The bigger problem – bigger than the lack of inspiration – is my feeling that there’s no need for me to write.

• What does writing achieve?
• What do I have to say?
• Who will ever read it?
• Why bother?

As a copywriter, I write all the time. I love writing for my clients because copy always serves a purpose. The words I write explain things, they help people, they sell stuff or entertain. Whatever the project, copy has a purpose.

I have lots of interest in writing non-fiction, but fiction seems very pointless.

And this feeling applies to reading too. I’m constantly reading fascinating non-fiction books, but when I try a novel or short story I just get bored.

Do you ever feel that fiction is pointless?

“I don’t really care,” she said. She flicked her hair and considered her nails. For a moment, she wondered how much she spent at her salon in an average year. Was she, as she grew older, spending more on cosmetic improvements?

“Ha… but don’t say that, my love. You know I mean this. More than anything. I love you, and want to marry you.”

“I will not marry you.”

Duncan pulled a face like a desperate child. Milky pleading.

“If you had cancer of the spine, and were abandoned by every man, woman and child you know – if the world turned its back on you and you were left to face death alone and miserable, and I felt some smattering of sympathy for you, even then: I WOULD NOT MARRY YOU.”

“Darling!” Duncan looked shocked. What a game. “Why do you say such cruel things? I want to run away with you and marry you. I want to tell the world that I love you and I’m committed to you.”

“Tell the world whatever you like, but keep me out of it.”

“But what happened to our love? What happened to our romance, our… affair?”

“Nonsense. Stop speaking. Go home. Valentine’s Day is over. Stop breathing my air.”

What follows is the first part of a novel (called Don’t Die Wondering) I wrote several years ago, when I was supposed to be doing something else. I’m going to split it up into many small pieces and post them regularly. Check back next week for more. Oh, and if you like it, or if you don’t like it, leave a comment telling me!

1

The old lady made her way up Little Gardner Street, slowly. She was very old, swaddled in brown wool despite the heat, and an old bone once broken made her progress even slower. She trailed a shopping trolley behind her, laden with food not for her. Eventually, the old woman arrived at her destination, 138 Little Gardner Street.

It took Mrs Heller a long time to climb the steps to the front door. Her little trolley clattered up each stone step behind her, pulled grudgingly, one resolute liver-spotted fist gripping the black plastic handle, bouncing its contents rhythmically inside. Once at the top, she paused and steadied herself. The trolley sat obediently on the step below her, waiting its turn to mount the final step. She rang the doorbell and waited for James Kirby.

On most days, particularly these summer days when everything moves in a frenzy, James Kirby was quick to answer his door. On this summer day, Mrs Heller was not kept waiting. The door opened as if mechanised, and Mrs Heller stepped into the dark house, heaving the trolley behind her.

In the gloom was James Kirby, but he didn’t greet his guest. Mrs Heller said a brief hello, but this remained unanswered. Inside the house, all was calm and quiet. That frenzied feeling from the summer streets of Brighton never breeched the battlements of 138 Little Gardner Street. The grand stone structure was impervious to wind, rain, hale and gaiety.

Condensation trickled down the bus windows. Heaving commuters jostled with depressed welfare recipients. The bus lurched to dodge a gull, then a tramp digging in a bin.

“You ignore that,” said the old lady. Her companion, a man in his forties, seemed to be hugging himself. His dilapidated suit would once have been an object of pride. He blushed, looked at the filthy, sticky bus floor and mumbled something.

“That’s right. That’s right. That’s absolutely right,” said the old lady. Her hair was grey, flimsy and flicking everywhere. She looked too tired – the tired you get from physical work that you don’t deserve.”I mean…” she searched for something strong, looked wild, furious. “It’s clearly…stupid. Bloody stupid. I mean, who ever heard of it? Who ever heard of it?!”

She looked at her companion, snarling, questioning. Who ever heard of it?

Suddenly, the man looked inspired. He lifted his eyes, glanced around, then lowered his gaze. He saw his shoes and remembered the shopping trip when he bought them. It was a long time ago. “But why would I…how would I…I mean…I have the lathe! The lathe in my room…if we were…hotting up…you know?”

