18th Birthday Diary

Got my 6^th year dissertation handed in, on my birthday of all days. The only person who said happy birthday to me was the new English teacher, Miss (Deleted). She’s really young and also seriously sexy. We don’t get her for English but Stevie said he had her once and she was talking about how much she was into the Smiths! Also - she wears these really low-cut tops. There was one day last year I was off -Christopher Guthrie said he dropped his pencil on purpose and she bent down to pick it up for him and she wasn’t wearing a bra and he SAW EVERYTHING. I cannot believe I was off that day.

Christopher is a bit of a weirdo though. He used to sit in History class scratching out ‘Satan stars’ on the desktop - even though what he was actually drawing was the Jewish star of David. And that certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the occult.

Went to the common room where I chatted for a bit with Simon. I don’t know how he managed to get off with Naomi who is actually sort of okay. Nothing he says is ever actually all that funny, although he does have alright taste in music. Today we were swapping Kula Shaker singles.

I’ve decided Cara is weird. We usually walk home together now, cos she lives just down the street from me. I don’t know why but she laughs hysterically at everything I say. Sure, I am really funny (unlike Simon). But no one’s that funny. She reminds me a bit of Stacey with the scar on her cheek who disappeared and no one knows where she is now. She also used to laugh hysterically. Especially that one time she tricked me into going carol-singing.

Gavin is also weird. We were walking home again and he came up to me and whispered: “Do you think you’re something special? Well, let me tell you this - you’re not. You are nothing! you are… a piece of SHIT!” Then he ran off at great speed. He says he has to get home so he can watch the snooker. I’ve never been interested in snooker.

Printed out the 12 poems I wrote yesterday. Plus, the novel’s really coming along. Hopefully by the time I’m about 21, I’ll be a famous published writer and making a living out of it, so I won’t have to keep applying for terrible jobs. And there’s university to look forwards to.

It’s looking like Labour might get into power in May. Tony Blair is definitely going to be a good prime minister. He’s actually kind of young, compared to most politicians. Plus, apparently if he gets elected, I might have a better chance of getting a job. Result!

I think my brother is still a witch. Gavin said he saw him up the woods drinking beer and wearing a dog collar. Even worse than that - he’s still listening to Bjork. I HATE Bjork.

‘A Great Sense Of Emotionality’

full transcript of talk by ufologist H. WYLSON HURLE at Falkirk Transformation Symposium, Aug 23rd, 2013

Are we recording? Is…

(extended pause - staff adjust the microphone)

Is that it? Are we good to go? Right! Okay. Well. Hello there all of you. Good to see everyone’s made it.

Now. For those of you in the audience who aren’t quite up to speed, my name is H. Wylson Hurle. I am forty-eight years old. I have been researching the paranormal for well over seventy-two years now. Which is even more unbelievable if you take into consideration the fact that my true light body was first incarnated in the year 2136. Certain people have told me this and I promise I will tell you why later.

Now. We are going to get on to the lockstep humanoids. Now this is one of the stranger developments of recent years. They’re walking after you. When you’re on the street. Stalking you from afar, in two by two. Have you caught the reptilian slant in their eyes? The blankness! The… insouciance. I think that’s the word. They look like people – like us! But they’re not from here.

What we’re talking about this evening is – the copies. They’re clones, you see. The ones who are copied, are. They’re copies of the copies – of the original copies, who are genetic crossbreeds from the secret underground base beneath Berkshire. It’s true! I know all about this. I was a security guard down there for years. Nineteen and a half to be precise. The pay was pretty good, all things considering. I mean, it wasn’t hard work exactly – it was quite a secret base. Nobody was looking. And it was underground, so nobody ever really managed to find it. I was basically just hanging around. The worst bit was having to deal with all the extraterrestrials there.

I mean, forgive me for being blunt here but… see them giant praying mantis ones? What a bunch of absolute fucking cunts, by the way. I mean. Picture it. You’d just be down there, in the secret base, trying to go about your business doing secret things. And the bastards’d be up there. Just hanging off the roof  like fucking moths. Freaks you out, by the way. Like they’re having a laugh with us humans. Tell you what, the giant praying mantis types… don’t want to be rude, but oh, terrible conversationalists, they were. All they ever did was chirrup. Gossips, the lot of them.

Aye, well anyways, they let me go from the base for medical reasons cos I was having problems down below, if you know what I mean. It’s funny, really - because even though I was actually having problems down below… on a larger scale… I was really having ‘problems down BELOW!’

