The Fiction
Friday, February 06, 2004
Inspired by Tony Blair, Brian Hutton and Basil Brush - a full ten years before events...
DOG COUNTRY
(Spinning slowly, sliding free,
The greyhound bus came flying at me).
It had been running and running around the track for six and a half years, people betting ginormous sums of money that it would never beat the Nova Scotian Labrador, but in the end it was the rank outsider from Newfoundland, "Ontario Smackhead" that came romping home. "Home, ah yes! Home is where the heart is!" barked the psychopathic struck-off East German refugee surgeon from Dresden, as he ripped the still pumping heart from the chest of the Nato soldier who had been born of a nice middle class family (two loving parents, a charming if slightly dim older sister and a three legged daschund being the main components) in Bruges twenty-three years earlier, and was now dying most horribly on the Isle of Dogs.
"Disunited Dog Country, par for the course really," laughed Captain Basil Brush in clipped tones as he smashed Sergeant Nathaniel Spaniel over the head with a Jeremy Eight-Iron, horrible flared polyester trousers with vomit inspiring check pattern (circa 1974) flapping around his poxy-foxy legs. Sergeant Nathaniel Spaniel fell to the ground, four dumpy legs twitching spasmodically, as the Penguin moved in, slicing Captain Brush’s neck with a sliver of tin.
"Ooohhwahhhh, ooohhwahhhh, bum bum!" screamed Brush.
"You do not spell boom boom in that anally fixated fashion, you moron glove puppet," hissed the Penguin.
"You stupid bastard bar of cheapo chocolate!" yelled the director at the Penguin. "You’ve cut Crispin’s goddamn wrist with that bit of tin. Get outta this goddamn studio!"
The Penguin, now visibly melting in the harsh studio lights, looked over to where Crispin, sad Crispin with the huge ego and delusions of acting alongside Jeremy Eight-Iron, was trying to pull a bloodstained Captain Basil Brush from his right arm. To the Penguin it appeared as if Crispin had been trying to fist Captain Brush up the arse. Crispin finally wrenched the corpse of Captain Brush from his arm. This unfortunately made matters much worse, as to anybody but the most blithering idiot it would have been obvious that the latex inner body of Brush acted on Crispin’s almost severed wrist with much the same splendid efficiency as a tourniquet. Crispin ran around like a stuck pig, great fountains of blood spraying from his wrist. As he died, the Penguin finally melted into oblivion. Human blood and Penguin chocolate swirled and mingled in peace on the studio floor as they never could have done in life.
The inquest into Captain Brush’s death was an amusing affair.
Colonel Arthur Doberman-Pinscher was the prosecuting counsel. All well and good, except that there was nobody alive worth prosecuting. Crispin - dead due to sudden loss of blood. The Penguin - transmogrified into liquid chocolate. Nathaniel Spaniel – brains splattered all over the rug. The Nato soldier from Bruges - not really part of this story anyway. Doberman-Pinscher realised that he was basically a spare prick in an empty courtroom. Barking in a manic fashion, he trotted unsteadily toward the drinks cabinet, poured himself another bowl of milk, and settled back in his basket to watch the final instalment of 45 Minutes to Doomsday.
Copyright ©1993/2003 Dan McNeil
Arnolfini Reaction is an experience based mood piece. In plain un-pompous english, it's the authorial equivalent of doodling. Nothing wrong with authorial doodling. As with pictorial doodles, some are crap and some are good - it's the practice that matters...
ARNOLFINI REACTION.
Sitting next to her, in the smoke of the Arnolfini, close, but not yet touching, I notice that her accent is Bristolian, birdlike, unlike the students clotting the bar. Is she a bird?
A second beer and her accent begins to replicate that of the students. Her speech slows, the cadences become ponderous, slurred. I like her more now, although I understand her even less.
Another beer and her speech and that of the students finally merges, forming a continuous wave of white noise. The situation is futile - understanding her now is completely impossible. Although our feet touch and our ankles hook together, I realise that I must act tonight.
Previously, I drank with Rebecca. Rebecca came from Burnham. When Rebecca became impossible to understand, I drank with Cat. Cat felt more civilised than Rebecca.
Sitting next to Cat, in the smoke of the Arnolfini, close, but not yet touching, I notice that her accent is Bristolian, birdlike...
Copyright ©2003 Dan McNeil
The original version of Appetite was written in early 2002, and ran to 1,500 words. I wanted to send it to Antipodean SF,
but their limit was 500 words. So, lots of tedious editing (actually, it's good practice for keeping your storywriting minimal). Antipodean SF accepted the story, with some minor editing. A year later, I sent the original 500 word version to Fragment.
Here it is...
APPETITE.
Roberts stepped from the Arcachon onto flat grey sand, and scanned the horizon. Utter desolation all the way, the missing-without-trace Gironde class cruiser Bordeaux nowhere to be seen.
"Henri, no Bordeaux. We got the right coordinates?"
"Sure we have." Henri sounded puzzled.
"Maybe it's buried," said Roberts.
"No - sand's too shallow. Unless it's destroyed, the beacon separated..." Henri sounded doubtful. Gironde class beacons didn't separate. The Bordeaux had to be here.
Roberts scanned the horizon again and froze. A spacesuited figure stood five metres away, motionless. "Jesus fucking Christ! Henri! You see this?"
"See what?"
"There's someone in front of me. Spacesuit I’m coming in." Roberts was gabbling in panic.
"Hang on John. Calm down. I see only you on the screen. Tell me what you see."
"EVA suit, can't see a face, standing there like a monument. Came from fucking nowhere!"
"Okay, I hear you. You still want to come back in?"
Roberts faced the figure, breathing deeply. "No, but come out take a look."
"Suiting up then. Ten minutes."
"Okay." Roberts took a step forward, saw himself reflected in the figure's gold visor.
"Thanks for coming," said a voice in his helmet that wasn't Henri.
"Who are you?" Roberts squeaked.
"This is easy," said the voice.
Ice crawled up Roberts’ spine. "What's easy?" he whispered.
"This," said the figure, pointing.
Roberts half turned, not wanting to lose sight of the figure, but he caught movement in his peripheral vision. The Arcachon - sinking fast into the grey sand. "Henri!" he shouted. "Get out! Get the fuck out!" He turned back to the figure and screamed.
"Are you doing this?"
No answer.
Roberts spun back to face the Arcachon. Only the central pod was visible, descending like a submarine’s conning tower. Then nothing. Grey sand flowed over the grave.
Shaking and terrified, Roberts faced the figure.
"Your turn," it said, seeming suddenly taller.
Roberts heard a loud hissing. Alarms chimed. His suit was
ruptured, the pressure was dropping. Struggling for breath, he felt a terrible burning pain in his feet and legs. Looking down, he saw red stained sand up to his knees.
Then he understood.
Each particle of sand was a cutting and digesting biomechanical organism, each the component part of a hungry planet.
Roberts stopped screaming when the sand reached his chest.
The planet's ancestor had been a von Neumann machine, designed to convert the raw materials of its destination planet into replicas of itself. Somewhere along the way, a descendent of the original machine evolved sentience and decided it wanted to become a planet instead of looking for one. It began by hunting for small debris in the local star system. Growing larger, the machine planet realised it no longer needed to hunt
for food. Food was delivered instead. Random debris were attracted by gravity. Curiosity and subterfuge brought spacecraft and their crew. Arrivals never departed. The planet continued growing. The planet's ambition was to become a gas giant or even a star.
The planet was completely insane, but it was having a ball.
Copyright ©2003 Dan McNeil
