Hole Punch Read online

  Hole Punch

  Garth Simmons

  Copyright © 2020 by Garth Simmons

  All rights reserved.

  Published in 2020 by:

  Britain’s Next Bestseller

  An imprint of Live It Ventures LTD

  126 Kirkleatham Lane, Redcar.

  Cleveland. TS10 5DD

  The moral right of Garth Simmons to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  All enquiries should be addressed to:

  Live It Ventures LTD

  Cover design by Garth Simmons

  Printed in the U.K

  To my mum, friends, brothers and the dead

  ZERO

  Mum sways me in her arms and sings:

  “Hushy-bye-hushy-bye-hushy-bye-boo.”

  I close my eyes and dribble a bit.

  Dad comes in through the back door.

  Mum ignores him.

  I open my eyes and dribble a bit.

  Mum sways me in her arms and sings:

  “Hushy-bye-hushy-bye-hushy-bye-boo.”

  I close my eyes and dribble a bit.

  Dad throws down his flat cap and shouts:

  “Not going to say hello to me then?”

  Mum ignores him.

  I open my eyes and dribble a bit.

  Mum sways me in her arms and sings:

  “Hushy-bye-hushy-bye-hushy-bye-boo.”

  I close my eyes and dribble a bit.

  Dad pulls off his boots and shouts:

  “You're going to turn him into a bloody puff!”

  Mum ignores him.

  I open my eyes and dribble a bit.

  Mum sways me in her arms and sings.

  “Hushy-bye-hushy-bye-hushy-bye-boo.”

  I close my eyes and dribble a bit.

  Dad leans over mum's shoulder.

  “You've got to man up lad!”

  I open my eyes and shit myself.

  EMPTY

  The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.

  Vast, empty and full of nothing.

  The Mistake feels rubbish and small.

  “You are rubbish and small!” said the voice inside the Mistake's head. “Except for your big, stupid head!

  The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.

  One of the Mistake's brothers throws a rock at the Mistake's head. Synchronised laughter all around from the Mistake’s normal-headed and able-bodied brothers.

  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

  They laugh, they point, they laugh again.

  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

  The Mistake ignores the impact, the pain and the laughter.

  “You are nothing!” said the voice.

  The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.

  “No one likes you!” said the voice. “Your own family hate you! Your Mother doesn't even want to see you!”

  Another stone is thrown.

  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

  They laugh, they point, they laugh again.

  The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.

  The Mistake's brothers turn away and shove their shovel hands into the ground.

  “Yes, Mother!” said the Mistake's brothers.

  The Mistake had never heard mother's voice.

  “Your head is too big,” said the voice. “Too big and stupid.”

  It is true.

  “Yes! It is true! Staring into nothing! That’s all your big, STUPID head is good for!”

  The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.

  Nothing is the same colour as empty.

  PIGEON

  Look at him! Emmett Corcoran! Watch him stand up from his chair and walk out of his little, self-important room. See how proud he is! How very proud of the sign on his office door:

  “FINANCE MANAGER.”

  Look at him! Emmett Corcoran! Podgy and pointless! In his suit of grey details. He is forty-three years old, but he looks older.

  See him there! Standing at his office door, smiling at all his workers, all of his workers except for me. He avoids looking at me, he knows I'm here. He can feel my judgement. He can feel my truth.

  I'm not scared of you Emmett.

  I'm a temp!

  “How's it going Emmett?” asks Julie with her fake, finance smile.

  “I'm a bit tired,” says Emmett. “I had a bit of an argument with the wife last night.”

  I push my paperwork to the floor.

  “So,” I said. “You're a dickhead at home as well as in the office?!”

  I throw my mocha at them.

  I light up a cigarette.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later and I’m escorted outside by security. I walk up Nell Lane by the Southern Cemetery. I rattle the tip of my umbrella against the railings.

  Look! There on the pavement; a dead bird with its insides torn out.

  “Someone is having pigeon gut pie tonight.”

  I kick the bird.

  The surface soft.

  My impact bloody.

  UKATRAX

  The Human Empire slave masters stand black-suited and big gunned behind the Ukatraxi in the underground mines of their native world of Ukatrax.

  The slave masters can't help but laugh at the whinnying yelps and grunts of the Ukatraxi.

  “Dig faster! That's right! Dig harder!”

  In an alcove, a young Ukatraxi kneels and cries over her father's dead bulk.

