TT #10 - HOW TO BE GROSS

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my Thursday Thirteen #10. Today I’ve decided to go with the suggested theme of ‘gross’. Now, that’s a word that can have many connotations, so I hope I offer a little fun, and some things to think about.
I think the idea of a theme is a good addition to Thursday Thirteen – not that I’ll always use it. But sometimes it just fires the imagination in the right way. But certainly it works best when it’s just a word, like this week – I mean, gross.

COUNTDOWN

13. Picking your nose, flatulence, scratching bits you shouldn’t be able to reach. There are so many possibilities here. But get the above over with, please, and then concentrate.

12. If you do so, then you are engrossed. This can be a good way to be. This means you are fully occupied, and I’ve been a success as a writer/blogger. So come on, don’t fail me!

11. You can become too engrossed – not here, you understand – and if you do, you become obsessed, and obsessions can take over your life. This is bad. It leads to fanaticism, and in my book, all fanatics are wrong. They take ideas with a touch of commonsense, and make them ridiculous – and often dangerous.
I have a mantra which says: ‘I’m fanatical about moderation.’ Yes, I know, it’s a contradiction, but the subject engrosses me.

10. A Gross is, of course, a dozen dozen. Yet, this is Thursday THIRTEEN, and thirteen is a Baker’s Dozen. This is supposed to come from Medieval English bakers who often gave one extra. Generous people, the English. I’m one. Except Yorkshiremen. They’re said to be stingy. Oh dear! I’m one of those, too.
Better, though, not to have a Baker’s Dozen dozen. That would be a gross gross.

9. Gross can mean overfed. This is often a touchy subject. Yes, I know some people do it for comfort, others because of genetic disposition. But I’m not talking about you. I’ll concentrate on the greedy. And I won’t dwell on it.
But often, being overfed comes from indulgence. To indulge yourself you have to have a certain amount of wealth. This leads to excess in all things, many of them harmful. Have you ever noticed how increased wealth leads to increased masochism? Aren’t we happy with wealth?

8. Gross can mean coarse. This is language or actions that people can find vulgar. This seems to be growing, today. It is particularly prevalent amongst celebrities. Why do they do it?
Well, we live in a media age, where image is all-important. But what happens when ‘image’ becomes a science, and all celebrities jump on the bandwagon? Easy. They make their image more and more extreme – and more and more coarse.
Which tells us what ‘coarse’ is. Attention seeking.

7. Gross can mean indecent. This often has a sexual connotation. And it is increasingly obvious that sex is on the rise today. Sex is everywhere, indecency all around us. Now, I’m not a killjoy. I like sex. But it has a place.
Sex is best behind closed doors. Sexy is clothing and action that ‘suggests’ what’s beneath, letting the imagination reign free. Full frontals take that away, and reduce sex to an animal state. And not only this, it makes it ‘available’ on demand.
Sex has become a commodity. Stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap!

6. Gross is what you have before overheads. This can be a metaphor for ‘you’. You are, as a person, your full self. This is the ‘gross’ of you. But life can be a bitch, and constantly it takes bits away.
What is left is the ‘net’ of you, depleted - a shadow of your former self. Yet maybe we should think of our life’s path as an account in itself. And in doing so, we can maybe work out how to balance the books.
We can do this because life’s experience not only depletes you, but teaches you important lessons about life. Hence, we can learn from these experiences, refreshing the account with growing wisdom, and balancing the books.

5. Gross can mean gross profit. Nothing explains the modern world more than this. Modern super capitalism is all about profit. I’m not anti-capitalist by any means, but remember what I said, above, about obsessions? Well super capitalism is an obsession.
When you have a society run by tycoons who’ve forgotten the importance of ‘service’, and search out profit alone, you end up with a cold, calculating society that simply does not know itself, other than its choice to buy. This is perhaps the most repugnant use of the word ‘gross’ we can have.

