W900
by Tom McNulty
Genre: Literary Fiction
Hovis Monk had been deceived. Perhaps he always had been. His comfortable life in the Snowdonian bubble, provided by The Blue Yonder Mining Company, was ending.
As his world implodes Hovis spins into a realm of inner and outer realities, chance occurrences, memories, music, luck and laughter.
This story describes the reunion of Hovis with his old Paisley Underground band, a little known group called The Festers, and his struggles with a very special Flame Red Time Trialing Onesey…..
Excerpt 1:
"Have you ever considered getting The Fester's
back together, or maybe taking them back on the road?" He reached over to
recover his mug from the table directly in front of him.
"Not much chance of that," Hovis smiled as
the last biscuit disappeared into Lee’s gigantic mouth. "I haven't got a
clue where any of them are these days and you know, to be honest, although that
f’ing idiot Ken Alexander played it on the radio, I'd not heard ‘I Want you,
Love.., Want me too, Love,’ for over thirty years! Now the dickheads got it on
his band play-off thing on his next show. When, get this, it'll be up against
‘Aphrodite’s Child’s’ ’68 hit. Jesus, how the mighty are fallen," he
exclaimed dismally. "Normally, I couldn't give a damn about shit like this
but to lose in a popular vote, to a piece of blatant Eurotrash like that
abomination, would be even more than I can take! I mean, ‘Rain n Tears’
couldn't punch its way out of a wet paper bag," he cried passionately and
folded his arms, with a "humph," added purely for extra gravitas.
"Bet your Dad did that frumpy last bit, when you
were a kid, a sort of final word thing, didn't he?"
"I was about to tell you, what a pleasure it's
been to know you, Man but I don't think I'll bother now," Hovis grinned
broadly.
"See if I care," Lee replied using
acceptable male badinage and finished his now cold chocolate with one glug. Then
he stood up, holding his hand out, for his hillside buddy to respond and shake
it.
"Mates forever," he said as Hovis gripped
his outstretched hand.
"Mates forever," a small tear stung his
right eye. "Damned eye infection," he casually wiped the liquid from
his eye socket. "Looks like you've got it too," he pointed out to
Lee.
"Must be contagious, I reckon," the Postman
moved towards the front door.
"Don't forget to send me your address when you
get settled and I'll send you a newly pirated copy of The Fester's greatest
hit, free of charge. Oh, and make sure you get something for that eye, things
like that can turn nasty if you don't look after yourself."
With that, Lee Kelso, gregarious postman par
excellence, walked outside of No.37 for the last time, got back in his van and
started the engine,
"See you around, Man. Happy trails to you, old
friend.”
Hovis fired back, in typically male bravadic script,
"Not if I see you first." However, Lee was
right on the ball that day and as his red van accelerated down towards the Rat
Road, he casually threw out,
"It's been really average knowing you," and
with that he was gone, leaving Hovis, open mouthed and frustrated.
Excerpt 2:
He looked down at this morsel and silently wondered how was he
going to fit his rather manly, middle aged frame, which had certainly seen
better days, into this second skin as the Chameleons song, Second Skin, began
playing in his mind.
Mentally he was holding on to what had once been, ‘Hovis Monk, 28,
freshly promoted, going places kind of guy, etc.......’
That very same guy was standing here right now, wondering just
what trials and tribulations he was going to have to go through with the Great
One’s Onesey, just so he could look a complete idiot at the end of his lesson
in un-natural contortion?
Before him lay this Flame Red, Second Skin, that did indeed seem
to have some amount of elasticity but still, a good deal of imagination, or
delusion, would be required when it came to the actual moment of truth. He held
up the onesey against himself to fully ascertain the dimensional ambiguity. His
heart sank and he put the onesey back down on the table. This was going to
require a little thought, before he did anything.
Firstly, he had an inordinate amount of difficulty in deciding
whether you climbed into it, or started by putting the top part of the infernal
thing on, like a cardigan. Either option seemed impossible to Hovis as he
picked it up again and laid it easily, on one of his thighs.
"Well, one thing's for sure," he muttered to himself.
"It won't fit over your weekday clothes," he casually sucked his
stomach in, as though pretending he was thinner was going to make something
happen. When nothing did, he and the
onesey made their way into the bedroom.
Excerpt 5:
Outside, the rain continued to fall steadily and after taking a
quick glance through ‘the distorted window,’ he realised there wasn't likely to
be a walk or cycle ride again today. Even though he knew that Cheech would
happily tag along, purely out of a misplaced Canine sense of loyalty, he
wouldn't be enjoying it and neither would Hovis. Those youthful days of pounding the pedals
whatever the weather, calculating times and distances, pushing himself to the
limit were a distant memory. Nowadays, Hovis would happily settle for a day
inside; after all, he had put out the 'Fester feeler' on Facebook, he may get a
reply, he mused. His next thoughts were to start getting organised to
leave. He needed somewhere to live and
he needed to start sorting through his things……, both of which had the appeal
of a kick in the nuts. What Hovis really
wanted to do was listen to Ken Alexander and hope they won the vote.
"You never know," he whispered with a friesant of hope.
"But first, socks," he wheezed, as he bent over to retrieve his
casually discarded hoof apparel and sniffed them to see if he could get away
with wearing them again today.
‘Like who's going to notice?’ He enquired of himself. ‘I could
romp around stark bollock naked all day, or all week for that matter, nobody's
going to come calling on a day like this, now are they?’ He didn't even wait
for his own answer, before his mind reset the default button.
"Socks," he said
again, to see if saying it twice, meant he might remember it this time and not
lose himself in the scent testing of male under garments.
I began writing these existential stories because they
needed air and because I was sick to death of people being lauded for writing
trivial rubbish. It’s easy to write nice, acceptable TV bookclub bodice
rippers, a lot harder to tell the truth.
My stories scrape the scrotum of life's existence and laugh
at despair. There is no room in my books for any Goo Goo Muck, just
straight up Rock n Roll.
So read at your peril…
$25 Amazon
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