On your toes

Measured to the last millimetre. This guy was a pro. If it weren't for these two nails: see here beneath both heals - hammered through this plank and reversed so they face upwards, he would have been strangulated by the noose attached here - mind the head - to the ceiling. Notice both the arms and legs are bound together with a seaman's like craft. He'd have tried balancing on his toes for a while, and when his leg muscles finally gave out, he'd be forced to balance on the nail tips. There'd have been a lot of screaming at this point - the unbearable pain and panic, etc.; hence his mouth was taped over. An impossible situation. Eventually the the body shuts down and he'd have passed out. No, our perp didn't want to kill him, he just wanted him to suffer for the sheer hell of it. The lipstick smile painted on the gag, the ill-fitting mankini and this ludicrous green wig suggest he's probably a bit of a joker too.

Why did it take so long before someone raised the alarm, I mean this guy wasn't exactly a nobody, he was a respected member of the business community - wasn't his wife in?

An astute observation, but we are not dealing with your average perp. Into account, everything was taken. In fact his wife did see him earlier that evening, but assumed it was part of some elaborate kinkiness - the lipstick, mankini, wig, etc. - and affected disinterest ... bordering on disdain if her witness statement is anything go by ... she'd caught him the previous day with his tadger in the jam jar; apparently, on being challenged, he claimed he couldn't find a clean spreading knife. As it turned out, there wasn't any clean cutlery, but her suspicions were aroused, if nothing else. Of course, gentleman, I expect strict discretion on this investigation and, as you rightly point out, Alpha-Alpha is an upstanding member of the business community and a fine example, to the rest of us, of the triumph of megalomania over talent. Mostly.

What do you make of the messages scrawled all over the walls in peanut butter Sarge?

Well, from their general coherence, correct spelling and grammar - notice also how neat the writing is - we are dealing with a highly intelligent individual. The peroration is superlative, though oddly superfluous. Probably went to school and read books - notice the clever use of onomatopoeia and the lovely alliteration over here. Also notice how the phrases "more importantly, how are you?" and "does this make you sad but incredibly proud?" are repeated over and over again, except these are written, unlike the others, in branded chocolate spread. Easily mistaken for excrement.

Shouldn't we let him down now and get him some medical attention?

Don't they teach you anything at rookie school? This isn't cop TV. Never disturb the crime scene: I want you walking on tippy-toes ... no, but seriously, I imagine he'll come round in a bit.

Excuse me Sarge, but quaters say they have never heard of a Sargent Joe Kerr Junior.

That's just my nickname, I'll have to be going now.

August Benevolence

“As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"QT, I always enjoy our little sessions, glad we finally got to interface like this, I want to talk to you about a new idea. It's not all about me just giving you orders!" Alpha Alpha chortled contentedly. "Now, it has not gone unnoticed what a good job you've done with the company Time Calibration. You have no less than absorbed my time into your time with the minimum of fuss. You could say, my time has disappeared, and this is excellent - exactly what we need if Unlikely Solutions is ever going to grow. Its not all about me after all, its about us, our future, your future, and of course we'll all be rewarded - but remember I'm not here for the money!" Alpha Alpha laughed again and rubbed the little droid's top affectionately. "Of course, even though you've got a processor with more power than the sun, I know you're not interested in money." The droid flickered.

"Now, now that more of my time is released I've had more time to think about my, our future. By the way QT, where did you put the time? I've noticed you're always here, and this is of course the minimum expect, are you processing quicker? Has someone slipped you some new RAM? You've not been plundering the old computers for parts behind my back have you!!! I'm joking of course." More laughter and an even more rigorous rub. QT flashed his front lights twice red and once green and Alpha Alpha laughed a little more.

"I don't know how you do it, I really don't. Anyway, my new idea is mainly this: I have a lot of very good ideas but I don't have enough time to execute my ideas. Now, your work on managing the diary and organising the care of the other bots is great, but this is just the beginning, and, without boring you I won't go on about all my ideas, but I have one little thing more I'd like you to do for me on the strategic front. Write my story. I've always wanted to have more of a public presence, a more philanthropic presence, I want my face out there, interfacing and networking with the right nodes. You can tell people my story, writing little daily updates, making it easily available so people can find out exactly what they need to about Unlikely Solutions. What do you think?"