“Well exactly! Your lathe! I mean…what on Earth is all this about…warming? Warming!?” The old lady looked around the bus, looking for a passenger who might provide evidence of a global conspiracy – an intricate web of deception that sought the limitation of society. “How can we be warming?!”

The man looked up, “we can’t…I mean…I’ve got my lathe…”

“Precisely.”

Alpha

Concrete is no sort of pillow for a man. Waking up on concrete is indicative of a failure- a failure to adequately care for the self. When Edward Hooper awoke one morning with his face touching concrete, he wasn’t sensible enough to recognize this ominous sign.

He roused slowly, his brain stumbling into recognition of his situation. His body remained sprawled as it was: face down, face into the concrete, mouth open, agape, his arms swept behind him like sick fins in a strong current, legs apart, his left knee digging into the concrete, grazed through his chinos, his right leg straight out behind him, just nudging the door of his police cell. This is how he found himself.Mysterious events seemed to have occurred between the day before and this concrete morning. What does it take to divert a man from his normal course, his very average day, and lead him to this vagrant mess? Edward Hooper asked himself this question.

His clothes were torn and soiled with blood and other bodily fluids. Edward wondered if he had wet himself. His face was bruised and one eye struggled to see through a sugar-puff of swollen flesh. “I am a mess,” he said to himself, aloud, though his speech was muffled by the concrete. He still had not moved. His face was still pushed into the ground, precisely where he was shoved the night before.Edward pulled himself together. He sat up slowly, examining his cuts and the stains on his clothes. He wondered if he should pray, but as he wasn’t sure what to pray for or who to pray to, he decided not to.

Edward sat and looked about his cell. It was bare. He presumed to be in a drunk tank. His head was full of a mean headache. Nothing like this had ever happened to Edward before.He struggled to make sense of his recent past. He checked his pockets: nothing. His wallet, house keys and mobile phone were gone. He sat back against a wall of his cell and sighed. Then, apparently startled by a phantom memory, he reached into his back pocket and retrieved a folded leaflet. “Come and Explore the Meaning of Life”, it said.

London Road is Burning Down

By Hibert Sturmond

In the park, shirtless men kick chunks out of their legs, flailing at footballs, swigging at beers, leering at girls; goals; chugging lager; swill, swallow, hack. I’m reading Kerouac. Sitting on the grass, watching the animals braying – the basic apes playing children’s games; the tame ape taunts his mates.

On the way here: every kind of train wreck, car crash, junkie staggering across my path. Beer carrying tramps, the littlest hobo, a charming junkie, smacking his habit, ripping ribbons of red running rivers rampant with heroin. Calling dealers, stood waiting on corners – conspiring groups making group deals, savings in numbers, discount clubs for junkies – the enterprising, entrepreneurial spirit lives on; spirit, the spirit, where has it gone?

Smoking a cigarette in the sunshine – red hot smoke dries my insides, cleansing my soft tissue with scalding choking dry fumes, burning germs, killing the fug, hot fog enters my lungs, burning up bacteria. I’m fumigated.

Girl walks past. Girl walks past. Girl walks past. So what? Every girl mindless in the heat; skin, skirts, flesh parading past the boys. Girls, boys; frolic in the park. Big dumb jubilation; God in the details, Devil in the heat – stoking passions, burning calories, firing glands; secretions, ablutions; the day before the night – the decadent gambol of corrupted youth.

Sophie said ‘no’.

Guilty; thinking of Jesus, thinking of his Father, our Father? – the Big Daddy of all cremation. Brain fades in the flash of sun – melting like cheap cheese on burgers, flopping over the sides, super-naturally yellow – cheese-food with soya, rusk, ash, ground up parrot beaks and amoebic dysentery.

Sophie gagged on her breakfast bagel. Laughing, saying no. Spitting bagel, bacon, egg and phlegm – ahem – amen, Jesus saw this one coming. He’s the great predictor. Ruby sees all. Jesus wrote a blank cheque – check: was Jesus black?

