short story

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

MattLeave a comment

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.

Drew & Drake: An empty bottle full

Matt2 Comments

Water gushed from the tap and into the bottle.
Drews gaze fixed on the steady stream, mind blank.
He awoke from his trance when Drake’s voice hollered from the living room, ‘How much water do ya need!’
Drew blinked and peered into the bottle, astounded by what he found he shouted back, ‘Oh my god, I think this bottle is magic or somethin’

Drake leapt up from the sofa, ‘Ya what?’ he padded into the kitchen, his face scrunched up with scepticism.

‘Look at this!’ Drew shoved the empty bottle in front of Drake’s nose. ‘Look there!’

Drake took the bottle from Drew’s hands and peered in. ‘Ya mean you’ve…’ Drake threw the bottle at the sink and leapt to turn the tap off, ‘Ya mean you’ve wasted all that water for nothin’?’

‘I ‘eld that bottle under that tap! I’m tellin’ ya the bottle never fills up!’

Drake rolled his eyes, picked up the bottle. ‘Ya probably just got a crack ‘ere.’ He said as he turned the bottle in his hands and felt around the plastic for any cracks or holes.
Drew leant on the fridge, arms folded. ‘Go on and try and fillin’ it up!’

‘For fuck sake, Drew! I’m lookin”

‘I’m tellin’ ya it’s fucking magic, Drake!’

Drake trailed his fingers all around the circumference of the bottle feeling and squeezing for any weakness.
Drake shook his head still disbelieving, ‘Ya jus’ t’ out ya head t’ know ‘ow to fill up a bottle!’ he slapped Drew n the back of the head, ‘ya dumb git.’
Rolling his eyes again, he held the bottle under the tap and switched the water on.

A few seconds ticked by, Drew getting angsty on his feet.
A minute ticked by and the water still poured out of the tap, and the bottle remained empty.

‘Wha the actual fuck?’ Drake spat.

‘But look!’ – Drake pointed to the bottom of the sink. – ‘No water is leaking out of the bottle and down into the drain! It makes no sense!’

‘Maybe it’s bigger inside than it is outside?’ Drew offered up, palms out in question.

Drake scoffed. ‘That’s not fucking possible.’ His knuckles turned white as he gripped the tap and turned it off. ‘I gotta call Bill!’
Upon stepping into Drew & Drakes squalid flat, with a smirk on his face, Bill started, ‘Well, well what we got goin’ on with you guys this time, eh?’

‘We got a magic bottle is what we got!’ Drew said.

Drake waved Drew’s words away, ‘It ain’t magic!’

‘So why you got all excited and called me up?’ Bill asked.

‘I want your take on the situation.’ Drake started toward the kitchen, motioning with his head, ‘Come on!’

Bill followed and looked at the plastic bottle, ‘so why is it magic?’

‘It’s a bottle that never fills up!’ Drew said excitedly.

Bill did the same as Drew had done and ran his fingers all around the plastic, looking for any holes or cracks.
Finding no fault, he shrugged his shoulders and turned the tap. ‘Now let’s see,’ he muttered to himself.
The sound of the water gushed between them while a cartoon played out on the TV in the living room. Bill turned the water off, put the bottle down and tilted his head, ‘Well,’ he pursed his lips, ‘I’ll be damned!’

‘See! It doesn’t fill up!’ Drew rocked back on forth on his feet with agitation and excitement.

Bill scratched his head, ‘it makes no sense.’

‘Or it’s bigger on the inside than it is outside!’ Drew repeated

‘That’s impossible!’ Bill baulked

Drake put the kettle on and leant against the kitchen worktop, ‘It’s not the…’ an idea occurred to him as the hum of the kettle resonated in his ears, ‘A watched kettle never boils!’ he beamed suddenly.

‘What?’

‘What?’
Both Drew and Bill said in unison.

‘y’ know that sayin’? The one where if you watch a kettle it never boils.’ Drake skidded toward the sink and placed the bottle on the drain before turning on the tap. ‘Now turn around and don’t look!’ Drake checked that the water was aiming at the right spot to land in the bottle then turned around.
‘Well, that’s one theory out the window!’ Bill said.
All of them stood around the sink, looking down at the bottle.

‘I’d swear I was high If I knew I hadn’t smoked anything t’day!’ Drake remarked.

‘And I never smoke anything and it ain’t filling up for me either!’ Bill added.

Drew asked, ‘So if it’s not a magic bottle, what is it?’

Drake and Bill looked at one another than at Drew.
‘Don’t have a fuckin’ clue!’ Drake shrugged.

