Hole Punch Read online

  * * *

  The summer flowers bloom in the controlled gardens. The gardens are clean. The soil is clean. It's night-time and the stars are clean and the stars are shiny.

  DYSTOPIA

  "The problem with dystopia fiction," said the man reading his book. "Is that we already live in a dystopia."

  "Break time is over," said the soldier with a gun. "Get back to work."

  The man put down his book and resumed editing camera footage of public executions.

  JOB

  “It’s a job though ain't it?” said Old Tony Barclay as he pressed the hot, iron brand against the flank of Sarah, the cow, who reeled her head back and mooed in pain.

  He passed the branding iron to his very young apprentice, Jeremy, who was looking forward to the experience of branding the animals.

  “Can I mark that stoopid cat?” asked Jeremy, who pointed his five-year old finger at Percy, the tortoiseshell kitten, sleeping on a pile of hay.

  “No lad,” said Old Tony Barclay, pulling up his loose, belt-less trousers. “You can only brand something with meat you can eat.”

  Jeremy looked at Old Tony Barclay and his fat, red cheeks. Jeremy stabbed the iron at Old Tony Barclay's face.

  Jeremy laughed.

  CLUTCH

  The Mistake sits on an uncomfortable rock and weeps into small, useless hands.

  “You shouldn't be crying,” said the voice inside the Mistake's over-sized head. “You deserved that beating. You deserve every beating.”

  The Mistake's brothers are up the slope. They are smashing open a tunnel in the mountain with their big, shovel hands. They are hard at work, as if the beating had never happened. It was the worst beating of all, the Mistake had never been beaten harder. It felt important.

  “The beating was not important because you are not important.”

  The Mistake's brothers smash deeper into the mountain, they are singing now. Happy and together.

  “Dig the tunnels of the Clutch! Dig the tunnels of the Clutch! We love Mother! We are Mother! We are Mother and Mother is Clutch and Mother is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us! Is us!”

  The Mistake's small hands are not good for digging.

  “Your hands are not good for anything! Not like your strong and useful brothers.”

  The Mistake looks down at small, useless hands.

  The digging stops. The Mistake tenses, is it time for another beating?

  The Mistake's brothers are gathered inside the tunnel. The rock above them is fragile and rumbling.

  “We're leaving you,” said the voice. “I would rather we live under this mountain than spend anymore time with you. We will be together, safe and happy!”

  The Mistake's brothers laugh as the mountain falls on them.

  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

  The laughter stopped and the Mistake is all alone.

  No more beatings anymore.

  No more anything.

  What would the Mistake do now?

  WINTER

  Bert is shivering next to the deckchair stack. It was a bleak day at Southport Pier for Bert the deckchair assistant.

  No one is coming out today, thought Bert.

  "Don't you be thinking about going home Bert," said Albert, the deckchair manager, snug in his tiny wooden hut. He was reading the local newspaper.

  “SNOWSTORMS COME TO SOUTHPORT THIS WEEKEND,” said the newspaper.

  Bloody weather, thought Bert.

  "Don't you be thinking about going home Bert," said Albert, the deckchair manager, snug in his tiny wooden hut.

  RETIREMENT

  It's the last day of our Payroll Administrator.

  The last day of her permanent job in this shit stack. She's been here thirty-five years and she's all ready to retire. Stupid cow. She even has a little speech prepared:

  "I am so sorry to leave," she said, "I have very much enjoyed working in this office and I will miss you all. I have been here my entire adult life and it has meant a lot to me."

  I scoff through a face stuffed with goodbye cake.

  “I won't be staying here,” I tell them all. “I'm a temp!”

  Emmett Corcoran turns his business head round to face me.

  "Shhhhh!" shushed Emmett Corcoran.

  "You can't shush the truth!” I declare.

  I spit the cake to the floor. I step through the crowd and I leap on the Payroll Officer's desk, blocking all view of her.

  It's time I made a speech of my own:

  "Thirty-five years, her entire adult life! A slave to your faceless, financial farce! Just like the rest of you! Slaves!”

  I kick the payroll folder from the desk.

  “So where is she going next? Have any of her 'colleagues' bothered asking?!"

  I point out the window at the Southern Cemetery.

  "That's where! That’s what waits for her in the outside world!"

  I grab the bouquet of flowers they had all donated wages towards.

  "Flowers for her grave!"

  I rip the flowers apart and scatter them into the air: a cascade of colour upon their grey gravestone faces.

  Sheep.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, I’m escorted outside by security, I walk home down Nell Lane.

  Sometimes on my lunch break I walk through the cemetery. It’s like taking a walk through a very quiet park. I like to eat my sandwiches whilst looking at the human content on the stones; the numbers, the names and the categories. No one cares about them anymore. No one has ever really cared about anyone ever.

