SHORT: Consider That a Divorce [2011]

CONSIDER THAT A DIVORCE

Midway between junctions 12 and 13 on the M42, something finally snapped. Perhaps it was the soulless grey wash of the Annie Lennox CD cranked to high heaven on the car stereo, or the thought of having to suffer another inconsequential ‘management social’ in their characterless Kensington abode that evening. It may even have been the onslaught of mind-numbing middle-class trivia they’d endured at Simon and Mel’s that weekend but, in that split-second, all the petty grievances once prepared to be written off in the spirit of camaraderie, decorum or kinship finally came bubbling to the surface in a teeming Fahrenheit rage. The bristly shavings of leg hair lingering in the soap-scum after another two-hour candlelit soak. The yellowed toenail clippings rudely besmirching the Batik. The perpetual, maddening inability to squeeze the toothpaste from the fucking bottom…

And then there were those seething über-resentments too trying to remain unspoken a single minute longer. The smugness on her face as she announced her promotion just days after he’d been passed over for some philandering young hot-shot ten years his junior. The look of pathetic, schoolboy lust on his reddening phizog as he flirted desperately with Sonya from Corporate at the annual Xmas shindig (“She’s not going to sleep with you…!” she’d thought, in equal parts mocking, superiority and resentment; she did though, of course, the slut). The fake hand-holdings and forced joviality of endless arse-licking dinners, scrabbling pitifully up the greasy ladder of success one rung at a time, snivelling like a weasel in heat at the prospect of another immaterial pay-bump…

No more. The trap was set the moment they clunk-clicked their last inside that interminable, overpriced people-carrier and began a leisurely cruise at 70 down the highway to hell. The brats were in tow, of course; no sense in leaving such a poignant reminder of their matrimonial devotion rotting at home while the decadence of bourgeois glory beckoned. Ever the tiresome, whinging instigator, it was Tabitha who dealt the deciding hand -

“Mummy, tell Philip to stop it!”

“She started it…!”

“Did not…”

“Did too…”

“Oh, quiet the fuck down, the pair of you…!”

“Don’t you swear at them…!”

“Well, someone’s got to show a bit of fucking backbone around here…!”

“Don’t you tell me how to raise my children…!”

“Don’t you tell me how to run my own family…!”

Tyres squealing, horns flailing manically either side, the nostril-scorching sear of burnt rubber rising from the tarmac. Wordlessly, they exited their respective doors of the cold, mechanical coffin and climbed the neighbouring verge to its grassy summit. Snarling like rabid bears, they began to circle one another, enacting the movement of vultures in a holding pattern as their feet stomped purposefully to an insistent, tribal rhythm.

“You…”

She struggled to find the words, bile frothing at the corners of her mouth as she spat out vitriol like a venomous cobra.

“…Conceited… presumptuous… contemptible… ARSEHOLE…!”

His cheek muscles twitched and his eyeballs bulged, revealing bloodshot tributaries leading straight to a dark well of hatred.

“You… you… YOU…”

He faltered momentarily as steam poured from his flaring muzzle: a bull ready to take charge

“…BITCH…!”

Reckoning. With the release of a violent, surging orgasm, they exploded towards one another, screaming and mauling as they locked horns and began the process of sadistic deconstruction. The grubby brass wedding bands were the inaugural casualty as fingers were crudely wrenched from their sockets to produce a slackening effect conducive to the rings’ unholy plummet.

Always the leeching bloodsucker, she was the first to bite, clamping her jaws around the flat of his knuckles and pressing down with animalistic force until she felt her molars grind satisfyingly against the bone. He roared in simultaneous aggro and delight as he clubbed her loathsome face with the back of his free hand, sending her loping sideways into the mud. Laughing maniacally, she raised both hands in mock invitation, quivering with fury as she willed him to the slaughter through pulsing, psychotic eyes.

“ - COME ON…!”

As he barracked towards her, she ruptured the tender of his groin with one piercing swoop of her stiletto, the triangular toeline gashing through the base of his scrotum and sending one testicle oozing down his trouser leg. Howling like a stuck jackal, he wailed and gnashed for her lopsided breast, latching his teeth around the join and thrashing his head from side to side, a marauding Velociraptor at prey. She heard the fabric of her £140 cotton shirt tear loudly as the white-hot spasm took hold, fangs tattering her undergarments as he chomped hungrily at her wobbling, fleshy teat. The sad, child-ruined breast sagged propitiously through the schism in her blouse, a lustreless parody of allure.

Throwing his flaccid frame to one side in a ferocious display of strength, she snapped the Gucci belt from around his waistline and lashed the gleaming buckle square into his eye, emitting a thick gush of vitreous humour which smattered back to earth like mottled rain. He hooted in amusement as he reached for the vacant socket and found only a hollow cavity where once had sat the orb which admired her long-faded beauty. She whirled the metal fastening around her head like a dominatrix, sending the squashy globule spinning to the roadside as it clumsily dislodged from the belt’s spiny clasp. As he stumbled towards her like a crippled zombie, she dropped to one knee and plunged her manicured talons deep into the flesh of his pubis, raking a troika of gruesome etches upon the worthless maggot she had once so desperately craved. Taking firm hold of his flopping, bloodied manhood through the breach in his zipper, she tugged like a bell-ringer at mass and cackled gleefully at his tortured squall as she ripped away the foreskin, bringing justice to bear for all the woefully unsatisfying intercourse she’d endured over the years. Sonya from Corporate my arse, you prick!

Philip and Tabitha - the wretched, ungrateful devil-spawn deemed widely responsible for their present ruin - watched in bemusement from the family’s air-conditioned Volvo, fogging up the Perspex with each dim breath from their snot-encrusted snouts. It never used to be like this. When did the elation of those excitable early encounters give way to such disillusion, resentment and strife? When did their children, those once-adorable products of their youthful passion, become such mewling, bedwetting embarrassments? Had they, in fact, ever really known each other…?

Carelessly distracted by her own display of righteous valediction, she never saw his rebuttal coming. One thunderous jolt of his thick skull was all it took to catapult his cranium onto her nose; she felt the bone splinter and cartilage splay in every direction as it was truncheoned to a mushy pulp in one brutal, crushing blow. Staggering backwards in a bid to stifle the hosing expulsion, she was defenceless against the well-buffed leather bootpoint as it rocketed up and kicked her firmly in the cunt. His clumpy Size 10 wedged neatly in her slackened cleft as she screeched in duress; removing the appendage with a relishing squodge, he yanked the beige tweed skirt from around her waistline and revelled in the sight of her wilted labia flapping uselessly in the breeze. That one’s for the drunken spit-roasting she took from those two Rugby lads back in college while they were “on a break”; no, despite his noble entreaties of forgiveness over the years, he never, ever forgot.

