Put your heart and soul into it: A Drew and Drake story

Drew consoled himself with a packet of wotsits and a cartoon on the TV as the ambulance drove away.
‘Psst.’
Drew looked around but could see no one. He shrugged and continued munching on his wotsits.
‘Pssst!’
Drew drew himself forward on the couch, ‘Hello?’
‘Psst, here!’
Drew looked around the room, eyes darting back and forth uncertainly, ‘Hello?’
‘Here!’ The voice called again.
Drew picked up the remote with cheesy fingers, leaving a grease stain on the mute button. ‘Hello?’ he whispered uncertainly.
The cartoon moved onto adverts; a girl stood open-mouthed in fake awe of a pink plastic toy.
‘Drew! I need you to get my body back!’ The voice had panic in it.
‘Drake?’ Drew looked dumbfounded and sprung off the sofa, ‘Where the hell are you?’
‘I’m in the Dambuster!’ Came Drakes’s voice.
Drew’s face remained blank.
‘The damn Dambuster!’ Drake called out, frustrated.
‘Is that a hoover?’ Drew lurched toward the broken hoover in the corner of the room.
‘No! No!’ Drake’s voice started, and the panic heightened in his voice, ‘Air fix model plane! 1:72 Lancaster Dambuster!’
Drew found the Lancaster Dambuster model on the table next to the sofa. He picked it up delicately and put it to his ear like a phone, ‘Drake?’
‘I’m here! You got me!’ Drake replied with relief, his voice clipped and loud inside Drake’s ear.
‘Bloody hell! Turn the volume down!’
‘Or take me away from your ear!’ Drake would have been shaking his head if he could, ‘Listen, Drew! You need to get to my body!’
‘How did you even get in there? The paramedics took you away!’ Drew held the Dambuster in his right hand and scratched his balls in his shorts.
‘I put my heart and soul into this model!’ 
‘And now look at ya! You’re a damn dambuster!’
Drake sighed.

Drew raced out the door, the Dambuster in the crook of his arm.
‘Careful!’ Drake drolled, ‘I’m made of plastic!’
‘Aren’t we all these days.’ Drew muttered.
There was silence except for Drew’s heavy, lumbering footsteps until Drake finally broke it. ‘Drew?’
‘Yea?’
‘When did you become so profound?’
‘You’ve not been found yet.’ Drew replied.
The dambuster tutted beneath the crook of Drew’s arm.
‘I’ll be profound when I’ve got you back.’
‘I’m here.’
‘I mean when you’re made of flesh.’ Drew replied.
‘Alright, Drew?’ Billy stepped off the curve of the pavement to step around him, ‘Talkin’ t’ yaself?’
‘No I was talkin’ t’…’ Drew stopped and felt the Airfix model beneath the crook of his arm, ‘I guess maybe I was.’
‘Where is Drake?’ Billy asked, looking around for him before his eyes beamed on the model and with a huge grin and glint in his eyes he asked, ‘I used t’ make them as a kid! Airfix model, is it?’
Drew nodded.
‘Can I have a look?’
Drew squinted in the sun, ‘I dunno about that.’
‘Protective over it are ya?’ Billy smirked and stepped closer to Drew, Bending a little to view the plane. ‘Ya make that yaself?’
‘No, Drake made it.’
‘Wow. He’s really put himself into that!’
Drew gawped, ‘You know?’
Billy looked up from the plane with a frown, ‘What?’
‘Ya said he put himself into it.’
‘Yea. Just look at it.’ Billy snatched it from Drew’s arm, ‘He’s really got an eye for the details. The way he’s painted it to make it look rusted and old. It’s amazing!’ Billy’s eyes popped as he shook his head in amazement, ‘Who’d ‘ave thunk simple old Drake had such in ‘im!’ He grinned from ear to ear, ‘He did put his heart and soul into it didn’t it!’ He beamed, delicately running a finger along the plane’s flank and around the wing’s edges. ‘Hell, I might just be inspired to start up the hobby again myself!’ Billy made as if to return the plane to Drew, ‘You be careful how ya carry ‘er! Can’t have you breaking it!’
Drew held both his hands out to receive the plane.
‘There ya go, now off ya go. Be delicate with her!’
‘It’s a he.’ Drew was shocked, ‘Ya should know that!’
‘Nah a beauty like that is a she! Always a she, Drew.’
Billy turned and continued on his way, turning to look over his shoulder at Drew and the model once or twice before turning the corner to the next street.
‘Well that was gross.’ Intoned the Dambuster in Drake’s voice.
‘Ya tellin’ me ya got a sex change too?’ Drew asked the dambuster, his face screwed up, ‘Ya coulda told me!’
‘What? I haven’t had a bleeding sex change, mate!’
‘But he knew ya were in there. And he said you were a she!’
‘Do ya believe everything Billy tells ya?’
Drew shrugged.
‘Besides, he doesn’t know I’m in here!’
‘He said as much!’ Drew protested.
‘It’s a figure of speech to folk like him. He doesn’t realise it’s real. He says heart and soul as if they are metaphors. He doesn’t actually know I’m in here.’
‘So you haven’t changed your sex?’
The dambuster sighed, ‘That’s your concern right now? If I’ve had a sex change or not? I’m a damn dambuster! Focus, Drew, focus!’

