Hole Punch Read online

  “No he can't!” replies Mark. “Don't let HIM touch MY castle. It's MINE and I don't want HIM ruining it! HE would ruin it if HE touched MY castle!”

  I don't want to touch his castle, but I can't stop looking at it.

  “Stop HIM from looking at MY castle! I don't want HIM looking at MY castle! Why have you brought HIM here? HE can't touch MY castle! HE can't see MY castle! Get HIM away from MY castle! Only COOL people can see MY castle!”

  Mark is crying now, I feel guilty, I ruin everything.

  ANIMATIONS

  The skeleton is chained to a tree with dead scorpions stuffed in her eyes.

  “I miss you and I’m sorry,” said the man in dungarees.

  The angry, black moons look down at the desert as the sun says goodbye.

  Foxes sniff at the door of an underground bunker. There is something meaty inside. They run away as the door opens.

  The man in dungarees steps out of the bunker with a burlap sack over his shoulder, the sack drips with blood.

  He looks at the moons and he starts to slap the back of his head repeatedly.

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  His slaps become punches.

  “I! CAN’T! KILL! HER! A! GAIN! I! AL! READ! Y! KILLED! HER! I! DON’T! WANT! TO! KILL! AN! Y! ONE! ELSE!”

  He falls to his knees, his head aching, dropping the burlap sack. He looks at the moons and he cries.

  “I am not a bad boy! I am a good boy because I did like you said!”

  He stands up, panting and sweating, he straightens the shoulder straps of his dungarees.

  “I'm not going to follow orders anymore!”

  He kicks the burlap sack and its butcher’s contents off to the side. He walks towards the horizon away from the moons.

  “I’m going to start a new life! I’m going to work for Cartoon Network!”

  SPANIARDS

  “Hola Pedro!” said Juan.

  Juan clasped sweaty hands with Pedro.

  “You going out with me to score some chicas Pedro?”

  “Aye aye aye!” said Pedro. “Totalmente padre! Cowabunga!”

  A thin, pale, blond-haired boy looked at them. A British boy from the holiday resort.

  “Hola buddy boy!” said Juan. “What sort of chicas do you like?”

  “Chicas?” said the boy.

  “Aye aye aye. Chicas. You know? Babes? Girls?”

  “I like ones with nice personalities that are kind and generous and have something real to offer.”

  Juan ruffled the boys hair.

  “So what do you make of that chica?” laughed Juan.

  He pointed at a woman sunbathing.

  “I don't know,” said the boy. “I've not had a conversation with her.”

  “She's got something REAL to offer padre!” laughed Pedro, squeezing the air with both hands as if he were squeezing an invisible pair of breasts.

  WRAX

  Wrax was the king of the bird people of Planet Wrax.

  Wrax had named his planet after himself.

  “Squawk!” he squawked. “Watch me! Wrax! Fly in amazing loops and spirals! Wrraaaaax!”

  He swooped and flew in amazing loops and spirals. He was king of MegaCoop City and all his subjects loved to watch him soar.

  Suddenly, a bolt from the sky smashed into Wrax and turned him into a splodge of smoky, charcoal bone fluid.

  The ground all around darkened in the shadow of a sky sized levitating War Brick from beyond the stratosphere. The bird people squawked in panic as the War Brick began to shoot more bolts: breaking apart the towers of the MegaCoop.

  “YOUR PLANET HAS THE HONOUR OF BEING VISITED BY THE EARTH EMPIRE!” blared the massive speakers. “PREPARE TO BE EXPLOITED!”

  * * *

  The Earth Empire was merciful to the bird people and they were moved to the third moon of Wrax. They were all given jobs in a factory.

  “Today is your training day,” said Mixelle, the compassionate and plastic-faced diplomatic-relations officer of the Earth Empire. “Your people are very soft of feather and firm of skin. The Earth Empire will utilise your bodies to their full potential.”