QT beeped excitedly.

"I know you're just a droid, whose never had great responsibility like me, but, I think sometimes no one knows me better than you QT. You see all the thoughts and ideas I have - I know they're all wizzing around inside that motherboard of yours - so I just thought, you're the man. Just write my story as if it was your own. I want it to be natural, but hard hitting, covering all the important issues I have to deal with on a daily basis. I don't want you spending a long time on it, just churn it out. I don't have to see it, although, obviously nothing happens at Unlikely Solutions without me seeing it. I have absolute faith in you. And of course, if this generates a little more interest in what we do here, that's no bad thing. And, if you do a good job, maybe we'll think about installing the Vocal Enablement upgrade we talked about. If you can write like me, maybe one day you can talk like me."

Table dance

In trademark theatrical fashion, Joe Kerr Junior leapt onto the boardroom table, flinging open his velour jacket like demon wings with outstretched arms mid-flight, only to reveal serial rows of grenades stitched into the thick silk lining. The ensemble terminated at the red-buttoned detonator above which his thumb now erratically hovered.

“And besides, with me, you get a lot of bang for your buck.”

Alpha-Alpha could not disguise the facial contortion of humiliation as it unashamedly mugged him before the assembled wide-eyed, slack-jawed, clients.

Drooling.

Getting up your nose

Pop-Pop, angrily hunched like Quasimodo unfavourably singled out at a knobbly-knee contest for genetic disadvantage advantage, launched his tubby index finger and waved it accusatorily in the manner of a burnt sausage: “I'm not joking: as you'll have noticed, I'm a man with a short temper.”

“Here's a tip: by the time my temper arrives, you'll be long gone my furry-fury-faced friend” said Joe Kerr Junior deftly whittling a 2H with his boning knife - pausing only to flick tiny flints of graphite and sustainable wood source chip from his velour jacket collar.

“More to the point Pops, would you like to see my vanishing pencil trick?"

The creative process

Just sautéing my organs internal - the reddish-purple spongers - copious marinades of wine with passable; the small only amount of rouge pleasure derived by I from partaking thereby of grape fermented thusly, and will no doubt premature malfunction to lead, the hot scorn of relatives, my close shame, and the kind of poor attendance funeral celebrity Z-failures would be embarrassed posthumously to exhume from tabloid retrospect of pages showbiz. Now away go off piste and stop pestering me you bozo homeless. I didn't need change sparing. I'm just roosting my lid eyes on this hereby officer bench park, till the hens to home rest a come and I don't like handed bracelets for two. Who you do I am think? I'm kind of man-girl that not.

Going postal

“A surprise invitation may come as a welcome surprise to some and a prospect to others, especially the less socially inclined, of unimaginable horrors.” Odd thing to write on a surprise invitation reflected QT. The host, he immediately noted from the shakily written signature “X” at the bottom, was from a former employee of Unlikely Solutions Ltd. He had shown unqualified promise, despite his lack of qualifications. Office lore had it that he had gone stark raving mad. “Spreadsheet blindness” as it was commonly known, however its clinical name was “Excelleritus”. Both the informal former and formal latter classification had caused some confusion of the misnomered kind. It wasn't that the excessive use of a certain branded software program, from which the condition takes it name, induced psychological breakdown, rather, there was a peculiar virus attracted to number keys that, when exposed to over a number of years, subtlety alters the chemical composition of the brain's neural transmitters to that of a heavily fruited cake, with the addition of the occasional walnut. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember. QT read on: “As some of you may know, despite my condition, I have managed to rehabilitate myself - well, more like resuscitate and resurrect - as a respected journalist. With some success, dare I say. You may have noticed my syndicated column “Going Postal” penned under the pseudonym, R. U. Barking. That wasn't my idea by-the-way. I may be mad, but I'm not insane.” The spidery scrawl continued ... "In case you haven't been following the substance of my jottings on a week-by-week basis, I outline my plan, in pedantic detail - names, dates and so on - to carry out a preplanned work-place massacre and also expound upon on the vicissitudes of the nondescript columnist turned mass executioner. This is no mere attention-seeking gimmick, I fully intend to make good on the deal, as I have often stated in my column. Speaking of deals, and to the purpose of my writing, I'm inviting you to celebrate the book and film tie-in at a special launch party to be held last weekend." Hmm ... thought QT. Glad I missed it. He looked down at the doormat to see what other postal delights awaited his attention, when he noticed the headline on the folded paper. "Police Launch Investigation into Last Weekend's Launch Party Massacre Massacre". Apparently the police didn't have a clue. If only they'd had a tip-off. He read on: "As they say, there's no such thingamajig as bad publicity and I think we can safely say we have blockbuster on hands come next summer" the Chief Inspector went on to observe, "you've got to admire the campaign managers and promoters, they certainly got my attention."

