Friday Flash - Forest For The Trees

I will have a brand new Friday Flash for you next week, I promise. This week though, I'm proud to represent my prize-winning short story Forest For The Trees. Originally written for Elephant Words back in 2007, this story marks the first time I've ever won a writing competition - the grand runner-up prize of five whole pounds! Chev suggested I get the cheque framed, but sadly the prize money came via Paypal, so the internet has defeated me again. Many thanks to the folks at Acacia Books who were discerning enough to select my story for inclusion in the first issue of their new quarterly horror and speculative fiction e-zine Aversion. Find out more about the competition or order a copy of the zine and read a bunch of other scary stories by clicking here.

But before we get to that, a quick mention for this week's Thoughtballoons character - Buffy The Vampire Slayer. As with last week's Lara Croft, this is a character who came to comics late, via movies and a long-running TV show. Comics were obviously a huge influence on the show's creators though and they recently chose to continue Buffy's adventures in a monthly mag from Dark Horse. You can read my Buffy story here.

And now, the main event. Drumroll please, here comes my first ever prize-winning, magazine published short story...

Forest For The Trees

A ‘Wake Up, Little Susie’ Adventure


It’s 2.32am on the disposable digital watch I wear because anything more valuable might get trashed in a fight. The middle of the night (midnight’s such a misnomer): dark, silent and cold. As usual, I have no idea where I am, or why I’m here. Just that feeling in my belly, like I’ve eaten too much fruit and it’s starting to ferment; and the noise in my head, like a mobile phone signal heckling my stereo.

I stand still, resting a hand on slimy bark. The pines around me grow so close together their lower branches are mostly bare, spindly quills: their needles and cones much higher than I could ever reach – but at less than five feet tall, that could place them on the top shelf in the supermarket. My name is Susie Chernobyl and this is the night I wake up in the woods.

Once, when I put my faith in doctors, they gave my condition names. A rare combination of narcolepsy, dissociative fugue, and somnambulism; so rare even the experts had only read about it in dusty old cracked-spine textbooks. It’s a terrible moment when you finally acknowledge it, but doctors know nothing.

I give it a few moments for my eyes to adjust, listening through the night noise of the woods for a clue to why I’m here. There’s always a reason. Above me, an exasperated wind nags at the higher branches. There could be moonlight up there, but it won’t ever trouble the soggy mattress at my feet. Beneath the wind, I can make out the syncopation of old raindrops, fingertipping their way down through the branches, drip drip-drip DRIP drip drip-DRIP drip…

As the darkness opens, I can see two, three trees ahead of me now – though still I don’t move. I might be warmer if I did, but not yet. I huddle into myself and shiver without noise. Sometimes when it’s really cold, I’ll express it vocally, but I’ve never been a ‘brrr!’ person – more a ‘hoo-ah!’ – like Al Pacino in the blind dancing film. (He’d have to be blind to dance with me. Even then, I wouldn’t wager my chances.) But there’s no risk of a ‘hoo-ah’ tonight, not until I know what I’m up against.

Top half: I’m wearing an itchy woollen polo neck, at least two T-shirts, and one of my unduly padded bras. Bottom half: jeans (always jeans), long johns, knickers, it feels like two pairs of socks, and toe-capped boots. No coat, but I’d only have had to ditch that anyway – coats slow you down. I’m certainly waking up a lot more prepared than I used to. Time was, I’d come to face down on a frosty lawn, wearing only a ratty old nightie and bed socks. Try fighting ninjas when you’re dressed like that. No, really. And just in case you still haven’t caught on, get that image of Jennifer Garner right out of your head – me in skimpies isn’t going to vamp or beguile anyone, not even a carnally-unsatisfied ninja. Nauseate – very possibly; but ninjas are plenty formidable already, without the added peril of flying ninja spew. Not that I want to give you the impression it’s always ninjas: I’m just using them as an example. I don’t think it’s ninjas tonight. I don’t know what it is, not yet, but it doesn’t feel like ninjas. Somewhere in my brain, that blasted pre-signal staccato kicks in again – and I await my instructions. But it’s too early. Damned esoteric static. Sometimes I wish they could just write me a letter.

Still none the wiser, I move forward through the pines, pausing every few steps to give it the full 360, and to listen. Nothing, still nothing. Just the wind, the drip DRIP-drip drip, and the slight suck of my boots in the quaggy mulch. Gradually the woods unfold, and the pines give way to other, older trees: twisted sycamore and imposing oak, their leaves fallen with the season, crisping and curling at my feet; the peeled-paint bark of a skeletal birch; a huge, just-berried holly. Unruly brambles tangle the undergrowth spotted with shrivelled blackberries even the birds won’t fly down to eat, and I find myself wishing – as I so often do – that I was home in my bed, unaware. Safe in that other life, oblivious to the substance of the world and my true role in it. Asleep. What sort of existence is it when in your moments of greatest clarity, you wish only for blissful ignorance?

The sound of the baby flips the switch from introspection, and I’m back in the moment: the dark, soul-cold night, the drip-drip drip DRIP drip-waaaaaaaah! I follow the wail up a slope and hurdle a huge, rotting trunk, dragged down by its own ancient weight. There’s a stream cackling somewhere below, and up ahead I catch the first glints of life: the flames of torches, and the low, earnest chant.

“Ad gloriam, ad majorem Azrael gloriam. Ad gloriam, ad majorem Azrael gloriam. Ad gloriam…”

Cultists. It had to be bloody cultists, didn’t it? And Azrael? What the hell are they doing invoking Azrael? Like he’s going to give any kind of shit about them. White robed, Halloween-masked amateurs. White robes! Out here in the middle of a sinking forest. I bet their wives love them. I can see the commercials now. “My robes were always filthy after a night of ritual sacrifice – until I discovered ‘Cult! Automatic’. Guaranteed to fetch out all ground-in forest-sacrifice stains like mud, berries, and virgin’s blood. Abaddon recommends NEW ‘Cult! Automatic’.”

Seriously – anything but cultists. Ninjas, zombies, CEO’s, admen – anything. I feel my last meal come rolling back up my throat and wonder what it might have been. Something spicy, obviously. Something I wouldn’t even touch in my right mind. If you can call this my right mind.

For a moment I freeze. It’s overwhelming:

“Ad gloriam, ad majorem Azrael gloriam. Ad gloriam…”

Drip drip DRIP-drip drip DRIP drip-drip…”

Waaaaaaah!

Then above all that I hear that old dissonant pulse come breaking through on my wavelength… and after all this time, I know how it goes – I’ve guessed my orders long before they’ve even been sent.

“Protect the child.”

Everything else falls away, and at last I have clarity. Out in the clearing, the leader of the cult steps up to the altar, cradling the baby like a plastic-smile Nativity Joseph. At last I can see the sky – no moonlight after all, just an oppressive, damping drizzle. The chanting builds, and moisture sizzles on the cultists’ torches. Then someone steps forward with a silver dagger – that’s what I hate most about cultists: they’re all so blasted cliché. Just once I’d like to see one of them bring forth a machete, nunchucks, or a Heckler & Koch. Something to surprise me. Something that shows at least a little damned imagination!

