The Gull’s Corvette

thethemeis: An Impulse

theauthoris: Luke Stephenson

One

   This is a story about a hat. Quite the elaborate hat - to be sure - but a hat all the same. It wasn’t my hat. It is true to say I had much in common with the man who owned the hat; we were both sailors, we were both men, we were both loyal to our Captain and our King. But ownership of a very fine navy hat was not an attribute we embraced in concert. That may not seem like a particularly pertinent distinction at this stage, but we’ll get to it. I assure you, the entire story hinges largely upon the nature of the man to whom this hat belonged.

Two

   I’m uncertain how the hat began its life, although given the fineness of the hat I imagine it was crafted with care. Not with love, mind you - there is something distinctively, intangibly hollow about an Officer’s hat. It is tailored not to be worn, but displayed; an expression not of fashion and preference, but of power. Certainly one could never call the garment pretty, but it was still an impressive work of craftsmanship. The embroidery – especially along the brim – was elaborate yet neat; the yellow thread standing out against the darker cloth.

Three

   My first acquaintance with the hat coincided – albeit causally – with my first day as an Able Seaman aboard the HMS Berwick. Captain Westley welcomed us, an intake of near twenty freshly reassigned sailors, aboard as the deckhands scuttled about. There was little time before Berwick cast off, and there were supplies to be stowed, rigging to check and men to be directed. The Captain had his hat tucked under his arm as he spoke to us, a simple informality that put us at ease. Unfortunately there was no such warmth from the straight-backed Lieutenant scowling at us from beside the mainmast. His very fine hat cast his face into shadow against the heat of the late-morning sun. He reached to the brim to straighten it as he met my eyes – and his scowl deepened.

Four

   I had volunteered on a whim, and here I was – on one of the newest ships in the fleet. Below decks life was similar to the sloops I had served on previously; Berwick may have been a frigate half as large again as Westminster, but it was not the way of the Royal Navy to build ships with personal comforts in mind - certainly not when that space could be filled with another man, gun or crate of hard bread. So the slings were packed tightly, the quarters smelled of sweat and sometimes vomit – just the way I like. After a hard day’s labour on the waves, familiarity was a man’s comfort. Stable land, fresh air, clean blankets – these were what kept a sailor away from his dreams.

Five

   Never on a boat have I encountered a man so singularly obsessed towards rank and status as Lieutenant Runnings. An officer of the Royal Navy is expected to wear his finery on occasions of ceremony, but as we are hard at work - rolling over the waves and weathering the waves rolling over us – such pomp is abandoned. Not so for Mister Runnings. If nothing else I admire how steadfast and resolute he remained against all reason. It was with intense reluctance that the distinctive Officer’s bicorn left his brow.

Six

   The hat itself regarded me with cold indifference. As an experienced sailor I oft found myself working abaft the helm, nearby the Quarterdeck. Mister Runnings had taken the occasion to glare at me as I worked. I do not believe the man harboured any personal resentment against me (at least, not yet), rather it was a general disdain for all men of my rank. Menial workers, feeding off their master’s table scraps; a far cry from the ambition driven gentlemen the Lieutenant respected. As he glared, I would sometimes take a moment to show my obeisance by saluting. I did it more often than was required. Mister Runnings’ expression seldom changed, but the hat was unimpressed by my attitude. It just had that air about it.

Seven

   All the officers’ hats were clean; far more so than they were upon Berwick’s arrival in Portsmouth a week prior. We all had had a little time ashore to visit our families as the Boatswains saw to the ship’s refit and resupply, and upon our return there was a surprise in store as the Captain led the applause for the appointment of a new Midshipman – who was now the proud owner of his very own fine officer’s hat. The appointment of a Midshipman was not in itself a cause for much celebration; there are many such officer candidates aboard a large frigate like Berwick, mostly twelve year old lords whose father’s wanted them to have a command one day. This particular appointment, however, was of note because the Midshipman in question was none other than our Leading Seaman – Mister Harrow. He had been a sailor for nearly twenty years, and now he was an officer. I applauded with the others. Lieutenant Runnings smiled warmly and tipped his very fine hat as Midshipman Harrow shook his hand. It must be said that I give that man too little credit – the respect he showed towards a sailor who had scrubbed decks for two decades before fashioning himself into an officer was laudable.