  Fuck them all.

  Up ahead a group of men in stinking clothes sit on a bench, they are drinking cheap cans of cider. They turn round and stare at me with alcohol-smudged eyes.

  I smile at them.

  I’m in the mood for a fight.

  SAFETY

  There’s a wire poking out of an alarm on a house.

  There’s a road where children might get killed.

  There’s a wooden fence with a rusted nail.

  There’s a wobbling drain cover near a wheelie bin.

  * * *

  At the garden centre, Mad Jessie Meadle pushes the wheelbarrow full of plant pots, soil and seeds down the concrete path. The wheelbarrow tips over. Pots smash on the paving slabs and soils and seeds spill all over. Mad Jessie looked up gape-mouthed and dribble-chinned.

  “No!” shouted Mad Jessie.

  “It’s okay Jessie,” said her supervisor. “We all make mistakes every now and then.”

  “Not like this!” cried Mad Jessie.

  She got on her hands and knees to scoop up the seeds.

  “I killed them!” cried Mad Jessie.

  * * *

  There’s a wire poking out of an alarm on a house.

  There’s a road where children might get killed.

  There’s a wooden fence with a rusted nail.

  There’s a wobbling drain cover near a wheelie bin.

  * * *

  “It’s not safe anywhere!” cried Mad Jessie. “The world is all broken and here is the only safe place! But I ruined it! I killed them!”

  KEBABS

  Today, our parade marches down our high street.

  If you are not marching in our parade then you watch our parade march. We all take part as a community. As watchers and marchers. Then we all eat kebabs together. We enjoy our together and the benefits of together brings us together.

  Each other is one and each one is every other.

  Each one and every other eats kebabs.

  Tomorrow, we stand and watch an important community building get demolished. If you don't have a job in that building then your husband or wife will have had one. We will stand in the car park and our children will love the demolition.

  Next week, the pa
rade is smaller and we can't afford kebabs.

  BROWN AIR

  Richard walked to the Organarium, coughing and spluttering in the brown air.

  The Organarium was just as he had expected: lots of organs.

  Richard gave them his donation slip. He wanted the full removal of his parts. He offered them everything but they didn't want any of it. They told him that he was too sick inside.

  Richard walked home, coughing and spluttering in the brown air.

  He opened the lid of his metal coffin and climbed inside. He cuddled the bones of his non-departed wife.

  “I know,” he replied to her voice in his head. “I'll have to think of some other way to pay the off the mortgage.”

  She suggested taking her remains to the glue yard.

  “I don't want to be even more alone.”

  She was right though. If he died without paying off the mortgage then they would upload his consciousness into the Data Pits. Then he wouldn’t be able to get out until he had mined enough Bit Coins to pay his way into oblivion.

  * * *

  Richard dragged his wife's old bones in a sack, careful not to drop any of her parts. He coughed and spluttered his way through the brown air.

  The glue man was sympathetic at first. He gave Richard a swig of cough medicine. It didn't do much but aggravate the boils in Richard's throat.

  The glue man took his wife's bones and ground them into glue. Richard cried when he heard her voice:

  “Goodbye Richard. Don't blame me for not getting insurance on our air conditioning.”

  He cried dry tears as her bones were crushed.

  The glue man gave him twenty-five credits and a wireless dehumidifier. He pleaded for more but was told to leave.

  Richard coughed and spluttered his way back home through the brown air.

  Caught on the chain of the inevitable.

  Precisely at nine thirty they came, like it said on their transmission, they are never late and never early. They pulled Richard out of his lonely, metal coffin and zapped him with their shock guns.

  “This one thought he could outrun debt!” one of them laughed beneath a gas mask.

  They threw Richard's electrified body into their collection carriage. He lay on a pile of half conscious bodies, all coughing and spluttering in the brown air.

  Richard's brain was injected with liquid plastic to ready his imprint for upload into the Data Pits. Richard wished that his wife had gotten insurance on the air conditioning. Paying to fix the air conditioning is what got them into debt in the first place. He loved her but he can't forgive her. That was the greatest pain of all, that he could never forgive his one true love.

  YEAH!

  He smashed the pile of bricks with a sledgehammer.

  “Yeah!”

  He carried the rubble in his digger truck across the yard and dumped it there.

  “Yeah!”

  He went to the pub to celebrate with a pint of lager.

  “Yeah!”

  He swiped the foam from his lips and punched his fist in the air.

  “Yeah!”

  NEW ESTATE

  They built new houses in the area where people used to work.

  “The new houses will bring prosperity to the area,” they said.

  “Affordable and modern accommodation,” they said.

  They put an imitation colliery wheel outside the new estate as a memorial to the old mining community.