“Hear us, Azrael!” shouts the main man, and all the rest go silent. He lays the mewling infant on the wet stone of the altar, then folds back the hood of his robe. And I let my mind do its thing. It’s a dozy Saturday afternoon and he’s on his way to pick up the kids from the ice rink, but he stops off at Woolworths on the way. Flips through the Halloween masks ‘til he settles on the one he’s wearing now. The one that suits him best. His wife’s told him not to be late – they’re meeting the Armitages for dinner – and he’s told her she’ll have to book an early table: there’s a lodge meeting tonight. Must remember to set the video for Strictly Come Dancing…

It helps me to remember that most of the time my enemies are just as dull as the rest of us. Even ninjas scratch their arses when they think no-one’s looking. Dismiss their intrinsic humanity and you bestow on them a significance they haven’t earned, and an intimidation that would be paralysing under circumstances like this. Imagine them scrubbing the stains out of their silly white cowls, or losing out on a parking space to some wattle-necked fogey in a 4X4, and any sense of menace just pales away. Then you can act.

As I move round the edge of the clearing, getting as close to the baby as I can without drawing attention to myself, I watch the leader take the dagger in his palms and hold it up to the cold cinder sky. Another worthless invocation, like a teenager reciting ‘Candyman’ in front of a candlelit mirror. Then he grips the hilt with both hands and angles the blade down, his eyes rolling back – and with a low, guttural howl, he…

…goes down like a million different boxers, shipwrecks, and hookers, in a library full of metaphors.

Something I might not have mentioned about my strange, quack-confounding condition is the ability I possess, when awake and myself (as opposed to that other person who shares my waking hours) to induce certain, sudden, sleep-related afflictions in others. The scope is limited – I couldn’t just make this whole lunatic congregation catch z’s as one whilst making off with their nappy-rash sacrifice – more’s the pity – but I can certainly snooze out their budget airline Charlie Mansun mid-infanticide and cause enough of a kerfuffle amongst his flock to distract from my big entrance.

And so I break from the trees, cut through a gap that’s formed in the stupefied crowd, vault the altar, make like the baddie from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and keep on going out the other side where a boot-worn path leads away from the clearing and back to whatever kind of civilization these cultist clowns call home. Tending to their cataleptic principal, the brothers are slow to react. It helps too that unlike most of them, I need no Halloween mask to engender shock and disgust: the face I was born with is more than enough. The child shrieks back over my shoulder, its waaaaah like a flare through the trees behind me. A trail even sheep like these can follow – and follow they do, faster and more determined than I’d anticipated. This limits my options. Stick to the path and they’ll be on me in minutes. I don’t have enough sleep left to put them all down: I could probably manage another two or three right now, but there had to be at least twenty in that clearing. Stand and fight? That’d be the plan if I didn’t also have the baby to defend. Too risky, as is. Get the child to shut its yap? In thirty years of life, I’ve developed more social graces and dinner party etiquette than I have maternal instincts (yet I only ever dine out at KFC, and even then, by myself) so I wouldn’t have the first idea whether it’s crying because it needs to be burped, wants its bottle, or is flat out terrified of the scary-looking midget lady who just abducted it from the nice, boogly-eyed, child-executioners. Perhaps if I’d ever considered the possibility of an eligible male approaching me to do anything more than stub out his cigarette… But physicality aside, the fact that my waking hours brim almost entirely with running, punching, screaming, and fighting, there’s no time left for romantic assignations anyway, not even with the odious and desperate. (It should also be noted that the majority of men I come into contact with end up trying to kill me one way or another – and the same goes for women, should I ever choose to consider the Sapphic alternative.)

Whilst this all ploughs through my mind, the pursuant cultists are gaining ground, and I realise now that there’s only one option left: get off the path. I’m fully aware of the risk – trips and tangles and branches that’ll hook out an eye and leave it dangling like a bird feeder, but I’m taking the chance these hazards will be far more likely to impede my robe-dragging shadows.

At first this goes entirely according to plan, as the closest of them fall back, stumbling and snagging and forced to cast away their vestments for their chase to continue. I’ve brought the baby to my chest now, shielding its eyes from the scratches, grasps and snarls, whilst keeping my own to the ground, dodging octopus roots and leaping moss-gutted logs, before sprinting up a mud-slippery slope that leads along the edge of an abrupt shale banking. One foot wrong and I’m thirty feet below in a petulant stream – or maybe it’s a river – it’s loud enough anyway to be audible over the thumping-panting-pounding of my heart and my feet and my head, and the siren in my arms. Behind me – disrobed now and unmasked (beneath their smocks, they’re dressed as sensibly as me) – the cultists are drawing closer still, and organising too. Shouts go out and I know they’re dispersing – taking two, three, four different routes to the same destination, circling to ensnare.

At the top of the rise I scatter a wet drift of leaves, and from nowhere an awful image shoves into my mind: a bescarfed November afternoon, lovers in the park, hand in hand and kicking through the late Autumn tumblings. And it fills me with such an ache, such an intense clench of sadness – self-pity, maybe, but when you’ve only got yourself, what other kind is there? – that I almost let them catch me. Kill me. What does it matter? What does any of it–?

That’s when they come at me, two from the left and one from behind, crashing out of the dead ferns and swiping through the low slung branches of a lime. I dodge and kick like somewhere, someone’s hammering on a joystick, and send one of them immediately rolling backwards down the banking. I hear him scream, and a snap I hope is more than just another twig. The other two hesitate – gender and size always leads my opponents towards underestimation, and I always use that in my favour. Swapping the child from arm to arm, I grab for the nearest weapon: a fallen branch shaped like a hod-carrier’s arm. Then I hear the sound of running, and furious voices calling more of them this way, and the baby screams louder than ever, and I know this is getting desperate. So I close my eyes, and I concentrate. Tap into the sleep – all that I have left – and use it the best way I can. In the crook between arm and breast, the baby goes quiet.

Now I can think. My opponents trade glances. They know there’s something not right this. About the freak that stands before them. More than just her car crash face and her stunted, nigh on hunchbacked gait. More than the fact that she’s out here in the middle of god knows where, 3am, crashing their flock and making off with their lamb. I imagine them talking it over, later in the pub. A pint of bitter and a pint of cider. A packet of cheese and onion split on the table before them. Trying to put it into words: this feeling they’re having right now, like they’re in the presence of someone… something other. Something far beyond their own feeble dogma – something that makes them question everything they’re doing, everything they are.

And then I hear the shouts again, closer than ever, and I can see the light of their torches come flickering up the rise. And so I turn, and I sprint back to the edge of the steep shale banking, and I jump. Putting my faith in a power they’ll never understand: praying for a deep and swift-flowing river… not just a stream.

*** *** *** ***

Hours later, sodden but safe, I book myself and my charge into
a Travelodge on the edge of a still-drowsy retail park. The girl behind the desk gives us a look like maybe she ought to ask questions – but she’s seventeen, her boyfriend’s a dick, and they’re not paying her enough to give a toss. Once in the room, I bathe, dry, and swaddle the child (it sleeps throughout), then shower the chill out of my own body. I can’t risking sleeping, not ‘til this is over, so I drink all the coffee sachets the hotel has provided, then call down for more. I know it won’t be much longer, and it isn’t. Soon enough there’s a knock at the door and I know my part is done. Someone else will take it from here: that’s how it always happens.

My name is Susie Chernobyl, and this was the day I saved the life of The Snake Baby. The Iniquitous Wretch. The Perpetual Mockery. The Scarlet Nesbiros. And now I can sleep.

Mozipedia

Simon Goddard's Mozipedia takes obsession too far. It's everything you ever wanted to know about Morrissey... and quite a bit you probably never wanted to know, unless you're a stalker. This massive 500 page breeze-block of a book traces the sources of every lyric, every drummer, every acquaintance... yet throughout all this, the author can't decide whether he wants to stick to just the facts or offer a critical assessment, indulge in hearsay and gossip or tow the official Morrissey line.