The hostage, whom "X" had threatened to take with him if his more than reasonable demand "just to be taken seriously as an artist" wasn't met with polite reviews, had survived after the police marksmen stormed the scene, some half an hour before, or so, the Chief Inspector had given the actual order to "storm the scene". The marksmen had manged to kill and maim slightly fewer innocent bystanders. A blessing QT supposed; not to be a critic, but they had taken him seriously, only not in the manner "X" had hoped for.

"He had a life plan" one of the neighbours was poignantly quoted as saying.

Jobsworth

Replace the adjective "jobless" with "worklessnessnessless".

No brainer

Tell me, does this "life plan" you mention include a hostage taking scenario whereby the authorities choose not to accede to your more than reasonable demands?

How do you think your neighbours will describe you when the on-the-spot reporter, over the live network feed, prompts a sound-bite response just after they cut away from the shot of the police forensics team carefully removing fragments of your blown out brains and skull, with tweezers, from the "incident" scene?

"G" marks the spot

G-Man, otherwise known as a truncation of "Government Man" is a sobriquet of sorts, originating - perhaps apocryphally according to Wikipedia - from an incident in the early 1930's where a known felon, a gangster by the name of "Machine Gun" Kelly, was cornered like a dirty rat by federal agents and ...

Boring. Next.

G-Man, or indeed "Men", is a euphemism for an elusive sect of elite homosexuals in search of the - some say mythological - so-called sexual Shangri-La of the neural rich "G-spot" said to be located somewhere on the surface u-bend of the rectal cavity closest in proximity to the prostate gland; so I am given to understand. It is also said to have been discovered by a Professor P. G. Tipps, but I can find no reference to him, nor it, in the orthodox literature, though I do have some scribblings I took down from various lavatory cubicles I frequented in the course of my research.

Good grief, only the male of the species has the visual-spatial facility to superimpose, with the projectile aid of their inner eye, the letter "G" upon the contours of the lower bowel in order to create a marketable signature band identity for yet one more of their truly depraved activities. How do we, QT, exploit this to our profit?

Er, well, they say sex sells.

And I say they are right. Let me tell you how I envision it: in these times of austerity, a little of what tickles your fancy - continuous the breathless voiceover - does you good. Introducing the G-Man Route Finder Ticket for G-Men, the travel stimulus package that will drive you round the bend with ecstasy. I see the camera turn to several burly men - clearly gym monkeys - dressed as FBI agents in black leather stylised uniforms, with the ass cheeks cut out, gyrating to the latest improbable pop hit sung by an eight year old and penned by a balding, middle-aged man with gut hangover approaching his toes; an unhealthy combination of part-time sex-pest and full-time booze hound ... but I digress... suddenly a bendy bus pulls up - move to interior shot - another, hitherto unseen, cheek-less panted FBI agent, makes his way down the seat isle towards the automatic door exit. Brandishing his G-Man travel pass in his fingerless leather gloves, he stops, pauses, looks up and turns to the camera - close-up of his tanned, baby-smooth, moustachioed face - this is the money shot - and winks a heavily lashed lid as he says, "Here's where I get off, now that's the ticket!" Finally he egresses and we see him join the rest of the "law-enforcement group" in their repetitive gyrations as the camera fades to black. The music should continue a few seconds after the fadeout to leave our imagination to dwell on what we might have seen if censors didn't exist or hadn't been invented. Now if that's not a game changer, I don't know what is. Thoughts QT?

That's a very niche market to target for integrated ticketing improvements and the introduction of bendy buses.

