Interior Monologue...

Do you ever get tired of it?

You know, that persistent Film Noir voice-over that runs through your head from daybreak to lights out? Another kind of drone, the sort that turns every event, no matter how prosaic or dull, into a portentously bleak existential scene straight out of Simenon or Chandler, if only in one's imagination. So sitting, for instance, on the john - it would be a john, obviously, not a bog because to be properly noirish you need to be in Chandlerville, LA; there's not quite the same ring to sitting on a lavatory or loo in suburban England, is there? - you'll hear it starting up.

Cue RKO transmitter on the north pole morse coding away to the Universe. Cue dramatic chords. Roll opening credits:

Farewell my not-so-lovely...

Maigret Takes a Dump...

Or better still...

The Long Goodbye

Maybe that's where that Arnott chap got the inspiration for The Long Firm?

Some days, you'd just like to turn it off. But you can't. (Well, you could - but only if you think you're ready for the real Big Sleep...)

Still, as they always say - 'better out than in'. Another movement in the symphony of life; another day, another post...

Droning...

The bus slows into electric blue light, gently strobing. Two police cars are parked up behind an ambulance, their whirling lamps scattering neon lighthouse sweeps into the pre-dawn gloom. We slowly process past the scene of the accident, as remote and numb as mourners behind smoked glass in a funeral limousine. There's a body splayed out across the curb, one bearded cheek sucked tight to the tarmac like a squared-off cartoon face pulled inexorably toward some U-shaped, subterranean magnet made by Acme. Police and paramedics kneel close by in calm attendance as the bus edges slowly past the open rear doors of the ambulance. 'There but for the grace... ' you think, instinctively acknowledging your own good fortune in not being outside, not being cruciformed out there in the road - not being him. Then suddenly in this blinking blue fridge door light, the daily rattle into work and all its chilly rigours has been transformed into a breeze, your bus into a sanctuary; warm and secure as a comfort blanket to a spooked child. Nothing like proximity to another's misfortune, pain or suffering to focus the mind, you think. 'It's an ill wind...' this unbidden, callous train persists. After all, look on the bright side. You might get a post out of this...

We pick up speed, the accident recedes as we hurtle through the January dark, almost back on track after this unwelcome, unscheduled interuption. Our journey starts to regain some of the digitised announcer's serenity. She intones the stages of our journey in the soothing, measured syllables of her pre-programmed m-peg mantra. Cyber woman. Computer world. You thought you'd left all that behind. "Relax..." she almost purrs with astonishing warmth and conviction given that it's only whatever clever voice simulation algorithim they've used that brings life to the perfuntorily keyed-in strings of binary code, "...everything's OK." And maybe she's right. Perhaps it's not quite so bad being here, not lying there; being safe and warm, not damaged and cold. Maybe this drone thing isn't going to be so bad. There are, surely, worse things in life to be than a drone, after all? A late drone, for one thing. Or a voice without a body announcing the stops on the bus. Or a cyberman.

But you've killed him off, that cyber you; the shimmering pixelated avatar is dead. Or if not dead, at least not you. Not any more. You're here, a fortunate, cosseted drone on his way to work. He's lying splayed out somewhere in his cyberworld, as cold and rigid as the bearded meatspace stiff you left behind a bus ride ago. Soon you'll be scuttling off the bus and into an ecologically lit office, with a water cooler and personalised workspaces cleaned by elegant women with covered heads, just like all the other drones. The morning will pass and the day will lighten. Your heart will be heavy for a while, as it always is after a bereavement - that's what's happened to you, after all; you have been bereaved, in a way, haven't you? Or been the cause of the bereavement which must surely bring some traumas of its own? But you'll survive. You'll live to drone another day. So relax, you're back in the land of the living, even though it might feel for a while like some kind of living death. You're back where you belong, where you should always have been; droning with the drones in the land of the drone. And it isn't so bad, is it? If you're honest. It's not been such a bad start to the week, really; just the two fatalities.

Feed

BoyTron...

Marrissa slipped a sleek steel blue kimono on over her crimson bodice and ran to the door, a tiny tingle of excitement starting up in the hollow of her inner thigh. Maybe this was it, the package she'd been waiting for. Oh, what bliss to come, she thought and heard the cheesy, saccharine lilt of the refrain from the commercial running through her head...

BoyTron pumps away...
'Til the batteries run out...

The dwarf class Delivery Droid at the door held the tall box vertically in its stainlees steel claw. She hastily shoved a tip credit into its silver abdomen and grabbed the elongated box and hastily planted it inside the hall. Door closed, she dragged it along the hallway and into the bedroom that gave on to the vestibule, then tried to lift it. My, this is *heavy* - she thought, the tingle that had started in her inner thigh now working its way steadily up to her abdomen where she now felt a burning clench, a fearsome raunch that made her feel quite suddenly shocked at her own appetite. With an enormous heave, she launched the box on to the bed and began feverishly to wrestle with the thick bronze staples and wide strips of tape holding the box secure.