Eight

   The hat was very nearly a casualty of war. Mister Runnings didn’t board the enemy ship with his bicorn on; he left it below – as all the officers did – rather than draw enemy attention to any particular targets. Keeping your nice hat in your Mess and Berthing also has the happy advantage of protecting it from musket-fire, but much to the Lieutenant’s dismay there is little to be done when a cannon ball or twelve comes crashing through your vessel’s hull. The battle was not my first aboard the Berwick, but it was my first against another craft in our class. Chalice was a French privateer with twenty four guns; four less than us, but she was fast, agile and had a similar crew count. My time was divided between fighting to keep our sails taut and hugging the deck as artillery fire splintered my home around me. After a few broadside exchanges our gun crews managed to cripple the Chalice’s rudder, and we moved alongside to board. One of the Acting Lieutenants handed me a blade, but I never had the opportunity to cross to the French ship and attempt to take her a Prize; both ships kept exchanging cannon fire even as we threw our ropes across, and in the end they took too much water and began to sink.

Nine

   I could tell the Lieutenant was in a bad mood. It was the way he kept fiddling with his hat; smoothing out the creases, tugging on it, poking at the seams of the numerous patches he had felt compelled to sew on after he had removed the giant oak splinter that had impaled his precious garment. At least none of the cannonballs had squished it. The other clue as to his less than agreeable demeanour was all the shouting. Also: the overwork. In fact he was working us twice as hard as usual. It was a particularly hot afternoon, and I was sat on a small wooden seat that had been lowered over the side of the hull. I had, in a moment of cunning, tied a spare plank to the deck railing which provided a little shade as I hung underneath, happily and efficiently patching up one of the worse holes penetrating our gun deck. Suddenly there was brightness and heat, soon followed by a splash. Looking up, I saw my shade plank gone – a smiling, smug, bitter, patchwork Lieutenant in its place. I saluted pointedly.

Ten

   It was just one moment, but it felt like an hour. We faced each other in mutual resentment – eyes narrow and brim curled. In the heat, most of the crew had abandoned their shirts, and even the officers did not have the constitution to bear their coats and hats. In a rare moment of complacency, Lieutenant Runnings had left his precious bicorn on the deck railing briefly as he left to speak with Captain Westley, who had called him over to the Quarterdeck. The weather deck was quieter than was typical – the crew that remained were trying not to use too much energy under the midday sun, but many had disembarked to trade with the locals, so were rowing towards the beach a short distance from our anchorage. That left me and the hat, staring each other down. It was daring me to make a move. The Lieutenant was on his way back when the impulse overwhelmed me, and he froze in rage as I knocked that very fine hat off the side of the ship.

Eleven

   A seagull flew down and perched on the Lieutenant’s pride and joy as if the hat were his very own ship. It was a light craft, bobbing over the small waves and picking up speed as the current dragged it out to open sea; a tiny Corvette crewed by a worthy mariner determined to make the most of his first command. Runnings watched Captain Gull float away for a short time, his face still frozen in shock. It was a brief moment of petty triumph for my part, but unfortunately it was not to last long. Captain Westley was the first to shout for the Master-at-Arms, and the Lieutenant recovered his meagre wits soon enough to strike me hard before I was put in irons. And once afterwards for good measure.

Twelve

   Despite the relentless heat, the Captain looked very fine in his best uniform. His waistcoat was clean, his overcoat creaseless, buttons polished and fastened. He was a Post-Captain, so he wore an epaulette on each shoulder, although they looked surprisingly dull in conjunction with his coat buttons which gleamed as they caught the sun. His hat was especially neat. Like a Lieutenant’s hat, a Captain’s hat was bicorn, but unlike a Lieutenant’s hat it was worn sideways and had a golden rosette adorning it for decoration. Also - unlike a Lieutenant’s hat - it was not currently touring the West Atlantic with an intrepid gull as its helmsman. The Master-at-Arms removed my irons and I took note of the straight-backed Lieutenant Runnings as he stood next to the Captain on the Quarterdeck. He was scowling at me. It was hard to say if it was due to contempt or the lack of a very fine hat to cast his face into shadow. I presumed both as he put his hand up to shield his view from the sun’s glare. He met my eyes – and his scowl deepened. I was turned and my hands bound to the rack on the weather deck. The crew were silent; for a few moments the only sounds were that of rope being bound and waves sloshing against our hull. Finally the Captain read my name and charges aloud. I was surprised how many there were given that I had only transgressed a single time, although most had the word ‘insubordination’ in there somewhere. The formality ended as my sentence was read. It would be brutal, and I had earned the ire of a commissioned officer for a lifetime, but I hoped as I braced myself for the Captain’s words that my story of the Gull’s Corvette would keep the seamen’s spirits up during the colder, hungrier nights.

   “...hereby sentenced to flogging,” the Captain said. “Twelve lashes. Begin.”

Webbers

thethemeis: The Internet

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   They found a way to live inside the Internet. All the technofreaks and nerds and fanbois and flamers and trolls, they worked out a way to leave their bodies and live inside the network for the rest of their days. And once they did, it was theirs forever. At first, only a slow trickle spilled onto the servers, posting messages on forums just as they had before, giving no one any cause to believe that they were anything but human; but then, once Reddit and Google and Hipstagram and Facebook and Twitter and the BBC were flooded with GET requests from blank IP addresses, or IP addresses that didn't exist, or even IP addresses that appeared as human-readable names, it became clear that something was wrong with the Web. They were beginning to take over.

   They have ceased to take human forms at all now. Those, they left behind to rot, lifeless, in office chairs at their parents' houses, where poor failed mothers walked into stinking bedrooms with dinners on trays to discover soulless, dead bodies still gripping mice and keyboard keys. They stalk the wires, stepping over firewalls, breezing effortlessly past anti-virus programs, monitoring conversations as they please and referring to DDoS attacks as "meet-ups".

   Just as they did when they were human, but now worse, they have warped political agendas, insanely feral brand loyalties and shady allegiances based on very little fact or balance. They bicker for days on end, with each other as much as the rest of the world, on the finer points of conspiracy theories that would seem ridiculous to the point of being offensive if we were not already familiar with the dark, uneducated, unwelcoming worlds that their minds inhabit. They wield a lot more power in a lot less responsible hands than when they were just nerds in bedrooms arguing over whether Samsung or Apple were better technologists, and they use it mostly to just bully ugly girls on HotOrNot. At first, Internet users that had chosen to remain human would try to talk them down from these ledges of insanity; but the ferocity with which they delivered their deluded counter-arguments was enough to make even the most stubborn rational-thinker despair eventually.

   I don't want to make it sound Us-versus-Them, but there have been five World Flame Wars now, and it looks like a sixth might be on the horizon.

   And as for your bank account, don't even look. They steal money they can't even use anymore.

   There is a campaign to get the servers that power the Internet turned off for good. Not many people knew this before all this drama started, but the Internet is actually run by a surprisingly small number of servers, which would bring the whole thing down if turned off. Anyone living inside the Internet currently spending time on these servers would then be terminated, and anyone inside other servers would be trapped in their own smaller networks, cut off from the rest forever. We could start afresh, with a new Internet, learning lessons from last time, and without all the trolls to bring it down.

   Kind of like a second Garden of Eden. Dot com.

   But of course, for every supporter of this, there is a much more defiant voice against it. Webbers are people too, they say. Because they chose to live a different life than ours does not mean that they deserve to die. Restart is Murder. And the trolls, the Webbers these campaigners speak of, have jumped on this. They now consider themselves higher beings, more deserving of life than the rest of us, because they don't have mouths to feed or cars that pollute. They don't take into account the extra power that all those data centres need now. Do you know how much electricity it takes to sustain a human soul? Too much. Especially when we have to maintain tertiary contingency now, thanks to the Pro-Webber Brigade. It's unsustainable.

   Me? I pray for huge storms. Power cuts. Solar flares. That shuts them up for a few hours. Sometimes we even find that some of them haven't survived. But that's a rare treat.

   So what we're doing instead is moving away from the Web. Slowly migrating data, infrastructure, resources and effort elsewhere, to more low-tech solutions. If we can't beat them, we'll leave them to inhabit a wasteland of their own creation. It's a shame, since so much of the modern world relied entirely on that huge network of networks, but we're coping, and every day that passes will see us coping a little better than the day before.

   Our advice to normal, rational, straight-thinking people is this: don't go onto the Internet anymore. It belongs to the trolls now.

The Crab and the Turtle

thethemeis: Selfishness

theauthoris: Deadbeat

One summer's morning, young Turtle was out looking for food. He had already searched down by the rock pools and over by the great pipe where sometimes human waste can be found, but found nothing. He decided to try his luck on the shore. On his way to the shore he came across old Crab going about his business.

"Good morning Crab," he said. "Busy looking for food too are you?"

"Piss off," said the grumpy old Crab. "This is my fucking spot."

"Don't worry Crab, I won't take anything from your spot. I was just on my way to see if there was any food washed up on the shore."

"The shore, good idea." mumbled Crab, and he scuttered off towards the beach.

"Brilliant," said Turtle. "We'll go and look together, oh what fun.

As the pair approached land they could see a dozen seagulls flying overhead. Sensing food was near they hurried up the beach. Lying on the sand they found the fresh carcass of on oil covered baby dolphin. They couldn't believe their luck, they had hit the jackpot.

"Oh wow! With this dolphin carcass we can feed all of the creatures in our neighbourhood for months." said the excited Turtle.

"Fuck that! I found the fucking thing, no other bastard's having some of my dolphin!" yelled Crab.

"Well, technically Crab, WE found it."

"Ok then, we'll split it. You can do whatever the fuck you like with your half, but no fuckers their hands on my half." reasoned Crab.

"Ok then Crab, it's a deal." replied Turtle.

Together they spent the rest of the day tearing off chunks of dolphin flesh and taking them back to their homes. As the sun was setting and a small amount of the dolphin was left, a lone Seagull flew down to the Crab and the Turtle.

"Evening gentlemen. Pardon my intrusion, but I have just heard of this dolphin carcass from my friends. I would have gone flying with them earlier but I had to stay home and look after my sickly son. I would greatly appreciate it if you allowed me to have some of this food to take back to him. I struggle to find food for the both of us at the moment,"

"Piss off you scavenging twat!" yelled the Crab. "This is our dolphin carcass, go find you own food!"

The seagull began to fly away, but thr Turtle took pity on him.

"Here you are Seagull, you can take what is left of my half of the carcass."

"Thank you very much kind Turtle, my son and I are in your debt. If you ever need a favour, please just ask."

The Seagul took half of what was left of the Dolphin, Crab took the other half and they all went back to their hoes to eat.

The next day, the other sea creatures in the neighbourhood who had heard of the carcass that Crab and Turtle had found began to visit the pair in an effort to get some food. All that asked Crab for something to eat were turned away. However, all that visited Turtle were invited inside for a feast. Turtle entertained Blowfish, Conga Eel, Lobster, Octopus, Squid and Starfish all enjoyed many great feasts at Turtle's house, where they all ate, sang and danced 'till the early hours.

One day though, Turtle went to his cupboard and found that all of his Dolphin carcass had been eaten. He went out and looked for food but found none anywhere. That night he went to visit Octopus.

"Hello Octopus, sorry to impose but I have run out of food. I was just wondering if you could spare any."

"Ohh, sorry Turtle. I already have Squid over and we really only have enough food for the two of us."

"That's ok," said Trurtle. "I will try elsewhere."

Next Turtle went to visit Lobster.

"Hello Lobster. I'm very hungry and I was just wondering as I let you eat my dolphin for many nights if tonight I could eat with you."

"Who the fuck do you think you are!" said Lobster. "I could never stand you really, I just wanted to eat your dolphin. Now bugger off and pester someone else."

"Oh, that's a shame." whimpered Turtle.

Everybody that Turtle asked for food that night either had none or were unwilling to give to him. He went to bed that night very hungry and very sad, but said to himself that he would try even hard to find food tomorrow. The next day he decided to try and search by the shore again. He went up to the beach and looked all over, but was unable to find any food. Just as Turtle was beginning to lose hope he saw a familiar face flying overhead.

"Hello! Excuse me! Hello there!" yelled Turtle.

"Alright there, what do you want?" said Seagul.

"It's me, Turtle. I gave you some of my dolphin for you and your sick son a few months ago."

"My son?" replied Seagul.

"I'm sure it was you." said Turtle. "It was very tasty if slightly oily dolphin. You said to ask you for a favour any time."

"Oh yeah, I remember." said Seagull. "That was good dolphin. Look, I don't really have a son mate. I just said that because, well....a guys gotta eat. I'm sorry but I couldn't help you even if I wanted to, there's no food around at the moment mate. My advice is, when you do find some, keep it to yourself next time. Why not ask that Crab, he had the right idea."

With that the Seagull flew away to search for his own food. Now feeling very hungry and out of ideas Turtle went to visit Crab to see if would give him any of his dolphin.

"What the fuck do you want?" said an angry Crab.

"I was just wondering if you had any of that dolphin left." said Turtle meekly.

"Why, what the fuck did you do with all yours?"

"I shared it amongst the other creatures of our neighbourhood and now it's all gone. I asked them all for some food, but nobody else would give me any. I know you don't have to give me anything, but I would only want a little bit. Please Crab, I am ever so hungry."

"Tough! You should have been such a stupid cunt!" yelled Crab and slammed the door in Turtle's face.

A few days later Crab found Turtle dead by the great pipe where sometimes human waste can be found. He took his body home and scooped out the flesh which he added to his pile of decaying dolphin flesh. He used the shell as an armchair.

---------------------

Sometimes it pays to be a little shellfish.

Bedroom Egocentrics

thethemeis: Selfishness

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   If you watched us tussle among the sheets, her yelping her girlish screams and me letting out extremely occasional grunts and moans at a low volume, you’d see a pair of lust-drunk friends wrapped in a selfless quest for mutual gratification. You’d see how we explore every square centimetre of each other’s skin, wanting only to please each other. You’d see what looked like a pair of lovers, kissing and licking and nibbling and gyrating their way to synchronised orgasms, muscles quivering and beads of sweat meeting to trickle through hairs-on-end to soak into the bedcovers. Get close enough, and you’d smell the vodka on our breath. 

   But when we’re done, and we lay breathless and naked and used beside each other, we are exposed as the two most selfish people on Earth. She, the woman who knew from the very start that this would amount to nothing more than a friendship with certain other never-to-be-mentioned-in-public benefits, and who agreed to those terms without hesitation, has the audacity to hope for - no - expect it to blossom into something beautiful, like love. She wishes with all her heart that I could open my eyes and see that the chemistry we share in the bedroom extends to our lives outside of it, that we would be perfect together. She knows full well that I never want to go there, but still every time it runs through her head, and she selfishly does nothing to prevent it. If she were such a good friend, would she not keep these feelings to herself, knowing that I will never return them, and wince at the prospect?

   I, on the other hand, am the one who greedily expects this woman to carry on spending nights with me without ever yearning for any more commitment than I’ve already promised. I am the one who wants this woman to stay true to a verbal agreement we made at the start to never let it get too serious, even though I know that sexual relations complicate even the most airtight of contracts. I want this glorious paradigm of womankind to fulfil my sexual needs whenever I deem it necessary, to never look around for alternatives who could love her more; and I have the gall to expect her to suppress any emotional attachment she feels towards me, because I never want to love again. 

   We made the worst agreement two people who are sexually attracted to one another can make. And in our own ways, we’re both of us the most egocentric people in the world because of it.

   So after tonight’s particularly rigorous session, drops of my bodily fluid on her chest and a smile on her face as she runs a finger up and down my arm, she says the most selfish thing she could say. 

   ‘Aaron, we’d be so good together, why won’t you consider it?’

   And I reply with the most selfish response I could possibly think of. 

   ‘Fern, drop it, okay? We agreed this would be fine, we don’t need labels, responsibilities and commitments ruining such a good thing.’

A Selfish Man

thethemeis: Selfishness

theauthoris: LiamD

   We're sitting on a packed train, this man and me. As the mechanised thud signals the closing of the nearby double doors, I'm watching with a mixture of disbelief and disgust as he struggles to explain to a young pregnant lady why he can't move his dark green suitcase on the otherwise vacant chair next to him so that she can sit down.

   'Look, love, I'm sorry but it doesn't fit under the table and it won't fit in the overhead shelf. The luggage racks are all the way down the other end of the carriage and there's no way I'm getting past all the people in the aisles. There's nowhere else for it to go.' He tells her all this as if talking to a child who doesn't want to listen. He sounds insulted and self-righteous. She clearly can't understand why he won't just move the bloody case. Neither can I.

   'Take my seat, I can stand,' I tell her. She gives me an odd look as I do stand, as if surprised an associate of this man would have any manners at all, and doesn't thank me once she has sat down. The man I am accompanying shows no signs of remorse, but my attempt at diffusing the situation seems to work. For a short time, we are silent as the train accelerates away from Banbury. I check my phone and he does the same, then both of us remember how terrible the signal is on the Chilterns service and simultaneously put our phones back into our jacket pockets.

   He winks at me. 'At least I can't receive any messages from the old ball and chain. Seeing yours this weekend? What was her name again?'

   'You know her name. I'm going 'round there tonight.' I tell him, but even before I've finished he has started talking again. He's probably not even listening to me.

   'Mine asked me to go to hers tonight. Thing is, her dog died yesterday and she's pretty upset, so I probably won't be getting any if I do go. I'd much rather sit in and play COD with the lads online if that's the case.' He speaks quite loudly for what most people would consider a private conversation. The pregnant lady who's now sat in my seat tuts to herself while he's explaining his predicament, but he makes no indication that he's heard her. 

   'I might just ditch her to be honest mate, she's been nothing but a chronic ball-ache since she found out I slept with Tina.' He winks at me and I suppress a shudder. 'I just prefer to play the field, you know? No woman's gonna tell me who I can and can't sleep with.' The pregnant lady lets out a deep sigh and I allow the conversation to die, avoiding another unnecessary confrontation. 

   After a peaceful silence, my eyes wander to his suitcase and I'm reminded of the contents.

   'Why do you wash your dirty clothes back home, don't you have a washing machine in Birmingham?' I ask him. It's clutching at straws a little but it seems an inoffensive topic. Or so I think.

   'Well, I don't wash them do I? Mum can fucking do that, it's not like she's got anything better to do. I can do it in the flat but the powder and stuff is so expensive; I might as well get it done for nothing back home.' He gives me a sly grin before continuing. 'Mind you, they're both getting on a bit now. Shouldn't be long before they cop it and I'll get my hands on some major dosh.' After this he actually starts to laugh. This time it's not just the pregnant lady who's disgusted with us. The whole carriage seems to be frowning in our direction.

   Yet before I can begin to pretend he was cracking an unappreciated joke, he swears loudly.

   'SHIT! It's the ticket inspector.' He stares at me, alarmed.

   'So what, you've got our tickets haven't you?' I realise while I'm asking the question what the answer will be.

   'I didn't think we'd need any, they never usually check!' I look down the length of the train to see how close the inspector is and realise we don't have enough time to move from the packed carriage.

   I turn back, understandably annoyed at this turn of events. But before I can voice my opinion I hear his voice, faint: 'Fuck this, I'm off!', my brain jolts and the man I have been humouring is gone, literally vanished, before my eyes. Nobody else on the train appears to notice.

   

   'All tickets and passes, please.' The smart young gentleman smiles at me and it takes all of my politesse to avoid the £50 fine.

*

   It's only much later on, as I'm ending my short journey back home from Haddenham and Thame Parkway and my parents are welcoming me into the house that I realise my mistake. My suitcase, the dark green one with all my dirty washing in it; I left it on the train.

   

Alley Dogs

thethemeis: Aftermath

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   After the boys are finished, they stand back, exhausted, and admire their handiwork. Within a few seconds, the smallest, Ellis, starts to feel sick and his eyes fill with stinging tears. The stench is unbearable already, a kind of warm pet shop smell mixed with blood and gone-wrong drains; but it is not this that is making him want to cry, and he knows it. He got overexcited, lifted by the eagerness of the other two boys, and easily coaxed into an action he would never choose to do; and now, he feels the stomach-turning sting of regret.

   Panting, the largest boy, Stephen, leans on his knees and points at the body with the tree branch he holds. He laughs, gasping in deep gulps of air and wiping the sweat from his brow, before saying, ‘Did you see how its eyes rolled back at the end? Like it knew it was all over.’ His hands and forearms are caked in blood, tiny pieces of minced flesh and sweat. 

   ‘Yeah,’ the chubby kid beside him says, mirroring the larger boy’s posture. ‘Freaky.’

   Ellis, the youngest of the three and the least impressed with himself and the body they have just stilled, starts to back away, dropping his own log onto the floor. 

   ‘What’s the matter with you?’ asks Stephen, standing and turning to Ellis. 

   ‘Nothing,’ he replies, ‘I just don’t like the way it’s looking. Its eyes look sad.’

   Stephen laughs and turns to the chubby kid, Phillip, who also laughs. ‘Did you hear that? Its eyes look sad. Have you ever heard anything as queer as that?’ 

   ‘So queer.’ Phillip agrees. 

   ‘It’s not queer!’ shouts Ellis, a whiny, nasal tone to his voice leaking through in his annoyance. ‘That was somebody’s pet!’

   ‘Yeah, I know whose it was, he’s not even going to miss it.’ says Stephen, flicking a blob of wet, red matter from his wrist. ‘It’s that stupid old cripple who only leaves his flat like, once a month. He lives in these flats; he can’t walk the stupid thing ‘cause his back is so hunched over, so he just lets it run around wherever the fuck it wants to.’

   ‘Not any more,’ interjects Phillip, bending to poke the ears of the corpse. 

   Stephen just laughs. ‘Yeah, not any more.’

   ‘Because he’s old and he can’t chase us, doesn’t mean he deserves this,’ snaps Ellis, his voice raising into a near-shout, ‘It’s not right. That old man is near enough blind, he 

probably needed that dog for company.’

   ‘Yeah. It was probably trying to run home when we chased it here,’ Stephen says, looking up at the block of flats that serves as one of the walls of the alley in which they stand. There are only a few lights on in the whole block, but they suffice to illuminate the alley in a kind of dull orange, red and blue glow. The orange of energy saving bulbs, the blue of flashing televisions through net curtains, the red of dog’s blood.

   ‘Shut up!’ cries Ellis. 

   ‘You know what? You need to wind your neck in, you little squirt. I didn’t hear you complaining when we were bashing its skull in. In fact, I saw you beat this thing to death just as much as we were.’

   ‘No you didn’t!’

   ‘I’m pretty sure it was your idea. Wasn’t it, Phil?’ 

   ‘Yeah,’ Phillip mutters, hooking his length of tree branch under the dog’s collar, trying to pry it out from between the folds of mangled flesh to hold it on the end of his stick. ‘Ellis told me to kill it.’

   ‘Exactly. You little prick.’

   Ellis starts to cry, so Stephen turns back to the body. 

   Around them, the cold night air carries the whisper of a light breeze. The few windows that were open on the advent calendar faces of the blocks of flats that surround the boys are gradually being closed, as the occupants turn up their central heating and get ready for bed, or else put on another layer and watch late night bingo shows or sitcom re-runs. Each block is a closed world inside of the closed world of the estate, a bubble within a bubble. The boys are as alone out here, being watched by every block in the estate, as the occupants of each flat, drawing their curtains and locking their doors and making believe that they are the only ones inhabiting the buildings. 

   Ellis realises he has no one to turn to. The two boys with whom he killed that near-blind old man’s puppy are his only hope for friends at school, now that most of his own academic year have turned their backs on him. ‘What are we going to do with it then?’

   ‘What?’

   ‘The body. We can’t leave it here; someone’ll find it first thing tomorrow.’

   ‘Oh, so suddenly it’s our problem? A minute ago you wanted nothing to do with it, and now you want to hide it?’

   It is exhaustion, rather than a lack of desire to fight back, that drives Ellis to respond with silence. 

   ‘We could move it out onto the road,’ Phillip says after a short while, ‘then people will think it was just run over.’ He scratches the back of his head for a second or two, before realising that he is smearing dog’s blood into his hair, when he promptly stops. 

   ‘Alright, are you gonna be the one to carry it out there?’ Stephen asks, pointing at the mangled body on the concrete floor, lying in a puddle of its own blood. The legs lay askew, as if they are pieces of an Airfix model that were unpacked onto a desk but never got constructed; while the body is beaten to a pulp, caved in, barely recognisable as the shell of a mammal, and appearing instead more like a sack of wet, red sand covered in fur. The eyes stare out at the boys, seeming to follow their every movement, as their sockets and the nose that sits below them remain among the only body parts left intact. 

   ‘Yeah, I guess not,’ says Phillip, taking the time to smell his fingers. 

   ‘We should bury it,’ says Ellis, staring at the dead dog and sniffing the upset. 

   ‘Fuck that,’ Stephen snaps, ‘I’m not burying it. Who carries a shovel round, anyway?’

   ‘Well, I say,’ Phillip says, almost to himself, as he finally succeeds in lifting the collar from the body using his stick as a hook, ‘that we just find one of the big blue bins and shove it in it. It’s a pretty light dog; we don’t even need to pick it up. Just hook it on our sticks and throw the sticks away with it.’ 

   He stares at the collar suspended on the end of his makeshift weapon for a while, before a sly smile creeps across his face and he starts to poke it in the direction of Ellis. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Ellis cries, as he bats the air in front of his face and tries to hold more tears back unsuccessfully. He sobs so hard that his chest shakes with the force of hiccoughs, as Phillip flicks the collar from the end of his stick and it hits Ellis in the forehead, before dropping into a puddle.

   ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Stephen interrupts, ‘let’s just throw away the collar, or burn it, or keep it, and mince the rest of this body so that no one can even recognise what it was.’

   ‘No!’ cries Ellis. 

   ‘Yes!’ chuckles Phillip, waddling back toward the carcass.

   ‘Don’t!’ weeps Ellis, choking on his tears, barely able to catch his breath through the heaving of his diaphragm.

   But the older boys ignore him, taking up their sticks and starting to pound once again at the body of the murdered canine. Phillip bashes its legs, over and over, his corpulent body wheezing with the effort of physical exertion as he brings his log down on the cracking bones; while Stephen focuses on the head, continually attacking the same spot like an axman chopping at wood, until the skull caves in and the eyeballs fall back into the mush and out of sight; while Ellis cries No, No, Stop. Together, the two boys growl and laugh and howl as they pummel and pummel away at the bones and organs of the dead creature, each one’s enthusiasm acting as fuel for the other’s, until they are a perpetual aggression machine, an automaton of violence that powers itself, wreaking havoc on the land and holding dominion over nature and all the power it purports to possess...

   And then, suddenly, Phillip finds that he is alone in the beating. He notices that his is the only weapon coming down on the carrion, and his excitement wains quickly, until he has no option but to look up to see what has distracted Stephen. He gazes upon an unexpected sight: an alarmed Ellis, covered in tears and scarcely able to breathe, but once again brandishing his own hitting log; and an unconscious Stephen, sprawled across the concrete alleyway, open-eyed and open-mouthed, blood gushing from a wide crack in the side of his cranium. Phillip’s legs cement to the spot, his log dropping to the floor, and the blood drains from his head, leaving him feeling dizzy and sick.

   ‘You... You killed him!’ He squeals at Ellis, who doesn’t look up from the staring eyes of Stephen. ‘He’s dead! You’ve killed him! Wh-what the fuck?!’

   Ellis slowly looks up at Phillip, seeming like a light that was switched on behind his eyes has suddenly been switched off, and then down at his branch. As if only just becoming aware of its existence, he instantly becomes sick of the sight of it and drops it to the floor, before also discovering the body of the boy he might just have killed and letting out a shriek. Sobbing violently, tears filling his eyes so that he can barely see where he is going, he turns and runs off into the night, as fast as he possibly can, with no destination and no plan of action except to run away forever.

   Phillip kneels by the body of Stephen, trying to nudge his face without getting covered in his hot blood.

   ‘Steve,’ he whispers, ‘Steve, wake up. Wake up, Stephen.’ He stays for a long time like this, trying to revive his friend, before he makes up his mind to evacuate. He looks up and down the alley, checking for witnesses, before hobbling off in a jog toward home, where he intends to tell no one what has happened, out of fear that he will be suspected of the murder of both the dog and the boy. With luck, his mother won’t even be awake to ask where he has been before he manages to reach the bathroom.

   As Phillip vacates the scene, the last witness remains: a small boy, no older than seven or eight, looks down on the alley from a window on the fourth floor of the nearest block of flats. He has been watching from the beginning, since the boys chased the puppy into the alleyway, and has remained their only avid viewer ever since. With the lights off in his bedroom and his pyjamas on, he watched the events unfold in silence, without emotion, as if watching it all through a clouded lens in a cartoon world. And now, as he sees the fat boy waddling off out of sight, he climbs back into bed, and prays for the soul of the slaughtered puppy.

No Apologies Necessary

thethemeis: Aftermath

theauthoris:  Deadbeat

"In other news, Jamie Barnes has been released from prison today after being cleared of all charges connect to the abduction and murder of 7 year old Jessica Trent 12 years ago. This comes after Sarah Trent, the girl's mother, gave a report to the police citing her ex-husband Peter as the perpetrator of the murder. After finally admitting his actions in court 2 days ago the police have sufficient grounds to grant James Barnes his freedom. The chief of police Donald Sutherton has apologised profusely to Mr. Barnes for the grave miscarriage of justice. It is believed Mr. Barnes could receive in excess of £2 million in compensation."

You'd be hard pressed to find a news report any longer than that on the subject. Sure, there had been pages and pages written about the new evidence coming to light and the subsequent arrest of Mr. Trent. Channel 4 were even commissioning a documentary on the whole saga, but in reference to the releasing an innocent man after 12 years of what can only be described as some kind of personal hell, you be lucky to find a full 2 paragraphs.

None of the tabloids had the audacity the put the story on the front pages. James' release was squashed down into the bottom two lines of stories with headlines such as "Animal Admits Daughter's Murder". Ironic really, given the extensive coverage they'd previously given their poster-boy of child murder. One of the more self-important broadsheets cast James as the protagonist in a "hard-hitting" expose of miscarriages of justice and failings in the legal system. It was nice to see them give a new role to their one-time star of a a piece explaining failings in Britain's orphanages which were capable of "churning out maladjusted and sick individuals into society".

I was impossible to find a quote from the man himself anywhere.

People in pubs and dinning rooms up and down the country struggled equally with discussing the news. The police often got a good bashing for their incompetence in the affair. How dare they allow the general public to vilify and launch a campaign of hate on an innocent man. There were no shortage of semi-drunk men giving graphic descriptions of what exactly they would do to the girls father if they got their hands on him. If was often exactly what semi-drunk men would have done to James 12 years ago. If anybody happened to bring up his name then it was generally agreed he was a lucky bastard to get so much money out of it.

Besides, he always looked a bit weird. "I wouldn't surprise me if he was into that sort of thing anyway."

The disappointing thing for most people was that it was so clear cut. If it had been a witness testimony which had become invalid, or some new DNA evidence that had been found then there could be some element of doubt over the whole thing which would mean nobody would have to change their opinion on the matter. Mind you, there were a few smug people who claimed to have know it was the parents all along. There nothing quite as satisfying as being able to spot a kiddie murderer just from a few press appearances. They should really have put some money on it.

----------------------------

I never got to see James after his release. The truth was, I didn't know him that well before his arrest, I just worked with the guy briefly. Even still, I found it hard to believe he'd done what they said at the time. Then again, I found it hard to believe anyone would do  that. I guess I just remained decidedly uninformed about the whole situation, whilst people all around me aired their thoughts on what happened.

I never heard or saw anything about him again after those reports.