Exactly. The mistake most pubic information campaigns make is that they target a majority audience; by targeting a subversive subset of a minority subset of the audience, it suggests to the rest of us - essentially those hetero car drivers on the "inside" lane looking "out" - a certain cache, edginess and exclusivity, nay transgressive thrill by proxy, to the very idea of bus travel. The forbidden lane. During peak hours that is. Hence encouraging modal shift. Speaking of which, have we secured the contract with the client? I do hate competitive tendering and all that "best value" guff.

Yes Alpha-Alpha, the strategic philanthropy department has dropped off the brown paper bag to the relevant junior transport minister. We also offered him a consulting position, should the next general election precipitately require him to reevaluate his career development. Otherwise, we are green to go.

G-MEN

The knock knocking on the door came just as Alpha Alpha was winding down from his morning stretches. QT listened for the breathing rate to slow and entered the room.

"Sir?"

"Ah, yes, good to see you QT. Beautiful morning. More importantly... how are you?"

"Yep. Good, sir, not bad, I..."

"Excellent. I've been thinking. G-MAN."

"Yes."

"Let's put it into action. I want to see G-MAN and a programme for a whole host of G-MEN on my desk by 11 hundred. Strategic Philanthropy. Know what I mean."

QT was quaking in his boots. He knew exactly what he meant.

Corybantic banter

What do you mean I can't say "brainstorming session" because, by analogy, it suggests a defamatory equivalence to an involuntary and erratic electrical discharge across the temporal lobe externally characterised by spasmodic muscular seizures and, in certain cases, accompanied by an intense sense of religious ecstasy; hence, insinuating that the sharing of ideas is a form of epileptic group revelation? By raising such an objection, surely you betray the very same prejudicial insensitivities you patronisingly accuse others of maliciously harbouring. I throw that thought out for group comment. Try not to spaz out.

Where is yesterday's carpet?

Il passato è una terra straniera

Team meeting guys!

Let’s go to the breakout area …

Now, I was thinking about you all late last night, as is my wont – even outside of statutory office hours – when I asked myself: what have you – my employees – done for me lately? For example, you QT – what did you do for me yesterday? No, no, hush! – that was a rhetorical question. Let's take this opportunity to refocus. Where, for example, is yesterday? What I am getting at, is what proof can you bring me of its existence and hence your contribution to its - our - present success? Yes, yes, I know we have timesheets, what kind of arse-scratching degenerate proto-primate do you take me for? Answer me this: how do I know that those timesheets were not, along with the rest of the universe, suddenly conjured out of the thin air of nowhere this very morning? That was another rhetorical question. What do you mean: "How do I, given the logic of my chronologically skeptical supposition, know what I was thinking last night?" ... one at a time please ... When I want audience participation and a "dictionary definition" of "rhetorical" you will be given formal notice. Trust me. What I am telling you is: from now on, it is no longer good enough – metaphysically acceptable – for you to rest on yesterday’s laurels, for they are unworthy of an empiricist’s verifiable contempt. I want to know what you are doing for me right now: this very moment, as it unfurls before us like an expensive carpet, which you must continuously lay at the feet of my direction, as I walk us, in steadfast leadership, towards the shining beacon of the future over the vanishing horizon of hope. Finally, there is no “I” in team, only “@me”. Team dismissed.

Head & shoulders

A man strides purposefully into our offices here at Unlikely Solutions Ltd., stops at your desk and holds a gun to your weak temple. He then commands you to find a way to defend yourself in the next thirty seconds, without moving out of your comfy seat, or he'll blow your pathetic little head clean off your undeserving shoulders. What do you do QT?

Well, Alpha-Alpha, I got to say, I'd offer him an Unlikely Solution (TM).

Good. Very good. Go on. Expand.

I'd ask him if I could borrow his gun for the next twenty-four seconds.

Excellent: your survival is unlikely.

Can I ask why you're asking me this Sir?

Just updating the company insurance documentation. It's all routine. Nothing to worry about. Now run along QT. Time is of the essence.

Essence of what Sir?

If you have time to ask, it's already too late: the enemy have just stepped over your dead body and are about to enter your house and rape your family.

But I don't own a house and my family are all dead.

Then they'll rifle your pockets and turn to necrophilia.

But then it would be academic, since I would no longer be around to ...

The point is QT, that you don't let it get past the first stage.

You mean break into their houses and rape their families first?

Yes! Yes! By Jove! You've got it ... QT, why are you holding a gun to my head?

If you have to ask ...

Oh, I know, it's already too ...

doG patch

Your Highness, you are also like a stream of bat's piss.

What?

I ... I merely meant, Your Majesty, that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark.

Monty Python

There's a certain kind of utilitarian aesthetic to be enjoyed in the great British tradition of the public urinal. I refer, of course, not to the dingily lit familiarity that brings comfort and solace to the cottager, but to a more sublime realm that, in its contrived anonymity of public convenience and functionality, also recognises the inherent privacy - sacredness as well as universality - of bodily functions. A small house that is no more than a large room, that in most modern houses, is the small room.

It is no accident that the Victorians - inventors of the canal ways, railways, museums, parks and squares, and more generally, the public space - should turn their collective minds to the vexed issue of people issuing urine over, in, or indeed, upon those very public spaces. There are certain water features that are best appreciated in air-restricted confines. It is also no accident that Duchamp's depiction of the urinal has a faintly British whiff about it, while concealing a continental cynicism in its apparent cleanliness, which, as the Victorians taught us, is next to godliness. He was clearly taking the proverbial.

Now when we enter the urinal, we – if you'll pardon the pun – enter a world of reassuringly thick contours and curves forming the moulded enamel surfaces of otherwise brute ceramic slabs: never quite the pristine white of the virginal, more preferring the coffee and tobacco ivory stucco of British dentistry. Then there's the ubiquitous repetitive geometric of wipe-clean tiling and, lest we forget, everywhere, the water-tight tomb sealant between every gap: in-between floors, pipes, sinks, taps and walls and, finally, the chambers of the vestibular chamber itself.

But perhaps, what marks out the public urinal, as say opposed to any other public utility, apart from the omnipresent toxic gag-inducing stench, is that they often house, per room, more doors on the inside, than those leading into them from the outside. They are homes to the cubicle, closets for the shy or less shameless, like tightly packed confessionals in a church, of sorts, where guilt is metaphorically and, quite literally, flushed away under the baptismal mitigation of micturition – especially in this over conscious age of over conspicuous water conservation and the concomitant sanctity of retention ... which brings me back to those repulsive and attractive forces ... the almost palpable architectural tension ... an ambiguity between the residence and receptacle ... where silence is the crucible of a golden shower ... and the urethra, the divine umbilical cord ...

Fortunately the hand-dryer drowned out the rest of monologue. How QT hated toilet tourists. The hand-wash splash down his work trouser, was indistinguishable from a hose howler.

C'est ne pas un urinoir

Regrets

Dearest Sir

May I, with unreserved enthusiasm - nay, unbridled ecstasy - convey my unsolicited approval and heart-felt gratitude for your magnanimous invite to spend my already severely limited free time in your company, on a company "do", outside of company time. Planning such formal informal events - the laborious consultation, checking of prior engagements and schedules, forming a consensus, etc. - is an unwelcome inconvenience, time waste and an aching bore; therefore I understand the necessity of your forgoing the mere pleasantries of soliciting opinion or consent with respect to the aforementioned.

Unfortunately, I do not have a partner or "significant other" - as per your more than generous invite - who would be willing to make the sacrifice on a pro bono basis and hiring one for a whole day is beyond my modest means, but do not worry - I'm sure you wont - I will be more than willing to "grin and bare it" alone (a delightful "chore" to be sure nonetheless :-)

Just one small thing, unfortunately I may be ten minutes late, as that very morning I am rostered to take charge of locking-up after early practice at my local gun club. I regret that I have not the preternatural power of prescience which would have permitted me to avoid such a clash outside of normal office hours. I hope you can find it in your fair but robustly pragmatic heart to forgive me this - ONLY SEEMINGLY - minor aberration in my unswerving record of fidelity to the company, which I otherwise place beyond any personal interests, happiness, minor discomfort and/or major organ malfunction.