Eventually freeing the top of the box after some effort, she peeled aside two or three layers of tissue paper and there he was; the BoyTron; Luxury Series IIa, fully mobile mandibles (as standard), roto pelvis function, extra-regular size, black model. The peachy fuzzed surface caught the soft blue light from her bedside tan dispenser, soft hairs rippling around its abdomen. BoyTron's face looked back up at her, slightly sad, but with what appeared to be the beginnings of a playful smile about to spread across its coal-dark face. She fumbled with the instructions - why did they always put the English version halfway through?? - and quickly located the discretely secluded opening into which she would insert the lovingly cradled token in her palm and bring the Boytron to life...

BoyTron pumps away
'Til the batteries run out...

Gently, Marrissa clasped BoyTron's pretty-plump biceps and gently rolled him onto his side, pulling the box away and allowing it to fall will-nilly on the floor beside the bed. She lay him on his back once more, spread her knees and allowed the shimmering blue kimono to slide down her back and arms and fall like a shiny turquoise puddle about her on the sheets. Edging her way up Boytron, the token gripped between her long-nailed fingers, Marrissa felt with her little pinky for the delicate indenture of the slot. Hovering over him now, she touched the token to the top of the slot and with deliberately slow, sensuous sychronization slid the token and herself down, down, down...

BoyTron pumps away
'Til the batteries run out...

Pump, pump, pump...




L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob




Subscribe


Podcasts

Music

Alvin Starburst...

Starburst over London

I fell out of the sky

Lost among the humanoids

They never told me why...

Your Alvin vay sed. And so Alvin I become. Stood vare in me fishnets n bovver boots, a stoled zippy coat me only comfort from ver frightful cold feelings ov me extratrestial bod. 'Alvin', I mouved back at ver gang ov scruffs assembled about me, gorpin and gaspin at ver twin artbeats palpin away like billy O, me alien ness plainly visible beneaf me see-froo blars. So vis is Erf, I smiled ter me lonesome. Erf is a shit-ole, I funked, just like vey sed it would be - orrible grey stuff smered wiv white tubes wot pong like a sewer, paper rags streamin every here n vivver n evry wall wiv sumfing writted on it. Erf, you stink, I fort - might even ave whispered it under me bref. You stink of shit but you are ome, I fort.

Gubby, iz name woz Gubby, I fink, e was ver boldest of em, e reached out iz umanoid and n seemed a little took of aback ter find me skin not to much differenter van is own - smoover, paler, synfetically enhanced vo it were. Ardened against vizical pain to a degree iz pasty flesh could never not be, but still as vulnerable as any umanoid to ver chilly cold of ver wind. 'Eaty', e sed, 'Eaty'...Gubby kep on repeatin ver same silly word wot ad no meaning as far as me recepta banks and dayterstream rezorses was concerned -'Eating' bein the closest match to come up on me mindscroll. E finks I must be ungry, I spose, I reasoned, knowin vey'd most like gorped n gasped in orror n delight as me spasecraft ship plummetid like a cone into ver mud grey slimey slew of water into what I had crashed. 'Yes please, Mister Sir', I sed to him in me best Erf aksent as like I had been tort in all vose lessons to prepare me for me mishon. 'I is very ungry Sir, n food would be ver just delightful fing, if it pleezes, sir, fank you sir.." Gubby giv me a funny look, iz ed slightly ter one side and sed 'Nah' *Eaty*, not 'Eaty'. Yer know; 'Eaty - Fo nome'...

Erf can be confuzin sumtimes, carn't it?

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob














Subscribe


Podcasts

Music

First Person, Omniscient...

I get a call from Bob's agent. You think I move in mysterious ways? Wait 'til you see this guy. Hi Lou, how's business? I'm loving the book. Ah, that's too bad, Lou. Have a little faith, huh; something'll turn up. Oh, sure Lou - anything I can do to help; by the way, I got a great deal this month on Red Sea partings. What's with people nowadays, huh Lou? You remember back in the old days? A parting of the Red Sea would have been a cause for celebration. Now? You can't give 'em away. Sorry Lou, you were saying; about Bob's book. How can I be of service? Ah huh. Mmm hmm. I see. I can appreciate Bob's concerns, Lou and and I sympathise with your plight and that of any would-be publishers, but I'm afraid there's not much I can do. Kind of goes against company policy, you with me Lou? Oh sure, we can do you a broad outline, give you a general idea of what happens in the end - day become night, skies fallling, mountains crumbling to the sea and so on and so forth. But anything more specific than that would be way off bounds, I'm afraid. Ah huh. Mmm hmm. Well, I'd love for him to be right, Lou - really I would. That Hleb's one hell of a player. And those shorts. But it really would violate one of our most important rules to tell you any more. And you know what sticklers we are for the rule book up here, Lou. It's all spelled out in my own book, as a matter of interest. You really should have a look at it sometime. It really is a good book, even if I say so Myself. Mmm, not so good Lou. Sales have been better. A lot of competition in the Spiritual and Lifestyle sector right now. But we live in hope. Look, I'm really sorry, Lou; I wish there was something more that I could do, but you know how it is - my hands are tied. It's like I'm always saying to my boy; I might be omnipresent, but you can't expect me to be everywhere at the same time. Mmm hmm. Yep, that's life. Ah huh. Well, that's football. Take a look at last night. Mmm Hmm. Ah-huh. Yep, me too. Some accumulator; Valencia, Liverpool, Milan. So, the kids go hungry. Ah well, what are you going to do? Sure thing Lou. And thanks for being so understanding. OK, Lou; you too. Ah huh. Amen to that.

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

Hear Bob read extracts from his diary of the 2007-08 season, "The Road to Moscow"!!



Bobcasts now available at iTunes!!

Bobcasts now available at Jellycast!!

A Very Short Story...

They've just got into bed. He's just woken from a snooze having fallen asleep halfway through Hell's Kitchen, she's just lying there thinking. Still grumpy from having had his sleep interupted, he hears that quiet breathing punctuated by deep snorting sniffs that he's learned to associate with tears.
'What's up?'
There's a long pause, and then she says;
'Just...
Nothing'.
But something is.
'Come on, love...'
'It's just...'
He already knows what it's just, knows what this is all about but it's always best to make sure, what with her condition.
'It's all this family history business, isn't it?'
She's already traced hers back to the Crimean war before coming up against a bit of a brick wall beyond that. She's just started on his. Well, it's an interest, isn't it? Supposed to be therapeutic.
'Don't you ever stop to think about of all those lives that led to yours?' she asks, turning to face him as he lies staring up at the ceiling through the gloom.
'It's not just two or four or or six or eight or ten people but hundreds - thousands, even, of descendants. Don't you think it's the height of arrogance to see yourself as the pinnacle of all those descendants? As if somehow you have some right to just stop a sequence that spans tens of thousands of years? To just, I don't know - end it all with you and me?'
He's tired after work; heavied and dulled by beer, he doesn't need this.
'Look', he says, 'it's not as if I didn't warn you. I said right from the off that I wasn't interested in having kids'.
There's silence.
'You're bad enough as it is now, if I interupt you at that blessed computer when you're doing your genealogy bit. Imagine what you'd be like if you had some screaming brat constantly demanding attention and food and its arse wiping. And love. Are you telling me you could cope with all the whining and wailing and feeding and changing? You'd have eighteen bloody years of it, not just six months you know.'
He's just about to get on to the ethical stuff - too many people in the world as it is, without another hungry mouth to feed. And then there's her condition. But he realises almost as soon as these further arguments have formed in his mind that they have now gone beyond such reasoning.
'We could always get a cat', he ventures and hears his words thud against the silence of the room.
Because the argument is already over as far as she is concerned. It was over some while ago. It's too late anyway. Time has taken the matter in hand and there are no arguments you can use against time. She feels the same disgust welling up inside her as she did earlier today on the way home from the surgery. There was an overwhelming stench of shit as she walked along the quiet back streets that back onto the railway line. Her chest tightened and her heart felt like an overblown balloon, its membrane pulled too taut, too thin and feeling fit to burst. Up ahead, a ferret-faced boy whacks a football hard across the street. He gives a panicky moan as she walks along side him. She notices a squirrel lying dead in the middle of the street. She isn't sure if it was there before he took a shot or whether it has been laid out just now by the speed and the power, the lethal volleying of the ball. She needs to lose this feeling, needs to get it out in every conceivable direction, to shit, vomit or strain herself free of this suffocating nausea. But she can't stop for a shit or to be sick or to rain down on to the concrete slabs. All she can do is cry.
So she just cries.
And she just tries to free her mind of the image at the heart of her despair.
But she just can't free her mind of the wall of blackness waiting somewhere up ahead.
Then, for a long while there is silence until at last she says, as if she's starting up a new discussion instead of closing this one down,
'I just feel so utterly pointless.'
And the words just hang there like daggers of ice glinting in the mouth of a dark cave.



L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

Hear Bob read his novel in progress, The Road to Moscow!!


Bobcasts now available at iTunes!!

Bobcasts now available at Jellycast!!

Visit me in MunterSpace - 10,000 Goth Girls Splattered in Feck Blood Can't be Wrong!!!!!!!!

Watch Bob's promos on Youtube

Listen to Bob's songs at indie911.com!

Listen to Bob's songs at GarageBand.com!

Listen to Bobcasts #1-34 here!



© 2007 Swipe Enterprises