Often fascinating, the track by track entries are vital, but many of the others blur the line between curiosity and trainspottery. Want to know more about every actor, poet, playwright, musician, philospher and street-sweeper Morrissey has ever expressed even a passing interest in? Then this is the book for you. But even if you're only reading a couple of entries a night (as I did), you may find such scrupulous attention to detail combined with dogmatic hero worship gets a little tiring after a while.

Goddard's Morrissey fixation also blinds him to the merits of other artists (unless they're artists Moz adores - the entry on Moz's precious New York Dolls falls over itself to keep the great man happy), and he's often two-faced in his critical appraisal. For example, in an entry on Lloyd Cole, Goddard writes...

"When it came to cultural references, Cole was notoriously heavy handed, peppering his lyrics with the names of Simone de Beavoir, Grace Kelly and Norman Mailer. Although Morrissey has borrowed from literary and cinematic sources, never has he sung anything as crudely referential as "she looks like Eve Marie Saint in On The Waterfront".

Later though, in the entry on Pier Paolo Pasolini...

"Italian neo-realist film director referenced in You Have Killed Me along with his debut feature film ACCATONE."

So it's OK for Moz to namedrop obscure Italian filmmakers in his lyrics, but not for Lloyd Cole to romanticise a woman by comparing her to one of Hitchcock's favourite actresses? Now I'm a big fan of both Morrissey and Cole, so I like to think I'm unbiased... but really, which is the better song, the better lyric? Rattlesnakes or You Have Killed Me? Come on, Simon - take off the blinkers for just a second, man!

Most amusing of all is the entry on infamous Smith biographer Johnny Rogan -Goddard seething with jealousy that Rogan's Severed Alliance found its way onto Morrissey's radar while his own Songs That Saved Your Life merited less than a blip. One wonders what Morrissey would make of Goddard's latest love letter? I can't help but think that, like me, he'd find it a little excessive... though hardly worth the effort to complain about.

All that said, I consider myself fortunate to have read the Mozipedia. Firstly because many of the entries provided information I hadn't read before (and I've read a fair few Morrissey books in my time). There's certainly no faulting Goddard's research. Secondly, I didn't have to pay for it. It was a gift from the world's most generous blogger. He knows who he is. Many thanks, JC.

AFTERSHOCK (TANGSHAN DADIZHENG) (2010)

My Rating: YYYYY

Director: Xiaogang Feng
Cast: Jingchu Zhang, Fan Xu, Chen Li, Daoming Chen, Jin Chen, Ziwen Wang, Yi Lu, Guoqiang Zhang

This moving story is based on the catastrophic event of Tangshan earthquake, that happened at Tangshan, Hebei Province, China, in the early morning of July 28, 1976 with a magnitude of 7.8 Richter scale, which claimed the lives of 240,000 people, and caused another 160,000 people being severely injured. Other statistics even initially reported that the death toll was around 650,000 to 780,000 people, but the Chinese government has never released an accurate death toll for the disaster.

This big-budgeted Chinese movie (estimated US$ 25 Million of production budget), directed by one of the high profile Chinese directors nowadays, Feng Xiaogang (A World Without Thieves, The Banquet, Assembly, If You Are the One), has set the all-time China domestic box office record for a Chinese film with 532 Million Yuan (around US$ 80 Million) in ticket sales. This data was based on the data of August 8, 2010, only two-and-a-half weeks after the movie was being released in July 22, 2010. Aftershock was also the first Chinese movie released in IMAX format, which marked a technical breakthrough for the Chinese film industry, with the technical assistances from the visual effects experts from South Korea, France and New Zealand. The later is the New Zealand's Weta Workshop, the Oscar-winning design company that was responsible for the design of Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The fact is, I know nothing of all the information above when I watched this movie in the theater. I have almost zero knowledge of what I was about to see. And, what I saw on screen astonished and amazed me! Not only visually, but also emotionally. I was touched so deep in my heart by this horrifying yet beautiful drama, that words will difficult to describe my feelings.

The story is following one lower working-class family with a father, a mother, and their seven-year-old twins (a boy and a girl), just before the event of the big earthquake at Tangshan. All the family members have to experience the chaos and horror of the disaster that night, which only fate that could possibly save them from that deadly moment. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the mother finds out that her two children were trapped together under one big slab of concrete, below their ruined apartment building. And in the aftershocks following the major earthquake, the mother has to decide and pick to save only one of her children, as lifting the heavy slab manually to save one child, who was trapped at one end below the slab, will eventually kill the other child at the other end of the slab. Failed to make the decision quickly, will only cause both the children to die buried in the ruins that keep collapsing due to the aftershocks. In that terrifying moment, the mother is forced to make a choice that she doesn't want to. But she has to choose, if not, she will lose them both. And heartbreakingly, the mother makes her choice, but her decision is overheard by the child that she decides not to save. And that child can only beg for the life that is about to be taken away, with only unheard whisperer coming out from the mouth, below the ruins.

I cannot tell you further, because one more step I go, I might spoil the whole story. This is not merely a disaster movie, because the disaster was actually only the backdrop of the story. It's about the human drama following the disaster, with the story time spanning over 32 years, until the event of another big earthquake in China that happened recently at Sichuan province in 2008. It's about the consequences of a decision being made and the impacts of that decision to every character of the story for the rest of their lives. It's about surviving the aftermath, sacrifice, faithfulness, regret, and forgiveness.

The disaster scene itself was top notch. In fact, I was surprised by what I saw. I was really surprised! The CGI and special effects were very well made with in depth details. It was close to that of a Hollywood movie. It was even comparable to many Hollywood disaster movies. And I was nearly disbelief that I was watching a Chinese movie with an extraordinary good special effects. The disaster scene was so scary and dramatic, which made Roland Emmerich's 2012 and its story looked like an appetizer and a play in the park (if talking about the emotions involved).

The main attraction of this movie was the drama that was beautifully written. It was so powerful, touching and emotionally draining. The story was captivating and involving us to care for the fate of the characters besieged by the disaster and feeling pity for them in the aftermath. You will want to know what will happen next to each of the character. Hands down to the screenwriter and the director, who did excellent jobs. The backdrop of the Chinese people's culture and beliefs, including believing in ghosts of the deceased that will visit their family every year, and the political and social situation in China at that time, including the death of China's great leader, Mao Zedong, gave interesting nuances to the story.

Almost all the actors did an outstanding job, from the adults until the child actors, with their superb and very believable performances. The child stars were impressive and so natural in their actings, especially the one who played the little girl. The most honorable mentions are for Xu Fan as the mother, a very good actress and all-out convincing in expressing all of her emotions, and Chen Daoming as the foster dad, with his agile and fun to watch acting. I believe both of them will win awards for their roles in this movie as the best actress and best supporting actor. Another honorable mention is for Zhang Jingchu, who also gave a good performance as another central character of this movie. There were many tearjerker moments that will tear your heart into pieces. If you are a woman, do bring your tissues, as I will guarantee that you will cry, more than once. And if you are a man, it still may touch you to drop tears from your eyes.

This is an excellent movie in almost every aspect. A very solid drama. My only small complains were for the rather rough editings in some parts of the movie, but it was nothing as compare to the film in overall. And the first reunion near the end of the movie, in my opinion, actually still can be made more dramatic. But the final reunion was the real touch down, with the actings, expressions, and dialogs from the main characters that will stir-up your emotions.

I believe this movie will win many awards in China, as it is really worth it. And this movie also has a very good chance if China encloses it to participate in the run for the Oscar's Best Foreign Languange Film. This is a wonderful movie, one of the best movies that I've watched this year. And I am happy to know that it came from China. (MJ)

Top Ten Sugar Songs

I promise I'll get out of the coffee shop after this. I know you're all bored of these lists now. More interesting top tens to follow, I guarantee.