Despite what I know must APPEAR as a disappointing "nibbling" at the hand that feeds, I will do my utmost to make sure we will all have a "barrel of laughs" and that for me, at least, a day I will never forget and, no doubt, have a long time to reflect on in solitude.

I aim to please only.

Yours, as ever, in dutiful faith

QT

PS. I'll never stop believing.

Jungle rules

What do you do when the rage monkey is foaming at the mouth, screaming in your face and indiscriminately waving a hairy-knuckled fist full of maxed-out credit card bills and divorce and redundancy papers and you're all out of bananas and nuts and your talk of free trade and strategic philanthropy are not being given the due and reasonable consideration they surely deserve on a local, national, as well as international stage where we are all just one borderless non-entity and our edges are purely notional for taxation and debt retrieval purposes?

You talk about progressive values and consumer service choice charters and strengthening local democracy by engaging stakeholders on an inclusive basis with indeterminate references to faith groups, community leaders and the wider entrepreneurial / innovation driven / knowledge / excellence and best practice sector while avoiding any reference to human beings that does not assign them as a subset of a function integral to society as whole and, therefore, not location or purpose specific. Tough choices. Hard decisions. Freedom comes with responsibilities. We're listening; not responding in jerks. Failing that have them placed on the sex-offender and / or terrorist watch lists. Talk about collateral damage, but not casualties, as being inevitable and regretfully unavoidable. We must support the troops.

You're in Alpha-Alpha, but at this stage of induction you will be asked not talk to the hosts or guests at the barbecue. It is considered bad form.

Burn after reading

Dear sir

I am absolutely incensed by the suggestion that I have no option with regard to giving up a day of my weekend to spend in the company of work. I have recently agreed to make time commitments beyond my contracted weekly remit for the ensuing months with no cast iron guarantee of monetary reward and do not appreciate being pressured further to relinquish my highly valued free time for nothing. I am outraged and disgusted. Your tone is disrespectful and insulting. I will not be attending and do not expect to hear anything further about this matter.

It will all come out in the wash

Satan used to torment us by sending fire, pestilence and plague. Now he takes away the water but still leaves tissues in our washing machines. Infected with swine-flu.

Black's back

An ancient skin tarpaulin stretched out over the skeletal ridges of Frank Noir's face leaving deep ravines in its wake around the shores of his dead-pool eyes.

In retrospect, the Millennium Foundation had correctly anticipated the transition – the point of no-return – as their previously non-anachronistic epitaph had presently confirmed.

The gravelly voice - as if from the grave of cigar-whiskey hell itself - spoke.

My name's Frank Noir; I'm here as a consultant on behalf of the Foundation.

No need to introduction yourself Mr. Noir. We are all familiar with your work here on the force. I particularly liked the work you did on that movie, the one with the alien bursting out of that guy's chest?

John Hurt?

I bet he did. What was it called now? I forget.

That was a long time ago. Another life. What is the present problem?

There has been a string of thong mutilations occurring around the area we call the “Dead-Zone”.

Can I have a look at one?

An intense series of images; shattered fragments of some unspeakable horror, pierced the studied calm of his mind.

The living dead are among us once again. They've found a way to crossover.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

Frank paused for a moment to adjust the seat of his casual-leisure wear trouser, as if reminded of some intermittent discomfort.

No doubt they will try to infiltrate decent society through the shady front of consultancy agencies.

Spanish castles

For behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the breasts that never gave suck.Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?

Luke: 29-31

Pop-Pop stared, with the fixed eye of memory, out through the glass shards from within the ruin where once a window had framed the world. Nothing moved on the old farm. The overwhelming silence of absence returned to him: the logical culmination of an evolutionary process muted by the terminal punctuation of a dead-end. Where do you go when there's nowhere to go? The great heatwave had flattened the landscape to a mind-numbing sameness – a smooth evenness untrammeled by change; the wake of time; the interference of mind and machine. In the middle-distance the dune fields, temporary shifting structures, dissolved imperceptibly back and forth between something and nothing. Castles in a child's sandpit. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. From the partially dirt-occluded window he could make out the form of his wife stretched out on the sun lounger, no doubt bathing in one of her animal-print thongs. She was determined to make as few lifestyle concessions as possible to environmental collapse. Make imaginary hay while the sun lasts. He could overhear her part of the phone conversation with the wine merchant ... apparently the crop had been particularly fine in Iceland this year ... her daughter now ... had she mentioned ... flying high? In the back Alpha-Alpha was thumbing his Rolodex for contacts to determine the right circles to breach in order to break into the exclusive world of the barbecue circuit. Down South. Happier times.