Sitting on the couch tired of trying to figure it out the TV kept their attention until adverts interrupted the cartoon.
‘you know what it might be?’ Drake asked casually.

‘Magic?’ Bill asked.

Drew grinned, ‘I knew it!’

‘What if it’s a physical manifestation of a metaphor!’ Drake beamed.

‘A metaphor for what?’ Bill slid to the edge of his seat, his car keys dangling from his fingers.

‘Life,’ Drake replied. No longer beaming with enthusiasm and curiosity, he slumped back on the sofa. ‘Life,’ he repeated through a deflated breath.

‘It’s magic is what it is, and I stick by it!’ Drew sat back and folded his arms.

With a sudden movement, Drake lifted himself off the couch and threw the remote at the TV.
The remote hit the screen and the picture went fuzzy over a perfume advert.

Pulp.

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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!

Cherophobia

Matt6 Comments

What do you fear most? Heights? Spiders? Snakes? All the usual fears.
Me? I have something called Cherophobia, do you know what that means? It means I fear happiness. Oh you better believe it, I properly fucking fear those smiles stitched on your faces. The pivotal word there being stitch! You’re not happy to just stitch yourselves up, no you try to stitch me up too. You’re all walking around in a masquerade ball I evidently wasn’t invited to. I want to rip your masks off and reveal the true darkness within, the raging sadness that treads on your soul. Because deep down you know you’re just like me, a syringe of air and bubbles and when you sigh, like me, it’s simply the bubbles and air releasing from the pressure and then you breathe in and more bubbles and air consume your organs. I consumed my own lungs, I’m almost dead. The air isn’t weightless, it’s got a heavy mass to it, people describe depression sometimes as being empty, this is what that emptiness is, it’s empty but it’s heavy. Its air and bubbles, it’s dinosaur piss.
It’s the food we consume; it’s the air we breathe. I’ve felt this since I can remember, how could I not fear happiness? It is the unknown to me.
Like with most fears, I probably fear something that is nothing. As in happiness doesn’t exist in the first place, a manifestation of a prolonged childhood nightmare

In masquerade ball terms I stand bare before you, naked in all my splendour as you gaze upon the darkness. And I believe that you see your own reflection in my darkness, that you gaze upon him or her and then you look away. I fear you. You fear me. I remember as kid tiny glimpses, a butterflies wing worth of a glimpse into something that could be labelled happiness, joy, but I found it to be only veils and walls of lies. It lasted for a moment, with the click of the fingers it’s GONE! The wall tumbles under the weight of its own pressure and the veils are flung open by the wind and you see the darkness, the tears, the blood, the dirt, the consuming of one another.

And I’m lost in a sea of dancing bodies, each move they make is lit up in a different colour as the lights flash manically and I feel like I’m stood in the middle of a mass exorcism. I begin to wonder if I’m stood in the middle of a cult, disguised as individuality. My knuckles are sore and my eyes are bloodshot. The hood still shrouding my head and my eyes are puffed up from tears I couldn’t cry. A woman smiles at me with a green face and then winks with a purple face and then she’s wriggling her way around me, I brush past her and she looks genuinely disgusted that I didn’t pay her any attention. I stand outside the club, the music blaring even outside and I stand under the pink neon sign and light a cigarette. A bouncer looks over to me, in that way they always do where they suspect everyone, especially men like me. I blow smoke out through my mouth and imagine myself as a bull stood in the middle of a ring exhaling morning air through my nostrils and my front leg kicking up a sand storm underneath me, shrouding me for a moment from the crowd before a red flag waves before me and I charge. “What you lookin at?” I jut my chin forwards at him
“A mess” the bouncer replies with a sly smile
“Don’t look in mirrors for too long” I reply
He has his big tattooed arms folded over his chest and he laughs but doesn’t say anything else.
The night is through; no one wants a fight no one wants to fuck. I don’t want to fuck either. I think I might just go home, switch all the lights off and look at the walls, if I stare long enough I can spook myself out and for an hour or two I’ll be running on adrenalin and I’ll have a reason to thrive again.

The Beast, revised version.