(Pause. Silence from audience)

Ha. Just my little joke. It’s true though.

But… yes. Returning us to the key thrust of this lecture, then… right. So There’s these programmable generated life forms. Which are grown underground. Trained in MK-ULTRA mind control tactics. Capable of killing a human with just their brains from six miles away. Sounds unbelievable, I know. But you’ve been shopping in Sainsbury’s, right? You’ve seen the cashiers. Oh yes! They might look cold, robotic and emotionless, but some of them are sadistic too. Sometimes they will just murder cows and horses for sport, go up to them in a field and just stand around, pouring in their corrosive mind beams until the poor defenceless animal just explodes in a meat market of decapitated limbs and gore. It really is pretty seriously awful, the things they do.

And then the lockstep humanoids will march into the effluent outcome of their carnage and crouch down in pairs to blood themselves, rubbing the splattery gore into their chiselled, perfect features. I’ve been told by a very reputable source that this is actually how they hunt on their worlds. They’re doing it here now, because of course, this ties into the wider plan, the big main story that’s going on here with the jelly.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the jelly! Well, wait, I’ll get to that. Cos this is very important information we need to get out.

(Hurle responds to question from audience)

Where do I get my information? Ah well, you see. The question! This is the question they always ask. Well, madam. I get my information mainly from psychics. But I’m not a psychic myself. I’m a HGV driver by trade now, and it’s a provable fact that we are exactly the sort of people the controllers target for victimization, gangstalking and gaslighting. Those outside of the normal acceptable areas of life. Because that’s all part of the disinformation. They’re trying to make us all look like a bunch of paranoid loonies!

Not the illuminati people though. They don’t get any of this bother. Let me tell you!

And I can see you’re all looking a bit frightened now. Oh yes. Illuminati! Don’t pretend that word doesn’t put the willies up you. Well it’s my life I’m putting on the line here! My safety I’m compromising! The illuminati have been putting the willies on me for many, many years now.

(inaudible question from audience)

No, The lockstep humanoids don’t do much of the gangstalking themselves. Usually they’re too busy in the bases. Or out using their brains to make cats blow up. They do that as well. Now, I can see this is a key concern of people so yes, I will address it. So. Who does the stalking? Well - usually they send the supermodels.

Anne told me this the other week – she’s one of the main psychics I refer to in the book and we’ll get to that in a moment. She was at a fashion show, cos she’s involved in that. And she was told on very good authority that all supermodels – all of them, male and female – are in actuality Nordic space people from the Sirius star system. A lot of them live here now. I mean, come on now…

(laughter)

Have you seen them, though? Bony, expressionless zombies, storming along the catwalk in the robotic manner? That’s the lockstep thing. If anyone ever tells you they‘re ‘in fashion,’ I would just become very suspicious and just walk the other way.

Usually they’re psychically linked pairs. See, Anne thinks this is why everyone in the fashion industry is so weird. You’ll notice this in the service industry, in the supermarkets too, when the cashiers are calling over to the person at the next till to price-check an item. It’s because they’re linked. Cos they’re either nonhuman, or, at the very least… controlled by the nonhumans. I mean, why else do they dress the models like that? In all those weird clothes, that’s supposed to be what everyone cool is wearing, but all the girls are walking about topless with weird gigantic hats and see-through plastic face masks and bits of metal on their shoulders. I mean, come on… the girls have got their tits out for gods sake! And dead animals round their necks! And the men have got like, stickers on their nipples and cowboy chaps. Ever wonder why that was? Curious, is it not?

Well, I’ll tell you now! It’s because that’s how they dress on their planets of origin. They’re genetically predisposed to going about with very little or no clothes on at all! This was in the contract they signed with the clandestine new world order officials who allowed them to stay here and live and work in the bases! In exchange for their technology and knowledge, the powers-that-be agreed that a small number of them would infiltrate the fashion industry in order to slowly inculcate the wider population into becoming accustomed to the idea of their creepy, skeletal silver-clad forms walking about here! It makes perfect sense when you stop to think about it!

Anne learned most of this at a fashion show in 1987, when she was working as a seamstress for Jean Paul Gaulthier which I’d say makes her account all the more credible. One of the alien humanoids there came right up to her and actually initiated psychic mind link. Unfortunately there’s sometimes a translation issue with the direct psychic interface between humans and the Nordic space people, so usually it all just automatically gets translated into Swedish. I think this is the root of why these aliens are referred to as Nordics. Now luckily, Anne memorized all the information and had it translated later. That’s when she discovered the true facts about the jelly.