By your bootstraps

What do you take away when there's nothing left?

Hopelessness.

Give that man a round of applause ladies and gentleman.

What's your name son?

QT.

I see QT. You must have read my book: “If you want a motivational vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever - and further imagine that that boot, together with the face, is yours."

Subtitled: “If it ain't hurtin', it ain't workin'.”

I will be available in the foyer later to sign copies ... and remember: you have nothing to fear except fearing nothing at all.

Less and less response

N o dreams anymore
O nly stills
O f tracks
S tretching out
E vermore

One myth that survives today is the story of how humanoids who, unable to secure a receptor organism to meet his replication needs, entered centres dedicated to the maintenance and wellbeing of the receptors and stopped them all dead with a shooting device. The idea today of couse sounds ridiculous. The humanoids so vulnerable, living, breathing, susceptible to disease, desire, death. The idea that it could be stopped! The life force systems in their craniums were reliant on the air to fuse with lubricant that ran around their "physical" bodies. The old stories still go round today. The humanoid killer would more often than not put an end to himself, "do himself in", as they said, put the shooter to his head and stop it all.

Avatar Elder 846 had a humanoid ancestor who put himself away. An ancestor whose strands had contributed to the first nodes. He left a 'note' describing his last moments, describing how the heat, the years of frustration had driven him to it. With the last lines of the note, he described how it felt to put the cold hard shooter in his mouth and set himself free: "it tastes like the sun."

Happy meals

Cannibalism - def.: the kind of can-do attitude that you can really sink your teeth into.

Work, rest and play

Let me tell you why you are here QT.

Can I interrupt for a moment Mr. Möbius? Will this involve graphic references to gynecologic type trauma, afterbirth and placenta pancakes?

No, that costs extra. You are here because ...

I need a holiday: to get away from the daily grind, the endless commutes back and forth, the job that in no way satisfies me artistically, intellectually and fiscally?

Can I finish my sentence?

I don't know, can you?

Or do I have to tear you into a strip so your entrails form a single, continuous surface with only one fleshly edge?

Please continue.

You are here because you have a nagging doubt on your shoulder like a monkey-parrot mother. It's like there's a constant itch on your back you just can't reach because you're overweight, out of shape and have statistically short arms relative to your body size. Do you know what I am talking about?

I'm not entirely confident you know what your talking about; so what hope have I?

It is the world that has been designed to pull the cotton wool over your eyes, the truth ...

The truth?

The truth is you are a slave QT.

But I already know that. Look, clause 2.3.2.1 of my contract: To any and all intent and purpose, you are a company "slave", but employment law does not permit us use such a term in your job description and, therefore, your official title will be the conveniently less emotive synonym of "Office Manger".

You were born into bondage ...

What I do in my spare time stays in rubber Vegas.

You take the blue bean and ...

Is that one of those cock sweets? You know the ones they spam you about with subject headers like - limp biscuit in bed?

... you wake up in your bed and have difficulty urinating for the next forty-eight hours. You take the red bean and you spend the next week off your moobs. Remember, all I'm offering is a cheap alternative to a real holiday ...

Cool.

[Gulp.]

Did you ever dream you were a butterfly, carefree, fluttering around? A dream so real, you didn't know you were QT, only to suddenly awake as you, QT? And then you ask yourself was it QT who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was QT?

I think Chuang Tzu's original point is that we are not merely the form by which we appear to ourselves and others, but ...

Silence butterfly! One final thing ...

[Thunder claps, lightening strobes, dramatic swell of incidental music.]

Beholdeth! Welcome to the desert of the real desert.

We haven't really gone any anywhere have we?

Your ticket to Mars. We couldn't afford a Sharon Stone lookalike, but here's Madge instead, she used to be famous for her pointy brassiere. Tip to the wise: don't ask her to take them off. Now enjoy your holiday.

How much to throw in the blue cock bean sweet?

An extra trillion. Live the dream.