In the meantime... here's a countdown of my favourite sugary songs. As usual I've kept the list just to songs about sugar, so no room for The Sugarcubes, Sugar Ray or... Sugar.

Likewise, I've banned Brown Sugar by the Stones, purely because that was Number One on my Top Ten Brown Songs. Do I need to get out more or what?


10. Mary Lou Lord - Sugar Sugar

The old Archies Number One given a guitary makeover by Mary Lou Lord and Semisonic (apparently), with Drew Barrymore along for the ride.

9. Billy Bragg - Sugar Daddy

A Billy Bragg b-side. For those of you who appreciate the finer things in life.

8. The Stone Roses - Sugar Spun Sister

I like the Stone Roses.

I like Ian Brown.

But GOD, these lyrics were written by a 6th Form Poetry Student.

Her hair
Soft drifted snow
Death white
I'd like to know
Why she hates
All that she does
But she gives
It all that she's got

7. Neil Young - Sugar Mountain

You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain.

But you can have ENORMOUS sideburns.

6. Aimee Mann - Sugarcoated

Aimee Mann writes biting lyrics... coated in sugar.

5. Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me

The 97th best band from Sheffield. And yet...

My favourite Def Leppard song is that one where they substitute the word 'rock' for the word 'fuck'. That's, like, so edgy, dude.

4. Flight Of The Conchords - Sugalumps

Kelis sang about her Milkshake...

Fergie sang about her Humps...

Flight Of The Conchords respond with an ode to their Sugalumps...

My sugarlumps are two of a kind - sweet and white and highly refined
Honies try all kinds of tomfoolery to steal a feel of my family jewelry
My cannonballs cause a kerfuffle - the ladies they hustle to ruffle my truffle
If you party with the Party Prince, you get two complimentary after-dinner mints

3. The Rubettes - Sugar Baby Love

Possibly the greatest pure glam-pop single ever written. Sing along if your voice goes high enougg.

2. Echo & The Bunnymen - Lips Like Sugar

I have nothing to declare about this song other than its genius.

1. The Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)

Better than any sugar rush.



They were mine - but what sugary song sets off your sweet tooth?

The Town

I don't know why people have such a problem with Ben Affleck. He's a decent enough actor, seems like a pleasant and intelligent bloke in interviews, and he's made some pretty good movies in his career. Good Will Hunting, Chasing Amy, Reindeer Games, Changing Lanes, Daredevil - OK, maybe no out-and-out classics, but he's rarely embarrassed himself. He has done his fair share of tat - Pearl Harbour, Paycheck, Gigli - and of course, he had pretty terrible taste in women (Gwyneth? Bennifer?) that's only been put right by marrying Jennifer Garner... but I still don't get all the hate.

When his career started to go off the rails a few years back (while his GWH co-star Matt Damon went stratospheric), Affleck wisely took himself off the board. If people are sick of your face, give them a rest. Now he's back, let's hope audiences are a little kinder this time round.

The Town is a pretty low key movie, but if it's indicative of the sort of story Affleck wants to tell nowadays - as actor and director - it bodes well for his future. The story centres on a gang of crooks in America's most bank-robbed city, Boston, and a relationship that develops between one of the robbers and a bank manager they take hostage, played by the always excellent Rebecca Hall. (Yes, yes, if my bank manager looked like Rebecca Hall, I'd extend my overdraft. Etc. Etc.) There's strong support from a volatile Jeremy Renner (look, comic fans - it's a Daredevil and Hawkeye Team-Up!), Mad Men's John Hamm (who doesn't look quite right without the slick 60s suits), Chris Cooper, Pete Postlethwaite, The Man In Black from Lost and... Blake Lively. And if I don't get the animosity towards Affleck, I certainly don't get all the fuss over current fashionista it-girl Blake Lively. Each to their own, I guess. If she gets a few more bums on seats for Affleck, more power to them both.

The Town isn't a classic, but it's more thoughtful, intelligent and dramatic that majority of Hollywood churn this summer. Give it a shot or wait for the DVD. You won't be wasting your time.

Holiday Wildlife

I promised you holiday snaps, but things keep delaying me. Here are a few creatures we met on our latest visit to the Lakes...

A family of swans. The young cygnet must be almost fully grown but has yet to develop its adult feathers.

We set out most days to feed the ducks and swans we'd met on previous holidays. Being earlier in the season, many of these were further down the shore in Bowness where the crowds could keep them in bread crumbs all day long. Apart from the family of swans seen in the first picture, we had to settle for feeding cheeky seagulls like the one above.

You can see understand meerkats have become so embraced by the Evil World of Advertising. They are exceedingly cute.

As are these chaps, the ring-tailed lemurs from Madagascar. Another red-ruffed lemur lived with them. Amazingly acrobatic creatures.

A family of zebras had just given birth to a new foal. Sadly they wouldn't let us close enough to the baby for a picture.

Emus in action.

And a brawny bison. OK, I'll come clean. Most of these critters aren't living wild in the Lake District - imagine if they were. We encountered them instead at Trotters World Of Animals in Bassenthwaite. Well worth a visit. While there, I held a python and a blue-tongued skink (no photos, sadly - worried the flash might piss them off!). I declined the chance to hold a tarantula though.

A dancing crane. This fella was a real show-off. We missed the falconry display at Trotters, but were lucky enough to stop off at the Yorkshire Dales Falconry Centre on our way home where met met some very entertaining owls... that's me in the bottom picture with a friendly little barn owl on my arm.

RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE 3D (2010)

MyRating: YY1/2

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller, Kim Coates, Shawn Roberts, Boris Kodjoe, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Spencer Locke
MPAA: Rated R for sequences of strong violence and language

The Resident Evil franchise was brought into another new level. Yes, it's 3D! Every (anticipated) movie nowadays seems to have the urgency to be shot or presented in 3D. Everybody knows that it's the hot new trend. For certain movies, I have to admit that the 3D premises somehow adds my excitement to watch the movies. And this same excitement still made me craving more to see this fourth installment of the hugely popular 'zombie game' movie.

I like Resident Evil movies for reasons. First, I loved the games. Second, I love zombie movies. What can I say? 'Zombie' has always been one of my most favorite horror movie sub-genres. No matter what (bad words) people said about this franchise, and due to the fact that Resident Evil movies were actually never really that great because of the average storylines, however my weird love-affair with this series has made me want to see every new installment that came into the theater. It's simple, they were usually entertaining and fun to watch. And one more thing, I like Milla Jovovich (I like her because of this franchise). She is perfectly suited fine for her role as Alice. She is Alice now, and always will be remembered as Alice.

Alice continues her mission to find survivors from the world already invected by a virus that turns human into flesh eating zombies. On her journey, she has to fight with the numerous Undeads and the evil Umbrella Corporation with its troops, the cause of this outbreak. In Alaska, Alice meets again with her friend Claire Redfield (Larter), who seems to has lose her memory. They then flied a two-person plane to Los Angeles, where they find more survivors, including Chris Redfield (Miller), Claire's brother. Together, they have to find the way out of the city to a safer place. But it is not an easy job for Alice and her new friends, as not only they have to fight through the barricade of Undead, but also they have to confront with Albert Wesker (Roberts), Alice's nemesis from Umbrella Corporation and the new big monster, Axeman, who will chop them into pieces.