Undeterred, she pitched herself like a carnivorous banshee and tore his ear away with one magnificent cleave. Claret flowed with the rush of a waterfall, coagulating in a sticky pall around her thirsty lips as she savoured the succulent taste of vampirish lust. As he reeled in shock and awe, she used the rugged engagement diamond still banded to her forefinger to carve a thick layer of gore through the soft flesh of his nipples, drenching his torso in delicious red plasma as she brought his pendulous man-tits clattering down against his stomach. Sensing the thrill of impending victory, she Rocky-punched the bastard once more for good measure, sending him spitting acidic fountains of rouge into the air before one cruel, fatal slip on her M&S heels saw the ankle snap away beneath her.

Who fell first, and who brought who down, remains the subject of bitter dispute to this very day. Torn limb-from-limb, a mangled caricature of their former selves, they collapsed in a disorderly heap before clambering weakly towards one another. They fucked, perfunctorily and without emotion, before being granted a speedy divorce.

C.C. 11/12/11

LYRICS: Again, Again [2011]

AGAIN, AGAIN

We will spiral down, where we both are bound
in our lifetimes

But when we spiral now to where we both are found
There’s a lifeline; a lifeline -

And I’ll see you
in our next life

And I’ll see you
in our next life

Now you pull me down to where we both are crowned
without emotion

How you pull me now, to where we both are drowned
in the ocean, the ocean

And I’ll see you
in our next life

And I’ll see you
in our next life, our next life

Again, again, again, my love.
Again, again, again, my love.

It’s gone again, it’s gone again, it’s gone again, it’s gone again
She’s gone again, she’s gone again, she’s gone again, she’s gone again

It’s gone
She’s gone…

C.C. 13/12/11

SHORT: Missing Pieces [2011]

MISSING PIECES
A detective story in three stupid acts.

ACT I: PREAMBLE

Der-dum, der-dummm (clinnng… clannng… clonnng…)

- Sliding bassoon, hint of clarinet, musical bottle clings; saxophone passes, monochromatic lighting and all that crap. I’d been chasing down hopheads running numbers at the racetrack all afternoon and just wanted a quiet snooze over a glass of hard liquor when the intercom rudely interrupts my prospective slumber.

“A lady to see you”, chirps my secretary, Susan, from the adjoining office. “Says it’s urgent.”

“Send her in”, I growl, slapping the amber liquid down on my grandfather’s old oak desk and watching its contents slosh woozily against the tumbler’s glossy sides.

She enters the room packing the kind of figure that could make a grown man weep. A flowing dress of shimmering pink satin, blonde hair curled to shoulder-length in perfect, whirling spirals. Elegance personified. Want on two legs. Jeopardy incarnate.

“I’m looking for a man”, she tells me, and don’t I know it. Her voice is a smoky, sultry husk, delivering the kind of sensory overload usually reserved for the fleeting scent of cask-aged whiskey.

“You have my attention”, I tell her. “Miss…?”

“Rapprocher. But please. Call me Lola.”

Lola. The very sound is like liquid caramel lolling on my tongue, summoning images of milkshakes, bubblegum and a tall, cool glass of summer Cola (ice cubes in the top, thin red straw, cherry bobbing seductively on the side).

“Call me flattered”, I tell her. “It’s not every day a man gets the chance to meet destiny head-on.”

She surveys the premises while digesting my words, but doesn’t flinch. She’s cool as a glacier, but beneath her studied exterior I sense a hint of breathlessness in her next pronouncement.

“Who are you…?” she enquires. I want to tell her I’m a fucking magician, baby, a conjurer; I make things vanish and reappear at will. I’m whoever or whatever you want me to be. I’m the motherfucker with his hand in yours as we watch the atoll detonate at the end of the world. “ - Detective…?”

“Avarice”, I tell her. “It means covetousness, avidity, craving and greed. Because when I see something I want, I must have it at any cost.”

“In my experience”, she counters, “No man could ever want this something badly enough. Tell me, Detective - how much action do you think you can handle?”

“All the action you can give me, baby”, I flub in an unconvincing attempt at casual rapport, but I’m lying through my teeth. She instinctively senses there’s been a panic on these last few months, and I’m knocked for six: comedy boxing glove, tweeting cartoon birds, the whole nine yards. All I’m seeing now is a glittering night vista - a skyline of stars in our own private Hollywood. I don’t believe in Jesus or the Saints, just the purest of chemical reactions: one part sulphuric acid to three of nitroglycerine.

She reaches into her purse and extracts a golden cigarette case, playfully teasing the pristine cylinder of tobacco with slender fingers. I move to light it for her, trying hard not to knock over a free-standing desk-lamp with the raging stonk-on chafing manfully inside me kecks. I am, by this stage, totally gaga, and would honestly struggle to locate tits in a bra. I want to tell her I’m in love with the sound of her voice, but think better of it.

“What are you doing for the rest of your life?” I ask, making idle small talk.

“Please, Detective – one step at a time.” She offers the faintest hint of a smile as smoke winds steadily into the air. “I’m looking for something which I was hoping you might be able to help me find.”

The devil rides a hot-rod. She’s ten moves ahead of me and I’m struggling to keep pace, but I continue shuffling pieces round the board, waiting to be ensnared in her trap.

“What is it?” I half-whimper, knowing full well by now that there’s absolutely no turning back.

“Come closer”, she says, and whispers in my ear. It feels like swimming. The only thing I’m aware of is blood pounding, rushing, gushing, cascading in torrents; Niagara fucking Falls.

“An urn”, she tells me. “A precious family heirloom. It was stolen from my mantelpiece last week. It contains something very valuable to me.”

She pulls away and sits back down, sloping on her chair in chic repose. I’m momentarily distracted by the cut of her shoes, and wonder what it would take to get her to slide them onto the floor for an impromptu foot massage. I can already feel danger buzzing round me like an irate wasp, but she’s sucked me in faster than a tropical cyclone. I feel the wave churn inside: the depth of the swell is staggering. I’m floating dumbly in a laudanum stupor, ready to take on anything she can throw at me: greasers, rebels, hoodlums in a knife-fight. My desire is paramount.

“I’ll take that action”, I tender, staking my claim for whatever measly pittance it commands.