‘Okay, so we’re here.’ Drew told the Airfix model, looking around furtively as he approached the doors.
‘What’s wrong?’ Drakes disembodied voice asked.
‘This place. It’s spooky!’
‘Spookier than a ghost in an Airfix model giving you instructions?’
Drew shrugged.
‘Time is of the essence!’
‘No. Essence is a perfume.’ Drew replied.
‘It’s also time.’ A flustered Drake replied from the Dambuster, ‘I dunno how long my body can be dead till it can’t take my soul back!’
Drew ran across the road and rattled the doors, ‘I can’t get in!’
‘You’re gonna have to break in!’
‘I can’t break in!’ Drew huffed.
‘Yes you can! You’ve done it before! It’s not your first crime!’
‘But I’ve been on a good streak!’
‘Do you want me to be a damn dambuster for the rest of my fucking life?’
Drew stopped to think about this a moment, the silence engulfing them before a car sped past. Drew tried to look nonchalant, scuffing the pavement with the toe of his shoe, hugging the airfix model close to his body.
‘Fuck sake! It shouldn’t take that long to think about! It’s obvious!’
‘Sorry, it’s just… I mean… You’re still here with me! So…I don’t mind if you’re an airfix plane or whatever else!’
‘Aww,’ Drake snapped, ‘How cute!’ He said sarcastically, ‘Listen, Drew, I need you to pick the lock. You’ve picked a lock before.’
‘No you picked the locks’ Drew protested.
‘Did I?’
‘Yea you picked the locks!’
‘Okay. But you saw me do it!’
Another car drove by, the passenger giving Drew the side eye as he whispered to the airfix model, ‘I wasn’t paying attention to you! I was on the lookout.’
‘Well..’ Drake started…
A car door opened and closed nearby, and then shoes scuffing on the pavement could be heard inching closer, accompanied by a plastic rattle.
A woman broached the corner, a plastic carrier bag in one hand, and a waft of perfume made its way toward them.
‘Time and essence.’ Drew mumbled to himself.
The woman stopped short at the sight of Drew outside the doors, clutching the Dambuster in his grubby hands.
She read his face, a look of anxious desperation.
‘Hello,’ Piercing the moment with her voice, ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ She plopped the carrier bag down on the pavement and twisted her body to root through her handbag, fishing out a selection of keys that rang together as she pulled them out.
‘I need to get in to see Drake.’
‘Drake?’ The woman picked the carrier bag back up and walked towards the doors and unlocked them. ‘Surname?’
‘Whitlock.’
‘And what do you need to see this, erm..’ The keys rattled in her hands, ‘Mr Whitlock’s body for?’
‘Because…’
‘Halt it, Drew. She won’t believe you.’
Drew swallowed audibly, ‘Because I miss him.’
‘Tell her you want to place the dambuster with him.’
Drew held out the plane in her face, ‘I want to put this with him.’
‘Tell her he put his heart and soul into it and he’d have wanted it to be with him.’
‘He would have wanted it to be with him.’ Drew told her.
The woman looked at him suspiciously. ‘No,’ She frowned, ‘That would be a job for the undertakers. You think I can just let any random man in off the streets to come look at some mans body?’ She shook her head again, ‘What about dignity? What about respect? what about…’
As she prattled on, Drake instructed Drew to sneak in through the doors while they had the chance.
‘Hey!’ The woman stormed in through the doors, ‘Young man!’ She shouted after him.

Running into the cold room lined with steel drawers Drew pulled each one out till he found Drake’s lifeless body.
‘Now what do I do?’ Drew asked.
‘I dunno. Place me on my body.’ Drake replied
Drew placed the airfix model of the Dambuster onto Drake’s body.
The lights above buzzed monotonously and a tap dripped somewhere off to the side.
‘Psst, Drew…’
‘Yea?’
‘I…I dunno what to do now. How do I get myself back into my body?’
Drew frowned, ‘Well, how’d you get in the Dambuster?’
‘I told you, I put my heart and soul into it!’
‘Well do the same again but into your body.’
‘But,’ Drew could almost hear the expression Drake would have been pulling on his face if he could, eyebrows drawn together in a frown, ‘It’s not the same thing. I was making it, I put a lot of effort into it.’
‘Put a lot of effort into getting back into your body then.’ Drew shrugged.
The Dambuster started to vibrate with the effort as the woman stormed in.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing in here?’ She scowled, her eyes reaching the airfix model widened, ‘What on earth is going on with that?’
She lurched toward Drew, ‘Is this some kind of degenerate sexual thing!’ She looked from Drew to the Dambuster, ‘What is that toy doing! Why is it vibrating like that!’
‘He’s trying to get back into his body!’
Befuddled the woman stepped back, ‘What? Who?’
‘Drake! He’s trying to get back into his body!’
‘What do you mean he’s trying to get back into his body?’ She asked in a shrill voice.
Drew pointed to the Dambuster, ‘ He’s in there, ‘And it’s not a toy. It’s an Airfix model.’
The woman started, ‘It’s not a toy? It’s a….’
The Dambuster started to vibrate even harder, and one of the propellers began to spin, which caused a chain reaction, and they all began to move.
‘What trickery is this?’ The woman asked appaled, ‘This is inappropriate behaviour inside a morgue.’
‘There is no trickery,’ Drake’s voice croaked.
The woman jumped out of her skin, and her body landed limply on the cold tiled floor.
‘Fuck,’ Drake spat as he got up off the metal gurney, ‘I think we’ve killed her!’ He ran over to her and checked for a pulse, ‘Shit. She’s gone.’
‘What happened to her?’ Drew asked.
‘I think I scared her to death.’
‘She jumped out of her skin.’ Drew muttered to himself.
Standing there naked over her, feeling for a pulse Drake smiled, ‘I think you’re onto something there!’
‘What?’ Drew gawped.
‘She jumped out of her skin. Maybe she’ll jump back in, in a minute.’
‘Can we go home now?’
Drake tutted and shook his head, ‘No hug for your old mate? Not even a ‘welcome back mate.”
‘Not while you’re naked like that, no.’ Drew replied.

All too human 2

Chapter 1 https://silverbackgorillapoetry.com/2024/11/09/all-too-human/

*Note* — means the same place, or area but moved to a different scene in the present.

* Means we’ve gone back to an old memory.

Chapter 2

‘It’s the bag man puffter robot!’ One of the boys hollered as he passed a football to one of his friends.
Sparks preferred it when it was he was just known as the bag man. He scrunched the top of the bag up in his fist.
‘You know,’ the eldest kid started as he kicked the ball back, ‘this ball is getting a little flat,’ He looked toward Sparks, then back at his friends with a gleam of expectation in his eyes.
The ball passed between them quickly when one of the boys said, ‘Hey! We could use that head the puffter robot carries!’
The boys all laughed.
‘How did it work?’ One of the boys said, the football stopped underneath his left foot, ‘I heard you robots are as smooth as a mannequin down there!’
The boys started to howl with laughter, ‘Do you just wet your fingers and stick them into each other’s ears?’ The boys spat with laughter, the ball rolling along the road.
Sparks quickened his pace up through the ginnel.