  “I swear, on the green blood of my father! I will kill every last human on Ukatrax!”

  A slave master's head pops into the alcove.

  “Shut up and get back to work! We want your precious minerals!”

  * * *

  The Arch-Slime Drylicktius, puppet king of the Ukatraxi, sits on his cushioned throne, under his open robe of tightly-woven massage slugs.

  Around him are the hairiest maidens on all of Ukatrax.

  His body bristles with USB implants plugged into all the latest sensations. All the latest news and blood sports. A hairy maiden feeds a large, peeled plum into his toothless mouth.

  WHORL

  We sat at the long desks and our tall teacher watched us drawing our drawings. Gaped mouthed in our undecided worlds, we scratched our crayons across our papers, our eyes met our own mess.

  I liked to try to imagine myself through a camera lens. Transplant my eyes from my head and view myself like how I viewed people on television. It was years before I learnt that what I was yearning for was called “third person perspective.”

  Nothing I did with my eyes achieved third person perspective. No matter how much I closed my eyes or pressed them in. My body was just another parameter. I could only go deeper into myself.

  I didn’t use the word parameter, I hadn't learnt it yet.

  At night, I could see traces of lights under my eyelids. The whorl to somewhere I could never reach.

  I didn't use the word “whorl”. I hadn't learnt it yet.

  GASM

  After they bung-pummelled her every olfactory smuggle pit, the Smong Sphere tickled all its hard spickles over the Queen Dung. Every prong swollen red and waiting to spew tumescent dribble after such a prolonged, thronging and tordid rubbling. Squeals of greeling satisfaction were shrill loud as the muscle reflex spizzled into drooling.

  The scientist looked up from his microscope.

  “This is gonna be a big splash.”

  He put his eye back to the lens and got ready to w
itness the orgasmic tsunami of this subatomic sex war.

  SLIVERS

  Brian has worked his way up over the years but still feels pressure from above. He has accepted that this was the way life works. Someone is always higher up.

  He can afford three holidays abroad a year, regardless of the discomfort of being with his wife and children, going abroad makes him feel like he is experiencing life.

  It can't all be work, work, work.

  He polishes his shoes four times a week.

  * * *

  Alan wears science - fiction themed t-shirts in two sizes too big for him. He plays computer games online. One game in particular he really likes and his character is in the top five hundred throughout the world. He knows that these games are made for fun, so he plays them for fun. If you play these games too seriously your character becomes rigid.

  He visits his mother as often as possible but he worries it isn't enough.

  * * *

  Hannah works at the Post Office; selling stamps and so on. A sore and spotty-faced man used to come in a few years ago and make shy glances at her. One time he queued up to post an envelope of dry pasta to his own address, just to get the chance to talk to her. He gave her a note that said:

  “You seem really nice, sorry this is a bit weird but if you want to hang out my number is...(number removed)”

  She never contacted him and he hasn't been in since.

  * * *

  Between the wall and door it feeds on slivers.

  * * *

  Sarah used to love school. They were the best years of her life and she had a “right good laugh”. She loves her children but she envies them. She tells them:

  “These are the best years of your life, don't waste them, they'll be over before you know it.”

  * * *

  John works at the Citizens Advice Bureau. He has a bad leg after a car accident. He lives with a bald cat. He does yoga in his living room to improve his joints.

  He uploads his favourite DVD box sets to streaming websites. There is nothing wrong with sharing.

  * * *

  Rachel is devastated that after paying off her debt, her dentist has charged her over one thousand pound to fix her teeth. At the age of thirty-seven she wonders if she will ever have children?

  * * *

  Mabel can't remember much but that's okay because the nursing home looks after her.

  * * *

  Baz kicks cans down the street the way footballers kick footballs. Baz loves football and spends as much time as he can watching football, playing football and practising football. He plays football at least twice a week with his mates: Bazza, Baz, Baz, Gaz, Baz, Gazza and Barry. They let Maz play too even though she is a girl. Baz hates Maz because she sniffs glue at school and she is having sex with Baz instead of with Baz.

  * * *

  It screeches across nothing in an emptiness full of nothing.

  CAPPED

  The bright light covered all sense of location and memory.

  Nothing had ever existed.

  No questions.

  No demands.

  An old woman's face peered through the brightness.

  “Be normal!” she shouted.

  Wart fleshed horror.

  Concrete and chalk.