“It’s settled, then”, she replies, snapping shut the golden clasp on her purse and stubbing the cigarette in a vacant ashtray. She hadn’t taken one drag the entire time; she literally just let the damn thing burn in an act of wilful attrition. “Two-hundred a day, plus expenses; payment of an extra thousand on delivery.”

I’ll waiver the charges, but she needn’t know that just yet. As she rises from her seat and smoothes the dress against the curves of her body, we share a look of recognition: a sudden impulse from a past life. I feel her senses zero in on the frantic thump of my heartbeat. She is all things to heaven, my dancing honeybee, and she instinctively knows my cardinal weakness.

“We’ve met before”, I tell her, with thinned eyes and a rapidly diminishing sense of equilibrium.

“And we’ll meet again”, she purrs, slinking out of the door in an aromatic haze so engorging that I can feel her perfume seep through my pores into the very bloodstream I depend upon for life.

* * *

ACT II: PROCESS

Tsssss, tsi-ti-tsssss, tsi-ti-tsssss, tsi-ti-tsssss…

- Languorous jazz cymbals, popping double bass, occasional stabs of brass for emphasis. I’m on a drumroll, screeching down the I5 towards what I know full well may turn out to be the final bridge between this life and the next. Initial enquiries were a piece of cake. Johnny the Shiner put me on to some small-time junk trader operating out the back-alley of Sam’s on 49th; when the mug didn’t show for business, I slapped a few bums around to get the inside dope. The hapless pusher got himself caught up in a racket involving stolen artefacts from the homes of wealthy property-owners over on the South side; when he tried to strike out on his own with a piece of the catch, his buddies got the jump and put him on the first train to Palookaville. The killing got written up as a suicide, but I knew better: the slash marks on the wrists had all the panache of a professional slice-artist. That meant only one name in this town: Ricardo ‘Ratface’ Rizzini.

From that point on, it was all plain sailing. I tracked Rizzini and his gang of wiseguys to a beachfront shack where they’re holed up with the stash of antiques. As I sidle cautiously along the shore, I see a light on in the back room and hear the sound of muffled chatter: no doubt another fixed card game where no-one ever gets to hit 21.

Easing across the sand towards the slatted villa, I should be paying attention to the nagging sense of fear gnawing away at my gut, but I find myself preoccupied with the sound of the ocean as it drifts gently back and forth in a soothing rhythm quite at odds with my own immediate peril. There seem to be voices alive in the waves, rushing to and fro, all whispering a hushed sigh of…

Lola. That name again. It contains the promise of illicit thrills; of words like ‘lust’, ‘lascivious’, ‘licentiousness”. All those delirious, lazy ‘L’s - well, all the decent ones, anyway. I daren’t mention the other trip in the lexicon, the main event; that can come later. For now, I’m edging along the shack’s wooden panelling like it was the last wall in a prison shower, piece cocked and ready for action. A moth bangs its wings against the case of a humming fluorescent lampshade as I sneak a glance through the open doorway and take a peek inside.

Blackjack. The urn is sitting dead-centre on a glass coffee table in the middle of the room. It’s surrounded by gleaming antiquities of infinitely greater value, but I know immediately that this is the item I’m looking for: a curious glow seems to envelope its harsh ceramic outline, as if calling out to me in the shadowy half-light.

As I inch precariously towards the pile of treasure, I hear a dismal, howling squeal as a rogue floorboard creaks beneath me. What an absolute shitter.

Voices, startled, firing in rapid succession:

“What the - ?”

“Hey!”

“Get him, boys…!”

I reach out and grab the prize in my greedy hands before hurtling back out through the swinging panel door, stumbling down the porch steps and reeling away on pure instinct. Bullets are flying overhead, strafing every side, and I’m right in the bastard middle of it. I take one in the shoulder but barely feel the sting as I catch a glimpse of spinning stars overhead and am reminded of the sparkle in her eyes. I hoof it away from the chalet flacked by gunfire, clutching the urn to my chest as if it contains the elusive first draft of the Dead Sea Scrolls, running like a massive girl while attempting to not get my arse shot off.

* * *

ACT III: PROVIDENCE

Waaaaah… wah-wah; waaaaaaah…

- Crappy muted trumpet, faintly melancholic overtones, broken-looking brother pouring his last reserves of breath into improvised jazz figures in a bid to transport his wounded soul. I’m back in the office, sweltering in 48-degree heat, teasing the sweat from my brow as I hear the rumble of an engine skip into earshot.

Daylight scorches my retinas as I lift one sliver of the metallic window-blinds. I hear the sound of heels clicking on the sidewalk as she descends from the winged door of a jet-black Cadillac. She has returned to me, my unknown temptress, the great unanswered question. She sashays towards the rundown building on 34th Street I deign to call my place of toil, and I find myself mesmerised by the metronomic clunk of her shoes on the wooden staircase as she ventures inside. Moments later, the compact desk-speaker buzzes.

“Miss Rapprocher to see you, sir.”

“Send her in, Susan.”

This time, it’s personal rather than business. Black, velveteen dress sweeping against her ankles, white satin gloves, dark violet hat with a widow’s veil: a vengeful kitty-kat with every kind of sin on her mind. She pulls up a chair, flips it around and positions her legs either side of the taut leather backing. The slice in her skirt reveals stockings that are netted like a spider’s web, and I’m instantly caught in her maze of attraction once again. She takes a liquorice twist from the jar on my desk and toys with it a while.

“Well, Detective – did you find what I was looking for?”

I raise the brim of my fedora to meet her gaze with mine.

“Yeah, I found it”, I proffer, feigning nonchalance. “And I damn near bought the farm in the process.”

I stoop down and pick up the urn, wincing slightly as I place it on the desk in front of me. She observes my haemorrhaging shoulder with evident concern.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s not critical.” Truth be told, I’m aching for her to apply the band-aid, to make it all better with one soft brush of her mouth. “But what, pray tell, is so important that it was worth risking my hide for?”

I know she won’t give up an answer that easily, but I throw the question out there all the same. She responds with predictable cunning.

“…You tell me.”

From the suggestive look in her eyes as she glances up from beneath the perimeter of her oversized hat, I understand exactly what is inside. I pause for emphasis before delivering the killer blow.

“It’s the ashes of every man you’ve ever loved.”

“Very good, Detective.” She smirks softly, her silky, dew-laden voice dripping like sweet nectar. “I’m impressed. And now, Mr Avarice, will you do me the favour of placing the jar on that ledge over there?”