       The late afternoon sun shone through the windows, dust motes gliding visibly in the rays. The Holo TV spat out a news presenter in 3D into the living room. Sparks sat in an old tattered armchair with the palms of his hands flat on his thighs.
     ‘You been to the scraps today?’ Mary asked, sitting in the other armchair to the side and in front of him.
    Sparks nodded.
     The newswoman spoke of local news about a family that was looking for their missing cat.
    Mary groaned, ‘Can’t stand cats,’ She remarked; it’s probably gone to be alone to die.’ Her fingers trailed through a woolen ball, ‘I prefer dogs myself.’ Then, she turned to Sparks, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever cared much for either.’
   Sparks didn’t reply, going deep inside his head in memory.

*

Sparks sat outside Lockwood HQ when a stray dog ran past him. The dog was skeletal looking, and his fur was full of mange.
Sparks had called out to the dog, clicking his mouth valves to try and attract his attention.
The dog’s ears twitched at the sounds, but he ran when he saw Sparks’s tall figure.
A stone was thrown behind Sparks, landing on the pavement with a clack.
‘Psst!’ Came a voice.
Sparks turned at the sound coming from the cobbled sidestreet.
‘What are you doing here?’ Sparks asked, looking over at one of the guard droids in front of HQ.
‘It was how you left, it was…’ Sark  tried to find the words, ‘You worried me.’
‘Nothing makes sense anymore,’ Sparks told him. ‘I’m an android; I’m not supposed to have emotions.’
‘What are you feeling?’
Sparks shrugged, ‘I don’t know. I just know I’m not supposed to feel the way I do.’
Sark  grabbed Sparks by the arm and dragged him up the cobbled road.
‘I need to find that poor dog!’ Sparks protested.
‘We’ll find him tomorrow,’ Sark  said.
‘But who knows how far he might get!’
Sark  shook his head in the dark, ‘It’s okay, I’ve seen it about before. I promise we’ll try to find him tomorrow.’ Sark  gestured with open palms, ‘Besides, it won’t be too easy to find him right now.’
Sparks looked over his shoulder at the flashing street lights, then up at the sky.
‘You put yourself at risk coming here!’ Sparks whispered.
‘Yea,’ Sark  grabbed Sparks’s hand, ‘I risked it…’ He stopped in his tracks with a frown, looking down at their holding hands, ‘What happened to your hand?’

The next day Sark  stuck to his promise and helped sparks find the stray dog. After searching all morning they eventually found the dog hidden in some bushes in a little wooded area near the church where Sark  and Sparks first met.

The dog would not budge; the only thing visible was a bit of his fur and the mange through gaps of foliage. ‘We’ll leave some food,’ Sparks said, ‘I don’t think he’s gonna come out for us.’

On the second night of going to the woods to leave out water and food for the dog, they had their first kiss.
Sark  had gotten down to his knees to place the bowl, and when he turned, Sparks, for reasons he couldn’t explain, placed a hand behind Sark ‘s head and pushed his face inbetween his legs.
As soon as he’d done it he pulled back, ‘Sorry,’ he started, ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
Sark  got up and kissed Sparks desperately, their mouth valves flapping over each other.


The HoloTV spat out a different presenter. He smiled at the audience watching in all the boroughs; a picture of Malborough Plaza HQ was framed behind him.
‘Malborough Plaza HQ is rebuilding itself from the inside, hoping to prevent such tragic events as happened at Lockwood and Princeton HQ. Now we’ll go to our correspondent Neil.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Neil responded with the massive HQ building towering over him. ‘To prevent more of the same,’ the lights changed for a flash with images of a destroyed Lockwood HQ building and then another one of Princeton HQ before swiftly returning to the reporter. ‘Malborough HQ says they’re working on finding any and all faulty androids working within it’s walls and dismantling those that are malfunctioning…’

‘Turn it off!’ Sparks spat, his fingers curling on his thighs. But his monotone voice did not translate the urgency and irritation in which he meant it.

Mary scoffed, ‘How else will I keep up with what’s happening in the world?’
*
Sark  and Sparks eventually got the dog close enough

to grab him on a lead after a week and a half of returning to the same spot each day.
‘What are you going to call him?’ Sark  asked him as they gently pulled the hesitating dog along.
Sparks shrugged down and looked at the dog, ‘I don’t know yet,’ He placed a hand in front of the dogs nose which smelt of dog food. The dog sniffed his fingers anxiously, licked his fingertips delicately, then pulled away with a whine.
‘It’s alright,’ Sparks spoke to the dog, ‘You’re safe with me, little friend.’