4. This post may be getting a bit gross in itself. Yet I’ll leave it up to you to decide what I mean by ‘gross’ here. For the last three in this week’s post I thought I’d be a little different. Throughout my blog you’ll find lots of poetry and flash fiction. So I thought I’d end with a bit of – you’ve guessed it – poetry and flash fiction.

© Anthony North, May 2008

ENGROSSED

What is this beauty I behold?
Within my mind it does enfold,
its grace and elegance for me to see,
as if an answer to a plea;
Such posture, grace, and charm are you,
your peers are so, so very few,
a delight, an absolutely perfect scene,
sometimes I think it even obscene,
as every morning,
in the mirror
I preen

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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WITNESS TO A GROSS EVENT - Fiction

Oh, how I wish I’d never taken the short cut home that night. If only I’d stayed with the road – not gone down the path in the dark. But wishes are no use after the event.
How do I describe what I saw? How CAN words be enough?
She was dead, that was plain to see. And how she must have suffered, as the monster attacked her, and then did that …
I don’t remember contacting the police, but they eventually arrived to find me almost comatose by the body. Of course, I was no good as a witness – I’d not really seen anything. At least, not then.

Later, it was a different matter.

How do you sleep once you’ve seen images like that? How can you stop the nightmares?
Many a night I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming, reliving how it must have been for her. And even when awake the images would not disappear.
I suppose, eventually, you get used to them, and they become part of you. But it was a changed me, that was for sure; no longer shrouded by innocence, but in a way, gross, as those images were gross.
They say such an experience affects you for life, and I think that is true, slowly turning your mind, your very being, until the night I deviated from the road. Walked down a path. Waited.
I can stop myself.
I CAN!!

© Anthony North, May 2008

TAKE AWAY TAKE OVER

The slugs they came, crawling along,
six foot tall and twenty feet long,
run, run, run, try to escape,
from their manic, gross, gross gape,
chomp, chomp, chomp, they eat all in sight,
giving us all a damned big fright;
This nightmare ain’t so far in the future,
born from us, and our modern culture,
they say you become just what you eat,
and you ate them,
didn’t you?
Your hamburger treat

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

MM - HOW TO STAY FRESH

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HOW TO STAY FRESH

Wash, for starters.
After all, you’re not fresh if you’re smelly. And don’t forget all those private bits – protect against fungi – especially between the …
… and let’s have a bit of anti-perspirant here, please. You’re the only one who loves your body odour. And how about squeezing those zits. No! Don’t aim.
And could your clothes do with a …
… disinfection? And what do you mean you don’t iron?

Well, that’s one way to stay fresh.

But there’s also another. Life so easily becomes boring, routine. And whilst there’s a lot going for a bit of routine in our lives, it can go too far.
Routine is good to provide stability. It’s a form of magic, especially your routine in a morning. It places the mind in equilibrium with the world, and things fall into place, proved by the fact that, if your routine is disturbed, your day usually ends in disaster.
But keep routine where it belongs. As for the rest of your life, try something new every day. It only has to be a little thing – nothing special. Just something to provide a fresh experience.
This gives you a fresh start every day, and you feel fulfilled because of it. It makes you feel alive, and able to grab life by the horns. It says, above all else, I exist!
After you’ve washed, of course.

© Anthony North, May 2008

REFRESH

Pictures of life on my computer exist,
full of experience that does persist;
sometimes it’s good, sometimes bad,
yet living, it is certainly had;
But what, if like the computer screen,
we could alter what has been?
Click ‘refresh’ and change it all,
stopping those things that make us fall?
What kind of witchcraft this would be,
refreshing life for you and me,
existing as we want to be,
and I would then,
be a deity

Anthony North, May 2008

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FRESH IDENTITY - Fiction

If only I’d known. If only I’d realized the errors of my ways. But we rarely do so before taking the plunge.
I suppose you could call me a fraudster. Computer banking and electronic records were my thing. Ah, the delights it offered for identity fraud. And once you’ve got your mark, you can create a whole fresh identity for yourself. And if you’re really lucky, finding a no hoper, with a life that went almost unrecognized, and found him dead, apparently having committed suicide, and no one knows …
Well, I managed to step into his shadow perfectly – after burying his body, of course.