Despite my excitement to see this movie, somehow this fourth movie of Resident Evil was a bit below my expectation. Why? I think the storyline was not good enough. The movie was also a bit slow, with not enough chills and tensions as I expected. The third movie was definitely better. There were also more battles with the Umbrella Corporation than the battles with the zombies itself. And usually, as it was in the previous movies, the more they focus on the conflicts and politics of that evil corporation, the more I will lose my interest towards the story, because it will just become another action movie. In my opinion, it simply will be more interesting to see Alice fighting (or even running from) the zombies than seeing Alice fighting the countless Umbrella's troops.

Nonetheless, this is a Resident Evil movie. So, you will see many actions. And there were some pretty cool actions. The most exciting and memorable one was the fight between Alice and Claire with the Axeman. That fight was the best part of this movie. And the sexy Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter were definitely one of the main attractions, especially when they kicked-ass. They take all the best action parts from Wentworth Miller (of Prison Break), who appeared just fair enough as the new awaited character, Chris Redfield. In my opinion, the other new character, Luther (Boris Kodjoe) was more shining than Miller.

And now, about the 3D. As this movie was actually shot with the 3D camera works the same as Avatar, and not post-transferred into 3D after production, like many other so called '3D' movies, I have to say that the 3D was actually quite good. Not as colorful and rich as Avatar, this movie was a bit dark and bleak, but the settings did look cool in 3D. It also has some cool pop-up action scenes, including throwing a big axe out of the screen. From the actions, there was one uninspiring action scene though, when they tried to imitate The Matrix dodging bullets scene. It just looked like nothing more than imitation, as we have seen this so many times.

This fourth movie was not as good as the first Resident Evil and the third one, Resident Evil: Extinction, which in my opinion, were the best in the series. I will put Resident Evil: Afterlife slightly in par with the second movie, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which I think were the weakest of the series. Having said all that, have I bored yet with this series? No, I am not. Will I watch again the next Resident Evil movie? Yes, definitely I will. (MJ)

Paul Heaton Spills The Acid

"I worked it out the other day," says Paul Heaton. "Since 1986, there have been 19 Mercury Music Prizes, 189* Q Awards, 350* Brit Awards..." etc. etc. (*I don't remember the exact numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if the ones quoted by Heaton were accurate) "...and what have I won? Fuck all. I'd have more chance of winning a Mobo!"

The by now veteran singer-songwriter is half-joking with his audience in Manchester on Friday night, but only half. And he's got every right to be pissed off when everyone from Robbie Williams to Kula Shaker has walked away with armfuls of awards from the various music biz schmoozathons over the last 25 years, yet an artist who's been part of two Number One-selling groups, one half of the most successful British songwriting duo since Lennon & McCartney, and a critically acclaimed solo songwriter to boot... all he's got on his mantelpiece is dust. Oh wait, I just checked, The Beautiful South won Best Video in 1991. So that's all right then.

There are no Beautiful South songs in Heaton's solo set - the truth behind their split remains a mystery - but he has spiced it up from the last time I saw him solo with a welcome selection of Housemartins favourites, including a timeless Build, We're Not Deep, and a roof-raising Me & The Farmer. There's also a strong selection from his last solo album The Cross-Eyed Rambler - though nothing from its long-forgotten predecessor Fat Chance (by "Biscuit Boy") - and his typically acerbic new record Acid Country, which takes a while, but is a definite grower.

Never mind the lack of awards, Friday night was sold out and everyone at the Academy loved Paul Heaton. He knows it too, and is suitably appreciative, thanking us for our support over the years. Besides, a little bitterness becomes him - a more content man wouldn't ever write songs like this...

Friday Flash - I Can Read You Like A Book

You may have noticed my semi-absence this week. All events do conspire against me. I haven't had the time to breathe, let alone write any blog posts (or read any of yours - sorry!). I did manage to write a quick Thoughtballoons script - this week's character is Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. Not originally a comic character, though comics have been written about her. My story focuses more on her original incarnation, pre-Angelina Jolie. Should you be so inclined, you can read it here.

But for those of you who have been enjoying my Friday Flash stories - more than I expected when I started posting these - I didn't want to leave you without weekend reading. So, for your consideration, I re-present another old Elephant Words story I wrote three years ago. This one's for anyone who ever tried to pick up more than a paperback in their local bookshop...

I Can Read You Like A Book



If a colleague left their pay cheque lying on their desk, and you were bored, and there was nobody else around: would you take a look? Just to see how much they’re on, just to make sure you’re being paid an equivalent and not getting short-changed by management after all your long and devoted years of servitude?

Of course you would. You’re no different to me. Unless you’re the sort who’d do it, but wouldn’t ever admit to it. In which case: at least I’m honest.

***

Her name is Karlie. She stands with a soft drink strawed to her mouth like a nutrient drip. She considers The Little Friend because The Secret History rocked her world. She’s going to be disappointed, but she’s used to that.

The nipple on Karlie’s left breast is inverted, and as a result: so is her self-confidence. She won’t ever take off her bra during lovemaking, except in the blackout curtain night (no streetlight gets into Karlie’s bedroom), and only then for a lover she feels entirely at ease with. She rarely feels entirely at ease with anyone.

***

OK then, let’s try this one. If you were single, and on the look-out, and you met a potential partner – whatever your preference – and during that first conversation, when you’re sizing each other up for compatibility and the odds of mutual attraction… if, during that very first conversation, you could see them naked – I’m not talking schoolboy fantasy X-ray specs here, not actual physical nudity, but shorn of all the pretence and show and fakery we wear in public… If you could peek through their dead-bolted shutters and see the secrets they only reveal to their most intimate acquaintances, and maybe not even to them… would you do that?

It’s all right, I know the answer. That doesn’t mean it’s right.

***

Gemma is a Sagittarius. This is the first information she gives to any budding suitor, because it’s important he knows she’s a free spirit. She does not like to be pinned down. Chained up, yes. Whenever you feel like it. Gemma’s got a predilection for kinky that leads her to bite, scratch, slap and pummel; it’s also led to the sudden cessation of her past four relationships. And the one before that was with a real sicko.

She plucks a tatty old Anaïs Nin off the shelf and reads the back. She’s been single almost five months now and really wants to hit something.

***

This all started in the summer of ’99, a month or so after my big break-up with Diane. For a while there, I’d thought maybe Diane was the one. But as is so often the case, it was the little things that did us in.

Diane was a ‘see you soon’ person; I’m a ‘see you later’. There’s a difference, apparently. The former indicates a desire for the time apart to be minimal, an eagerness to resume, an appetite for togetherness. The latter, Diane would patiently impart, suggests a relationship of convenience, broadly translating to ‘once I’ve taken care of all the other, more important aspects of my life’.

Besides that, she hated the way I crunched Polos.

“Why can’t you suck them – like normal people?”

But the final crunch came one afternoon when we were driving to her sister’s, late as usual because Diane had insisted on stopping to check her lottery numbers at the off-license. It was a rollover week, and the fact that she hadn’t won so much as a tenner in three years, despite doing five lines a week: to Diane this indicated an increased probability of one day scooping the big one. That to me it indicated she was blowing a fiver a week on a big fat sky pie should go without remark.

So while Diane bit into her consolatory Twix, I was aiming to make up lost time by taking a back route, and not stopping for anything. Not even for the old man at the pelican crossing – the old man who’d just come out of Dust Jackets, weighed down with Ed McBains and Wilbur Smiths – the old man who would end it all.

“Why didn’t you let him cross?”

“We’re already late.”

“How long would it have taken?

“A lot longer than it took to just carry on. Besides, it was a pelican – not a zebra. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Highway Code, but—“

“I’m familiar with the humanitarian code. What would it have cost you, thirty seconds, to stop and let that sweet old fella—?“

“For a start, you’ve no way of knowing he was a sweet old fella. He might just as well have been a dirty old paedo, on his way to the local playground to feel up…” She gave me a look like I’d chomped through a whole packet, but by now I was committed. “It might have been a lot more humanitarian to mow the old bastard down. If I’d stopped, I could well have been aiding and abetting a… a… besmirchment!”