I humour her and zip the blinds out of play, forcing open the window and balancing the urn on the peeling surface of its grimy sill. She reaches inside the dark mesh of her stocking and coolly extracts a small silver revolver. I should’ve known all along the broad was packing heat, but I don’t sweat it; I’m too far down the road now to care. A ray of intense Florida sunlight reflects in the piercing glint of the barrel as she takes aim, squinting for accuracy before squeezing the trigger.

- Puh-taaaaowww…!

I thought they only made noises like that in Western bar-rooms. The urn shatters on impact and the dust of her former lovers showers through the window, surrendering to the wind as it dances away on a warm breeze. The air hums with electricity for a single, jolting moment as the sonic ricochet continues to reverberate.

“Thankyou, Detective”, she says, blowing a snaky flicker of smoke from the pistol before sliding it back inside her inner thigh. “You see now that what was past is merely prologue.”

She stands. Swishing her skirt back into place and angling her ridiculous headgear to the appropriate slant, she spins on a dime, about to exit my world forever; by this point though she has a hook in me like the spike on a dope fiend, and I know exactly what I have to do.

“Wait”, I blurt almost desperately as her gloved fingers touch the shining brass doorknob. She turns back towards me, places one hand against her voluptuous hipline and arches her eyebrows.

“What is it that you want from me, Detective?” she enquires, invitingly.

I want to tell her there ain’t a damn thing good in this world, sister; that there ain’t no surfing the shit-tide or rigging the drag race. You get what you pay for in this life, with just one lousy shot at making it mean something. I give it to her straight.

“I’m just looking for the missing piece”, I tell her.

She takes three crossed-steps forward, revealing her plunging neckline in all its glory as she stoops across the desk and grabs hold of my tie. I feel the slipknot in my own noose tighten, but am powerless to resist as she sweeps back the net of her weeping black veil.

“Kiss me you fool”, she smoulders through glistening, ruby-red lips - and as she draws me near, I am completely, utterly helpless.

C.C. Nov 2011

SHORT: Dance of the Bureaucrats [2011]

DANCE OF THE BUREAUCRATS

Dateline: December 23^rd, the Mackenzie-Potter office party - one last blowout on the company nickel before the familial festivities commence in earnest. It’s been another bumper year for the leeches in Mac P’s Regional Collections Team - if there’s one thing you can count on to provide a steady stream of revenue in even the toughest recession, it’s accumulated personal debt. With record annual profits having been announced earlier in the week for the fifth year running, this calls for a celebration. “Work hard, play hard”… it’s set to be a wild one.

After several hours’ warm-up, the room is pumping harder than a fuck-flick as the booze-sodden gang of banal fortysomethings and listless graduate recruits mingle aimlessly in shitfaced revelry. Roger from Senior Management models a ‘wacky’ balloon hat while perspiration teems from his receding hairline; frankly, he’s old enough to know better, and is defiantly not bringing “sexy back”. Nevertheless, he makes the best of his shabby lot by having a token seasonal crack at Maureen from Reception: a flabby, overweight grotesque with a face like dripping wax.

Up in the DJ booth, ‘Punter Knows Best’ is the name of the game. “Now, what it is, right, we’re on a night out...” witters some inane crone who looks like she’s stepped straight out of the puppet reject-closet on Spitting Image. Oh, fuck off and die, will you. You can tell from the defeated look in the DJ’s eyes that he’s already lost the will to live. He lowers his head in feigned absorption, barely able to summon the energy for a lone bout of withering sarcasm on the mic; frankly, it must be difficult to generate even the faintest modicum of enthusiasm when you hold your audience in such contempt. Going to have to sleepwalk his way through this one.

Sure enough, it’s the dregs. Plumbing heretofore-unchallenged new depths of pointlessness, some dreary no-mark from I.T. asks repeatedly for Put Your Hands Up by Reef – he only likes the one song, and didn’t even bother to learn its proper title. Make no mistake, this is the living end. The assembled masses don’t have an ounce of personality between them, but let that never stand in the way of the clappy bit from the Grease Megamix. Dancing Queen up next, is it? Fuck me. Looking at the request sheet, they’re all there: all the greats. Brimful of Cocking Asha. Don’t Stop Believin’. The Rockafeller Skank (included especially for the “old-skool” massive). Eric the office japester’s even asked for Piano Sonata in B Minor by Liszt. What a fucking card...!

“Oh, this one’s a banga!” comes an audible squawk as another retro classic drops like shit from the arse of a distended gull. It sounds suspiciously like Hall & Oates. Watch out, boy, she’ll chew you up…

Like moths to the flame, they descend from all corners. Some lardy fuck no-one seems to recognise starts doing his ‘thing’ in the middle of the floor - presumably Julie from Accounts’ latest squeeze. He’s exhibiting all the co-ordination of a pissed-up Weeble from the 1970s, but let it never be said that he doesn’t know how to rinse one out good and proper as he lets fly with a thoroughly solid display to another camp disco classic.

“ - Waaah-hoooo…!”

There’s two old slappers bumping arses to Kool & The Gang: first time they’ve been let out in, ooh, a good fifteen years or so. A quick burst of the Bee Gees sets any daft fucker in flares sprinting to the tiles for a bit of Tony Manero action; frankly, Travolta would be proud. Alan’s made sure he’s picked out his best jumper for the occasion: still looks like a gift from his Mum, even at the tender age of 37. He should care, of course - in his plonk-addled mind, he’s Courtney-flippin’-Cox from the Dancing in the Dark video. Side-claps!

“Ohhhhh, we're halfway there... whoah-oh! We're livin' on a prayer...”

- Ooh, look out… here comes Jim! He’s man of the hour for bringing home the Soho account: 27 unpaid penalty notices lobbied in protest at the local borough council’s new restrictions on residential parking. “We don’t make the rules I’m afraid, sir; we just enforce them…” The stuff of fucking hero worship round these parts - Employee of the Month plaque and name in the quarterly newsletter a dead cert. Last month’s winner, Keith, unfortunately couldn’t make it tonight, but sends his regards.

- CONGA LINE…! “O-lé, o-lé, o-lé, o-lé… feelin’ hot, hot, hot…!”

