From the Archives

Theological rumblings from 1996

(From the far off days of 1996)

Art thou aware of ye great conspiracy? That god is in fact black? this startling fact was revealed to an awaiting humanity in 1500 AD but has been covered up by white church ministers ever since. Also revealed in the same interview was the meaning of life, the value of 1 divided by 0 and the awful truth behind the legend of the boogy man. The interview took place on July 5th 1500 in the small German town of Holzfaller. God descended in his custom built ’39 fuel injected with triple overhead cams pillar of fire and spoke with Martin Luther for about 10 minutes. The content of the interview was published, but was quickly destroyed by the church. Only a few partial copies survive. An extract of one of these follows.

ML: Now we’re speaking with God. Thanks for coming God.
G: It’s great to be here Martin.
ML: So what metaphysical truths do you have to reveal to our viewers today?
G: Well I thought I’d reveal the ultimate meaning of life.
ML: Well I’m sure our viewers will be interested in that, but before you do I’d like to take the opportunity to complement you on that suit.
G: Thanks Martin, I got it cheap at a little clothing store in Guatemala. It’s real Andean Wool you know.
ML: Really?
G: And the design is by Armani.
ML: Well, God sure is a sharp dresser. We’ll be back after these messages, when God will reveal the ultimate meaning of the universe.

The rest of the text was expurgated in 1605 by Dr John Dee, Court Astrologer to Queen Elizabeth the First. Some of it is rumoured to have been included in “As you like it” by Shakespeare, but this is doubtful.

Tales of Orion – Part III

Now this is just getting out of hand…

Orion lay sleeplessly in bed, listening to the plumbing churn away in the walls. Sickly green light from the city aquarium sign seeped in through the standard-billet-issue blinds, scrawling “Come And See The Dugongs!” in distorted letters across the ceiling.

He’d performed at the opening of the dugong exhibit. They’d even named one of the creatures after him. Well, after Elvis actually, but the thought was there. He’d been popular back then, almost as popular as the dugongs themselves which were generally regarded as wildly charismatic. Orion could never figure out why. They were rather ugly really, and all they wanted to talk about was kelp.

His head still ached, and he couldn’t stop thinking about tea.

Shouts, laughter and cries of “Tally-Ho!” from the street below as the nightly Happy-Joy paraded past. So different to that dreadful year when no one dared be out after dark for fear of the T-Gangs. Ah yes, the T-Gangers with their pinstripe suits, bowler hats and barely contained expressions of savage joy. Gathering in the empty warehouses down on the waterfront to sup from fine china and compare the financial papers, then – suitably refreshed – heading out into the streets in search of anyone foolish enough to be abroad after curfew. The chilling cries of “More tea Vicar?!” and “Freshen your cup?!” would ring out, followed by running feet, terrified screams and the dull, damp thud of umbrellas on flesh.

Dark days indeed.

No one was sure how it started. Megaglobex Corporation News issued hourly statements – many delivered by the very popular Newsreader Number Five – categorically denying NID involvement. The NBBC blamed alien influence, although with the world tea monopoly held firmly in the NUK’s grip they could hardly be trusted. Word on the street spoke of a Tok’ra plot, or the disciples of Steen, or any number of other fringe groups and splinter factions. But when night fell all speculation stopped and anyone with sense cowered in their beds, dreading a knock on the door and plaintive call of “One lump or two Ma’am?”.

The local Runners proving ineffective at containing the menace, the decision was finally made (at – it was rumoured – the highest levels) to send in the SG-Teams. Not even the notorious Threadneedle Boys could stand up to veterans of a hundred offworld conflicts, and the warehouse district went up in a maelstrom of flame. The city reeked of smoke, fish and Lady Grey for days, and years later the docks still hadn’t been rebuilt – a matter most vexing to the Merchant Combos.

Orion sighed. So much death, so much violence, and so little tea.

The Happy-Joy went by again, blowing whistles.

The plumbing finished its growth cycle around 3:00am, and Orion finally drifted off to sleep. Dreaming of dugongs, flames and a howling wolf silhouetted again the full moon.

Tales of Orion – Part II

Heading out into the uncertain zones

Orion slowly regained consciousness, his head spinning. The TV lay on its back, making furious mechanical noises, and the lights were off. He dragged himself to his feet and staggered to the bathroom.

Leaning heavily on the sink he hit the dispensary’s large red button. He winced as the sensor array burst to life and ran feelers of light up and down his body. The data core emitted a series of alien chirps and a heavy ‘clunk’ announced the arrival of a prescription in the hopper.

Orion fished it out. “SGA Approved Super-Lax Bowel Stimulant”.

No…” he moaned weakly.”…I need something for my head…” He punched the button again.

The dispensary repeated its scan.’Clunk’.

He reached into the hopper and pulled out an ominously familiar package. “SGA Approved Super-Lax Bowel Stimulant”.

He pulled himself up and began punching the machine. “I bang! need bang! something bang! for bang! my bang! bang! HEAD! bang!