MattLeave a comment

*Explicit content to follow

I spread my fingers closing my left eye and looking at my grazed knuckles, flexing my fingers back and forth before planting my hand on his head and thrusting myself deep into his mouth. I take the cigarette from between my lips with my left hand and look up to the ceiling, watching the smoke mingle with dust in the air.
The warmth of his breath on my cock doesn’t make me feel any less alone, to the contrary, i want to cry while also confess to the deepest of my sins.
Really, I just want to punch his face in.

earlier tonight, before I got this geezer guzzling me down like a first prize I was like a bull let loose for the first time. I stood at the bar watching dust particles float in the rays of strobe lights, drinking whiskey and smoking possibly smoking my millionth cigarette of the day. The world was red and like a bull I kicked up my hooves and I charged. I saw him, my doppleganger and h was dressed in a black hoodie, the hood over his head and bloodshot eyes from all the sleepless nights trying to tame the savage inside. I see him, he’s walking through trails of lights, he’s laughing at everything I’ve ever done and seen just by walking on this earth bearing my name and my face. He’s a mockery of everything I’ve ever wanted to be. He doesn’t know I’ve locked onto him yet. I’m following him through the haze of smoke and lights and the music is loud as loud can be, the music is so loud that my skull is fractured from the sound waves and I’m fairly certain it damaged some of my brain. I drop the cigarette on the ground and someone else treads on it in their high heels, I brush past her, her silky dress touches the skin on my hand and the hair on my neck stands up. But my eyes are honing in on him, my doppleganger and I’m following him and I’m letting the beast run. I had already spun the web, I knew the beast in me would devour him, mouth gaping open wide, jaws snapping, crunching at the very core of him, the bad apple, and my twin. For all the memories, all the fucked up seeds he planted in my head,  only to find they couldn’t germinate because the visions were wrong, the grief, the yearnings and he kept on planting those seeds and I grieve what I never lost, but the ideas they were strong enough and all along I was following a lost cause!
The toilet lights flickered, the dingy tiles yellowing from years of piss and cigarettes. Names and insults scribbled in black marker pens. The room was the colour of sick, the sound of water dripping from a leaking pipe echoed, ricocheting from stall to stall and straight into my skull. And I see him, the man who tried to birth seeds he knew nothing about, his hoodie up as if to shroud him from any potential witnesses to his sickening face. His eyes are bloodshot and he’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and we both know what’s about to go down .I step back and let the beast finally go for what he’s been so eager to taste, and lurching forwards I grab at my doppelganger and my arms, the veins showing under my skin as my fist clenches tight and with all the power the beast can muster my fist smacks my doppelganger in the face, again, again, AGAIN! AGAIN! The bathroom goes red, everything is red. “YOU!” I scream at the top of my lungs, lunging forwards again, PHUMP, PHUMP, PHUMP. Spittle falls from my lips and the punches keep on coming and my fist is aching but I continue anyway.  “I HATE YOU”

“I love you” she whispers in my ear “I love the bare bones of you” I whisper. The sun spangles through the blind slats and we lay in bed, her legs wrapped around me and her head on my chest. And the sun spangles through the blind slats and the shadows on the wall watch on and we lay in bed and we’re at harmony with the world. She kisses my chest.

PHUMP! PHUMP! PHUMP!

it’s been 6 months. We’re laying in bed and the sun spangles through the, the wall is glittered in shadow and our bare feet stick out from under the covers. It’s just like in the beginning and she says “I love you” and I whisper “I love the bare bones of you” and the sun continues to shine rays through the slats and I watch dust particles float in the rays and I feel sick and the room is spinning and the ash tray is smashed on the carpet, a photograph is torn, a spot of blood on the carpet. I get out of the bed and I in all my naked splendour I stand at the blinds, hand on the wand ready to close them fully, for a glimpse the sun shines on my face and the bruise and gash around my eye are clear to see along with the bust lip.


PHUMP! PHUMP! PHUMP

I go online in secret, “Escaping violence” I enter into the search engine plenty of results, one has a title that implies they know exactly how to help, my mouse hovers over it then I realise the link, it says ‘justiceforwomen.com.’ Another site ‘ Women escaping violence’ another site ‘help for abused and battered women’ ‘steps to ending domestic violence leaflet for women and children’

Blood trickles down my hand, my knuckles barely seeming to exist anymore.

I try to imagine this geezer is a woman, flicking her hair back as she looks up at me with a sweet glistening sparkle in her eyes, her lips puckered as she kisses the head of my penis. I try with all my might to not notice the masculinity in his body, the clear male features of his face, closing my eyes, opening them looking down, looking up at the ceiling, pushing his head down and thrusting as deep as I can till I finally ejaculate. “Fuck off” I hiss as I zip my trousers back up “before I beat you the fuck up!”
he looks at me, still on his knees
“What the fuck are you doing? Praying?” I lift him
“You have issues!” He says, his eyes filled with the sadness of someone who feels used.
I’m sorry “LEAVE” I turn my back to him and listen carefully for the door closing behind him.
 

An unedited version of the “the best” was posted on a previous blog. So if the theme of the story and character are familiar to you, thats why.