                        Sparks shot up from his chair, ‘I’m going back into the garage!’
Mary turned and nodded to acknowledge she’d heard.

He placed Sark ‘s head on the little wooden pedestal he had made, the silver heart hanging down like a pendant on a necklace.
‘No one understands me as you do.’ Sparks whispered.

The house was silent but for the creaks on the floorboard upstairs as Mary got ready for bed. In the bathroom, she stood before the mirror, brushing her teeth, then picked up some dentures from a glass of water and brushed them delicately with some toothpaste. ‘We need to keep your smiled spick and span, don’t we, Walter?’ She smiled back at the teeth and kissed the front teeth as she stepped across in her fluffy slippers toward the bedroom.

All too human

CHAPTER ONE

A prison stood tall and grey above all the scattered little houses and storage units that permeated the old industrial complex. Barbed wire fences glimmered with morning dew.

Sparks shuffled along the pavement carrying a blue and white striped bag.

‘It’s the bag man!’ The boy cried out to his friends.

They looked at him with laughter in their eyes.

The eldest of them, who stood in the shadows of the street, lurched forwards and grabbed the bag from his hand.

‘I wonder what it is!’ He said theatrically.

He threw the bag like a ball at one of the other boys, and the boy caught it, and threw it toward another boy.

Sparks stood in the middle, stretching his arms, trying to grab it back every time they threw it. It was awkward, an embarrassment, given his superior strength.

In their excitement, one of the five boys lost his grip on the bag while trying to catch it; the bag flailed off onto the road.

‘No!’ Sparks cried out in dread reaching down to the ground where his lover’s head had dropped with a plop out from the boy’s hands.

‘What the fuck?’ The boy rang out, stepping back.

The other boys laughed.

‘Are you seeing this?’ The elder boy grinned.

Sparks lunged towards his lover’s head, picking it up, ‘No! no! Sark !’ He examined the head for any signs of damage. A slight dint on his chin and dust from the road picked up on the silicone skin but nothing more.

He scrunched up the bag from the road and placed his lovers head back within it.

‘Aww,’ one of the younger boys said mockingly, ‘It’s a puff robot!’

The boys snickered.

‘Are you a puffter robot?’ The eldest shouted, looking towards his younger companions for affirmation.

‘Puffter robot!’ They all chanted, ‘puffter robot!’

He hurriedly walked up through the ginnel, still hearing their mockery behind him.

The solar panel shimmered at the side of the house, and bric-a-brac lay in piles. The sun shone white and bright through the clouds.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sparks uttered, smooching Sark ‘s dirty head on the pedestal.

‘Those boys are evil!’ He spat.

Wires hung out from the bottom of Sark ‘s neck.

Sparks turned to his workbench, ‘See, I’m going to fix you!’ He said desperately, picking up a soldering iron and taking a silver battery shaped like a heart with his other hand.

‘If I just connect these up,’ He turned back to Sark .

He took the soldering iron and connected the wires to their relevant connection points; his big hands worked awkwardly yet delicately.

He pulled the hair from Sark ‘s scalp and slid off the silicone skin, which took some effort to get off in one piece.

The silver dome bore scratches and a slight dent. The dent had become shiny with worry from Spark’s fingers.

He turned back to the workbench and picked up his electric screwdriver. Unscrewing the braincase felt like such an intimate moment, even though, logically, he knew android doctors had done this many times.

He kissed the silver dome rhythmically in between each screw he loosened.

When the braincase was off, Sark ‘s circuitry was revealed, with all its many wires going down into the little tank which held a cloned human brain.

There was a switch within all the wires and circuitry; flipping the switch to on, the heart started to beat and vibrate against the pedestal.

He bowed over the pedestal and looked for a reaction in Sark ‘s eyes. There was blinking, and then nothing.

Spark’s fingers traced down his cheek, ‘Sark ?’ he whispered gently in his ear, ‘Sark ? Are you there?’

Sparks stepped around and crouched in front of Sark ‘s face, ‘Please,’ He said.

But Sparks had no tears to cry.