***

Phoebe is ashamed of her body hair. She hesitates over Sue Grafton: has she read this one? D is for depilatory. T is for tweezing. She’s heard that some men prefer hairy women. Eastern European brides are all the vogue with a certain kind of gent. But that wouldn’t work for Phoebe, who puts a hand to her mouth whenever she’s talking to anyone she likes in case they’re not down with the down. B is for bleaching. E is for electrolysis. She wants a man who will trim her, nightly, and never consider it a chore. A man who won’t ever use the words: ‘granny ‘tash’, not even in jest. She doubts such a man exists, particularly one who would also stay smooth for her (she shudders at stubble). Sometimes she finds herself staring at young boys, spring teens who haven’t yet started to shave, and she loathes herself for doing it. Part of her thinks she’ll remain a hairy virgin forever.

***

“You always see the worst in people,” was the last thing Diane said before handing back my keys.

She should see me now.

***

Tina wears a long skirt that badly needs hitching up over her hips, and a lumpy bra beneath her Peter Pan blouse. She’s pretending interest in a Fielding, Henry – though in her heart she’d rather Helen. And if this were the actual Tom Jones… but she winces, because Tom – Tom was the name of her ex. The ex she let take those photos, all those photos. He still has them on his computer. And she knows, though she stands around the corner from the truth, she knows the sort of websites Tom visits. He showed her. He showed her and he laughed.

“You ever go with another man,” Tom used to say, “I’ll kick his cock off.”

All those photos. Tom still has all those photos.

***

So I’d been single for a month, and had started hanging out in bookshops again, because there really is nowhere better to meet intelligent, available women. My favourite haunt was Dust Jackets, that little place off the Oxford Road. You could always find something to wrap your attention in there… and they had a café too, which is always a bonus.

Let me explain something to you about lonely girls: lonely girls read. A lot. I bet if somebody did a survey of book-buying habits against significant other statistics, they’d find a good sixty, seventy per cent, probably more, of all paperbacks sold are bought by single women aged between twenty-five and fifty-five. (They already did the survey about libraries, but libraries are for your older maids, obviously – who the hell else borrows all those Catherine Cooksons?) Lonely women read… because what else are they going to do with their evenings? And if you think I’m being sexist, then consider this: the same would also be true of lonely men had some debaser not invented computer games and porn, thwarting and grubbying an entire gender.

Me, when I’m single, I fight the temptations. I prefer to read, broaden my mind, and hang around places like Dust Jackets. Do I think that makes me better than most? I’m not sure…

***

Persephone has weirdly disproportionate features, like a chinchilla. That’s not to say she’s unattractive. She skims the first chapter of a Jackie Collins and thinks about Julian, her former boyfriend. Julian liked to role-play. He’d have her dress up as a policewoman and arrest him, or a female barrister (wig and suspenders) and prosecute him, or a prison warder (Cell Block H variety) and punish him. Then he left her for a Religious Studies teacher and started volunteering for the Sally Army on weekends. Cunt.

Sometimes she sits outside his house, listening to the rain on the roof of her car, thinking about opening his garden gate, walking up the path, knocking on his door and throwing off her raincoat as he opens it… but so far, she’s just driven home and poured herself another White Lady, to help her sleep. She knows she won’t be able to connect with another man until she gets Julian out of her system, but it’s not that easy. What they had was special.

***

We read to know we are not alone. Best thing CS Lewis ever wrote – forget Aslan and the beavers. So if bookshops are where we go to seek kindred thoughts, maybe they’re also a place our subconscious bubbles most conspicuously to the surface. Especially for lonely people, who naturally dwell on themselves more than others. And maybe there are people: people like me, who can tune into that exposition – read it. I’m only speculating here, in case you’re the sort who needs a neat little bow tying on this kind of thing, but I will tell you this only ever happened in Dust Jackets: never in Waterstones or Borders, certainly never in WH Smiths. Make of that what you will.

The other good thing about bookshops, of course, is that not only will you invariably find single women there, wiling away a solitary afternoon with one eye on the shelves and the other out for forlorn possibility, but also that they provide wonderful opportunities for conversational gambits. I’ve always detested chat up lines, and think inter-gender small talk should be compulsory over French and Mandarin on every high school curriculum, but a bookshop remains one of the few places you won’t need either. All you require is a bluffer’s knowledge of classic and contemporary literature, and the willingness to step off the ledge every now and then.

“Margaret Atwood? That’s her best – I couldn’t put it down.”

“Ooh, Julian Barnes – have you read Before She Met Me?”

“Excuse me, I couldn’t help noticing you were buying One Hundred Years Of Solitude… have you read anything else by Marquez? There’s one I read years ago, on a backpacking holiday round Europe. I’ve been looking for it ever since, but I can’t remember the title. It’s about…”

I’d perfected the technique years ago, long before Diane, when I used to float around the university bookshop winter afternoons, keeping warm between seminars. Back then it was always scuzzy-haired girls with backpacks shaped like cuddly sheep, and bespectacled waifs with a penchant for Emily Dickinson. But though the basics remained the same, I soon came to realise that everything else had changed. Particularly the consequences.

***

The first time was Nancy. We bonded quickly over Coupland and Murakami, and surprised each other with a mutual sensitivity for Wuthering Heights (really, it’s all about knowing your audience), before I suggested a coffee – if she wasn’t in a hurry…

It was in the café, as I watched her pick a stray raisin from her chocolate chip cookie, that the pages began to turn.

“Am I your ickle girl?” she said, though it wasn’t the Nancy before me speaking now, not the one with the cappuccino-foamed top lip and a second-hand Mansfield Park paper-bagged for later – it was Nancy of another time, another place.

“Am I your pretty ickle girl?” Her voice was helium-high, cartoon, and to me: a bucket of ice. “Does daddy want to spank his pretty ickle chickinton—?“

Back in the café, I jumped – have you ever touched an electric fence? – and spilled my espresso into its itsy-bitsy saucer. Grown-up Nancy tightened her eyebrows, and leaned ever so slightly across the table towards me.

“Are you all right?”

Behind us, a middle-aged woman raised her voice to ask her elderly father, “Do you want tea or coffee?”

“Eh?”

“TEA – OR – COFFEE?” the woman megaphoned, emphasising the words with her lips.

“Oh,” the old man replied, after giving it a good long think. “Yes, please.”

Nancy laughed, and, grateful for the distraction, I made my excuses and left. Without her phone number. I’ve always found baby-talk a humongous turn-off.

***

Three weeks after we split, I get a call from Diane out of the blue. I reckon she’s remembered I still have all her Harry Potters, but it’s not that at all.

“Did you see last night’s Post?”

“I’m not a regular subscriber.” This is what I’m like with exes. There’s no going back.

When she’s stopped swearing at me, she tells me what she thinks, reading the headline from the paper. Local Sex Offender Jailed For Life. Seventy Three Year Old Ronald Herbert…

“It was him. The old man we saw outside Dust Jackets. I’m sure of it. The one you…”

I stop her there, ask her why she’s doing this. Sarcasm doesn’t become you, I tell her. Why is she still so bitter? Let it go, get on with your life…

It’s only later I think… shit.

***

Lisa’s in the magazine section, flicking through a Chat. ‘Slashed by my boyfriend,’ shouts one of the blurbs, ‘but he blamed Shakin’ Stevens!’ ‘Killer boobs,’ bawls another, ‘fighting for my life after my new breasts went boom!’ She’s wearing three different coloured T-shirts on top of each other, like Russian dolls. ‘I fetched him a kebab and watched him die!’ By the time I realise I’m staring, it’s too late to back out.