  I walked past the wheel once and saw a boy of my age repeatedly kicking it. I didn't make eye contact.

  The colliery wheel still stands there to this day.

  MARIE

  “I can't marry you anymore!” said Marie.

  “Why?” said handsome Eric on his horse. “Because you're not getting your own way? I'm not going to bend to your every whim.”

  “What else are you good for! I want fake tits and I'm not marrying you unless you buy them!”

  She hoped this would work. She had missed her period this month so she would have to get back with her ex very quickly if she was going to convince him that the baby was his.

  “I'm not going to buy you breasts implants,” said Eric.

  Dammit, thought Marie, she would have to go back to her life in Braithwell. James was her only option. James had a well paid job as an engineer. James didn't have the same glamour as Eric. Eric with his handsome face and horse.

  * * *

  “I want you back babes!” said James.

  Marie rolled her eyes. James was back on the drink.

  “I want fake tits!” she said.

  “Sure thing babes!”

  “I want us to get married.”

  “Sure thing babes!”

  “I want a Vera Wang wedding dress!”

  “Sure thing babes!”

  “I want our wedding to be at HighClere Castle!”

  “Sure thing babes!”

  “I am pregnant. The baby is yours.”

  “What? How? We haven't been together for-”

  “The baby is yours!”

  “Sure thing babes!”

  * * *

  James was on the telephone on his lunch break.

  “Can I extend the credit limit on my card please?”

  * * *

  Marie and James walked up the aisle. It was a fairy-tale wedding. Beautiful chandeliers and candle displays. The roof stretched upwards to the grace of fifty-thousand pounds.

  “Thanks for borrowing me the money,” said James to Marie's father.

  “You'll be paying it back to me!” said Marie's father. “Every penny of it! With interest!”

  “I know, dad.”

  “That little bitch is all just take, take, take! She always has been. No matter how much she gets it's never enough! Oh, hi Marie my sweetheart. How are you?”

  Marie glared down at her father.

  “I need liposuction!” she said. “I look old!”

  “You're only twenty-one darling,” said her father.

  “You made your daughter look like a hag at her wedding!”

  “Babes I'm sure he didn't-”

  “Shut up you!”

  Marie ran out of her wedding. She pulled her mobile phone out of her diamond studded handbag and phoned Eric.

  “You bastard! You never loved me! You let me go off and marry a fucking engineer! I love you Eric! You were the best accessory of all time!”

  ALPHA

  "I don't need an erection when I'm this rich," laughed Alpha Romero, who lay happy and plump on his waterbed. His stick-thin wife on the floor was a draft excluder who sobbed through rigid, cocaine shakes.

  THE MAN THEY ALL RESPECTED

  “Everything everywhere comes together and expands and contracts into a contradictory, chaotic order. All our notions of individuality and self-determination pour together into one unified and collective whole of separations. We are all one and there is no need to worry.”

  * * *

  “You'll only understand what it means when you get it,” said the man they all respected.

  They all nod.

  “I understand it all,” the man continues. “You only have yourselves to blame if you don't understand. You can't blame other people for your problems.”

  They all nod.

  It is their entire fault.

  “Forget your future and your past and live in the here and now. Listen to the sound of my enlightened, mindful, soothing voice and breathe deeply.”

  They all breathe deeply.

  Eyes closed and relaxed.

  Outside, someone gets kicked to death on the pavement under a poster of the Dalai Lama shaking hands with a policeman.

  RESISTANCE

  “I’ve decided on three ground rules,” said the patient. “ONE: no labels or diagnoses. TWO: no conventional psychology, I don’t like it! THREE: don’t talk about my past; whether it be my childhood, adolescence or yesterday. FOUR: there are more rules but you’ll find out about those when you BREAK THEM!”

  “So why do you
feel like you need to see a therapist?” asked CounselBot C0N1.

  “So I can shout at your indoctrinated, orthodox face!”

  AGENDA

  I stumble into the meeting room and the fat heads of management stare at me. I must look cool.

  Emmett Corcoran is at the whiteboard with a marker pen in his ham hand. He's done some statistics again.

  “We are happy for any member of staff to sit in on our meetings,” says Emmett. “Even if you are only on a temporary contract.”

  He indicates a chair.

  “Please take a seat.”

  I light a cigarette and kick the chair over.

  “I prefer to stand.”

  I lift up my sunglasses, Emmett reels back in shock at my bloodshot stare. I snatch the pen from Emmett's pig hand.

  “If you’re ill,” said Emmett. “You should have phoned your agency and asked for the day off.”

  “I've never felt better, so shut your mouth Emmett!”

  “If you have something to say you should have emailed me earlier. I could have added it as an agenda item.”

  “I've got three agenda items!”

  “You should have emailed me any new agenda items. We fix agenda items before our meetings.”