Park: green grass, bottle glass, the slender under-class, dole cheat, benefit fraud lunging goal-ward, diving header, the diving morality, plunging standards, decline, depress, deny, destroy – when will something be done?  Sophie balked. My suggestion was earnest; honest! Mother tutting, Jesus sighing – angels dying – archangels flipping loops last lifetime. I haven’t paid my TV licence. Would I still be eligible if I removed the buttons for one and two?

Over the road; public house, enchanted hell-pit, spewing bile; the bilious milieu – bumbling, blocking the path, sick and tired – I’ve signed the petition. Something must be done…Ants wander stupid across my leg. Sun roasting my pale skin; melanoma; crispy skin; pricked by Satan – Jesus saves – Jesus saves by shopping wisely; price comparison, discount vouchers, clipped coupons, miracles in planning; forethought, budgets. Jesus, save us.

Warning: the following story contains graphic imagery, horrific animal abuse,  rude words and scenes of terminal peril. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Smacking Cracking

I’m smacking Julia’s chicken’s face into a wall, because she hasn’t laid eggs for weeks. I’ve been craving eggs, craving protein, raving hungry, starving hungry, denied eggs by the hungry chicken. I’m smacking the clucking bitch’s fucking face into the wall of my house – outside – in the garden where she normally clucks.

The chicken is dead but I bludgeon her brains against the wall, bashing the bollocks out of her bloody brain, furious that this clucking animal couldn’t fucking lay an egg and keep me from starving for another day. Sub-clinical, the slaughter has been brutal, bloody, and a terrific release, I’m relieved, feeling relief, finally relieved of the tension I’d been feeling. It’s so easy to kill a chicken! It’s so easy to kill anything. I can kill anything. I’m free from anxiety about killing – I can kill anything. It’s too easy to kill things. The chicken is bleeding all over my hand. Crushed bone, smashed brain, leaks up my arm, staining my jumper, sticking soggy wool to my pale skin. Dead bird – I’ll cook tonight. You can get many meals from a single chicken, I think as I bash the bird against the wall. I’m driving the chicken into the wall.  The bloody splatter creates a pattern: I’m making a mural. It’s a warning to trespassers. Fuck the fucking fuck away from my fucking property, or I’ll fuck you up and smash your brains against my fucking wall. This is a warning. It’s modern art. I’m making murals, creating movements, generating buzz. I’ll fuck you up. I’m eating chicken tonight. Chicken tonight, chicken tonight. Tomorrow, chicken soup. Chicken sandwiches – I have no bread. Chicken stew, the chicken is you, I’m squashing your head. If I can kill Julia’s fucking chicken with my bare hands I can rustle up some bread. If you have bread I will smash your head against this wall. This will be my killing wall. I’m protecting myself. I live, you die. We can’t all live. We’re all going to die. You might die sooner than I.

The chicken wriggled in nervous spasm.

I smash and smash, thinking of Delia Smith recipes. She’s very uptight, Delia Smith. Her recipe for poached eggs is terrifically precise – the fascist cunt. Poached eggs, I’m not having poached eggs from this hen ever again. The hen is done with eggs. She’s gone meta – I don’t know what that means. My hen is dead – God won’t mind because she’s only meat. I have helped her reach her destiny. The hen is meat. Meat is the best she could ever hope for. I’ve made her meat. Meet your maker. Maker meat her maker. Meat maker. I am the meat maker. I make you meat your maker. I make meat meet its maker. Making meat, make meat meater. Eating eggs, she could live forever. But she had no eggs, so I made her meat. Meet my meat.

Killing could have been cleaner. Killing in the name. Killing in the name of eating. Bon appetito – enjoy your fucking chicken. The bird is dead – that’s what I wanted. I’ve killed my chicken so I can eat; it’s survival of the strongest – the chicken was never going to win that battle. The chicken is like plankton for people – they just exist to be gobbled up in huge numbers. I can’t feel bad. I feel stronger, less restricted. This is a good first step. It’s a gateway crime. Tomorrow I’ll be killing whores, smoking crack and raping your grandmother. I’ve popped the limiter off my moped’s engine. I’m a menace, a nuisance, I’m getting an ASBO, a tag, a record, a history, a reputation, a curfew, I’m known by the police, I’m a statistic, I’m broken, I’m broken Britain, I’ve broken your Britain. You break it, you buy it. I can’t afford it. I’ll nick it. I’m nicking your Britain. Fuck you. Get your own fucking Britain. I’ve broken this one, I’m pissing on your mother, I’m nicking your Britain. I’m mental. I’m bored. I’m killing your chickens and nicking your Britains.