The dispensary made a series of offended sounding chirps, spat out a small slip of paper and turned itself off. Orion scooped up the note and staggered into the lounge,squinting to read the minuscule type.

“Prescription: Tea”

Tea! He could really use a good cup of tea. But of course tea has been declared illegal after the infamous harbour “tea parties” of ’08. It was still available if you had the right connections – the Invisible Hand or the Big Sur Tong -but it was an age since he’d had that kind of pull. He sighed,remembering. Old Leakie used to smuggle it in via camera seal from the NBBC spy ships. It was salty and tasted faintly of fish, but it was still Earl Grey…

Leakie! Of course! He started across the room, fumbling in his pocket for labour scrip before he remembered. Leakie was gone. Called up and sent to Antarctica as a drone loader. Army boots and ice. There’d be no more seals waddling ashore at Quantico.

He collapsed onto the couch. Even if he had the connections, the savings from his Sanicorp Street Bleach jingle (dancing girls in gleaming white street cleaner’s uniforms,happy borough sanitation workers riding Frank the Friendly Street Sweeping Vehicle, Mr Sanicorp with his slicked back hair singing In these times of fear and doubt, no local committee can be without, the product that makes your sidewalks gleam, Sanicorp’s Street Bleach gets streets clean! still running on late night cable and bringing in a small, intermittent royalty) wouldn’t stretch to more than a few grams. He’d heard Oolong was up to 500 scrip per kilogram.

The Consumption Meter started complaining again. There had to be a better way…

Tales of Orion

It’s all still there if you look for it…

“Arrrgh! I don’t like this show!” moaned Orion, the masked singer. He was always moaning, it annoyed him that people kept mistaking him for Elvis. “Just because I wear a mask and sound like Elvis and use a stage name and started my career just after Elvis died doesn’t mean I’m Elvis!” he used to yell at his fans. Then he’d launch into a hip swinging rendition of “Jailhouse Rock”.

That was when he had fans.

He grabbed the remote and switched from the strange show about talking birds and fish to the Megaglobex Corporation News Channel. The lights dimmed slightly as the TV drew extra power from the lines to properly display the newsreader’s blindingly white teeth.

“In international news the British Royal Family have been revealed as shape shifting interdimensional reptilian aliens from the constellation Draco with the ability to create controllable multiple personalities in their subjects by the repeated broadcasts of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” the NeoBritish Broadcasting Corporation is famous for.”

He smirked. The lights dimmed again.

“A statement from the Millennium Dome Palace on the Isle of Dogs is expected soon, be sure to keep watching Megaglobex Corporation News for the latest developments. Back at home the latest reports from the SGA indicate our brave boys have made major gains in the Gladsheim, Vingilot and Fenris systems, pushing to the brink of defeat the third, fourth and tenth fleets of the Asg…”

Orion switched off the TV. There was nothing on.

A red light began flashing on the Consumption meter by the fridge. Seconds later the scratchy synthesised voice began. “It has been 46 minutes since your last consumption break Mr Presley. Slaves are starving on P3X-6756 because of your poor consumption ratio. You are 325 consumption units behind for this month, failure to consume is an offence punishable under the Guaranteed Consumption act of twenty-oh…”

“I’M NOT HIM!!!!” screamed Orion, lunging at the meter “I’M NOT ELVIS!”

“….with penalties ranging from twelve years imprisonment to penal exile….”

“I’M NOT ELVIS!!!!” he screamed at the ceiling. He jumped up and down waving his fists in the air. The Consumption meter disgorged a flood of consumption pellets, his unconsumed allowance for the month so far. They spilt over the floor and beneath his feet, tripping him up. He collapsed slowly to the ground, banging his head on the TV as he fell. Strangely,his last thoughts before unconsciousness claimed him were of the annoying show with the talking birds and fish…

(We resume normal Eurovision broadcast soon. Probably)

Found in Space – Again

Another entry…

By the time a species achieves interstellar flight it has usually developed a sense of aesthetics so refined that exposure to poor design causes nausea, lethargy and (in extreme cases) death. As such the post-humans of Nova Eritrea had long divested their culture of all but the very highest in art and architecture, and had no inkling of the dangers contained in the ancient data device they found in a derelict spacewreck orbiting a nearby star… A year later fourteen billion Nova Eritreans were dead, taken by what the chroniclers would call “The Plague of the Lovely Lady Lumps”.

Boing Boing 100-word fiction competition

Found in Space

Things I’ll do for a new computer, honestly…

When the joint European probe finally arrived at Lagrange Point four most commentators expected to find at least something. Interplanetary dust. A few rocks. Maybe even some ice – although almost everyone agreed that was a long shot. What we didn’t expect was shoes. Eight of them. Not pairs either – single shoes, floating idly in the gravitational void. Once the initial shock passed, the ESA set it all off again by announcing that they each had a desiccated human foot inside. Well, all apart from one. They said that contained a bear paw, but I mean – come on – that’s just crazy…

Boing Boing 100-word fiction competition

I did not invent it…

Yes, it’s Harry Potter doggerel. I can only apologise. To everyone.

…I wrote it down in order to get it out of my brain.

