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The seagull strikes back

The seagull peered suspiciously at me from between the iron railings; it’s head cocked, eyes a glitter with marine manifested malevolent intent. I scooted my bottom further down the bench to hide the orphans who were at play behind me, as I did I sneakily slipped behind the 99er I clutched in my hand. i was painfully aware that it was no Excalibur. Ironically, if I had thought Excalibur to be a 99er, I would also have been painfully aware of my mistake… These crazed thoughts rushed through my head as the seagull put forth a cry of creaking hinges to a graveyard gate, (going into the graveyard not out as this would ruin the aspect of impending doom/demise/wedding).

Things were getting serious, my ice-cream was melting by the second and I really didn’t want it to drip on my high tops, I peered about. There! A phone box. Praying that I wouldn’t be too late I rushed into the sweaty interior, shut the door and briefly read the slogans on my temporary chaining rooms glass walls.

“Lucy will do anything for a fiver” read one generous advert.

“Yeah right” I muttered, “Save the day? I doubt it.”

“Tom is a poo” read another.

“Tim does it up the…” but I tore my eyes away as, with a dread that plopped from my heart into my tummy, I saw the gull take to wing with a cry of terrible triumph and flap closer to the orphan children, who were blind deaf and dumb too, I forgot to mention that. They would have been laughing if they could, unaware of the feathered fiend slipping ever closer.

I changed, in the time it took you to read those two words. No longer did a man stand in this crypt of suggestive scribbles and telecommunication, but Renaissanceman, the super villain/hero (side dependent).

I exploded from the phone box, after calculating the dispersal pattern of the glass and metal frame as not to hurt anyone and minims cleanup/possible repair, (REPAIR WAS NOT A VIABLE OPTION!!), and flew at the devil bird.

A sqwork, an explosion of feathers, and he was destroyed… NO, she was… Anyway…

For a moment I stood… Okay, imagine the sun is going down as it makes the scene appear more dramatic and the ending of the day relates nicely to the ending of the story… I stood, at sunset, watching the deaf, dumb, blind kids, who were also orphans, and also very poor, smile happily, probably thinking of pin ball machines that they’d never afford… Never aware of their brush with the winged beast that now lay broken and defeated in my oven.

Gratitude is not something a super hero/villain (side dependent), craves, it is a sense of self achievement and to know, as he tucks into gull and chips with a helping of scrambled egged on the side, that things are right with the world… And everything was right with the world.

R

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Happy Valentines

I had a terrifying experience this morning: Whilst reading my mountain of mail, even greater in size than my usual heap of fan mail, I slipped. A great landslide of amorous correspondence fell away leaving me scrabbling for purchase on the papery slopes.

The letter clutched in my hand fell away, probably a good thing as the lady in question was already married to Chris Martin and I fell, fell, fell to land with a mighty thump on my flamboyant, renaissance hairdo. I must have lost consciousness for when I awoke I had a vision, firstly of what makes time travel possible but then, after all that nonsense, I was someone else, someone carrying a quiver and a bow and I was filled with a great loneliness. I suddenly realised that I had fallen into the body of Saint Bert Valentine.

I was staggering drunkenly down the high street of some great city, it may have been Coventry, splashing through snow melt and attempting to fit another arrow to my totally pimped up bow; the diamonds glittered in the pale morning light.

A lot of the people on the street were already festooned with fletchings from my earlier work. Arrows poked from buttock, armpit and forehead and the glazed expression of love covered every face. I hated them for it. I felt like Cilla Black, condemned to match make but never find love myself, although I was younger and didn’t have a silly name or accent, and then I saw ‘the girl’…

She was beautiful, with a great cloud of fluffy brown hair, an oval face and elbows to die for. This was it, this was my chance for eternal love.

I withdrew my special arrow, the one plated in gold with the initials B V on the shaft. I fitted it to the bling bow and drew… and then lowered it. It may have been the two bottles of Morgan Spiced Rum I’d had at breakfast but this girl was mesmerising, how she moved, and there, how she explored her nose with one, perfectly manicured finger. I wanted that finger to be mine.

There was a sudden stab of pain in my foot as if someone had stabbed me in the foot. I looked down to see the arrow buried deep into my Nike Hightop. I gasped in shock. These trainers had been well expensive, but then I noticed the lovely leg emerging from the mouth of the shoe and rising like a pillar from some wondrous greek building, that hadn’t been set fire too… I realised with a jolt of my heart that it was my leg.

Love filled me, I had found my Valentine. My valentine was, well, Valentine, Mr Bert Valentine…

After this things went a little blurry and I awoke with a letter from Beyonce stuck to my cheap and a package from Dawn French digging into my hip that felt a little like a Cornish pasty.

I looked down, yet no quarrel had ruined my elegant, renaissance slippers.

I sighed with relief. All was well with the world.

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system reset

There should have been a futuristic ‘beep’ I reflected as I confirmed the deletion of all the posts on my blog, but then I reminded myself that I live in the real world… and I’m not Jack Bower… Yet.

It is said that a change is as good as a rest (does not apply to underwear), so I’m having a jolly good rest in that case. I’ve sorted all my writing files, thrown out the flotsam and jetsam that has seeped into my computer like poorly positioned coffee into a keyboard, and wiped my computer. A fresh start.

I have the mental equivalent of a stark white and, more to the point, blank piece of paper bore me, and this rather tickles my fancy.

Indeed, I often open a word document and simply sit staring at the screen, gloating over the potential genius that ‘could’ be soon filling that glowing Cyclops.

… and then every word I squeeze out onto the page like some literary cake icer, slowly corrupts that perfection. Not this time though. Every single word will be perfoct.

I’m currently fighting off a bit of a hangover as, after returning late from a bar, I found my parents awake with their friends who insisted that I partake in some whiskey. To be polite I aqueous.

I should also explain the change of name for the blog. I assure you that it is done tongue in cheek and I am not comparing myself with Leonardo De Vinci. For one thing he was left handed, and italian. I’m right handed and, uh, not. There are probably a few other differences that you’ll find if you dig a little deeper but let’s not go into that now.

And now I must sign off. The aroma of coffee wafts up the stairs and I yearn for a cup of that dark, pungent elixir.

In the meantime:

Here is my music.

Wow, that was a rather shameless plug…