Julia is going to ask me how I killed the chicken. Julia works in a call centre. Julia hates me, I hate Julia. I’ve killed her pet chicken. Julia likes chicken. Julia likes pets. Pets are pointless. Why pay for a pet, only to clean up endless poop from the pet? Pets equal poop. Julia is full of shit too, but differently. I’m smashing the chicken, thinking of Julia, and our wonderful love affair. Star crossed lovers, we really just fucking hate each other.

The Smashing Wall, my wonderful wall is covered in blood, my hand is gushing blood, my hand is ripping flesh, a reminder that I’m real, my hand is bloody muscles mashing mushy chicken into my red brick wall. My hand is torn and tired, blood pumping from my heart to my hand, flipping out of the rips in my skin, pissing blood onto my wonderful wall, my Smashing Wall of blood and guts, leaping blood jumping from my body, desperate to escape: it’s going to a better place. The blood is free of my bloodstream, escaped from my life’s stream, it wants something better. My blood mingles with the chicken’s blood. It all looks the same. We’re all just the same. We’re all just chickens waiting to be eaten by the greasy-fingered cunt that looms over you, ready to devour you, eating your heart, munching buckets of battered bastards, swallowing your children, munching everything you care about… I’m suspicious… This chicken didn’t know I was going to do this. It thought I was offering corn. I had some corn in my hand. My other hand was planning to fuck it up, fucking the fucking bird to fucking smithereens. It’s all fucked up. I’ve fucked up.

Killing is too easy. We’re all moments from death. It’s a thin line. Living, dying. Alive, dead. You’re here, then you’re there. You go from alive to dead in how long? Seconds. You could live for a million years but suddenly: pop! You’re gone. You could live to ten, to eighty. Any day, you could die. Today, tomorrow; we die. The chicken was alive, then dead. It died because I bashed its brains against my wall. I chose to kill the chicken. The chicken was alive, then dead. There was nothing stopping me from killing the chicken, Julia’s fucking stupid chicken. There’s nothing stopping us from killing any chicken. There’s nothing stopping us from killing. What’s stopping us from killing? Who will stop me from killing?

It’s ridiculous – what have I done to this chicken? Why am I killing a chicken? I’m waking up to a bad dream. I’m killing a chicken, bloodied, guilty, red-handed, and inescapably culpable, the culprit, the suspect – I would probably have to confess – I’ve also touched your gerbil. Your baby was never safe in that cage. I’m awake, standing, outside, murdering Julia’s chicken. She called it Helen. It’s fucked up, wings flapping as though it could fly. I never saw her fly.

Everything is close, nothing is far away. Everything is around every corner.

Any kind of fiction is okay – including horror, science-fiction, speculative fiction, romance, steam-punk, cyber-punk, electro-punk, funk-punk, crunk-punk, historical, fantasy, historical romance, erotica, super-hero, gothic, fan-fiction and historical horror.

I’ll also link to poet’s websites – so if you’re a poet drop me a line and I may well add you to my links.

Over time I’d like to have a directory of fiction and poetry blogs to share with my readers. Nothing fancy- just a list of links.

“Would you like to go to hell?” asked the old man, “or would you like to go to heaven?”

Mike had been hurrying. The old man’s question slowed him down. Then he stopped.
“What did you…I’m just getting…lunch.” The old man looked like his long-dead dad. Busy crowds flowed around them.

“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal saviour? If you want to go to heaven you must be born again.”
Mike walked the few steps back to the old man. “I don’t really believe in Jesus.”
The old man wasn’t surprised by Mike’s response. “Jesus died for our sins.”