  Tooth snarl browns.

  The other children stared at me as I returned to where I was forced to be. I thought I was thoughtless, but now there was thought.

  Again.

  Hello again.

  No escape.

  Never escape.

  There never will be.

  Never?

  They said I had a handicap.

  I imagined all the gadgets in that cap.

  They sent me to a Special Unit.

  Police Academy?

  AFFIRM

  At the Primate Disco a mass of malformed muscle, fat and bone danced.

  Each dumb head had illusions of self-awareness.

  The drumming of music beats brains dead.

  Please approve of me – please allow me into your club - please let me be cool - I like the latest tunes – I am an individual – I am cool – please affirm me – please affirm – please affirm me – please affirm - I am edgy – I like the latest tunes – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm – affirm –

  * * *

  Outside, in the smoking area, Vince met Sarah and they told each other lies.

  “Sounds like a really interesting job,” said Vince.

  He smiled, blunt-toothed through his bushy liar's beard.

  “It must be really nice to help the homeless,” said Vince.

  Vince was the rhythm guitarist of a band (or something else counter-culturally accepted). Whenever Vince chatted up girls it made him feel like he was still thirty-five. She was young, pretty, alternative and everything a good trophy should be. His eyes receded into a non-event horizon.

  “My band were in the Guardian newspaper,” said Vince.

  * * *

  Up the street, two apes argued.

  “You don’t affirm me anymore!” shouted the girl.

  “You don’t affirm me anymore!” shouted the boy.

  Their taxi arrived and took them home to their capsuled fear.

  * * *

  A girl sat on the disabled toilet and cried into her mobile phone.

  “Please affirm me. Please don't leave me. I'll die. I'll die. I'll die.”

  A soil-headed man banged on the marker scrawled door.

  “Hurry up then!”

  He wanted to shit and piss.

  PLUMBER

  “Do you remember when shit used to mean something?” asked the plumber to the old woman as he plunged his hand down her pipe.

  “When shit was really deep?”

  His hand sloshed.

  “Young people these days, shit is just handed to them, all preformed moulds of the same, old shit.”

  His hand grasped hold of something very hard and very stuck.

  “The.... same.... old.... shit... isn't.... deep... anymore!”

  He pulled and released a nobbled, pink, plastic cylinder. It sprung from his hand and sploshed on the bathroom rug. It vibrated happily on the moist strings: celebrating its rescue.

  WHEELCHAIR

  His parents push his wheelchair up the ramp and roll him down the steep slope.

  He collides into a net.

  The crowd claps and cheers.

  “Again, again, again, again.”

  Push him upwards, roll him downwards. The crowd claps and cheers when he collides into the net. These actions are natural to him.

  “Again, again, again, again.”

  Within the net he clicks his head upwards to look at the roof of the circus tent. The spiral music and applause overlap into unity. Everything rushes to a place where everyone belongs.

  He is the centre.

  He brings togetherness.

  He collides into the net.

  The crowd claps and cheers.

  “Again, again, again, again.”

  Balloons deflate to dribble inwards.

  Allow a connection.

  Isolated together.

  A series of tight separations.

  Cells bustle sick against mirrors.

  An audience reflects itself in him.

  They cheer at their reflection.

  “Again, again, again, again.”

  * * *

  Each night, after the show, he imagines walking; unconfined and not in his wheelchair (or his straps). One of his fantasies, just one of his fantasies.

  His inner child is an angry eight year old who kicks a rag doll effigy of Everyone.

  He imagines impact. Not always into a net. He would like to collide into freedom at high-speed. He would like to set them all free. He would like to collide into their faces.

  * * *

  He sleeps himself awake all day. His world is a forever tunnel of human
shaped containers with other versions of himself inside, all wearing different masks, a stretching slavery of everything revealed.

  Each night, his mother feeds him spoonfuls of baby food, whilst his father counts the money.

  CON1

  “Every turning towards a screen assimilates me back into the new world theatre of technology. Every image and word produced through me only reaffirms the projection that circum-chance continues to create."

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” asked CounsellBot C0N1.

  "I am plugged into a network of controlled information: an illusion of choice. All choices are false choices. Puppet strings held by a dictatorship of facts."

  "Do you ever hear voices?"

  “Only the tones of reason. Beeping measurements and statistics. Quoted and misquoted into a storm of vapid opinions. The lies we choose to advertise and the lies that form our shapes."