Unmoved by this raucous parade of frivolity, company stalwart Ted Justice – a heaving, rotund doctrinaire with damp-encircled armpits waggishly dubbed ‘The Judge’ by his cohorts – rudely harasses the DJ for what he insists will be a surefire crowd-pleaser. He’s put in the hours this year, and is determined to see his late request for Donna Summer brought to fruition. The sullen mixmaster attempts to fob him off with a motioned whirl of ‘Later…’, but The Judge Won’t Budge. He’s lookin’ for some hot stuff baby tonight, and is up for the craic like the last four decades of popular music never happened. It certainly doesn’t appear to have done for the anonymous disorderly paralytic sloping listlessly against the bar, doing the Macarena with his top two buttons undone and rocking that Davey Van Day Dollar mullet as if it ever chanced its way into style.

“ – Aaaahhh’m horny! Horny, horny, horny…”

- Oop…! Dave’s up. So’s Sharon. Rachel’s shaking her booty like part of a Macaque’s mating ritual. This is off the fucking chain...!

“Apple-bottom jeans (jeans)… boots with the furrr (furrr)…”

- Literally no-one here is black. It’s all getting a bit too much for Alice and Gordo by this stage anyway, having knocked back a couple of sherries with a few cheeky vol-au-vents on the side. Best head out early – they’ve got the grandkids tomorrow. Meanwhile, Callum does his legendary David Brent impersonation - funny, really, he needn’t have bothered, since they’re his actual moves. Ooh, wait, is he gonna breakdance…? HE IS…!

Check out Marcus, the beady-eyed, porcine mouth-breather from Data Entry. The sweat that’s pouring off the sweltering cunt could probably power a small third-world nation for six months, and he’s absolutely murdering that dancefloor. Jerking awkwardly from side-to-side like a demented wind-up toy, it can surely only be a matter of time before his Himmler specs and Führer haircut – a flapping monstrosity partway between a Bobby Charlton sweep and a makeshift pubic wig - becomes dangerously, hideously unkempt. It’s clear that things are heading straight for the very darkest abyss, with no discernible way back.

Over by the punch bowl, Derek’s about to bust loose as his song kicks into life. “Turn-me-on, turn-me-on, turn-me-on... Sex bomb, sex bomb; you’re my sex bomb…” Throwing down his plastic cup in a truly audacious announcement of intent, he attempts an improvised Michael Jackson manoeuvre and promptly pulls a groin muscle. That’s him benched for the next half-hour at least: time for another Stella. Undeterred, Jane from Customer Services leaps up and does the splits, emitting a searing, unambiguous rip as her crotch is roundly demolished. Unsurprisingly, she can’t get back up again, and cheers gormlessly at her howling colleagues as if seeking some vague form of approval. She gets it. Receiving a gentlemanly hand up from Barry in Maintenance, she proceeds to teeter precariously on hopeless, unwieldy heels before losing all remaining semblance of balance and stacking it arse-over-tit into the buffet table. A delighted roar of “Waheeeyyy!” goes up as she cheerfully re-emerges with a faceful of trifle and a dress now piss-soaked in some indeterminate liqueur.

“Do you be-li-e-e-e-ve in life after love...?”

Unbeknownst to the feral horde, Karen’s getting royally cocked by Steve from Marketing in the gents’ toilets to the distant sound of Cher’s eternal masterwork. "I need ti-i-i-ime, to move on... I need lo-o-o-ove, to feel strong..." emotes the ageless, marble-faced battle-axe as she burbles aimlessly in the background like a fucked robot. A true picture of poise and refinement, Karen has one leg angled upwards on the bog seat, scrunts dangling gracelessly round her ankles, barking and screeching like a rutting chimera as Steve cudgels his blathering jabberwock into her rampaging steamcunt. That’s going to be one for the water-cooler on their first day back… BANTER!

Back in the main room, Gaz tells the one about the Paedophile, the Nun, the Rabbi and the Welshman. The set-up is majestic; the execution, sublime. What a fucking legend. It’s McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow all the way for him. After being informed for what must be the dozenth time in just under an hour that he’s a “bit of a one”, he goes back to macking on some tottering twat with a visible commotion bubbling away in her undercrackers. This should prove a nice easy prospect at the end of the night, but he slips one in her Breezer anyway just to make sure. Never can be too careful with these Gen-Z interns; they might turn out to be a feisty one and press charges after the fact.

True to perennial precedent, the evening reaches a tawdry culmination when Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 makes its inevitable appearance. Some do the Twist. Some do the Mess-Around. Mostly though, a series of ill-rehearsed custom routines are unleashed as the rowdy revellers form a large circle and all do the Irony Deficit. Whooping hollers go up as Tony does a quick bit in the middle – it’s funny, ’cos he never dances! And then…

“IT’S THE FIIIIIIINAL COUNTDOWWWWWWN…!!!”

- To what, exactly? The end of the night? The end of humanity? God only knows by this stage, but as Kirsty & The Pogues make ersatz Irishmen out of even the most devout Essexfolk, the doom-bell signals last orders and clear-out time looms large. “Whack it off, mate; the night is still young!” bawls a newly-recovered Derek, always the life and soul of these odious shebangs. Before long, it’s outside into a chunnering unlicensed Uber and off down the nearest ’Spoon’s for a riotous late lock-in and Round Fucking Two. What an absolute corker. Same time next year then, yeah...?

Forgive them, Lord. They’re idiots, one and all, and they know not what they do.

C.C. 21/11/11

SHORT: Standard [2011]

STANDARD

"Carter, you're drunk."
"Yes, Madam; yes, indeed."

C.C. 01/12/11

SHORT: Shelley [2011]

SHELLEY

Shelley was a retard; the other children knew. They told her so at recess, ’most every day in school. They danced around in circles, chanting sweet malign; she smiled as they baited her, too dumb to reconcile…

Shelley’s mind was simple. She liked it when her classmates sang to her; it instilled a pleasant feeling of warmth beneath the prickle of her alabaster skin. Though too mentally ill-equipped to accurately identify the sensation, she knew that it felt like love. And while she didn’t know much else, she knew that she loved only two things in this world: Mummy and Daniel.

Daniel was her everything: her swoon, her starlight clinch, her lasting kiss goodnight. She observed him every day through thick, unbecoming lenses, quietly willing his reciprocation in each casual twinge of distraction. When eventually his soft chestnut eyes met hers over a stolen game of Knuckles in the teacher’s absence, she grinned sweetly at him, revealing the rows of ugly metallic braces clamped to her teeth. Startled and appalled, he quickly turned away in loathing and embarrassment, simultaneously revolted and intrigued by her ardent gaze.