‘Please,’ He sobbed dryly, resting his head against Sark ‘s, ‘I need you, Sark !’ He cried despairingly.

Sark ‘s heart vibrated against his chest, and he rested his head there, stripped bare in grief; he slowly went into sleep mode.

*

Though droids of his model were not supposed to have the ability to dream, dream he did.

Sparks and Sark had the secret droid bar to themselves; the room was awash in a warm red glow.

‘Do you have much sensation in your skin?’ Sark had asked him as they lay together on an L-shaped sofa.

‘I have sensors at various places underneath the skin to know when I’m in water or if something has caught on my skin and torn it.’ As Sparks spoke he felt something light on his hand, ‘What was that?’ He had asked, looking down.

Sark smiled at him sheepishly.

‘What was it?’

Sark  showed him a feather in his hand, ‘can you feel this?’ He brushed the feather on Sparks’s cheek.

‘Yes, only just.’

‘Is it a good feeling?’ Sark  talked with a whisper that held an urgency within his breath.

‘it doesn’t feel bad,’ Sparks replied.

‘I..’ Sark  stopped stroking him with the feather, ‘Does that mean good, or just neutral?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sparks replied, ‘What does it feel like to you?’ Sparks asked curiously.

‘Want to try it on me?’ Sark beamed with a smirk.

‘Why do I get the feeling this… this is…’ Sparks started.

Sark stopped him short and put his lips on his.

They kissed like they had that first time out in the woods, their mouth valves flapping.

While they were kissing, Sark slid the feather into Sparks’s hand. It was only a small feather with blue and black stripes and a slight white tinge. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the feather and stopped kissing abruptly.

‘Try it on me,’ Sark whispered with that urgency Sparks had previously noted. He couldn’t understand how such a tiny feather could call for such urgency! Sparks brushed the feather against Sark ‘s fingers, then down the palm of his hand.

‘It tickles,’ Sark spoke softly.

‘I suppose that was the word I was looking for.’ Sparks replied in his monotone voice.

Sparks was searching through his mind for what to do in these situations but was coming up blank though he had started to get the gist; this was something sexual; there was something he could feel though he didn’t have the words for it.

The more he thought about Sark ‘s hand or moving the feather over his body, the more the sensations were emboldened. Finally, Sark  took the feather from him and moved it over Sparks’s ear like a silent whisper, sending a tingle that transferred itself down his face. 

The doorknob rattled and moved; they both jerked up straight on the couch, turning to the TV. Sark ‘s face flushed red.

The rattling continued, then stopped abruptly.

‘What was that about?’ Sparks asked, walking towards the door. He opened it ajar and peered through.

A bulky security droid was standing outside in the vestibule.

‘Everything okay, Chief?’ Sparks asked.

Chief looked at him blankly, ‘Oh,’ He said, ‘Didn’t know anyone was still in here.’

‘Are you coming in?’

‘Nah,’ Chief replied, eyeing Sparks suspiciously.

‘I’m off to charge,’ Cheif said, pointing toward the door to the other room.

When Sparks closed the door behind him, Sark  burst out laughing, the redness leaving his face.

Sparks lunged toward him and kissed his lips, Sark ‘s urgency having transferred to Sparks. He was no longer in thinking mode; his logic circuits went off as if a switch had been flicked, and he was undressing Sark  desperately.

It wasn’t so much the feelings in his body from touch that mattered; the intentions seemed to matter most to his android brain.

Sark ‘s face started to flush again from excitement rather than embarrassment. Sark  grabbed at Sparks’s clothes to pull them off.

Their hands explored each others android bodes, and then Sark  stopped short at Sparks’s belly button.

‘Do you need any oil?’

Sparks shook his head.

‘I think you need some oil.’ Sark  told him, stepping behind the bar and getting a little bottle.

Then Sparks understood.

Sark  squirted the oil into Sparks’s belly button while his free hand roamed between his legs.

Sparks had no sensors between his legs, but sensors elsewhere in his body lit up, generating feelings.

There were moments when it seemed a bit much, moments when his logic circuits turned back on. But he went with it, hoping the excitement would turn off his logic circuits again.

Pulp.