Mike thought about this. “But if he did exist at all, surely he died ages ago, long before I was born – long before I even committed any sins. Believe what you like but keep me out of it.”
“Would you like to accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour?” The old man looked in Mike’s direction without really looking at Mike.

“No. I don’t even accept that he existed.” Mike looked at his watch. He still had forty minutes of his lunch break left.

“Well,” the old man looked a bit smug, “did you know that there’s more evidence to support the existence of Jesus Christ than JFK?”

“JFK?” Mike was shocked. “That can’t be right. I’ve seen pictures of him. I’ve seen film. I’ve never seen a picture of Jesus.”

“Son,” the old man looked at Mike very intently. The old man looked slightly ill, and Mike hoped that he wouldn’t die while they chatted. “Do you ever ask yourself, ‘what would Jesus do?’?”

“I’m more likely to worry: ‘what would Zetu do?’.”

“Zootoodoo?” the old man looked around, beyond Mike, checking the crowd for anyone who might want to be saved.

“Zetu. He’s responsible for your…well, your, blockages. Your psychic disturbances. Your bad memories, bad feelings. Your mental…issues.”

The old man smiled smugly, snugly. “My child, I have nothing but joy in my heart. Certainly no mental anguish for you or Zetu to worry about. My soul is shielded by the light of the Lord.”

“That’s what you think. Would you like a free stress test?”

The old man looked up and down the avenue. All of the bustling shoppers looked silly, shallow and destined for damnation. “I know no stress. I have submitted to the greater wisdom and might of our Lord. There is peace in submission.”

Mike looked doubtful. “Yeah…we often hear this…and things like it. There are things in your past – episodes, traumatic times, maybe past lives, things that affect your mentality…we can help you with these problems. Now, would you like a free stress test?”

“You lucky bastard!” someone screamed. Loud music bounced bodies. Occasionally a drunken reveller would spill out of the front door and onto the front step. This ordinary semi-detached council house had never held so many people or been the focus of so much delight.

A few smokers milled about in the front garden, disregarding the neat rows of petunias. “I can’t believe it’s happened to him though. I mean, him. Calvin,” someone said to someone else.

Inside the house, alcoholic sweat had fermented on the ceiling and was now dripping back down on people’s heads. Music that Calvin didn’t even like was rattling some of his mother’s ornaments; a brass thing from Cornwall and a few china thimbles. Approximately every ten minutes Calvin wondered if the party was getting out of hand. Worry, wonder, forget.

“Calvin!” Here came Rebecca. “There’s a man outside- from the…papers. Not sure which. Didn’t ask. Asked me if you’re here.” Rebecca was very drunk. Calvin enjoyed the wonky look in her eyes. She swayed out of time with the music and for a moment he thought she might collapse. She looked sleepy, but then a bouncing dancer bumped her and her eyes widened. “So… are you here for the…interview?”

“I just…I’m not sure that I should have interviews when I’m drunk. I’ve been drinking since Ed arrived. And he arrived at… what time is it? Do journalists work this late? I don’t know…maybe tell him that I’m not Calvin. I mean, just don’t tell him I’m anyone. You know…tell him Calvin isn’t really here at all. Not today anyway. Say he’s in Cornwall. With his mum. For the next week. And they’re not contactable.”

“Is that all?” Rebecca said with a smirk.

“Calvin you lucky bastard!” screamed John, an old acquaintance. Calvin couldn’t respond to another person saying the same thing, so he didn’t. He looked tired and drunk.

“Are you okay?” asked Rebecca. “You don’t look…happy enough.”

“Oh? Well…I’m confused, mainly. Mainly just confused. It’s just the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. And I can’t quite…I can’t…I don’t know if I’m asleep, and dreaming, or…”

“But of course you’ll feel like that!” Rebecca was jostled again by the dancing throng. “It’s amazing! You probably need to get used to it. Tomorrow it might make sense.”

“But I didn’t buy a ticket. That’s what I don’t get. That’s why I’m confused. I never bought a ticket. I don’t buy tickets. How can you win if you don’t buy a ticket?”

(Picture courtesy of Wlodi)