Such a non-entity he had been.

No one ever recognized him, he had never been in debt, he had no family to become suspicious, and soon my fresh identity was building a new life for itself.
So you can imagine the shock when, six months into my fresh identity, armed police burst into my house, spread-eagled me on the floor, and rushed me in for questioning.
A little extreme, you may think, for simple identity fraud. Well, let this be a warning to all who think they can get away with it in the end. There is always a catch.
And what was mine?
Well, I have a lifetime in prison to ponder it – how total and absolute my success that no one would believe I wasn’t who I had claimed to be. And why, oh why, did I have to pick a murderer on the run?

© Anthony North, May 2008

WINDOW ON DEATH

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WINDOW ON DEATH

He was walking, slowly, the weight of the world upon him. It was night, and the dark shrouded him like a veil of death.
He had to stop by the shop window. His legs could have carried him no further. He looked at the window, but not through. What was in there had no interest for him. Only what was happening in his mind. This was of another order. Stark. Vivid. Yet, at the same time surreal.
A picture formed in the window, and reflected back to him.

And a tear formed.

The door opened and she came out. She seemed so full of life, and so beautiful, her long blonde hair, her shapely figure, her sheer elegance, tinged with that mystical sexuality.
The tear ran down his cheek. She had been unfaithful, and always there was eventually a price. But …
He saw it as if a shadow floated and stood close to her. Momentarily, she looked in that direction, but as the gun materialized from the shadow, the shock hit home.
And seconds later, she lay dead, a pool of blood around her.
The image disappeared from the window, but the tears continued to flow.
How long he waited before he heard the door open, he didn’t know, but she seemed so full of life, and so beautiful …
He turned as he raised the gun …

© Anthony North, April 2008

SNAP IT

We do so love our cameras,
snapping that picture true,
wherever we are, it’s taken,
no matter what we do;
They decorate our albums,
our lives laid out thus,
everything about it,
reflected back at us;
But sometimes I wonder what madness,
as we stop and take,
‘cos while we’re playing photographer,
in the event,
we don’t partake

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

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THE POWER OF CELEBRITY

I’m often scornful of celebrities. We seem to be infatuated by them, and the more our infatuation rises, the more extreme and bizarre their behaviour seems to become. It makes some people wonder if it will ever stop.
Of course, it all seems so pointless. But could it be that celebrities play a vital role in modern culture? I think they do – and it isn’t an enhancing role. Rather, it helps to tie us up in chains of consumerism.
On one level, celebrities are more ‘perfect’ than the average person. Of course, this isn’t true, but their beauty, etc, makes it appear so. And the upshot is, we spend, spend, spend to emulate them, not realizing that perfection is an unreachable goal.

But they also work on a psychological level.

They are open with their problems, the abuses they’ve suffered, and in this they appear to be repositories for our angst. Like cultural psychotherapists, our own problems are reflected back to us.
This power over the wallet and psyche fulfils another vital function of super capitalism. Whenever they do something you can guarantee the picture is all over the media. Indeed, there has been an explosion in media alongside the celebrity’s rise.
Big Biz likes this. For the bigger the media gets, the more ads Big Biz places. This is, infact, a control mechanism. For if Big Biz withdrew ads from any one media source, that source would be struggling to survive. Hence, the media doesn’t risk it, and only reports on news friendly to our consumer culture.
We seem to be informed a lot about celebrity, but not much else. This is why.

