The Beginning of a Love Story (Part Two)... or... The Middle of a Love Story (Part One)

So, the whole village of crkcrk is underwater. (If you’re wondering why the village is now called crkcrk, when last week it was chkhV it’s because I realised that chkhV sounded like a ridiculous name for a village. Besides, it’s neither hither nor thither now as crkcrk looks more like a stomach of cardboard soup than a village). Where was I?

So… the whole village of crkcrk is underwater. Technically, a lot of the village is floating above the surface but for the sake of this true account we’ll say that pretty much everything is underwater. (By the way, I know I said you’d have to wait a week for this second instalment but I don’t have a job and I was bored as hell at home so here it is. It’s better this way. Let’s finish this sorry spectacle and be done with it. I just hope I get some inspiration soon as this middle part is going nowhere.) So… Pyllyp is still floating towards a possible death. Nothing has happened in days. Even the rainbow looks old and tired. Some sort of animal is chewing on Pyllyp’s shoelaces. Maybe it’s a deer. (I’ve just realised the first part was written in the past tense and this is present. Let’s switch back to past for the sake of Godknowswhat.) So… the whole village was still underwater and Pyllyp was still floating towards a possible death and some sort of animal that was still possibly a deer was still chewing on his shoelaces. Anything else? The rainbow still looked old and tired. (I think I prefer present tense.) Someone shouts something in the distance that sounds like ‘tables’ or maybe even ‘sharks’. Pyllyp looks around and sees nothing but water. Goddamn this water thinks Pyllyp. The animal that could be a deer, bored out of it’s brain, continues to chew on Pyllyp’s shoelace. Pyllyp wonders if it was ‘tables’ or ‘sharks’ that our nameless friend shouted. Just then a shark appears and eats Pyllyp (so it was ‘sharks’ after all). The animal stops chewing on the shoelace of the deceased and scarpers in a deer-like fashion. Pyllyp’s shoe, suddenly having no function since it’s master has been eaten in the most horrendous way possible, (I mean, it was really bloody), sinks like a dead radiator to the bottom of the sea or river or whatever.

***

Okay, so I’ve just killed off the only character in this good for nothing story. Tune in next week when (hopefully) a new character comes along that is (hopefully) more interesting than this one and (hopefully) lives long enough to take this story somewhere more interesting than where it’s at now.

I guess I should have given myself longer to write this middle bit as it’s not a patch on the first part (not that the first part was anything to write home about but there was some glimmer of promise there at least. I thought so anyway). Maybe I can still make it work. Maybe I’ll write some more for the middle next week. Or maybe I’ll write a really long ending. Or maybe it’ll just fizzle out without anything really interesting happening at all. I suppose it doesn’t really matter as you probably won’t even bother to read the next part. That said, same time next week.

The Beginning of a Love Story (Part One)

The rain fell hard that day. I think it was a Tuesday. It was like poison dropping from upon high into the huge basin-like teacup below. Maybe God was bored and wanted to play a game, or maybe God had nothing to do with it. Whichever way you look at it the rain fell like a bitch that day. Pyllyp’s watering can filled up in 30 seconds flat.

After about an hour the whole village of chkhV was on the move, probably towards some vast and perilous ocean. Widow Rust became trapped beneath a car on the seabed. What she was doing down there I don’t know. I would have thought an old woman weighing no more than a hairnet would have been floating on the surface from the get-go. Anyway, she was down there and there was no hope for her. She managed to hold her breath for about seven seconds before shattering (if that’s the right word) into a million tiny scraps of dead skin. These fragments of dust covered the shimmering seabed like an old grey blanket, suffocating many of the aquatic inhabitants that had appeared from God-knows-where during the downpour (some say they fell from the sky with the rain but I’m trying to write a true account of that day and this theory sounds like horseshit so don’t think I’ll even print it).

Where was I? So the widow is long gone. Next to go was the local fool Millk who, wishing to get to higher ground, wrapped himself around the closest pylon and scaled like his life depended on it. When he reached the top he fried like a sofa, his crispy body falling perilously (I don’t know why I use the word ‘perilously’ as he’s obviously already dead) towards the water below. Meanwhile Pyllyp sat on a __________ (word lost in translation) and floated towards a likely death (or maybe he wouldn’t die this time).

***

Tune in next week for the second instalment of ‘The Beginning of a Love Story’ (although it will probably be called ‘The Middle of a Love Story’ as this was the beginning and we don’t want to drag this thing out longer than we have to.)

remnants of a poem found on the train (written by Thomsic Shotskin)

“And what is that?” enquired the man.

So with his cue the boy began:

“All my life I’ve had a thought

That turns all other thoughts to nought

A thought so wild it can’t be taught

A thought so fast it can’t be caught.

All other thoughts fall far from short

When up against this flipping thought

This thought’s so rare it can’t be bought.”

“But what is this amazing thought?”

“I’m glad you asked and well you ought.

I’m going to be an astronaut.”

“Haha!” the old man laughed with glee.

“My dear old boy you’re nuts,” said he.

“An astronaut you just can’t be

I think you’ve fallen from your tree

Right into Lake Insanity.

You’re three feet tall with crooked feet

And crooked arms that snap like wheat

Your eyes have started to retreat

Into a face of crumpled pleats.

You sweat without a sign of heat

A sadder case I'll never meet

That thought of yours just can’t be beat

You’d get on well with loco Pete.”

“I don’t care what you say to me,”

Replied the boy defensively

“Or if you think I’ve gone crazy

An astronaut I know I’ll be

So shut your trap and wait and see.”

***

(N.B. The beginning and end of the poem are missing. I don’t know whether the boy becomes an astronaut or not. I’d like to think so.)

gums

Today the sight of an old woman mauling an orange with her gums caused a little boy to fall off a wall and crack his nut. Meanwhile a dog fell asleep while chewing on an ice cube.

paste

You left me on a Tuesday.

“I’m leaving you,” said you.

“I need a new friend.”

Affectionately I spat at you.

It did no good.

Again I spat, this time in a half-hearted fashion.

“I’m going to live with my father,” said you.

Bob or Derek or some other name.

When you left I tore newspaper from the walls and chewed on it.

“I said you’d do that,” said you in my head.

The paste congealed around my voice-box. Now I was silent and friendless in a house with ugly walls.

down

a beautiful house with windows for eyes and a door for a mouth sat on a hill