The Twelfth

I take a drag on my cigarette and look out into the rain. I’m searching through the downpour for the metal beast of Singapore; common and friendly. Under this shelter that protects your head but not your ankles, cigarette in my mouth, I wait for this metal beast. With its cold breath, and turning legs it’s my transport to its father. The bigger stronger metal beast that is stuck to the lines, forever going in circles. I wait patiently, along with the others. There’s a young Chinese couple, an Indian guy and an older Chinese gentleman. I’m the only white face in this part of this foreign land. We’re all dressed for the tropical heat, and the coolness the rain brings with it is welcomed. I finish the last drag of my cigarette and take the two steps to the rubbish bin and back quickly, yet still managing to get soaked in gods piss, raining down from the heavens. The Indian guy has got impatient and called on one of the metal beast’s baby cousins. They float by regularly, their eye green or red depending on if they’re hungry. He’s too eager this Indian fellow, for before he can swim from the shelter and into the back of baby cousin the great white metal beast rolls up behind. The little guy takes off in a hurry, as if big cousin is going to get angry. Then big cousin pulls up to the curb, opening his three mouths he spills forth a gaggle of Chinese school children chattering away as we that were left step into his cool belly.

I push my wallet past one of his inside eyes, and hear his beep of thanks. He’s taken a dollar, a small token to pay for a ride out of the rain and in his cool continuous breath. We aren’t the only ones in the belly of the beast. Most of the seats, his ribs perhaps, are taken. So I stand in his tail joint, his tail is the same size and shape as his body. It’s as if they have taken the head off one and connected it to the arse of this one. And with ribs of its own, packed with people. I’m standing opposite a girl, Indian and pretty, if not for her skin. Pocked and marked by acne, she still has the light inside that makes her pretty to those not so plastic. Flashing me a shy smile she looks away and starts studying the pattern of the rain on the beast’s clear skin. I do the same. The beast lumbers on through the rain, turning every so often. The joint rotating, bringing me closer to the girl, then away again as the corner is completed. I study the others in the belly. Just a short journey, everyone with the same intentions, on their way to different destinations. The beast stops occasionally, to allow more people in and more people out, until it makes a final stop on this circular journey. Outside another of the shelters braves the rain, waiting for the inevitable vomiting of the beasts that stop. And this one does, everyone leaving their rib-seats and making their way to one of the beasts mouths. Sicking up people onto the footpath outside, the rain making rivers that run through the feet of the shelter and then join in the gutter; perhaps running off to join the clouds once more. I step out and lose myself in the people. Still the only pale face in a sea of Asiatic influences. The last time I ride one of those great metal beasts today I stride of in search of his father.

The Eleventh

That day, on that hill, by that bay, a lot of things went wrong. That’s how I ended up here, in this little room with the fan blowing the hot air around. I was lying on the bed, watching the ceiling fan make its lazy circles, it didn’t achieve much. Just wafted the smoke into larger circles, it had been two years since that hill. Willy and I had sat at the top and smoked a cigarette each, silently. Just looking down into that bay, staring at the tents. There was about four of them, arranged in a circle around the still smoking fire. How they had that fire still going was a mystery to me, it had rained pretty heavily not more than an hour ago. At least it meant they had no idea we were here. I took the binoculars from Willy and focused them on the man standing by the fire. He was talking to a couple of the others, his lips moving silently. I knew what he would be saying; I had sat through enough of his pep talks to know what was passing from his lips. Perhaps not word for word, but the ideas at least. This man was a problem, he had almost single handedly plunged this small nation into a vicious civil war. Granted he didn’t do it alone, but this was the man who had started it all. A vicious killer, and he looked it too. With his shaggy beard, rough and unkempt. Always with a cheroot dangling from the corner of his mouth and a harsh word passing those thin lips. This was going to be his last day alive, in some ways it was the last day I lived as well. Miguel Santiago. I had known him since I was a boy. We shared the same birthday, as well as the same room on the dusty streets of Luz de Guìa. A little nowhere town where the road crossed Rio de los Condenados, originally a ferry town it was now a bustling little shit hole. Four taverns and three streets of death. If you were lucky enough to be born there, you generally stayed there. Not Miguel though, nor I. He’d taken me for a rough ride that one.