© Anthony North, April, 2008

THE FEARLESS ENVELOPE

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FEARLESS

Fearless is a ridiculous word. It implies that a person can exist without fear. Certainly we can carry out acts that appear fearless, but if the person carrying out such an act really was fearless, they’d have been dead long ago.
Fear, you see, is an essential part of our make-up. It is a safety mechanism, essential for our survival. It is an impulse that keeps us safe, stops us from crossing that road. Reminds us of our limitations.

Sometimes fear can become too much.

When this happens, we have phobias, irrational feelings associated with something animate or inanimate. Phobias can totally overtake our life, and a phobia truly is something to fear.
Maybe we need to all have a phobia about phobias.
Fear can also be life-enhancing. It is a natural by-product of putting our life at risk. The daredevil often lives for moments like this – moments when he feels truly alive. But after the adrenalin rush?
Boredom – which is perhaps what the adrenalin junkie truly fears.
This inborn requirement in the daredevil exists in most of us, although watered-down. One expression of this is the love of horror fiction. Whether a book or film, we love to be scared to death in an otherwise safe environment.
Does such fiction have a real purpose in life? I think so. To keep our body trim, we exercise. And I think we need a similar form of exercise for the mind, and all its ideosyncracies. Approaching fear is essential exercise for the mind.
But next time you hear of someone doing an act ‘fearlessly’, don’t demean them by thinking they really are fearless. They are almost certainly scared to death. Yet still they do it. Which does, I suppose, make them even more heroic.

© Anthony North, April 2008

MYTHOLOGY

The sage, he writes from antiquity,
leaving myths for you and me;
Of tricksters, of wonders and Heroes, too,
to inspire, always, me and you;
The greatest stories ever told,
as adventures and miracles, do unfold;
Defining their world, making it real,
offering customs that will entail,
taboos that if broken, are beyond the pale,
so heed this glorious,
wondrous tale

But from where does the splendour of myth come from;
To whom do the tricksters and Heroes belong?
The greatest minds have fathomed deep,
reliving the myths even in their sleep;
The characters are similar from myths worldwide,
is this a hint to which we confide?
The story of the Hero is so like real life,
confusing youth, a mission, amid trouble and strife;
The trickster, that little Devil, the imp,
so similar to the voice that makes morals limp;
So maybe the Sage knew how to unwind,
the intricacies deep within that bind,
our beautiful,
wondrous,
mischievous mind

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

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THE ENVELOPE

A Cass Nova Detective Thriller

DI Cass Nova sat at the table in the café. To his left, Jim Myers, a young constable, just joined CID. And to his right, Pete Bass was drawing on the back of an envelope.
‘So the van will arrive here,’ said Bass, ‘and the armed gang will enter the bank through this door.’
Nova made only quick glances to the envelope. It was Bass’s eyes he was most interested in. He had been an informer for years and never let him down, but Nova knew eyes better than most.
Taking the envelope, he departed. Outside, Myers said: ‘So that’s wrapped up. Pretty easy this detective game, ain’t it Guv?’
Nova smiled. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ And at that, the two of them jumped into the car and headed off to the scene of the up-coming armed robbery. The bank was on a corner, a yard to its side. Nova spent long minutes looking at each building facing the yard in turn – their doors, the gaps inbetween. ‘You look troubled, Guv.’ Said Myers.
He passed the young copper the envelope. ‘It’s all in the envelope,’ he said. But Myers could see it was empty.
The following morning, Nova positioned his team around the yard, he and Myers taking up position down an alleyway leading from the scene. Myers was troubled by this. It seemed away from the action, and he worried about missing out. However, the robbery was soon in progress, the arrests going just as planned.
It was at that moment that a single masked man exited the bank by a side entrance, hidden in the shadow of another building. A bag in hand, he slipped past the police and ran down the alley. Suddenly, a hand shot out, ripped the mask off him and spun him round.
‘Going somewhere, Pete?’ asked Nova.
‘I just don’t get it,’ said Myers, later. Okay, I realize you guessed Bass was double-crossing the gang, using them as a distraction while he escaped with the money, but what the hell has it got to do with the envelope?’
Nova smirked. Taking the envelope off Myers, he said: ‘Work out what’s got to go in, position your boys to allow the contents to slip in nicely, but don’t forget to cover all angles by sealing it with the flap.’
Myers laughed. He’d learnt a lot about policing that day. Especially DI Nova’s particular stamp on it.

© Anthony North, April 2008

THE PHOTO

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THE PHOTO

A Cass Nova Detective Thriller

The Guv took his eyes from the photo and said: ‘Well, Cass, that about wraps it up.’ He smiled. ‘DI Nova does it again.’
And I had. You see a photo can be a powerful thing. We don’t often appreciate this. We take a snapshot of something and don’t realize what’s in the background – what evidence it could contain; what clues it holds. And this photo had been essential to the case.

Of course, I’d always known who’d killed Sarah Johnson.

She had got too greedy, and her pimp, Dwane Davis, couldn’t stand that. But how to prove it? Infact, every time I seemed to get close, the avenue seemed to melt away.
I said this to my colleague, DS Sharp. ‘And I reckon it’s because we’ve got a bent copper on the team.’
He looked at me, a look of amazement on his face. ‘You’re joking.’
I flashed him my serious stare. ‘No, I’m not. And that’s why I’ve been following Davis for over a week now, taking photos of everywhere he goes. I’ve got hundreds at home, and every night I study them, ‘cos at some point he’s meeting his guardian angel, and there’s a clue in one of those photos – a place I recognize where a colleague goes, something. I WILL crack this case.’

That night, in my flat, I took out the photos.

Spread them out on the table. But I did so with a kind of sixth sense – somehow I knew I was being watched. Eventually, I left the flat, headed for the take-away on the corner. But of course, I did nothing of the sort. Rather, I back tracked and entered the flat by the back door.
DS Sharp was bent over the photos, shocked. He looked up at me. ‘How did you know?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I didn’t,’ I said, ‘I’ve had the same conversation with half a dozen at the station before you. But eventually I knew I’d smoke out the rat.
He threw down one of the photos he had in his hand. It was a nice one of me as a kid, holding my mum’s hand. ‘So there isn’t a photo to incriminate me at all, is there?’
I picked up my camera and snapped. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ I said.

© Anthony North, April 2008

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Sin is what you’ve done once you’ve been caught

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DR ILLYA NESS

Stuff diets. Stuff yourself. But with the right stuff.

Okay, how many diets have you tried? Add them up. Now add up how many diets you’ve tried that have failed. Is the number the same? Well, surprise, surprise. Diets don’t work. Period.
The reason why is obvious. A diet is a short term measure designed to deny yourself something whilst the weight falls off. So it is obvious that when you stop, you’ll want what you denied yourself and the weight will be straight back on.

So is a large percentage of the population destined to be obese?

Not necessarily. There is a way, but it isn’t a diet. It is a total change in the way you eat food. Infact, you can eat the same food, only different.
Most people eat three times a day, waiting until they’re hungry, and eating ‘til they’re full. This makes your metabolism go haywire on a daily basis. Far better to split your food into five smaller meals.

In this way you don’t wait until you’re hungry …

… and you don’t eat until you’re full. Instead, you eventually learn to feel neither hungry or full, and your metabolism settles down so you don’t need to feed it.
Do this for long enough and another thing happens. Your stomach shrinks. So if you try to stuff yourself too much, you can’t. Ad hey presto! You’ve lost weight and you won’t put it back on because you haven’t dieted. You’ve changed the way you eat. Forever!

Copyright © Protected, April 2008

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If we indulged in self-help, why do we need a book to help us?

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CASS NOVA AND THE DANCING GIRLS

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Me and the girls? One day they’ll be the death of me. One day I just won’t come back, that’s for sure.
Take Julia, for instance. Gorgeous – in every way. She was a dancer in a local club. I met her through one of the other dancers, Natalie.
Now there was another gorgeous girl. But when Julia turned it on, I’m afraid Natalie took a step back. And wow! Did she turn it on!
It began during her act. That move! She called it the Sidewalk, ‘cos hips weren’t supposed to go in that direction, and when she did it, everyone stopped. And after that, a few drinks, then an invite back to the flat. Well, I didn’t have to be asked twice.

The next morning I felt terrible.

The Guv noted it first thing when I arrived in the office.
‘DI Nova,’ he said, ‘you look ill.’
Then he smirked. It was a copper’s illness – too much booze, too late a night, too much … Which must have been right, even though, as normal, my memories of the night were a bit hazy, except, of course, for those sharp nails. What was it with girls and nails?
I felt like packing it in by lunchtime – go home for a rest - but that’s when we got the call.
The body was in a flat. Forensics were all over it by the time I arrived. Murder was obvious, some time during the night. When I got to see the body, it was bloody. She’d been stabbed several times.

But that was the lesser shock. The body was Natalie.

‘Well you’re out of it,’ the Guv said.
‘But Guv …’
‘But nothing. You’re involved.’
So that was it. A murder to investigate, and nothing I could do. Except to see that Julia was alright.
Predictably, she was upset. And as I held her, different emotions flooded through her, eventually centring on: ‘What if it’s a head case? What if I’m next?’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll look after you.’

Later that day I saw one of the Sergeants on the case. Asked how things were going. He gave me a quick run down.
There was no DNA of the murderer at the scene, but there were indications of motive. For instance, a flatmate confirmed that a lap top and digital camera had gone missing. Now, when someone is murdered and only two items are stolen, leaving lots of expensive goodies a burglar could have taken, then it’s a good bet it was those things the person was after. And a lap top and camera suggest the murderer was getting rid of photo evidence of something. Silence the person who took them, and it was obvious Natalie was blackmailing someone.

The ‘someone’ was the puzzle – and, of course, why the blackmail.

I asked Julia, but she had no idea, and the other detectives seemed to draw a blank. But as I held Julia’s hand, I got an idea …

I raced out of her flat. I had somewhere to go, sure that I’d cracked the case.
Two hours later I was racing back to the flat as soon as I could. Minutes from Julia, I rang her. ‘Get out of there,’ I said. ‘Natalie had another friend who she told everything. Not sure what’s going on, but I think your life’s in danger. I’ll be with you soon. Natalie may have hidden something in your flat that the killer wants.’
I did, of course, get there in ample time to see Julia racing off from the flat on foot, a heavy bag on her back, and several in her hands.
‘Going somewhere?’ I asked.
Among her things I found the lap top and camera. They would later implicate her in a delicate love triangle, and a gang boss is not the kind of guy to cheat on. I wasn’t, it seems, the only one in her life. Infact, I didn’t ‘enter’ it at all. I’d already been to the lab, had my blood tested – even the drug she’d used on me had been identified.

So there it was.

She’d seen the possibility of a perfect alibi and used me as a stoodge.
She spat venom when she spoke to me, of course. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘so you tricked me into exposing myself. But how did you know it was me in the first place?’
You girls and your long, sharp nails – you really should learn how to scrub up well.
Especially when there’s blood involved.

© Anthony North, March 2008

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TIME CRIME

This is a post inspired by a Sunday Scribblings prompt. Have you had a go yet?

It seemed a straight forward kind of case when I was first called. ‘Detective Inspector Nova,’ the Guv had said. ‘Get over to the Aldridge Estate. I think we’ve got a strange one for you.’

Well, ‘strange’ wasn’t in it.

Normally, missing persons don’t get to me; especially when it’s a sixteen year old from a sink estate. Runaways were frequent there. But as the uniforms advised when I arrived at the address, this was a ‘nice’ girl – even went to school without being chased.
I introduced myself to the mother: ‘DI Cass Nova,’ I said. And for the next hour I found out all about the girl. And I had to admit, there was something in it.

You can smell such cases – that feeling, deep inside.

It was as if a detective is really a time traveller, reliving what happened, working it out. And as I exited the flat, I felt the menace of this place – the gangs, the drugs, the guns. How could people live like this?
There was a typical gang across the street as I approached my car. Five of them, obviously headed by the Hoodie. He was staring at me, but I only saw the arrogance, then. The inquisitiveness – the sense of edginess – was missed.

My destination was a flat at the other end of the estate.

The girl’s mother had talked of Pete – a friend of her daughter’s. Well, not really a friend. More a ‘mission’. And as I knocked on the door, even I was unprepared for what greeted me.
Pete was obviously a paranoid schizophrenic. He peeked, tentatively through the crack in the door – perused my ID for an age.
He was lanky, pasty, and as he sat on his unmade, dirty bed, you couldn’t help notice the tin-foil cap he had fashioned on his head. ‘To keep the aliens out?’ I asked.
He looked at me as if I was stupid. Eventually, he said: ‘No, they come from the future in their time machine. I don’t want to help them, but they make me.’
I mentioned the girl. Pete was immediately on edge. I gave him a moment or two to collect his thoughts. Moved to the window. Looked out. Was that the same gang outside? And this time, I did notice the edginess.
‘So what about the girl?’ I eventually asked ….

Well, Pete told me about the girl, alright.

About how she’d been the only one who’d talk to him, how she’d befriended him, and recently come to him, in trouble, after witnessing a severe beating by a gang.
And then, what the ‘voices’ had told him to do …

My intention had been to race to the old derelict house Pete had mentioned, but as I radiod in the location, I noticed the gang was still outside. The Hoodie wasn’t with them, which I found intriguing. Hence, I drove around the corner and parked – doubled back on foot and watched.
The Hoodie eventually emerged from a back entrance to the flats. When they’d gone, I went in, followed his most likely route, and came across the vacant flat, a tiny hole drilled into a wall, Pete’s flat on the other side.

They found the body of the girl in the derelict house.

She’d been badly beaten. Forensics did their own job going back in time. That’s what forensics did – reconstruct the past, telling a story of what happened before. And Pete’s DNA was all over the girl, and the blooded baseball bat close by. But if only that had been the whole story …

It was the next day I approached a Hoodie as he came out of his parent’s flat. The whole story had been pieced together now, not that I could prove it, though. The girl had seen the Hoodie and his gang beat someone up. They had seen her and followed her – realized who she was friends with.
So he’d worked out the plan – make the hole in the wall to talk through, to give him ‘instructions’, claiming he was from the future, like the other voices. And Pete had done as he was told. After all, the voices knew, didn’t they?
‘You can’t prove nothing,’ the Hoodie said as I grabbed him by the collar – squeezed.

Which was true. There were no witnesses – no forensics in the room.

‘But don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I’ll get you for something. Eventually.’
As for Pete, he was deemed mentally unfit to face trial. And it was doubtful it would be murder, anyway. Which was the real tragedy, here. For she had not died straight away. He had locked her in a room and left. Where she came round, and for twelve hours before she eventually died, she was trapped in her own time machine of hell.

© Anthony North, February 2008

China and Regional Power China wants to join the world. Then change.

History of Philosophy - Introduction - The first short post in my history of philosophy.

Shaking Beds - Reflecting on Britain’s little earthquake.