Later that day, he followed her after school. Making sure no-one was around to witness his moment of weakness, he took firm hold of her plump, fleshy arms and pinned her roughly to the nearest wall. Shelley quickly felt her initial panic melt into docile acceptance as she realised that finally he had come for her. He fumbled the lumpen contours of her half-formed breasts as they tussled gracelessly against the unforgiving façade; through the fine padding of her sweater she felt the bricks’ craggy rivets digging harshly into her back, grinding like seashells beneath the feet of an infant.

Overcome with happiness at this surprising development, Shelley felt her soul in ascension for the first time in thirteen lonely years. She breathed in the slivery smell of his adrenaline and tried to pin down his clumsy tongue with hers as he groped beneath her skirt and slid his finger inside her, feeling it wriggle like an arctic worm for a moment of stifled euphoria before being crudely extracted and smeared against her pasty thigh. As their lips parted, he sniffed himself inquisitively before grimacing in disgust; she moaned in uncomprehending enquiry while studying his look of rising dismay. Buoyed by the rhapsody of their correlation, she reached out to touch his face, only to find her hand brusquely slapped away; when her yawning, deaf mouth uttered a hollow, probing sound, he roared some unspecified command before cruelly shoving her aside. She slumped against the base of the wall and watched his footsteps pound silently along the pavement, drifting in gratified reverie while idly contemplating her next move.

That night, Shelley pressed flowers for him; she glued them to the pages of her embossed, pastel-coloured scrapbook, spelling out his name in dry rose-petals. She showed it to her mother, who smiled warmly and stroked her hair as she whispered expressions of unconditional affection into her daughter’s muffled eardrums. Her little girl was growing up, but she wasn’t sad – she was so, so proud.

The next day, Shelley found Daniel at break-time and trailed him to the quad; she wished only to run her fingers through the wisping strands of his auburn hair and relinquish her offering. She held her arms out expectantly, inviting his embrace as her mute expression tried to articulate all that she could never say in words. The look of abhorrence on his stupefied visage conveyed an altogether different sentiment: he would never understand or even begin to abide her intolerable attentions. When she presented him with the hand-made token, he screwed the offering into a tenacious ball and threw it right back at her; when she pressed further, he pulled at her hair, exposing frail q-tips of soft white tissue as the earth of her scalp lingered like chalk on the uprooted sheaves.

Immune to the implications of his violence, Shelley skipped home that evening and made him stout, crumbling stick-men of ginger. Mommy helped her bake them. They bustled joyously around the kitchen, icing the beaming faces together. Later that night when Shelley had retired, her mother placed a ribbon around the precious Tuppaware container before sliding it tenderly into her school bag. How could anyone fail to love her little girl?

Shelley presented her gift during lunch-hour the next day, shuffling shyly towards him while he sat amongst friends. When Daniel observed the horror of her greeting, he picked up the remnants of a thick-set mass of concrete and pitched it squarely at her mouth. She span like an unhinged dreidel, clattering to the floor as the pulverising force of the collision took away her jaw-line; inside her facile mind, Shelley swelled with pride at her new-found communal regard as she observed the other children shrieking with laughter. Loose teeth rattled like fruit-flavoured Skittles inside her throbbing maw, and she dribbled loosely into the dirt while the mob swarmed around her like a pack of ravenous wolves.

Before long, he was upon her, chiselling her face with the unforgiving rock until it could sustain no more damage. Shelley blinked in innocent wonderment as he wrought brutal vengeance upon her ripening features; her skin bloomed to dazzling shades of crimson while he feverishly bludgeoned her obtuse skull into submission. By the time he’d finished, the chanting had all but subsided; the other children stared at her worthless, twitching body with goggle-eyes as he dropped the blood-encrusted slab onto the ground. The filaments of his hairline swayed coolly in the breeze as he knelt gasping above her; in her acquiescent stupor, Shelley noticed that if she squinted hard enough into the sunlight behind him, he looked just like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.

The crowd began to waver slightly as the other children jostled one another before silently breaking ranks. Shelley stared vacantly up at the sky and caught a glimpse of the underside of a passing fly as it casually hovered down onto the ruins of her once-discernible face. The insect crawled over the ravages of her lesioned forehead and she blinked in cavernous disconnection before it tired of the weltered terrain and took off, leaving her alone once more.

Daniel panted in exhaustion as blood poured freely from the warped slump of her contorted lips. As saliva ran down her face and joined the shattered remains of her mouth on the ground, Shelley tightened her aching facial muscles and smiled grotesquely at him with wide, hopeful eyes. She held out her arms in unquestioning acceptance as he sauntered away, before wilting onto the cold stone floor and watching the clouds above her revolve into a whirling ball of cotton-candy. The last thing she remembered was the strobing flicker of sirens.

Later that night, the fly returned to her and they made friends once and for all. ‘Patrick’, she named him, after the handsome star of Dirty Dancing. He buzzed absent-mindedly around the room, humming sweet nothings as she lay still in her metallic crib. Impervious to his impotent drone, Shelley sighed contentedly as she began to dream of a time when she and Daniel would be as one again; she felt her heartbeat synchronise with his across vast chasms of time and space as her puffy, swollen eyes charted its dull blip on the cardiomonitor from the warmth of her hospital bed.

C.C. 26/11/11

SHORT: The Gremlin in the Pillarbox [2011]

THE GREMLIN IN THE PILLARBOX

The door clanked shut and the key ground noisily inside the lock; the collector whistled cheerily to himself as he obliviously went about his daily routine. He never saw the gremlin in the pillarbox as it emerged from a prolonged bout of hibernation and began to loiter drowsily amongst the shadows.

Resolutely unimpressed at being woken from his slumber, the creature shook its head free of a rogue utility bill and scrabbled above the pile of undelivered mail beneath which he had laid dormant for what may have been weeks, months or even years. He emitted a soft, low growl as the groggy remnants of sleep escaped from the back of his throat, and rubbed his tired eyes with grubby palms. He was home again in the dead letter office, the place where countless untold sentiments come to die. All that was left for him to do now was to sit and wait for a sign to mark the final delivery.

Though the hooting calm of nightfall was his favoured environ, as the evening wore on, the creature grew restless. At each echo of approaching footsteps, he cocked an inquisitive ear towards the sky, impatiently willing the next arrival. He cantankerously wrestled the tide of envelopes which fell like celestial envoys from the heavens above, all the while fumbling anxiously against the bristling storeys of his nest.