(murmurs from audience)

The jelly is a sentient, hermaphroditic, self-replicating fluidic intelligence. I have a number of sources – corroborating accounts, mind – who are firmly convinced that if you now buy jelly from the supermarket – actual, ordinary jelly – then some if that is ALIEN jelly. And if you eat it, it will migrate to the base of your brainstem and control you. Making you a zombie puppet to their terrifying whims - like something off of bodysnatchers. Jelly. I mean… We’re not safe.

Now this tale… is completely… mental. By which I mean, to an extent, it is happening on a mental level. Anne actually said to me, that once this space woman had given her this information – right at the end of it, once she’d ended the psychic link - this space woman opened her mouth and said, in English, this chilling phrase: ‘I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly.’ I find that detail particularly disturbing.

And because people need to be told the reasons why they should be vigilant about these dark beings lurking in our midst, I have written this…

(Hurle holds up volume)

My fourteenth book – or it might the fifteenth, come to think of it – which is called, ‘Beyond The Unknown Within: Exploring The Exopolitical Paradigm of Intra-Transient Communications.’ I know, that must sound like a bit of a mouthful for you all out there, but I feel you need to get the material out there. So, I’d just like to give you all an exclusive preview of some of the things I go into in this volume. I further detail the accounts of Anne, who is, I’d suggest, quite a seminal witness. Her experiences with the Nordics have seen her channelling abilities develop quite dramatically. Although I hear this is giving her some problems with her television, as it keeps jumping from BBC4 to the Adult Channel for some reason. And let’s face it, nobody wants that. Just more mind games from the Nordics, they love a bit of mind games!

Now Anne’s a very religious woman, as those of you who’ve read her book will know. I write about her book in my book, but naturally I give the story some fresh insight. Last year – and I write about this in very great depth – Anne would be visited every night of the week by a being. Now, this being was not in solid form as we would know it, this was a spiritual energy. And we don’t know if its intentions were entirely benevolent. This being would come to Anne, entering her bedroom. Except not all of the body would be visible. Sometimes it was just a floating male head – although more often than not, usually just the crotchal region, which was just the area around the hips. The apparition would never possess an upper half, the torso area, but yet somehow, still it would be wearing a bra. Which was to put it mildly, a very unusual state of affairs, make no mistake. And as this being entered the room, Anne would find herself overcome with a great sense of emotionality. And with her strong beliefs regarding the Bible, the power of this being… she told me, folks, with tears streaming down her face… she felt high and she was vibrating with the love energy. And it was as if Christ had somehow come inside her – as if he was putting his love inside her!

But of course, not everyone can be open to these experiences. For Anne would try again and again to tell her husband Frank about this… and every time she would talk to him, a glazed and vacant expression came over his face and it was as if he wasn’t paying attention to anything she was saying. Now, I’ve noticed this effect happening before and I can only surmise that this is the aliens actively preventing people from getting their message out into the world via their devious mind control.

I must also mention the story of an anonymous gentleman called Henry Clark, who is absolutely convinced that he has courted and subsequently fathered a son with an alien woman – although Henry sees his child very infrequently. They come from very different worlds – literally. He’s had to move to Birmingham for work and they’re on a planet called Eera-Ook in the Pleiades. Apparently the commute’s a nightmare and the faster-than-light travel makes him carsick. Well, it would, you know?

And just to conclude this part for now, there’s the testimonial of Karl McHugh, which is a deeply fascinating story. Karl McHugh is an alias by the way, although I’m spelling his first and second names differently in order to protect his identity. His first conscious encounter took place roughly three weeks ago and luckily I managed to get it into the book at the last minute.

So. Karl was out, innocently walking his Chihuahuas in the local park, when all of a sudden he has this feeling, which will be quite familiar to a lot of you, I think, of being ‘activated.’ In fact, Karl told me he was ‘turned on.’ So now, he feels strangely drawn to a particular area of town. Before you know it, he was outside a glowing archway which he now with hindsight thinks must have been their ship. As if in a trance, he stepped on board the vessel and found himself in a dark, ominous environment, utterly alien to his experience. All around were strange flashing lights and this pounding industrial rhythmic noise - almost like music!