I was rudely jerked back from those hazy memories by a knock at the door; I lifted Seguridad, my sawn off shotgun, from the bedside table and made my way over to the door. Opening it as far as the chain would allow I found myself staring down the muzzle of a .45 so I put both barrels through the door; shoot first, questions later. There’s something the Americans got right I thought as I dropped Seguridad and dived for Los Luminoso, my .50 cal desert eagle. Part of a pair that had been given to me years ago, her other half was El Sombrìo. El Sombrìo was long gone, lost that day on that hill. With Los Luminoso in my hand I leapt out the second story window, my fall broken by the shadow cloth of the fruit market below. As I struggled to untangle myself from the thick canvas, whoever had been at my door opened fire from above. I was lucky to get out alive. But I managed it, somehow, and was swiftly around the corner to my motorbike. I heard yelling coming from the room I had spent the last couple of nights in. I couldn’t make out what was being said but it was angry. Sitting astride my bike in the alleyway I jumped on the kick-start and she didn’t make a noise. No thundering roar, nothing. That’s when he spoke up ‘going somewhere?’ he said from the shadows. I didn’t recognise the voice at first; it had been so long since I heard it. Then he stepped out from the doorway, the first thing I saw was the pistol. It’s muzzle strong and familiar though the wrong end to be staring at, the shine of the metal had not been lost even though it was now scuffed and scratched. I had seen this weapon before; it matched the one that was in my own hand. We stood like this for perhaps a minute, Los Luminoso facing down El Sombrìo. I couldn’t understand how this had come to be.

Two years earlier on that hill, by that bay, two figures lost in the tangle of bush and jungle finish their cigarettes. One of them raises a rifle to his shoulder, the other a set of binoculars to his face. The one with the binoculars starts mumbling directions, wind speed, distance and the like, to the other; who’s only response is to change his aim slightly. The mumbling changes, it’s now just one word that’s said softly three times. ‘Fire, fire, fire.’ After the third call a single shots booms out over the bay and the man with the beard clutches his shoulder trying to pull the hurt out of him as he falls. Lost in a splash the man disappears from the scope of the rifle. There’s alot more movement from the camp now as the one with the binoculars says ‘hit’ and then the bolt is worked on the rifle and that word repeated again. ‘Fire, fire, fire.’ Followed by another crack as another man falls. Then there’s another shot, from another team on another hill. The rifles keep barking, as if they’re speaking to one another. And soon the small camp in the bay is still, the rifles having finished their macabre work. Then the men stand and start to make their way down the hill, the rain starting to fall again. When they get to the camp bodies are counted, faces examined. Their primary target is not amongst them. The man from Rio de los Condenados is missing, presumed dead.

‘How much did they pay you?’ the man not even hours older than I asked, his eyes showing his disgust with me. ‘It makes no difference, whether you answer or not.’ He spat after I didn’t reply, and then he shot me. A bang followed by the thump of my body as I hit the dirt. Pain leapt from my shoulder, lightning radiated out from where the bullet entered. I grunted as I tried to raise myself up, Los Luminoso heavy in my hand; El Sombrìo biting at my forehead. ‘You betrayed your country for a little gold? a promise of amnesty? what?’ Miguel was still talking. ‘You betrayed me, and look where it took you? You broke my heart’ those were the last words I heard, for El Sombrìo spat once more and took with it the back of my head. The last thing I saw was Miguel’s face, tears running down each cheek. That must have been what I looked like, tears rolling through the dust on my own face as I saw what I had killed, as I realised what exactly went wrong that day, on that hill, by that bay.

The Tenth

I found her alone on the beach, just sitting there staring off into space. Literally. She was sitting on a slight raise and smoking. I was walking alone up the beach and had seen her from quite a way back. I had been watching her. She was pretty, not your insanely hot plastic Hollywood pretty, but an earthly beauty that seemed to come from within. She had long blonde dreads that had all sorts of beads and shells attached to them. As I got closer I could see she was smoking and she turned her head towards me, offering me a smile then some of her smoke. In return I gave her one of my smiles, I hoped it said thank you, and sat down next to her taking the lit smoke from her long gentle fingers. I took a puff and closed my eyes, ‘hi’ I said as I exhaled. A plume of grey blue smoke lifting into the air, it seemed to hang around, joining the smoke in that still evening air; as she passed back her own greeting in a light easy voice that seemed to settle into the cloud of wafting smoke. I took another drag and passed the smoke back to her and leaning back I asked her why she was sitting on her own at the end of a beach. In her soft gentle voice she explained that she was often to be found sitting alone, usually on a beach, but if there was no beach then in a park, under a tree. Somewhere she could have something earthly beneath her as she contemplated.

Staring into the sky and getting more relaxed as time ticked over I thought this through. It made sense, to have that connection to something earthly while you consider everything around you. Grounding your thoughts with the knowledge that you are where you are and would rather be nowhere else. So I asked her what she had been contemplating. She smiled, lay back beside me and passed the smoke before she begun. ‘Life, the cosmos. Why we’re here, underneath this empty expanse, locked in among these trees, buildings, people. Even why I’m in this place at this time.’ Then she turned and looked at me ‘why you run into who you run into, where you do. There are many things, and they don’t really fit together, but at the same time there is no other way that they could fit.’ ‘Ah, the mysteries of life.’ I let it slide out of me, gently slipping down until it settled in the hollow between us, staking it’s claim as an unknown.