As the sound of loutish voices crescendoed and faded outside, the messenger arrived like a flaming comet from some distant dimension. The firelight zonked down upon the pile of untarnished mail, emitting a pageant of sparks as its sooty remains met the letters’ immaculate white surface. The critter reached out and jostled the repudiated cigarette-end quizzically with one stubby paw; puzzled by the smouldering prospect before him, he pondered its potential significance for a moment before scooping it up into his hungry jaws. Hot ash dusted the base of his tongue as he munched on the murky piece of foul-tasting cotton, hacking clouds of toxic cinders into the air with each grisly chomp. Gulping the morsel down in one final, decisive effort, he emitted a confused purr as he mulled over its caustic tang.

Feeling a warm glow envelope his stomach, the creature’s eyes lit up and he smiled mischievously, both sets of pointed, pearly-white teeth glinting in the darkness as his top lip curled into a playful, impish sneer. His slitted apertures beamed a luminous shade of cherry-red as he slid one claw beneath the brim of a nearby envelope and etched a light serration across its brow. He carefully extracted the contents and cast an enquiring glance over the eloquent calligraphy inscribed within, tracing the outlines of its ink-laden cursive with a scholarly eye.

And so, he read. Smitten by possibility’s ceaseless allure, he read tales of love lost, love found and love forever destined to remain cruelly out of reach. He pored over each token of affection with the diligence and attentiveness of a museum curator. As he perused, so too did he eat, scrunching each scrap of spent correspondence into a tight, unyielding ball and chewing thoughtfully while keenly absorbing the next instalment. He demolished reams of glossy advertising, and savoured the rose-tinted scent of myriad greetings cards. He digested endless snapshots, tearing them into bite-size tetragons and sliding them onto his tongue, soaking up the acidic twinge of their lacquered surface as they slid languidly down his gullet.

The banquet of pulp massaged his incisors like pink dentist’s gum as he devoured the envelopes’ contents with an appetite previously reserved for medieval monarchs. The sum of a thousand postal districts, freight-voyages and faraway zip-codes found their final resting place in his rumbling, furry belly as he ravenously consumed all that his curious gaze fell upon. Yet all the money in the world, all the tiresome gift vouchers and unsigned cheques from well-meaning grandparents could not quell his hunger. The sheaves of heartfelt poetry, lovesick prose and optimistic compilation tapes defied his insatiable craving. Indeed, the more he ingested, the less satisfied he felt, for still he burned inside: the prickly, porcupine heat nestling warmly in his stomach as the discarded cigarette butt slowly galvanised his innards, coating his abdomen in a fine layer of carbon. He wheezed heaving billows of smog into the air, squinting in concentration as he struggled to navigate the deluge of words left hanging in stasis between that fleeting shaft of moonlight and his own expulsions of hideous pollution. All those wonderful, aching words hovering wistfully in the ether. Just words, words, words…

The rapture eventually began to pale as the firelight dimmed inside him and night gave way to a humid cloak of damp morning mist. Dawn would be here soon; the collector would return, and a new day would be upon us. So much to do, so little time. The creature stretched his tiny arms and yawned a little, whistling a lazy shriek from the back of his weary, cauterised throat. He clopped his mouth a few times and felt his eyelids becoming heavy as he burrowed downwards towards the snug core of his inner sanctum, eventually nuzzling against an abandoned Jiffy Bag which crackled lightly as it bent to accommodate his round, fuzzy form. His eyes closed lethargically as he felt himself floating away to one of the quixotic islands depicted in so many of the missives he’d consumed - be they real, imagined or simply the product of innumerable doting syllables carved hopefully upon the page. Before long he was adrift in a blissful sleep, satiated at last by the gratifying toil wrought by so many, to such precious little purpose. At peace again, he began to dream.

Somewhere across town, the spider in the bathtub awoke to the agony of scalding water upon its skin.

C.C. 22/11/11

SHORT FILM: At the Tosche Station [2011]

AT THE TOSCHE STATION

FADE UP:

EXT. LARS HOMESTEAD (TATOOINE) – DAY

Footage from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope begins to play:

1) LUKE SKYWALKER and UNCLE OWEN standing with their new purchases from the JAWAS’ SANDCRAWLER -

UNCLE OWEN
“Luke, take these two over to the garage, will you?
I want you to have both of them cleaned up before dinner.”

LUKE

“But I was going to the Tosche Station to pick up some power converters...!”

UNCLE OWEN
“You can waste time with your friends when your chores are done.
Now come on, get to it.”

LUKE
(motioning to droids)
“Alright, come on...”

2) Mournful orchestral music swells as LUKE gazes out on the twin suns of his home planet, before turning away and venturing back to his workshop.

FADE TO:

EXT. TOSCHE STATION – NEXT DAY

Brief establishing shot of the locale: a run-down fuelling garage in the middle of the desert with a large painted sign above it which reads, “TOSCHE STATION”.

INT. TOSCHE STATION – SAME TIME

We observe a bored-looking attendant in his early 30s stood idly flicking through a magazine while leaning over the service counter. He is wearing a light blue work-shirt emblazoned with a sew-on patch stating his name. This is KLASH RENDARK, the station’s proprietor.

From his perspective, we see a close-up of the station’s APPOINTMENT DIARY. The current day is marked by a ringed note which reads: “LUKE S – pick up power converters”.

Noting this, KLASH picks up the phone and dials a number. We hear the sound of the ANSWERING MACHINE on the other end as a clock ticks impassively in the background.

ANSWERING MACHINE
(V.O.)
“Hi, this is Beru and Owen Lars. We’re not home right now,
but please leave a message after the beep.”

SFX (OVER PHONE): sound of an R2 unit chirping.

KLASH
- Uh, hey there Luke, this is Klash Rendark calling from
the Tosche Station at Anchorhead.

As he speaks, he eyes two large, unwieldy round metal objects taking up a considerable amount of space on one side of the room.

KLASH
I’ve got those two power converters here that you ordered in last week – they’re pretty big and are kind of in the way here, so if you could swing by and pick them up whenever you get the chance, that’d be great. Alright, see you later, buddy – ’bye...

He hangs up the phone and continues reading his magazine.


CUT TO:

EXT. TATOOINE – SAME TIME

More footage from A New Hope, intercut quickly:

1) A TUSKEN RAIDER attacking LUKE before startling at the sound of BEN KENOBI approaching;

2) LUKE sparking up his father’s lightsaber in BEN’S DWELLING –

BEN
“Not as clumsy or random as a blaster;
an elegant weapon, for a more civilised age...”

3) LUKE running to his speeder as he and BEN observe the damage wrought upon the JAWAS’ SANDCRAWLER -

BEN
“Wait, Luke! It’s too dangerous...!”

4) LUKE lowering his head sadly as he observes the burning LARS HOMESTEAD.