“It’s garbage, isn’t it?” she says, smiling as she slips the mag back onto the rack. It catches me off guard, because women never start the process themselves – who can blame them, when the world’s so full of predatory worms? Men, I mean. It’s why I’d hate to be a woman. The enemy never stops advancing.

“I don’t know,” I smile back, “there’s part of me thinks it’s like some kind of poetry of the grotesque, some dark Swiftian…” It’s one I’ve been rehearsing, but really, my heart’s not in it. Because all the time, I’m thinking: I like her style; thinking: I saw her earlier, with an Ali Smith and an Italo Calvino; thinking: come on, let’s get this over with.

***

And that’s why I’ve decided to stop scouting women in Dust Jackets. Because though at first it held a sly, voyeuristic thrill – after a while, it just became self-defeating. It’s like when you’re a kid and someone in the playground hands round a copy of the latest James Herbert in which they’ve marked all the mucky bits: where’s your incentive to read the whole thing? And it might just be, if you’d started at the beginning, you’d love it. But now you’ll never know.

30 Songs - Day 17

Day 17 - A Song You Hear Often On The Radio

I don't listen to the radio much. Apart from Mark Radcliffe. And Alex Lester when I can't sleep. Some of you will know why, but it's not something I can discuss here. For the time being.

Many people are critical of local radio stations that only seem to have three songs on their playlist at any one time. One of those three, at the moment, would appear to be this relatively harmless little ditty...



I don't dislike Katy Perry. Every generation needs a decent out-and-out popstar, and she's far less annoying than Lady Gaga. She's sexy in a very obvious and plastic way and does appear to work hard doing what she does. Snoop Dogg is also someone I have a lot of time for. He was great in Monk.

The only problem I have with Katy Perry is her choice in men. There hasn't yet been a deep enough hole dug to cast Russell Brand into for all eternity... but my spade continues to dig.

That said, I still prefer the Beach Boys version.

Where We Stayed On Holiday

Five Star accommodation as always.

More holiday stuff when I unpack my head.

Friday Flash - Beam Me Up

I'm not actually here this week. So I haven't had time to write a new story for Friday Flash. So instead, here's one I wrote three years ago (really? that long?) for Elephant Words. Hope you enjoy it.

Beam Me Up


Amy parked by The White House, where the sheep dawdled in the road like truculent teenagers, and took the path up Blackstone Edge. The Pennine Window, that’s what the experts called this area. From Blackburn across to Ilkley in the north, and down as far as Sheffield in the south. The most active UFO window in the country, where one fifth of all reported UK sightings had taken place, dating back as far as the 16th Century. Or in Amy’s case, as far back as 1977… which was a lifetime ago, and nothing went back farther than a lifetime.

She repeated the acid of a red onion chutney she’d spread on her sandwiches that afternoon. Not a problem. She unwrapped a couple of Bisodol from her backpack and chewed them, puckering so as not to leave chalky residue on her lips.

“It’s like kissing a blackboard,” Yann had told her; back when kissing had been more of an issue between them.

Above her loomed the Blackstone rocks, where climbers kicked in their crampons on a weekend, and from where, on a clear day, they said you could see as far as the Welsh mountains – if your eyes were up to it. Tonight Amy could see the twinkling of Littleborough below, Rochdale to the west and Oldham to the south. Beyond that, the tremendous burn of Manchester, radiating from the horizon.

She worked her way round back of the rocks till she came out on top, then laid her blanket a cautious distance from the edge. It was a deep midsummer twilight, and the stars had just begun to spark, though it was after ten and the heat of the day had long since rolled off the moors. Amy pulled up her knees and huddled the blanket round her shoulders, waiting.

So long, waiting.

1977, walking Oscar round Hollingworth Lake after tea. He’s your dog, your responsibility. Rather be home watching telly. Missing Charlie’s Angels tonight. ‘Once upon a time there were three girls who went to the police academy…’ Watched the first bit before Dad fetched her the lead. ‘I took them away from all that and now they work for me.’ Half seven, getting dark earlier each night, why does Oscar have to sniff at every post, every clump, every tree? Mum’ll be worried sick if we’re not back soon.
Starting to run. Oscar panting, excited, thinking it’s a game. Stupid dog…

Then the Christmas tree.

Wrong. It couldn’t be a Christmas tree. It was only September.

And the lights, the lights weren’t on the ground, they were moving across the lake. Fast. Oscar barking, the lights getting closer, reflections slurring on the water – run!

“Where the hell you been, young lady?”

Daddy. Daddy, what’s wrong?

Mum crying, the policewoman coming in from the kitchen.

“Your parents have been very worried about you, Amy. You mustn’t run away like that again.”

Didn’t run away – daddy, I didn’t, I was running back. From the Christmas tree! Back to catch the end of Charlie’s Angels! I didn’t—

“Amy, you’ve been gone three days. Your mother’s been out of her mind!”

“Where’s your dog, Amy? Have you been out looking for Oscar? It’s OK, no one’s going to be angry, but you have to tell us the truth. Where have you been, Amy? Where’s your dog? Amy? Amy?”

Headlights from the road crawled up the moors below. A lone bat etchasketched on the blue-black screen. Amy’s tongue rolled over the impacted wisdom tooth that always caused her so much grief. Made her gum swell and smell, like foul red cheddar. Bad days, she honked like a goose.

“Why won’t you let them take it out?” Yann used to ask.

Scared, she told him. Of coming out of the hospital with a boot print on her chest. It wasn’t the truth, but it satisfied him for a while. Lies always did a better job of that. No dentists. No X-rays. Amy couldn’t risk what they’d find.

She was 38 now, but looked and felt ten years older. Still, she’d made an effort tonight, though she wasn’t sure why. Clean underwear, ninety quid jeans, that top she’d caught the MD peering down at the management meeting. Make-up – probably too much, but she’d never known how much that was. She remembered Caroline Egdall taking the piss, “You a panda or wha’, Lewis?”, before slapping Amy hard up the side of her face, yanking away her satchel, and pushing her down the banking behind the sports hall. Caroline Egdall. Whatever happened to Caroline Egdall?

“You’ve been missing a week now Amy, and so has one of your classmates. Only Caroline’s still missing… and her parents are understandably very concerned.” The headmaster and his frowning brow. “If you won’t tell us where you’ve been this last week, at least tell us if you know where Caroline might be…”

What could she say? They wouldn’t believe her. The Christmas tree again, floating over the banking, Caroline silhouetted against its lights, Amy scrambling up to reach her, screaming with no sound. Waking shivering six days later, face down in the dew. A blackbird pulling at a worm, it took flight as she lifted her head from the grass.

They tried therapy, they tried hypnosis. Caroline’s father tried threats. Her own father tried tears. She couldn’t tell them anything. The doctors gave her a complete physical, reporting bruises, marks, blistering… possible signs of sexual abuse.

“Whatever happened,” they concluded, “Amy’s mind has blocked it out to protect her. It could be risky to probe further. Any attempt at forcing her to relive her ordeal could have serious psychological consequences.”

Now it was dark, and the lights twinkled above and below. Not much longer, she thought. She hoped. She prayed (though she wasn’t sure to whom). She was begging them now. This time, please. Please!

