a divide between us
I didn’t yet know if that was comforting or all the more painful.
These goodbyes always feel like the end of the world, still, it turns, but somehow it doesn’t always help to remember that fact.
Our emotions never could stick to the notion of calendars and diary planners sometimes, an anniversary feels too quick in the heart and loss too long in the dark.
Neither of us waved, our eyes blinking through the sadness that words couldn’t express.
My eyes took a picture of her face in the window while it never left; it fades as the days go by, her absence getting more noticeable with every feature lost in the memory.
It seems to me absence is a lot like a cockroach
nothing can kill these beasts