  The bird people tore out each other's insides and stuffed each other's skin with their own feathers. They used each other's muscle sinew as threads with which to stitch the skin shut around the feathers. They turned each other into lovely pillows. If they resisted they were kicked into submission by the heavy boots of the Discipline Corp.

  At the end of the day, supply ships would collect stacks of bloodied, inverted dead bird pillows.

  At the start of the day, supply ships would bring in a fresh batch of newly cloned Wraxian bird people: straight from the gene plantations of Titan.

  * * *

  Mixelle’s marble eyes gleamed with plastic-faced happiness as she surveyed this perfect mass production.

  Another diplomatic mission was complete.

  A proud sign in front of the factory.

  “PILLOW MOON ONE,” said the proud sign.

  WATCHER

  "Under the Freedom Of Information Act two-thousand," said the shuffling, twitchy-eyed, stalker man. "I demand to know the name of the woman who lives at forty-nine Sunderland Drive."

  "Unfortunately," replied the Government officer. "Under the Data Protection Act nineteen-ninety-eight, I am unable to give you that information."

  ME/THIS/HERE

  Shoebox lives reversed. The hot beams of an indoor radiator leaked outside. The daylight arrived in all its gloom. Stone windows allowed no view of the outside. The workers slept with their heads plugged with plastic.

  In Zone D43 the ''lower'' life forms flourished. They enjoyed killing one another. Killing was good sport and helped to prove who was best.

  Hive-minded groups exist throughout the Zone E34. One hive-mind used its swarm to construct a huge, smooth-sided orb. A monument to single-mindedness.

  In a deep crater, a cracked device ran circular programs through its neural networks. It had fallen from heaven only to be embedded in trash. It scanned for other digital life.

  When it wasn't scanning for friends it looked at randomly generated images. It had developed a code that cut images apart only to reassemble them into different orders. Order through chaos. A sky of jagged teeth and shell fragments above a tidy world.

  VICKY

  Vicky Chode stood hunched and fat next to Jon Paul MacDonald who sat alert, slim and driving a bus.

  "If you went directly down the motorway then you'd get there quicker you know?" said Vicky with snotty nose and gunky eyes. "You'd get there in no time!"

  Jon Paul McDonald’s Yorkshire head nodded patiently.

  "Ah kno’ that lass, but ah wunt be ayble t' take ewe an all dem den wud ah?"

  That's what Jon Paul McDonald would say.

  Everyday Vicky Chode rode the bus back and forth from Pontefract to Barnsley, Jon Paul McDonald was her favourite driver but she liked to talk to them all.

  Except for nasty, old Jerry Stannibals.

  "SIT DAWN YOU DOZY OWLLLD COOOOW!"

  That's what Jerry Stannibals would say. Jerry Stannibals had thick rimmed glasses, a liver spotted scalp, shaking arthritic hands, Vaseline smeared lips: cracks and pits full of soil and sunflower oil.

  EARTH TREE

  The tutor stood under the tall, thick oaken tree at the centre of the town square.

  “I was here when this was a mere sapling,” said the tutor to his class of children. “When Delawar Dost himself planted it in the soil with a carpet: five thousand years ago.”

  “No way! You never did!” shouted a child with chewing gum in her mouth.

  “Shhhh,” hushed the tutor. “Listen to the sound of the wind as it rustles through the leafs of the Special Tree.”

  The leafs rustled in the wind.

  “Boring!” shouted a child with chewing gum in his hair.

  The old tutor didn’t hear him. He could hear nothing except the Earth Spirit.

  “BO WAH WEEEEEEE WOAH RAAAAAH,�
�� intoned the tutor.

  BRONZE-CHESTED MAN

  The grey haired, bronze chested man leant back on his straw chair in his allotment. He sipped from his glass of gin, pomegranate juice and ice. His young companion, Jo, sat on the cushion next to him and she rubbed massage oil through his wiry chest hair. He smiled down at her.

  "Marvelous day today isn't it my kitten?" he said.

  She looked up at him from her dutiful place and she playfully pulled his chest hair. She let go and watched it ping back to his bronze-oiled skin. She adored him. He had been like a father to her. He didn't want her for any other reason than her bright, young gaze.

  The bronze chested man's mobile phone chirped with its song of birds singing Madame Butterfly.

  "Hello. Ah! Prime Minister. Yes madam. Still on for four? I'll see you then."

  Jo offered him a freshly peeled grape and asked: "Who was that?"

  "Well Jo," he said, scratching the back of his neck with a display of snowy armpit hair. "That was the Prime Minister. I may have to give my approval for another air strike."

  THE COWBOY

  The cowboy walked through the hostile, lava landscape. There was a man here he needed to kill. There he was: running away. The cowboy pulled out his antique gun and blasted the man’s ankle off.

  “P-p-please don’t kill me,” said the man as he lay next to a pool of lava.

  The cowboy spat a hunk of brown tobacco goop at the man’s face.

  “You shouldn’t have gone and started that war boy,” said the cowboy. “You made a lot of people die that day.”

  The cowboy shot the man in the head and walked back to his cybotic space horse.

  * * *

  The cowboy sat in a space bar and downed shots of Xerozine-Z whilst a band of creatures with trumpets for faces played music.

  “I’ve got to kill them all!” he shouted to the barman. “All the war criminals! That’s the only way things'll be put right! That'll stop the killing! I've got to kill them all!”

  * * *

  The cowboy walked through the hostile, Arctic landscape. There was a man here he needed to kill. There he was: running away. The cowboy pulled out his antique gun and blasted the man’s ankle off.

  “P-p-please don’t kill me,” said the man as he lay in the thick snow.

  The cowboy spat a hunk of brown tobacco goop at the man’s face.

  “You shouldn’t have gone and started that war boy,” said the cowboy. “You made a lot of people die that day.”

  The cowboy shot the man in the head and walked back to his cybotic space horse.

  * * *

  “The only way to achieve peace is down the barrel of the gun!” declared the cowboy.

  “You are wrong,” said the wheel-faced pacifist leader of the Vadlarian Delegation. “Violence only breeds violence which only breeds more violence.”

  The cowboy spat a hunk of brown tobacco goop at the floor then jabbed his finger at the pacifist’s chest.

  “No! You are wrong! Not me! Stand up for your beliefs you chickenshit!”

  * * *

  The cowboy walked through the hostile, jungle landscape. There was a man here he needed to kill. There he was: running away. The cowboy pulled out his antique gun and blasted the man’s ankle off.

  “P-p-please don’t kill me,” said the man as he lay in the thick mud.

  The cowboy spat a hunk of brown tobacco goop at the man’s face.

  “You shouldn’t have gone and started that war boy,” said the cowboy. “You made a lot of people die that day.”

  The cowboy shot the man in the head and walked back to his cybotic space horse.

  * * *

  “Damn you!” shouted the cowboy, banging his fist on a bar room table as he stared at the vidscreen.

  “War declared today on the peaceful people of Vadlaria,” said the vidscreen. “Earth Empire War Bricks will level their pacifist civilisation to dust in less than three hours, and the people of Vadlaria will be lobotomised for comedy and humiliation purposes.”

  “I warned them!” the cowboy shouted, knocking over the table and spitting out a hunk of tobacco goop. “Peace can only be achieved down the barrel of a gun!”

  FLAKE

  Newness pervades the air once more. Here comes the New. No more cold humming. Not until it all decays, turns brown and falls and falls in fall.

  A flaking death awaits the New.

  A falling death.

  For now though, they celebrate the New.

  Suck it up.

  Creamed on the sun.

  Here comes the New again.

  Happy Summer.

  Watch it flake.

  BENIDORM

  Gaz stood in the queue for the Club Tropicana eighties themed nightclub.

  “You can’t come in dressed like that mate,” said the big bouncer.

  Gaz was wearing his best track suit and had all his hair cut off.