She’d never wanted the baby. But when she got pregnant, Yann was over the moon. Amy kept waiting for the maternal instincts to kick in, but there was nothing there for her. Yann was buying buggies and painting the nursery and reading books of names in the bath (Erin, Beth or Selina; Wesley, Patrick or Matthew). Amy was crying in the ladies at work and going through a full roll of Bisodol every morning before lunch. How had this happened, anyway? She was on the pill, and she always made Yann use a condom. Surely that was enough? When she was young, Katie Swain told her if she had a big wee after sex it’d wash all the sperm out and there’d be no way she could get pregnant. She’d stopped believing that a long time ago. Maybe that was her mistake right there.

On a sticky night in July, Amy woke paralysed and saw the Christmas tree lights outside her bedroom window. Yann slept on beside her, a low growl in the back of his throat, and Amy was terrified. She thought they’d come for him. She couldn’t bear being left alone, not with this thing growing inside her. Without Yann, she couldn’t go through with it. She wanted to scream and kick and punch and yell, but she knew it was hopeless. They did what they did. There was nothing Amy could do to change that.

When she woke again in the morning, Yann was screaming. At first she thought they were still wherever they went, that maybe she was actually seeing it all this time – and maybe that meant neither of them would be sent back. But then she recognised her bedroom curtains and the tapestry Yann’s parents had brought from Europe, and she caught the look on Yann’s face and realised.

“Where have you been? Where have you been? And what’s happened to the baby?”
She’d been gone three weeks this time, only Yann hadn’t been with her. Once again though, she’d returned alone.

“What have you done with our baby?”

More doctors, more tests. Still no answers. Yann became angry, became distant, picked up some slapper in a club in Manchester and started screwing around behind Amy’s back. Only not quite far enough behind her back. He left just enough distance that from time to time she’d catch him out of the corner of her eye. Smiling, but without any joy.

Amy shivered, and for a second, she thought she saw them. The Christmas tree lights. But it was just a police helicopter in the distance, buzzing the town. The night was growing colder. She pulled the blanket tighter, though she knew it’d get colder still.

“Come on… come on!”

Seventeen nights, and not even a shooting star to show for it. They’d sent her home from work because she kept falling asleep at her desk. The doctor had written her off for a fortnight, but that was almost done now and then she’d have to go back. Every day she went online and scoured the message boards. Activity levels were at a peak right now, particularly within the Pennine Window. UAP and LITS, credible low and medium definition sightings, animal disturbances – even ball lightning. But sitting way up here on Blackstone Edge, with just her flask and binoculars, and only the sheep and an occasional bat for company, Amy hadn’t seen a thing. She’d thought about finding a different location… but what if that was the night they came? Her odds felt better if she stayed in one place.

She’d read somewhere that it was impossible for astronauts to cry. In zero gravity, not even tears could fall.

So patience, that’s all she needed. After all, it wasn’t like she was a stranger to them. If they were here, they knew she was here. Sooner or later they’d come for her.

And when they did?

This time, she wouldn’t let them bring her home again.

Top Ten Milk Songs

I did coffee...

I did tea...

But for those of you who prefer your beverages caffeine free and full of calcium... a Top Ten Milk Songs seemed a must.

10. Eddie Cochran - Milk Cow Blues

Rock 'n' Rollers knew how to write songs about farm animals. See also the Elvis version. We need more cows in the chart these days (and no, I don't mean Lady Gaga).

9. Kelis - Milkshake

Her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. Haven't a clue what this means, but it does make me want to go to the yard. And I don't even like milkshakes.

This would normally be a good time to mention Flight Of The Conchords' hilarious reaction to this song... but I'm saving that for next week.

8. Garbage - Milk

You always have to wonder why Shirley Manson decided to call her band Garbage. Doesn't suggest a whole lot of confidence in the end product, does it? I still think Rubbish would have been a better name.

7. Art Brut - DC Comics And Chocolate Milk

Part of my Best DC Comics Songs post, the ironic thing being that this song is actually better than most DC comics these days.

6. Dr Feelgood - Milk & Alcohol

One of Mark Radcliffe's favourite bands. I reckon The Dude would appreciate this song too, since his beverage of choice is a White Russian.

"Hey man, there's a beverage here!"



5. Herman's Hermits - No Milk Today

Written by Graham Gouldman, who went on to form 10CC, this always reminds me of free school milk. Here's something I've probably told you before - drinking milk makes me throw up. I discovered this when I first went to school. After a couple of days trying to get me to drink my free school milk, the teacher gave it up as a bad job. When I went up to the next class a year later, I tried explaining to the new teacher that I didn't drink milk, but she wasn't for listening. She soon learned.

4. Rufus Wainwright - Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk

Not quite as bad for Rufus as Eddie Argos's chosen accompaniment for chocolate milk. In case you were wondering, chocolate milk makes me throw up too. And so do cigarettes.

3. Saint Etienne - Milk Bottle Symphony

Possibly Saint Etienne's greatest moment.

Oh, sod it, there's no 'possibly' about it.

2. Billy Bragg - Milkman Of Human Kindness

If you're lonely, I will call
If you're poorly, I will send poetry

If you're sleeping, I will wait
If your bed is wet, I will dry your tears

If you are falling, I'll put out my hands
If you feel bitter, I will understand

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

A bad pun has never sounded so sweet.

1. Benny Hill - Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)

I was never really a Benny Hill fan. Even as a kid I found him a bit too silly, and I guess I was too young to appreciate the innuendo. But I do consider Ernie to be a minor work of genius: not just a spoof country and western song played for laughs, there's something genuinely moving about its tragic and spooky denouement.

Was that the trees a rustling
Or the hinges of the gate
Or Ernies ghostly goldtops a rattling in their crate?
They won't forget Ernie
And he drove the fastest milkcart in the west

Have you Got Milk? What's your favourite milky milky song?

Thoughtballoons - Mister Mxyzptlk

This week's Thoughtballoons character is the Superman-plaguing imp from the 5th Dimension, Mr. Mxyzptlk. If you're unfamiliar with the character, he's a magical sprite who likes to cause mayhem and can only be sent back to his home dimension by getting him to say his own name backwards. Kltpzyxm!

Fortunately, there's another DC character (one of my favourites) who's famous for her backwards spell casting ways...

Pop over to the Thoughtballoons site to read my story and see what the other guys have come up with for Mxyzptlk.

Her Fearful Symmetry

How many reviews of Her Fearful Symmetry will begin with the reviewer telling you how much they loved Audrey Niffenegger's previous book, The Time Traveller's Wife?

And how many of those reviewers will then go on to tell you that however much they enjoyed Niffenegger's latest... it's not quite as satisfying as her debut?

I'd like to buck that trend, but I'd be lying if I did. Partly it's the downbeat subject matter of this second book - a story that literally spends the majority of its time hanging round graveyards like a moody Goth. Partly it's the characters - precocious twins Julia and Valentina, weak-willed romantic Robert Fanshaw and agoraphobic OCD shut-in Martin Wells... none of whom are quite as easy to warm to as Henry DeTamble and his eponymous missus. The best character in this story actually dies in the book's opening line - though fortunately that's not the end of Elspeth Noblin. Unable to move on, she haunts her former apartment (now bequeathed to her twin nieces from the States), trying to come to terms with her spooky new status... while secretly pining for a way back to the land of the living.

The story is slow to get going, though not unpleasant reading. Niffenegger spends a long time letting us grow to like - if not ever love - her characters, so that when the plot does begin to twist in unexpected directions, we're carried along. There is however one major plot twist which takes a huge amount of swallowing, and your enjoyment and satisfaction with this novel will depend wholly on whether or not you're able to force that down. If you can, there's a lot to admire about this book. If not... you might end up quitting three-quarters of the way through. Which would be a shame. But to say any more would spoil the plot for everybody. You pays your money, you takes your chances...