We sat for a while and just watched the stars starting to show through, lost in our own thoughts. There were only a few at first, random scatters of silvery brightness in a fast darkening sky. Some clung to the edges of a sky that was red with the setting sun. Whisps of cloud showed up the red of the setting sun and the sky darkened as it stretched out from the horizon. I don’t know about her thoughts, but mine followed the sky. We lay like this for a long time. As the darkness grew so did the shining points of light. Little diamonds sparkling in the night sky, with the soft breeze coming off the sea we were content. At that point in time it didn’t matter what was going on outside our little sphere; everything was fine, and we lost ourselves together and alone in that one moment.

The Ninth

Sand worked its way into my ears, nose and mouth. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant experience. For some reason this was nice, comforting. I had always lived underground, in tunnels and caves. I didn’t pass my digging class at school because I had too many cave ins, that’s when the roof of the tunnel you’re digging is unable to support the dirt, rocks, or whatever is on top so it drops on your head. Now, I knew what I was doing. I’d done my homework and with my knowledge of dirt structure and consistency I was second to none. The first 99 per cent pass grade ever issued, so I knew exactly what I was doing. So I had no problems finding the sandy part of the terrain we were allotted for digging practise, or tests; and I couldn’t help myself. There was just something about the way the little grains of sand felt as they ran over my skin, the pressure from above forcing them into my ears, the tickling sensation as they slipped up my nostrils, and the slightly dirty taste as they broke past my lips and mixed with the saliva in my mouth.

There was nothing I could do about it. Every time I went digging, and I was put on remedial's for this, I had to find the sandiest part and collapse it onto myself. Sometimes I’d start out saying to myself ‘Not this time. This time it’s important I do it right, everyone’s watching’ and they were. But I just couldn’t stop myself, I’d start off well. Moving forward at the correct rate, my spade-like limbs pushing dirt and scree either side. Creating little piles to be carried out by the carrier bugs, and then I’d get a whiff. Just the faintest smell of sand would get into my nose. I’d stop, and sniff again; making sure that was in fact what I could smell. Then I’d drop to my knees and lower my head; knowing where this was going. Sometimes I’d stay on my knees for quite some time; sometimes I’d start shivering or break out in a cold sweat or even both. And always it ended in the same way. One of the carrier bugs would say something, just a grunt. A little like a pig trying to dig up some delightful truffle and I’d jump, surprised out of my stupor by the noise. Then I’d start to dig again. First off in the same direction, then I’d bend the tunnel slightly, ever so slightly. They wouldn’t notice, they never did, and I’d continue on my way. The praise of the watchers sitting in the back of my mind as I kept digging; more of an angle now.

Then the smell would get me, and I’d start digging faster. Shivering with anticipation I’d dig my shovel hands into the dirt with wild abandon, not caring if there was a rock in the way. I’d scoop like mad, until I got right into the thick of the sand-spot. That’s when I’d do it. Put my giant scoops out on either side and slowly rip away at the walls. This was one of my favourite parts. I’d gently tear at the walls until I heard the earth above me groan, I’d smile because I knew what was coming next, and a little of the roof would come down on my head. Then all of a sudden the whole roof would have buried me, I would be plunged into a dark place. My ear lights blocked off by the sand around. The glorious feeling of sand. Beautiful sand, getting deep into my ears. The little beads rolling up my nose, just so they could tickle the hairs there. More and more of them teaming up to slip over my teeth, the slight crunchiness of each grain squashed between. I loved that. Hi. My names Jack. And I’m an addict.

The Eigthth

Here's an ultra short story of monkey love.

He was sitting on a fence post with a piece of fruit in his hand. God he was cute. I could see his tail swishing as he was enjoying what he was eating. Between him and I was another one. This guy only had small fangs, and his tail was a bit stubby. Not short and stubby like a natural born Rottweiler but just a little stubby like one of Verne Troyer's legs. I didn’t like that, not to mention he didn’t have fruit. I bet he couldn’t even sit on a fence post. So my gaze didn’t linger long, it switched back to fruity guy pretty quick. The way he was peeling that piece of fruit was getting me hot, as were his big ball bags. They were almost taking up the whole of the top of that fence post. This was a monkey’s monkey. I decided it was time, I needed something to care for ever since I lost that little kids doll I stole last week. So I pushed past stumpy and settled myself in front of fruity and presented. Well I’ll tell you, he didn’t have to be asked twice. In a flash he was over, putting his little monkey pecker to good use. Then in another flash it was over, so I leapt up a tree. When I got there I heard a noise. Old stumpy had watched what was going on and decided he needed a ride. With a screech I took off, I wasn’t having any of that. I needed something that would feed me. My own little big balled, fruit eating, fence post sitting monkey’s monkey.