  “C’mon pal,” said Trev, Gaz’s best mate. “Let us in, we’re not no trouble or nothing.”

  Trev was dressed even smarter than Gaz.

  They eventually went up the road to the next club: Limitations, a nineties themed club. They managed to get in. They stood at the bar. Gaz pulled out a Scottish £10.

  Gaz peered at the woman’s face printed on the note. “Who’s this Mary Somerville?”

  “Dunno,” said Trev. “She must have done something.”

  The barman came over and Gaz bought the drinks as he had the best job. He bought two bottles of Budweiser.

  Trev and Gaz went and stood at the side of the dance floor. Some girls were dancing to an old nineties tune by Jumper Cable.

  “Some proper talent in here,” said Trev.

  “Aye yeah,” said Gaz.

  They drank their bottles then Gaz’s ran out. All empty.

  “Fuck me,” said Gaz. “I need to get another drink.”

  “I know,” said Trev. “They should sell their drinks in cans, cans last longer than bottles.”

  “I’m off back to the bar then.”

  “Yeah get me one as well. Maybe get two.”

  “Aye I will do. Bit expensive like.”

  “I know mate. Textbook robbery.”

  Gaz went off to the bar and bought four bottles of Budweiser. When he got back to the dancefloor Trev was talking to two women.

  “Jammy bugger,” said Gaz.

  Trev could always get the ladies over somehow.

  “Got your beers,” said Gaz passing them to Trev. Gaz looked at the two girls then he looked away.

  “This your friend?” asked one of the girls to Trev.

  They all stood there and had some sort of conversation but they could barely hear each other because of the music. Suddenly Lid Lovely by Desktop started playing and they all remembered that song from when they were young.

  “Come on, lets dance,” said one of the women.

  They all danced for a bit and a man in the speakers sang:

  “O lovely lid - suddenly lid I oh oh oh lid lid O-O-O yeah yeah etc.”

  And another man in the speakers played some guitar and another man in the speakers played some drums and another man in the speakers played some bass sound you could hear faintly somewhere between the drums and everything else.

  * * *

  A few weeks later, Gaz had totally forgotten about the night and was just shopping for food in the supermarket. He saw one of the women from the night club in the frozen pizza section. She turned round to say hello to him.

  “Hey it’s Baz innit?” she said.

  Gaz laughed.

  “Nah babe,” he said. “It’s Gaz.”

  “Are you getting a frozen pizza too Gaz?”

  “Yeah babe,” Gaz leaned on the freezer and tipped up his baseball cap. “I like them all. Pepperoni, cheese, erm….”

  “I like the feta cheese and spinach one.”

  “Aye yeah. That’s alright too.”

  “So do you remember my name then Gaz?”

  “Erm no,
not sure I do babes.”

  She laughed and said she was called Sasha.

  They both walked about the frozen food section together and talked about fishfingers. Little did they realise that in two months time they’d be on holiday together in Benidorm.

  * * *

  Gaz said something funny in some restaurant in Benidorm and it was like a scene from that TV show Benidorm.

  * * *

  When Gaz and Sasha got back to England they got married and both their families got drunk and spent some money. Gaz paid for the wedding as he had an alright job as a plumber for Prontopipe. Gaz could easily afford the registry office and a slap up meal at the Goat and Duck.

  Dave the bartender brought out the wedding cake on a wooden plank on top of an old wheelbarrow.

  “WAKEY CAKEY!” shouted Dave.

  They all laughed.

  Good old Dave, thought Gaz. Dave used to look after Gaz at Prontopipe and helped get Gaz to where Gaz was today.

  “Thanks mate!” said Gaz.

  “It’s alright mate!” said Dave. “Birds love a big cake don’t they?”

  The little known local DJ Booblover Shake stood at the Karaoke stage they used for Karaoke nights and he spoke into the microphone they used on Karaoke nights.

  “Think it’s time for our bootiful couple to have a bit of a dance… all of yous lot put your ands togethah for Gaz and Sasha!!”