Each midnight, Trumpet Forsyth leans out of his sixth floor bedroom window and blows out his horn. The first notes are avant-garde and complicated, angry, like his Guernica is inhabited by limbless limbo dancers and drowning hands. The next series of notes are big-nosed-Sonny-Rollins-sax, then tall and meditative, and after that a little fruitless like a man growing wings to turn into a penguin that will never fly.
By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.
I knew I was one of them the day “Hey, Patty Patty!” turned into “Hey, Party Patty!”
I started watching the park people my junior year of high school. The park separated my school and the public library with its sprawling lawns, leisure center pool and colorful, plastic playgrounds with turtles that sprouted waterfalls. I would walk through it everyday instead of attending sixth period, to pore through the Dewey Decimel stacks on my own terms. One day the main park person asked me my name and the rest of them started screaming “Hey Patty Patty” for a while everyday. I would smile shyly while continuing on to my haven of books and silence.
I always figured “why bother” with my education. No one else gave a hoot.
By Kimberly Nichols.
‘Sssssand shark, it’sssss a sssssand shark,’ hissssssed the snake.
Dad went to have a closer look. The stinking sand shark bit. He came back with the kite but without his hand.
‘That takes the biscuit,’ sobbed Dad.
‘That took your hand,’ corrected the featureless child.
Dad looked at him for a moment. ‘I understood that bit, lad, you’re right. Good to hear you talk normal for a change.’
By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.
I didn’t mean it, but I felt myself getting stiffer in my trousers. The kraken had woken. I could feel it now, pressing on the zip. Pressing hard on the zip. I remembered how I’d spilt some piss before, thinking that I’d finished my tinkle when I hadn’t. But that didn’t stop me. I badly had the horn. I guess it was the heat. It had finally got to me. The air tasted of sex. And barbecues. Yes, it was one horny fucking evening. Sweat dripped into my eyes from my forehead. Sweat trickled around my mouth. I was getting close to them now. I looked the girls up and down, from feet to hair to feet again, via legs. I wanted to grab those nice breasts. I let out a kind of sigh. One girl was darker skinned than the other and her cleavage was glorious. She was staring at me. Trying to smack me with her eyes. I looked away quickly, but it was no use.
By Sam Jordison.
Another disaster programme done and dusted; and the anchor man made of slime and Milk Tray slips away to relax in the park. Clothes off, neck hair swept back, his metamorphosis into a creeping creeper creep happens within his own moving fog of smug. His form glides as much as it hunches, his eye is cow like, his head that of an antelope. When he arrives in the park proper he sets about worrying the deer by whispering crime statistics and the phrase ‘buckled Austin Princess’ into their hot felt like ears. ‘Bastards’ is a word he savours for unsettling the stags, their bony coat stands tensing as if they might rut and cut at any moment.
By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.
Did you bring a hammer for the pegs, Brendan?
Did I what?
Did you bring a hammer for the pegs, Brendan?
Yes, that’s why I’m using my fists to bang them in.
Well they’re not going in, Brendan. If you’d brought the hammer like I told you to . . .
Like I told you to? I don’t remember you telling me anything.
Well I did tell you, Brendan. You just never listen.
The rare butterfly arrives on a flipping flapping flap of canvas.
Well I’m not listening now.
By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.
Big taxi mouth, Barney Eggleston, got himself and his pooch kicked out of a London cab for mouthing the dirty. Not only that, but a big tit was dancing on the roof of the cab and taking the St Michael, so he let it have one with a five note concord straight in the beak. A right bloody mess. In the melee, his pooch only went and got himself on the wrong side of the river.
After things had gone down tits up, Barney was straight on the blow to his missus: ‘Andy, listen up; the dog’s bollocks only gone and got himself on the wrong side of the river.’
By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.
I am here watching this pathetic man I once loved drone on with his views on politics with his views on music with his views on work with his views on housework with his views on television with his views on women with his views on men with his views on friendship with his views on money with his views on alcohol with his views on family with his views on books with his views on health with his views on fitness with his views on children with his views on travel with his views on cooking with his views on charity with his views on relationships with his views on himself with his views on me . . .
By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.
In my squatting position, two feet appeared beside me on the pavement. Shoeless. Toes hairy. Nails cracked and overgrown. I looked up, then stood up. The man was about my age, but with a beard, and with heavy, black-framed glasses. A broad smile revealed perfect white teeth. He wore nothing but a pair of underpants. “Are you looking for the brick?” he asked again. “Yes,” I said, taking a step away from him, trying not to reveal my alarm, feeling around in the air for my daughter’s hand. “We are.” “We?” he said.
By Neil Baker.
In the pub, Gordon the bore boar is telling Melissa the pisser about his day of drinking.
You didn’t get naughty, did you Gord?
I’m afraid I did, Melissa. The cat had got in through the window whilst I was crouching under the bar making noises with my feet. I thought it was eyeing the fish from the aquarium.
What exactly did you do?
I ate the cat, silly; what else could I do? Five catty Cutty Sarks and a ginger cat ale and it was digested, fur ball and all.
By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.
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