EVIL THAT WE DO

WARNING: SOME STORIES MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING SCENES

The mean streets can be mean indeed. As a private investigator I know that. Much of my work is at night, and I have become friend of the shadows. They are my friend to hide me, to alert me. But they are also a stark reminder that this world can be evil.
When the shadows drew back that night, they disclosed evil at its worst. She was laid on the pavement, her head cracked open, her eyes staring, reflecting the horror of the last sight she saw. The blow that killed her was, I suppose, a release. For it was inevitable that she had been raped.
It didn’t have to be like that. I’d told her I’d catch him. She thought about him then, told me of his previous crimes, his robberies, his blackmails, kidnaps, and, yes, his murders. He’d been getting away with it for years. But when he killed her husband, it was too much for her. She hired me to get the evidence the police couldn’t get. But even I was so slow. So she acted alone. And now she is dead.
‘He thrives in this world,’ she’d told me. ‘He sees crime as a mission in life; almost a religion. A way to validate the reality that God is evil.’
It sounded ridiculous, but I knew it was not. Often, sociopaths would justify their crimes in this way – doing God’s work. Through their crimes they gained knowledge of their rightness. And they had a point. After all, if God DID exist, he had to be evil to allow such evilness to exist.
Maybe that was why I could never accept the existence of God. For if a being had power over life and death, then if he preferred death, we would have become extinct eons ago.
I caught up with him soon after she was killed. I was imbued with a sense of righteousness. I had him cornered, and there seemed no escape. Until that passer-by came along. And soon he had her with his knife at her throat.
I thought quickly and realized my best bet was to try to confuse his mission; convince him that God didn’t exist, in either good or evil form. He answered by claiming that of course God existed, and he was evil. And it was through doing crime that we gained true knowledge – knowledge of what man was capable of.
It was a depressing, apocalyptic vision of man and the universe. And it was clearly untrue. I said: ‘If you are right, how can good things happen in the world?’ His answer was that an evil God would require most to do good in order to allow bad to thrive and conquer it.
Finally, almost in despair, I retorted: ‘You cannot use God as your excuse. It is you who do these things. God does not exist!’
His answer was horrific. He sliced her throat from ear to ear. And as he did so, he looked into my eyes and screamed: ‘Yes I do!’

© Anthony North, June 2006

Fiction Page

EVERY SITE SHOULD HAVE A DOODLE

A CONFESSION

Dr Bernard Grim sat in the chair in his surgery, his whole life beginning to fall apart. He couldn’t understand how it had happened. He was a man of superior intelligence, so how did he get himself in this mess?
The old man stood in front of him, smiling, the empty hypo on the floor. ‘So tell me,’ he said, ‘how many people have you killed?’
Dr Grim looked at him in confusion. Then he looked at his arm where the old man had taken the hypo and injected him. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked. ‘What have you done to me?’
The old man said: ‘I’ve injected you with the same drug you used to kill my wife, and God knows how many wives and husbands before that.’
‘You fool,’ said the doctor, ‘you’ve killed me.’
‘That was the general idea,’ said the old man, sitting down. He looked at his watch. Said: ‘By my reckoning you’ve got fifteen minutes to live. I suggest you use the time to clear your conscience and confess.’
Dr Bernard Grim had never been out foxed before. Maybe that’s why he got away with it for so long. He sat quietly for a while; felt the first noxious effects of the drug. Was it time for him to come clean; before his final end? Is this what it all comes down to?
‘The clock is ticking, doctor,’ said the old man.
Finally, Dr Grim came to a decision. ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘I’ll confess. After all, it seems pointless, now, not to tell someone of my genius.’
He took a breath, then. And began …
It was an hour later that his confession ended. And finally the old man took the tape recorder from his pocket and turned it off. Indeed, it was only then that the doctor realised he was still alive, way after the deadline for his death.
‘What’s going on?’ he said as the old man got up; prepared to leave.
‘It’s quite simple,’ he said. ‘I’m an ex cop and I’m about to take this confession to the police.’
‘But the drug?’
‘Quite harmless.’
‘So you conned me?’
The old man smiled once more. ‘But of course.’
‘So I’m finished?’
‘You are.’
He placed another hypo by the doctor. ‘And I’ll leave you to decide upon prison or death.’

(c) Anthony North, April 2006

Fiction Page

EVERY SITE SHOULD HAVE A DOODLE