At this point Karl was approached by a number of Nordic alien males, who were engaged in an eerie occult dance which he said was quite queer to behold. His primary recollection was that most of them were incredibly muscular and dressed in leather – which seems to be quite a common uniform for them. Some had moustaches, which is less common in witness reports… but these ones did. Some of them, also, were very androgynous in appearance - I mean, with these beings, you just can’t tell what they are!

One of them presented Karl with an unusual fizzing potion that made him feel unexpectedly dizzy. Now he was in an altered state, very much in thrall to their whims. That’s the mind control in action again, by the way…

Karl remembers very little after he was encouraged to partake of the strange drink, but his next conscious recollection was waking up behind a bush, back in the park where the encounter had first begun, with his Chihuahuas still there and looking at him in a state of very deep confusion. Although, after returning home weary and exhausted, Karl did find a souvenir from his experience in his jacket pocket. And I have this artefact from another world with me tonight, ladies and gentlemen. And here… it is.

(HURLE produces the object)

Now, what I believe we’re looking at here is some very sophisticated stuff. I will soon be approaching some proper actual scientists to see if they can have a look at this and verify whether or not this device is in fact made out of materials not common to Earth. Our suspicion is that this is either a small scale model of the alien vessel, or perhaps even some kind of power source.

(The device begins to vibrate)

And – oh… ladies and gentlemen, this is quite disturbing – this machine suddenly seems to be coming into activation… and – good grief… the shaft of it… is vibrating! Quite rapidly! Ladies and gentlemen… I do believe we might all right now be experiencing… a new vibration of humanity!

(various sounds of movement as guests leave the hall)

Psychogeographical Field Trip - City Construct: Eden Burrow

MINDLINK PENDING… achieved  

UPLOAD OF HYPERLENSES PENDING… achieved

Transtemporal mission log - uploaded by Chronosentry Quinsar (Cydonia node of Psycojog Empire).

The primary outcome of this incursion onto enemy territory is to assess opportunities for Psycojog invasion of the humanoid construct designated ‘City: Eden Burrow.’ Ideally this will take the form of a stealth-mode invasion across time. Chronosentry lensfindings follow.

(For the purposes of this datablink, the 5 highlighted lenses afford an associative and interconnected cross-section of City in question. Achromatic eight-in-one flashthrough is operational.) 

Mission objective is to identify who will kill the city in the future. Focalized precogging has predicted a multipossible that the city will-and-will-not be destroyed in 2113. A floating undecidable. Many coggers could not handle and selfploded. Now will attempt transtemporal analysis of city health to discover overall fate.

1. Beginning exploration of humanoid construct Eden Burrow. Coordinates locked on to supposed locus of humanoid control mechanisms, ‘Scottish Parliament.’ Also detonation point of Chromobomb that is believed to have destroyed city. Fixed-point touchdown briefly coincides with nightcycle. Cityghost presence strong - one of many warring factions and potential enemy obstructions in city. Many different messages of control are being sent. Engaging psychic countermeasures. Will be necessary to advance interaction with other transtemporal spirit entities.

2. Cityghosts flee to mass around parliament locus. A mechanical island fallen from the sky in the future, a crashed and smouldering wreck. This is ground zero of the blast radius. Cityghosts mine it for intent. They are unseen by the humatons but are constantly at war with them, seeking to obstruct their progress - muddling their message. Being of Small Time, the humatons on this plane operate only as biowalkers - unable to see beyond clockstopped limitations of their realm. Those of Big Time walk above and battle always for supremacy.

3. First signs of biowalker technology designed to obstruct carporters - native vehicular intelligences of city. Also first forthcoming evidence of runespeak - primitive higher language of biowalker mystics. Appropriate use of runespeak allows for basic biowalker access to Big Time consciousness. Nearby at ‘palace of royalty’ there is little indication of consciousness. 

4. Talkboard ‘Everyone home safe every day’ reassures biowalkers that ‘you are here.’ Cognitive dissonance is achieved through deployment of contradictory phrase ‘Can’t: level.’

5. Early signs of city breakage. Ground level is infirm. Wounds in stone flesh attract tubefeeders and cellular infection spreads.

6. CIGS: runespeak acrospell conjured by solitary biowalker mystic. Stands for Cohesive Integrated Gigantic Smashface. I have no further data on this.

7. Speedworm overlane. Talkboard communicating futureslipped message predicts eventual of fate overlane: ‘GIVE WAY.’

8. ‘PERMIT’ runespeak. Allows biowalker passage down assigned travellanes. Big Time intelligences are mainly responsibly for implementation of language-based control systems.

 

9. Having strayed from its designated safe-territories, a balanceboard is time-murdered for attempted lanecrossing. Balanceboards are not permitted to perambulate.

10. Greenfeelers feed on the decaying carcass of an oldpass; re-wiring its travel coordinates. 

11.  Cargo-cult mechanoids, recovered by biowalkers and erected in paean to long-extinct sky-gods.

12. Nuugrafficks engage in slow-time conflict with elder surfaces. The result is a near-permanent stalemate of colour chaos.

13. Deceased Talkboard. Killed by excessive sensitivity to carporter motion.

14. Further extant manifestations of biowalker runespeak.



15. Native animal spirits, summoned via nuugraffick ritual, guard passing humanoids from malicious cityghost intent.

16. Activation of central city defences at site of neverending conflict called ‘Leaf War.’ Designated causal disaster zone. 

17. Armoured buildings attempt to protect their pastselves from cityghost reprogramming. Counter-intuitive interdimensional malware hacks and infects oldstone with self-replicating glassteel nanotech which regenerates city edifices into strange new forms - which echo past impressions without resembling them exactly.

18. Here buildings become sad and detach from gravitational constraints. This ongoing contradiction of time is predicted to cause a chain reaction and culminate in a self-haunting citydeath event in 2113 that will completely annihilate and permanently remove the temporal image of Eden Burrow from the prima worldarc.

19. Walls burn with runespeak layers, illustrating the conflicts of City. Being themselves negative astral imprints of unresolved humaton though processes, the cityghosts are perpetually locked into a cyclical deathmatch with the environment that originally created them - which continues to endure, persist and evolve where they cannot. As it attempts to evolve naturally in co-creation with biowalkers, carporters and other more benevolent spirit intelligences, the indelible shadow of cityghost thought re-writes, overwrites or deletes its memory of earlier versions. 

20. Cybrid Elefffant infantry defend the region on behalf of cityghosts. Henceforth, the cityghosts’ ultimate attacking goal is the deletion of the cityheart at the height of miles: the Remembering Stone Which Endures And Protects City. This wrongtime energy manifests itself as City tries to cloak itself from ghost attack. It is present in the travellane-dwelling biowalkers - many of their number cast adrift by soul mismanagement. Primarily it is in the disruption; drilling, hammering, beeping. Ebb and flow. Noise of City is noise of its beginning and end. 

21. cityghosts have a constant presence and police the travellanes by means of their stopgo system. Stopgos are limited-capacity AIs tasked only with mediating between the oppositional movements of both humanoids and carporters.

22. Leaving the war zone. Carporters are disincorporated mid-flight as they attempt to escape the conflict.

23. In isolated areas outside of the main war zone, small pockets of humaton resistance have managed to use the cityghosts’ own glassteel tech against them. Here a cityghost stands trapped behind an makeshift Armani field; its purpose negated by contradictory ideas of beauty and perfection.

28. This baby binface has been hiding the whole time. It is afraid, but safe.

25. Greenfeelers have solidarity for unchanging homeshapes. The two exchange memories, unite and combine to fight.

26. I am stunned by a message from afar. CHURCH HOUSE is here. CHURCH HOUSE could help turn the tide of this war.

27. CHURCH HOUSE activates runespeak on nearby talkboards. ‘Please treat the trees with care’ incantation gives new power to green feelers.

28. CHURCH HOUSE energy breaks the forced labour camps and frees a million bin faces who join the struggle Overjoyed, the baby binface I previously encountered is reunited with its parental units. 

29. Cityghosts are in retreat. Not for ever but for now. Eternal structures and memory shapes of CHURCH HOUSE are reinstalled and reinstated in new defence of old.

30... 46? I think this is a mistake.

31. City has ended. It gives way to the sea. I have kept ambulating until the die-off; except the city is not dead. It lives and dies in paradox. 

32. City sends me a message. My mission here is accomplished; I must return to the distant bank of stars from whence I came.

33. Another communication - Alien! Rock! Thank you, city! I hope I do your story justice!

34. Initiating launch coordinates. Destination Cydonia node, Psycojog empire. I shall return to Eden Burrow in 100 cycles. Remaining now-peaceful cityghosts send me a goodbye message. It goes, 666,666, 6 66. I’m not sure what that means.

35. Final lens portion. Cityghosts drift on into the night. They raise hands in worship to all that is old, all that is new. Integration. Cities can die but they know how to survive. This one must be kept under watch, always.

THE STRANGE NOISE OF TURBULENCE IN THE SEA - a novel segment

Okay, so in the wake of one novel here comes a bit of another. The only difference in this instance is that this one isn't 100 percent finished. In fact, this bit here is really the only bit of it that is. The idea is that I'm going to try and write new lumps of this every day and let it evolve in a more broken-up, non-linear way. This chapter is surprisingly linear, so hopefully makes perfect sense on its own. It may equally work as a short story. It's either going to be called 'The Strange Noise Of Turbulence In The Sea' or 'Hotel Novel.' Okay, that last one is only a floating nebulous working title. Like you couldn't guess that yourself...

Neil went to let himself into the flat but found the front door locked. He was a bit pissed off seeing as how he had left the hotel twenty-odd minutes ago only now to discover there was no-one in. And, seeing as how there were three people living there with only two keys allocated to them - an impenetrable piece of hotel politics he had yet to fathom - it was necessary to go all the way back to the hotel in order to find Donny and get a key off of him. This meant another dull march through the expected vistas of the village.
Going down the front and along the high street - such as it was - Neil spotted old Henry coming out of the newsagent. The doddering old bastard was temporarily curtailed in his activities by some American tourists who, while also coming out of the newsagents, decided to do that typical American tourist thing of stopping dead where they were to take in the view and - being vaguely obese as some Americans often were - get in everybody’s way.
Old Henry became trapped like a tragic woodlouse somewhere between the Americans, the postcard stand and some further individuals coming out of the shop. He put his head down and waited patiently for something to happen.
Nothing happened. The tourists seemed to be enraptured by the mountainous sight to be seen on such a clear and balmy day out across the water.
‘Scuse me pal,’ a voice familiar to Neil sounded from back in the shop. ’Would y’mind movin yir erse a wee bit so the rest ay us can get oot ay here? Ah ken it’s a village an aw, but no all ay us are oan holiday, y’ken!’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, madam.’ the largest and most ebullient of the Americans responded. ‘I am truly sorry. I was just admiring that magnificent view out there across the bay!’
‘It’s no a bay,’ old Henry announced, beginning to move his small yet lumbering frame back into action. ‘It’s a fuckin’ pier. Get yir facts straight.’
Grinning like a loon at the local drama, the lead American and his presumed brood backed off to allow the others passage. ‘Boy, you sure do got some colourful characters here!’ the American said to the woman coming out of the shop, as old Henry turned and made a beeline for the pub, his usual port of call on an afternoon.
Marian emerged from the shop doorway. She was fiddling with her purse and grimacing into the light. ‘Aye, an a bet you’ve no been doon the Captain’s Arms at closing time yet either,’ she barked at the tourists. ‘Gie that a go the night, pal, an you’ll see characters so colourful you’ll wish ye were colourblind.’
The Americans chortled at Marian’s turn of phrase and slowly began to drift off in the direction of the nearest tartan-adorned gift-shop. Thankfully for them, there was one immediately next to the newsagent, so they didn’t have to go far. Such are the advantages of villages.
All the time this eventful non-event was going on, in Neil’s head there was still the idea of her; Jasmine-something. As she had been that night. The girl he had talked to for two hours, yet so foolishly had failed to confirm either her name, her email, or a whole lot else.
This had of course been the Captain’s Arms. Usually the haunt of ugly old shites like Henry, hotel flotsam, sloshed fishermen and the legendary gang of glammed-up harpies from the supermarket. On this rare night, Neil had found himself at first far too bored to even progress on to a second pint. Unperturbed by the initially sombre atmosphere, Donny managed to work his way through about seven beers before last orders; and on the momentous occasion of what the DJ suspiciously referred to as ‘disco-time’ lurching into the lounge area at about nine, Donny had taken this as a sign for him to start slow-dancing with the pub’s golden retriever; fairly atypical behaviour even for him. Somehow, Monday night had turned into Funday night.
Jasmine. Although of course that hadn’t even really been her name. Might it have been Jessamine? Was that even a name?
She had been perched next to him at the right-hand side of the bar; by far the best place from whence to observe the sordid occurrences involving disco-time, and the dancing and karaoke spectaculars that regularly went on of a night. What she had been doing there at all was something of a mystery to Neil; she had been on her own - attractive, demure, impeccably dressed and unfailingly polite - despite being surrounded, to an almost meancing extent, by the cream of Scotland’s worst alcoholic degenerates. Despite all of this, and despite Neil’s usual self-imagined lack of tact and charisma, they had talked.
He had found out after a time that she was from some unpronounceable suburb of Paris. She also knew an unbelievably vast amount about movies - although these had mainly all been French movies, so such a potential deal-clincher had left Neil a little bit lost on many points; although, reassuringly, they did come to agree after a fashion that most movies were ultimately a bit crap, and so rarely reflected anything that ever happened in the real world. She also kept touching his shoulder affectionately and grabbing onto his wrist while she laughed; not something Neil was used to by any stretch, but also still no guarantee of anything other than that she was European, and perhaps just a little more tactile than the average village girls who weren’t always exceptionally drunk. Neil expected more people would interrupt them, or stare and make snide remarks, but weirdly this never happened for those too-short two hours. Then closing time had rolled around and they had gone their separate ways; his mystery woman declaring she would be ‘around’ for a few more weeks - but despite having had hardly anything to drink, Neil struggled to recall the exact details of her location and placement in the village as anything other than frustratingly vague.
But all this would surely come to nothing. Knowing Neil’s usual luck, the girl would not turn out to be any kind of a local. The locals were always the ugly and psychologically unbalanced ones - hence their inevitably electing to come to the village in the first instance, get jobs in the supermarket and stay for indefinite years on end. Neil often wondered if any of the locals had ever not been ugly and psychologically unbalanced; or if such a constitution was perhaps something they were duty-bound to pick up on the way in; like some sort of area-specific witches’ curse.



Neil tried to focus his mind on the short journey ahead to the hotel and back to the flat, but got distracted by Marian surging out of the newsagents. She gave Neil a brusque nod.
‘Awright, Neil. How’d you go this morning? It wis the restaurant you were in?’
‘Aye. No that bad, all things considering.’ Neil answered, briefly reviewing the morning’s exciting goings-on. ‘Went quite smoothly. Pretty much done by eight. Did get some miserable bastards moaning about the toast again though.’
Marian gave a conspiratorial smirk. ‘Table twenty-two?’
‘Aye. You got it.’
‘Been here aw week. Typical soor-faced cunts. Wurnae happy aboot the steak last night either. Some people jist go oan holiday tae complain. Dinnae have tae tell you that, though, Neil. You’re a seasoned veteran.’
Neil took the remark as a compliment; of what sort he was not sure. ‘Aye. I suppose so, Marian. Are you on the night?’
Marian spread her hands in supplication. When am ah no? But is anybody gonnae gie me a night off? Never. Isnae in His list o’ immediate priorities. I tell you, Neil, Ah’ve jist aboot had it wi’ this place! Anyway, ah’m wasting your break-time, I’ll see you later. Ah’m off tae see what Hubby wants, for this stupid party thing. Mair responsibilities…’
Marian disappeared up the high street at her typical rushed pace. Realising he had become distracted in his progress back to the hotel, Neil resumed his normal route down the high street, up the dingy back-alley leading across the park, past the leisure centre and back to the hotel. There were no further dramas on the route; unless you counted the old drunk standing next to the mobile cinema and swaying, with a look of fixed concentration on his face; as if he was seeing some ghost-movie projected out of the van and onto his eyes alone.
Neil got to the hotel, slipped in the back door and went down several dreary hallways lit by questionably dim bulbs until he reached the back of the main kitchen.
Inside and at the dishwash area, Donny was bent drastically over the big back sink where he seemed to be attempting to give the plug-hole some form of brutal sexual attention it certainly had not asked for. The hot tap was on full burst and steam billowed everywhere.
‘Donny man, what the hell are you doing in there?’
Donny’s sweat-flecked brow emerged stressed from the sink. ‘This fucker’s bunged again! I telt that Vladimir no tae pour oil doon it, but he disnae hear you!
‘Have you got the plunger?’
‘Bugger that, Neil, I’m usin’ ma fingers. Always best that way.’
‘That’s what you tell all the girls, though!’
‘Aye, ye ken that’s the truth. Never mind that though, what aboot you and that Belgian bird?’
Neil felt a pang of nostalgia; even though it had been only two hours, three nights ago. He had barely been thinking about anything else since.
‘She wisnae Belgian, Donny. That was the other one. Mind? The one who looked a bit like Amy Winehouse?’
‘Oh aye, ah mind - the minger!’
‘She wisnae a minger, Donny. Your understanding of women classifies them into two distinct camps, neither of which are especially accurate.’
‘Aye. Mingers and swingers!’ He shook his head and boggled his eyes by way of explanation. ‘There’s nae need for any other form of classification! If they’re mingers, you gie them a wide berth! If they’re swingers, though…’ Donny made a disturbing and perhaps inappropriate fist which he proceeded to pump in a manner Charles Atlas might have considered employing had he, at some point in his no-doubt estimable life, been a over-excitable Glaswegian ned washing dishes in a highland hotel kitchen.
‘Then, WHA-HEEYY!’ Donny continued, confirming the maths of his equation with a heroic and now double-fisted pose. ‘Oaf ya go! Mingers oot, swingers in! Come OOONN!!! I telt ya, Neil, learn the rules! Git them in yir noggin! They’ll set you in gid stead fir the rest ay yir miserable, self-pityin’ life. Huv ya no phoned her yet?’
Neil produced a huffy snort of irritation. ‘Look, I huvnae got time for your weird mind, Donny. I need the keys.’
Donny broke from his bodybuilding poses to pull a questioning frown. ‘Is Graham no in?’
‘Naw, he isnae! Mind he went away the other night? Off to Dingwall to see a man about a car? Don’t think he kens where he’s going half the time. Took his key with him. Come on, I cannae hang around here on my off-day, watching you getting creative with your fingers.’
Donny now looked slightly disappointed. He peered back into the still-steaming sink unit.
‘Aw look, man,’ he declared, excited. ‘It’s goin’ doon the plughole. At last… But aw this weird slime’s comin’ oot an aw. Now that is whit ah wid call minging.’
A threatening lump of a heap with wild ginger hair and an expression that suggested consistent and sustained periods of heavy drug use leaned out of through the arch that led into the main part of the kitchen. ‘Haw, fannybaws! Stop arsing aboot wi’ that sink and wash some pots ya skiving’ bastard!’
This was Mark the head chef; whose appearance and general demeanour was that of a wine-starved derelict but who in all actuality could sometimes be quite a decent bloke. Although only sometimes.
‘As for yir mysterious slime there,’ Mark continued, gazing down at his underling on sink duty, ‘That’ll be that Vladimir. He’s been spunking his freaky Polish load in there when nobody’s been lookin. I myself reserve ma ain spunk fur the main course. Or a wee bit o’ garnish fur the starters. Nuthin like a wee bit o’ extra special bonus flavourin’ fur those miserable English bastards.’
‘My dad’s English, Mark.’ Neil deadpanned, reluctantly joining in on the hilarity. ‘I’ll have you arrested for bigotry.’
‘And what in hell’s name are you doing here, Neil?’ Mark continued. ‘Have you come to witness the world’s fastest pot-monkey break his own record of only wan pot washed per hour? The people fae the Guinness Book ae Records are comin’ doon here soon wi’ thir stopwatches, Donny, ma boy, so you’d better get a shifty oan, ya big speed-machine, ye!’
Looking browbeaten by his boss’s overbearing verbal assault, Donny pulled his key from his pocket, chucked it to Neil and bent back over the sink, his attention gone from making bizarre wrestling poses and back to the far-more-persuasive lumps of bacon burned so lovingly onto several metal trays by the new breakfast chef.
There was a moment’s quiet punctuated only by the incessant drone of the extractor fans. Still leaning into the pot-wash area, Mark gave Neil a cheeky thumbs-up, before skelping the bent-over Donny on the arse with one of his ever-present kitchen cloths.
Donny’s reaction sent several washed trays clattering onto the floor. He spun around in a combination of alarm and confusion, his face now completely red.
‘Fuck’s sake, man! That’s no a joke! That wis painful! Away back tae yir paperwork, ya fuckin’ bully!’
Mark cackled like a oversized camp schoolboy. ‘Oh, you love it, big boy! I’d ask you to chase me at this point, but that widnae be very responsible o’ me in a kitchen, noo, wid it? Health and safety, an aw that.’
Sighing a sigh of despair turned all the way up to eleven, Neil glowered at the cavorting pair of lunatics in their steamy cavern of ineptitude for a few more seconds before turning and leaving.
Maybe, if I see her again, he thought, as he made his way back down the ill-lit staff corridor that lead out of the hotel and back into so-temporary freedom, I could introduce her to my friends.
Then again, I could always just punch her, scream at her and vomit in her face. That’d probably put me in with a better chance. Round here, that’s first base. Arse-skelping is only second.