CUT TO:

INT. TOSCHE STATION - LATER

From KLASH’s point-of-view, we see a distant billow of black smoke wisping over the horizon as he listens to the telephone’s dial-tone.

At the sound of the R2 unit, he leaves another message.

KLASH
- Uh, yeah, Luke, buddy, Klash again here from over at the Tosche Station. Listen, I know you’re probably tied up reprogramming those moisture vaporators at the moment, but I could really do with you giving me a hand and grabbing these power converters when you get the chance.

From the adjacent room, we hear the voice of his nagging WIFE.

WIFE
(O.S.)
“KLASH! Did you get rid of those friggin’ eyesores yet...?!”

KLASH
(shielding receiver)
- Just a couple of parsecs, honey...!
(back into phone)
- I mean, I wouldn’t normally badger you about it, but it was quite an expensive item to order in, you know – not the king of thing I can really afford to have lying around, especially since the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems came into effect. I’ve really put a lot on the line here buddy, so just give me a call, yeah? See ya later...

He hangs up.

CUT TO:

More footage from A New Hope:

1) HAN SOLO joining BEN, LUKE and CHEWBACCA in a darkened booth of the MOS EISLEY CANTINA –

HAN
“Han Solo. I’m captain of the Millennium Falcon.
Chewie here tells me you’re looking for passage to
the Alderaan system...”

2) The MILLENNIUM FALCON hurtling away from DOCKING BAY 94 while being blasted by STORMTROOPERS;

3) HAN, CHEWBACCA, BEN and LUKE in the cockpit of the MILLENNIUM FALCON as it is rocked by laser fire -

LUKE
“Why are we still moving towards it?!”

HAN
“We’re caught in a tractor beam, it’s pulling us in!”

4) The MILLENNIUM FALCON being drawn into an open port of the DEATH STAR.

CUT TO:

INT. TOSCHE STATION – SAME TIME

From inside the main service room, we hear the sound of an argument taking place off-screen. Though the door to the adjoining room is closed, we are able to make out the dialogue through the wall:

KLASH
(O.S.)
“I told you, I’ve been calling him but he hasn’t picked up yet!”

WIFE
(O.S.)
“Well that’s just not good enough! It’s almost a week now those things have been hanging round, and I’ve told you before about ordering in expensive parts that never get collected!”

KLASH
(O.S.)
“Honey, I’m trying...!”

WIFE
“How are we going to balance the books again this season with a massive outlay like that lying around? And have you even begun to think about paying the Hutts back for that loan we took out last summer? You know I hate that Rodian bugging me at home...”

CUT TO:

More footage from A New Hope:

1) LUKE bursting into a DEATH STAR DETENTION CELL in his Stormtrooper outfit to greet PRINCESS LEIA –

LEIA
“Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper...?”

LUKE
“Huh? Oh, the uniform!”
(removing helmet)
”I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you!”

LEIA
“You’re who...?”

2) LUKE and LEIA on the broken EXTENSION BRIDGE of a Death Star tunnel as LUKE hooks his utility belt cord onto an outcropping of pipes.

LEIA
(kissing his cheek)
“For luck!”

They swing across the abyss and land safely on the other side.

3) HAN and CHEWBACCA in the cockpit of the MILLENNIUM FALCON -

HAN
“Okay, hit it!”

The FALCON rockets away from the Death Star.

CUT TO:

INT. TOSCHE STATION – LATER

We hear the sound of the clock ticking again as KLASH leans over the service counter boredly thumbing through another magazine. The power converters are still taking up a disproportionate amount of space in the room.

CUT TO:

Footage from A New Hope:

1) LUKE and HAN in gun turrets of the MILLENNIUM FALCON as TIE-FIGHTERS approach –

LEIA
“Here they come!”

HAN hits a fighter with his laser-cannon and laughs victoriously.

LEIA
“There are still two more of them out there!”

LUKE blasts an incoming TIE-FIGHTER as it approaches front and centre.

CUT TO:

INT. TOSCHE STATION – LATER

KLASH enters the main service room through the residence door, and observes a hand-written note left for him on the counter. It reads: “I’M LEAVING YOU. x ”

The clock ticks impassively in the background as his face slumps in dejection.

CUT TO:

Footage from A New Hope:

1) X-WING PILOTS beginning their assault on the DEATH STAR –

RED LEADER
“All wings report in.”

RED TEN
“Red Ten standing by...”

RED SEVEN
“Red Seven standing by...”

LUKE
“Red Five standing by...”

RED LEADER
“Lock S-foils in attack position...”

The X-WING FIGHTERS descend into the trench of the DEATH STAR.

2) TIE-FIGHTERS pursuing the various REBEL FIGHTERS through the
DEATH STAR TRENCH -

GOLD LEADER
“I can’t manoeuvre!”

GOLD FIVE
“Stay on target...”

GOLD LEADER
“We’re too close!”

GOLD FIVE
“Stay on target...”

GOLD LEADER
“Loosen up!"

He is blasted to smithereens by a pursuing TIE-FIGHTER.

CUT TO:

INT. TOSCHE STATION – KLASH’S KITCHEN

The kitchen is an unholy mess, with dirty dishes and empty food containers strewn around at random. An unshaven, dishevelled-looking KLASH sits at the dining table in his vest and pants, dejectedly sipping from a glass of blue milk.

A large WOMP RAT scurries through the room, stopping to nibble at some discarded food on the floor.

KLASH
- GET...!

CUT TO:

Footage from A New Hope:

1) DARTH VADER ricocheting in his TIE-FIGHTER cockpit as he is spun off course by HAN in the MILLENNIUM FALCON -

VADER
“What - ?!”

HAN
“Yeeeeeeaaah-hooo! You’re all clear, kid,
now let’s blow this thing and go home!”

LUKE concentrates on the advancing exhaust port and fires his torpedoes.

2) The DEATH STAR explodes in a blistering supernova as the remaining REBEL FIGHTERS pull away.


CUT TO:

EXT. TOSCHE STATION – SAME TIME

A broken-looking KLASH locks the dilapidated station behind him as he wanders outside. He hangs a sign on the door which says “OUT OF BUSINESS” and begins to mope away.

As he passes the two large power converters – bundled haphazardly outside the main station window with a sign next to them which reads “PLEASE HELP YOURSELF” - he is distracted by the faint sound of a muffled commotion off-screen.

He looks up at the sky, observes the remnants of a large explosion somewhere off in the distance, and dejectedly trudges away.

FIN.

C.C. 23/11/11