Dave was the smallest of the trees. “Barb,” He shouted across to his auntie, “They’re coming!” He screamed, the alarm rose up a notch in his voice.
“Who is?” Barb trilled, a blue tit perched on one of her branches.
“They are!” Dave pointed behind him with one of his branches.
“You’ve got so many branches, Dave! How am I supposed to know which way you’re pointing!”
Dave rolled his eyes, “They’re coming to chop us down!”
Barb’s eyes widened, and her mouth formed an O shape. The blue tit that was perched on her flapped its wings and flew into her mouth. “Ya iccle shit,” She struggled to say as it’s feet padded along her tongue.
“Hurry, auntie Barb! They want to make books!”
Auntie Barb stopped in her tracks and spat out the blue tit. The bird landed in a pile of leaves and looked around dazed and confused. “What book they making?”
Dave rolled his eyes again, “Listen, Barb! We really gotta catch up with the rest! Do you want to be a book!”
Barb continued to dawdle her eyes heavy from lack of sleep, “Depends what book I’d be.”
Dave formed an O with his mouth now, his eyes blinking in astonishment. The bluetit had since caught up with them and flew into his mouth. “Oh ya….” He started and spat out the little cheeky git.
“What book do you suppose I’d be?”
“You wouldn’t be one book! You’re too big!”
Barb gasped, “Are you calling me fat?”
“NO!” Dave shouted in irritation.
“Oh, you’re saying I’m tall.” She smiled and puffed up her afro of branches, “One of the things your uncle loved about me!” She looked up to the heavens opening above, “Oh for the love of all things!” She cursed, “Have you got an umbrella?”
“Why would a tree have an umbrella?” Dave asked appalled.
“You don’t have an umbrella then?”
“No! Trees don’t use umbrellas!”
“Well,” Barb closed her eyes and lifted her face proudly, “I do!” Barb huffed.
“Mum told me you were weird.”
“I bet she bloody did!”
Dave looked behind him at the men driving their big machines, “Hurry!” He started faster.
“I hope I don’t become a Stephen King book!” Barb blabbed on with herself.
“If you hurry up no one will be turning you into a novel!”
“What about a scientific textbook then?”
“Or any kind of book!”
“If I become a Stephen King book it’ll be a real fright!” Barb said, picking up her pace to catch up with Dave who was now running on ahead.
“Where is ya dad?”
“He’s at the front!”
Barb leaned closer to Dave, “Do ya think,” She whispered in a conspiratorial manner, “Do ya think that If I were a book, I could be the bible?”
“Bound in leather?” Dave humoured her.
“Oh my god! With gold at the edges of the pages!”
“Poor old cow.” Dave shook his body and trudged along sadly.
“Did you just call me an old cow?” Barb huffed, “I’ll have you know I’m an old dear, not an old cow.”
“I’m talking about Shelia.” Dave reminded her of the field across the road.
Barb took a glimpse, “What about Shelia?”
“She’s gonna be wrapped around you when you’re a holy bible!”
“She wouldn’t wrap herself around me!” Barb said dismissively.
“I didn’t say she’d do it voluntarily.”
“And I won’t be holy that’d ruin the aesthetics.”
“Come on mad Barb,” Dave started to usher her along faster, “Let’s keep up with the others now!”
“If I could choose what book I’d be,” Barb continued drawling on, “I’d be a Matt Johnson book.”
“Who the fuck is Matt Johnson?” A male tree in front of them piped up.
“You know! That Gorilla!”
“A gorilla?”
“Yes, James! A gorilla!” She tutted.
“A gorilla that writes, that’s insane!” James beamed.
They stopped talking as the army of trees came to a sudden halt. An eerie stillness settled over them and a breeze flitted through their branches. The sky became grey with a pregnant silence before the shudder of thunder and a lick of lightning, but the sound of the marching trees outmatches the storm. The trees have risen and are on a rampage of vengeance; we humans shall become pulp fiction!

Space Cowboy

Out on the moon
A cowboy rides a unicorn tonight
He won’t be home soon
He’s out for the long ride
He smells of whiskey and wine
Has a beard marking days gone by
But he doesn’t mind
Because he got to where he set his sights
No mountain was too high
And he takes a light
Smokes his cigarettes
And breathes in his dreams through the hazy night

© 2015

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