When you’re walking home from work and an appalling piece of doggerel appears fully formed in your brain like an apparition of a rhinestone studded, cheeseburger scoffing Elvis, what can you do except write it down somewhere to get it out of your head? So here we go (brace yourself – this is a bad one).

Mouldy Voldy, afraid of death,
Terrified by his final breath,
Show him a boggart and he will behold,
His very own body, lying there cold,
Riddle, oh Riddle, oh Riddle named Tom,
His father a muggle, his mother long gone,
Hater of half-bloods because he’s ashamed,
That the blood of a muggle runs strong in his veins,

I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.

The Octopus!

Medical Cephalopods. What?!

Once again there’s a remake/remodel thread over at Whitechapel, which I’d take part in if…

a) I wasn’t an anti-social weirdo with an aversion to message boards
b) I could draw

As neither of these conditions apply I shall instead dabble in the black arts of pen-portraiture to inflict my idea upon the world.

The brief from Warren, such as it is, is as follows… (as it is is as?)

One of the more outré of the pulp characters—and given the genre, that’s quite saying something, believe me—the Octopus was actually the villain of the piece in his single issue, The Octopus v1 #4, 1939, written by…well, it’s not exactly clear. It might be Norvel Page, or it might be Ejler and Edith Jacobsen. A rather over-the-top mad scientist, the Octopus worked from a big city hospital and plotted world conquest. His appearance might explain his desire to dominate the world; he’s sea-green, with four “suction-cupped weaving tentacles” set above “hideously malformed” legs. He wears a small mask, and behind it can be seen two enormous, luminous, purple eyes. He was the leader of the Purple Eyes, a cult bent on world domination and mass destruction. The Octopus’ chosen method was an “ultra-violet ray” which devolved men and women and turned them into deformed, life-hating monsters hungry for human flesh and glowing with “ultraviolet purple.” Against the Octopus was set Jeffrey Fairchild, a young millionaire philanthropist (he eventually stopped the Octopus, of course). He had three identities. The first was Jeffrey Fairchild, hospital administrator. The second was was kindly Dr. Skull, the old man who made a practice of helping the poor in the slums. (His good works didn’t help him when everyone thought that he was the Octopus, however) In his other identity he was the “Skull Killer,” who fought crime and left a skull-imprint, ala the Spider, on his enemies. Fairchild was assisted by Carol Endicott, Dr. Skull’s nurse.

My idea is to turn this all on its head…

Observe if you will St Brendan’s Hospital, a run down and poorly funded medical facility on the waterfront close to where the river rolls it’s tribute of chemicals, fertilisers, PET bottles and dead dogs into the open sea. Twenty-five years ago a young octopus polyp was inadvertently sucked into the hospital’s cooling system. Against the odds it survived, feeding on biological waste, cafeteria remnants and bathing in the drug-residue soaked waters of the hospital drains – a lifestyle that caused it to change, developing super-human intelligence and a photographic memory…

Today the Octopus lurks in the hospital’s walls, pipes and air conditioning system. After a quarter century of observation (not to mention late night study in the medical library) it is a better diagnostician and surgeon than most of the hospital’s poorly paid staff. In the early hours it sneaks unseen from it’s bolt holes and performs life saving procedures on misdiagnosed patients, earning the hospital an increasing reputation for ‘miracle’ cures.

Posed against the Octopus is the dastardly Chief of Medicine, Doctor Jeffrey Fairchild. More than happy to pose for the press with the latest miracle recovery, he desperately searches the Hospital for the phantom that cures the patients he would rather let die. For Doctor Fairchild is embezzling the Hospital’s funding into his own personal accounts and every cure draws more attention, endangering his nefarious schemes…

So yeah, that’s my crazy idea. A medical octopus and an embezzling doctor. Surely that’d sell comics! 😀

A Poor Attempt at Mimicry

An attempt at channelling the style and spirit of Warren Ellis

In reference to this monstrosity

Fabes: I am surprised they could afford the materials for this project, after getting ripped off $15/month for playing WoW to begin with….

Me: Well it looks like they’re university students so their government is probably paying them all sorts of grants to get up late, play Warcraft into the early hours of the morning then occasionally stumble into class where their lecturer asks “What are you doing for your big design project?” and they mutter out “… uh.. design… project… raid… caverns of num-yabisc… Warcraft….” and they then have no choice but to build some crappy hut with $12.50 worth of plywood claiming that the shitty design and finishing is so it resembles structures in the game and isn’t because they had zero time to work on it between carrying out mass raids and shovelling microwaved mac and cheese into their drooping maws while ogling at 3D models of elf maidens in armour so skimpy that it wouldn’t stop a mosquito let alone the axe of an orc on wolfback who probably carries mosquitoes with him anyway as a consequence of bad hygiene and all the blood he wears as war paint the bastard.

(This is an attempt at sounding like Warren Ellis. If he ever finds out about it he may well hunt me down and kill me 🙂

(Oh, and the guys who built the thing obviously put a great deal of thought and effort into it – I’m just being evil for humourous effect)

Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami