Author: maleghast (Page 17 of 35)

“It’s only a book, you know. Don’t look so shocked. If it were the word of an all powerful god don’t you think it would be less inconsistent? More to the point, don’t you think that the book itself would be inviolable? As it is I can show you how it’s been edited and altered by man to fulfil man’s agenda…”

Peter grunted as he interrupted;

“Oh good heavens, not this again! The bible has been altered so it can’t be the word of God? Did you ever consider that it might have been the Grace of God within chosen people that led to the refinement of the bible? The point is that you don’t believe in God, so you assume that there are no good reasons for what you see as inconsistencies in the Bible. I on the other hand believe in God and that the Bible is the Word, I am just not smart or holy enough to fully understand it. So anyway how do you want your steak? Everything is ready and the pan is hot.”

“Medium rare, please Pete. Thanks.”

Peter turned away and placed the first steak in the pan;

“Why don’t you pour some wine?”

Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe, but sometimes it is an egg whisk. I had been wondering whether or not the apparent flirting coming from the guy who lives over the road was real flirting for well over a week before I finally decided to do something about it.

As usual I was setting off on my morning run, at about half six, when I saw him coming out of the house, already dressed for work. I did nothing different; simply waved and smiled, but he stuck his hand up and before I knew it he was coming over.

“Hi there. Going for a run, huh?”

This was a fairly safe gambit; it was not like he wandered over and said “I’ve worked out you’re gay and I’d like to invite you over for dinner and maybe a good hard fuck”. Still the body language was all there. His whole body was slightly inclined towards me and as I stopped to answer him he reached out with his hand, his eyes were dilated… He was a really good looking guy; I was more than a little flattered by the attention. I was about to take his hand;

“Can you sign this for me?”

This had been a good idea through all of the planning phase. Now, sat behind a wall in the freezing November night, waiting for the others to arrive, hoping to not be found by a security guard, Alan was starting to feel some uncertainty creeping in.

It had been two months earlier when they had all taken a few too many drinks and decided to fake a Banksy on the walls of the new Magistrates’ Court. All of them had lived in Bristol for years, some of them remembered Banksy’s first works appearances. They had been joking about how much they missed his work since he had become more famous, and then Frank had simply said;

“Why don’t we do one for him, huh?”

It was elegant in both its power and simplicity. A graffiti installation apparently by a reclusive and secretive artist would appear on a new building in his old stomping ground. The local reaction was likely to be pleasure and satisfaction that the ‘old boy’ has come back to the home range, and even though it would be publicised it would be hard to out as a fake.

“What do you mean, you ate reindeer sausages? How could you do that?”

Frank shook his head and swallowed the derisory comment he had been about to spew forth. Instead he took a moment to remind himself that the high moral ground was easily lost, but easier to win if never surrendered. Besides he quite liked this girl and making her look stupid, or trying to anyway, was bound to work out badly for him in the long run.

“Well, they were on the menu, and I’d eaten venison sausages before, so I thought that I’d probably like them… I suppose I fancied some game and there it was.”

Judging by the look on her face cheap humour may have been the better option; at least there would have been the outside chance of making her laugh.

“That’s sick that is. I mean it’s bad enough that you think eating Bambi is okay, but Rudolph! I can’t believe I ever liked you!”

This had to be a joke! Was she seriously going to lose it with him over sausages? He was starting to sweat and shift in his seat;

“You pillock! Had ya!”

She was smiling.

The stream of tail-lights stretching away into the distance was really quite soul destroying. If Della had been awake they could have talked, maybe even kissed; it was not as if the traffic was moving.

She snuffled and brushed her wrist across her nose in her sleep and he felt himself melt in the face of her cuteness. Why was it that this woman, this person was cute to him when she flailed about in her sleep and made odd noises and even talked in her sleep sometimes? When he had to share a twin with a work colleague on a sales trip, or go somewhere with the softball team on an away game, the similar foibles of other sleepers would annoy him rather than make him feel happy and affectionate. Of course it was because he loved her, and he knew that, but it amused him to play with the uneven treatment he gave to people who were not Della.

“Richard? Come back to bed Richard.”

Suddenly he did not feel happy and secure and loving towards her. Now all he could do was wonder who Richard was, what with his name being Tony.

The moonlight, reflected on the underside of the bridge by the ripples in the water made it seem as though they were walking into a tunnel of water. She gripped his hand a little more tightly, suddenly worrying that they were in a dark and lonely place.

“Hey there. You scared baby, or have you just noticed that no one is around?”

His smirk would normally have annoyed her, but something about the light, the way his voice sounded bouncing off the bridge and most importantly the fantastic bottle of wine that they had just shared at the restaurant. She shot him her best playful and cute look and yanked him towards the wall. For a moment he hesitated, double checking that he was right about their being alone and then he followed her lead.

She pulled his hands inside her coat as their mouths met and once he had got the basic idea she slid one hand around his waist and the other snaked its way into his trousers. As she found what she was looking for he let out the little gasp that she loved so much. She squeezed more.

“Turn left up there.”

I shot her a quizzical look;

“And why, pray tell, do you think that left is the right course of action? I mean you do have the map upside down.”

The look I received in return was less quizzical, more homicidal if the truth be told. We had been orbiting Sudbury for some time now, trying to find the right arcane combinations of turnings to end up on the market square in order to pick up the third member of our party from a pub called The Monkey Wrench, where he had been staying the night before.

“Well, don’t turn left then. See if I care. Of course we’re going to be late if you don’t start listening to me instead of just randomly turning ‘the way that feels right’ as we come to junctions.”

She did have a point, and I was starting to dread the endless ribbing I was going to receive from Ferdie, when we finally picked him up. He was not going to care about being kept waiting, or even arriving late to the wedding. That would not stop him needling me about it all day though.

“Okay then, left it is.”

He rolled the cigar between his thumb and forefinger, his hand hovering over his chips. The bet was to him and there was only the small blind left. Everyone had checked, waiting to see the Turn, but the Flop gave him a flush, albeit a low one. Gianni was definitely sitting on something good. Time to roll the dice, this hand could send a player out and it wasn’t going to be him with his chip lead, plus there were two more cards to get out.

“Ten Ton”

‘Clink’ as the chips settle in front of him. He brought the cigar to his mouth and took a long drag, paying his smoking as much attention as he could to hide his level of confidence in a cloud.

Paulo and Gwen both flinched and there were a couple of folds; just Gianni, Thorsten and him still in. They call and then the Turn; Ace of Spades and now he has an ace-high flush.

They both check; what do they have?

He does some quick maths and raises the bet another thousand.

Gianni folds, swearing under his breath about newbies buying the pot.

Here comes the River.

‘Check’

‘Check’

“You’re not anything special, you fool!”

The boy cowered at his father’s feet, flinching from the raised fist.

“Just because you can play the damn guitar does not mean that you should play it. DO you understand me?”

The boy nodded.

“Did you say something?”

For a moment the boy cowered lower, expecting a blow from the fist that was suspended above him, like a weight ready to fall. Then realising he was being givern a chance stammered;

“Y-y-y Yes Sir, I understand.”

The fist came a little lower, but more slowly than a blow and the boy stared intently, watching to see the fingers relax and the fist once more becoming a hand.

“Good. All right then. Now get yourself off to bed. Brush your teeth, young man, and I don’t want to hear any music coming from your room, that radio is for the news and nothing else.”

The boy scrambled to his feet and was gone before he could change his mind.

The man turned to look at the guitar that had caught his son attempting to play, and muttered under his breath;

“Where did you come from, eh?”

Tossing brass; that’s what they had called it on the range, with a smile and a chuckle. To be honest you don’t think about how utterly frivolous that is when you are learning to empty an MP5 on a nice, sunny, outdoor range, with your anti-flash glasses on and the smell of sunscreen mixing with the fresh waves of cordite as you and eleven other raw recruits pull the trigger on another cardboard gang-banger.

Not so funny now, crouched behind a stack of wooden packing crates, filled with steel refrigerators. Lucky because I was hoping for something that could stop bullets. It was supposed to be a simple buy-bust! I’m in here with nothing more than a Sig; I’m playing the part of a drug dealer. It’s the bad guys who are ‘tossing brass’ like it’s this year’s summer craze. I’m pretty sure that the guys with automatics were toting Steyrs, so that’s sixty rounds apiece; I lost count at around thirty. Weirdly my ears have already shut out the bangs, all I can hear are casings hitting the concrete, like metal raindrops.