Humor Read online

  We are imprisoned in once-luxurious apartments, overlooking Dracula’s estate. It is evident that the twentieth century has not treated our host well. Ominously, he tells us in heavily accented English that he has been forced to open up large tracts of his estate as a theme park, with log flumes, bowling alleys, rollercoasters and burger bars, all of which are frequented by Western tourists who know nothing of the old ways.

  Our sympathy is tempered by the sure knowledge that the Count intends to suck out our souls with his pointy teeth. We secretly devise a daring plan to flee. We encourage the Count to show us round the theme park, and, as we come to the bowling alley, hurl ourselves down the planks into the skittley darkness. We scramble through wires, pipes and other obstructions until we find ourselves in an area devoted to crazy golf, where we mingle with the tourists. It is with some relief that we exit through the turnstiles. It is easy from thence to find a hire car and complete our courageous escape.

  Back home in Eastbourne, I wonder if we did the right thing. It infuriates me that Dracula may have needed my soul more than I do.

  Head and Shoulders

  When I moved to my new flat I was very happy but when I worked out that the whispering voices that I can hear when I put my head under the water in the bath belong to dead people I wasn’t happy any longer, particularly because I realised that every time I put my head under the water when I had a bath the voices were slightly louder than the time before.

  I tried not putting my head under the water when I had a bath but every fucking time curiosity got the better of me and I had to try it just for a second just to check and of course even half a second of that sort of thing would bother anyone.

  I keep asking the landlord to put a shower in but he prevaricates and says things like what do you want a shower for that’s a lovely old bath that’s an antique that is look at it it’s Victorian you’d pay top dollar for one of those at the reclamation yard.

  It’s all right for him. He hasn’t got fucking dead people talking to him every time he washes his hair.

  Nearly Got

  One night I am alone in my house, compiling lists of friends from the past. It grows dark, and I begin to wish for company. The list sits before me on the table, reproaching me with intimations of missed opportunities and regretful abandonments.

  There is a scratching at the window, and absently I open it, assuming that one of my cats is feeling lonely too. To my dismay, a small devil-creature, salivating with anticipation, leaps squatly into the room. I recognise it immediately as being of the type to possess the soul without hesitation.

  Backing away from its gleaming eyes, I consider my options. With a flash of intelligence, I announce to the devil-creature that it is yesterday, and today I am dead. The creature looks quizzically at me. I insist that it has made an error – it is yesterday, and later this evening I kill myself with a large, sharp kitchen knife. I am dead. My soul has gone. The devil-creature is too late.

  It looks puzzled, but I explain, with placatory hand movements, that this is really a simple matter. As I am already dead, there is no point in attempting to take my soul. Come back in a week, I tell the devil-creature. The landlord will have re-let the house, and there will be fresh prey. Huffing and puffing, the creature waddles back to the window, and lurches off into the night.

  Congratulating myself on my quick thinking, I close the window. I sit down once more in front of my list, and it is with a heavy heart that I wander into the kitchen and begin rifling through the knife drawer.

  Bond James Bond

  The world is at terrible risk from hideous and malevolent Alien monsters and it is up to me to do something about it.

  Luckily I stumble across an Alien podule which can take me up to the huge war satellite that is circling Earth. It is a squeeze, but I get into the podule and quickly comprehend the Alien dashboard and launch into space.

  Within minutes I dock with the war satellite and effect my egress. The satellite is a maze of chrome corridors, and I creep along them in my silent, rubber-soled shoes.

  I take my Beretta from inside my dinner jacket as I hear a faint cough in the distance. I pass along more corridors and through several chrome rooms the size of cathedrals until I near my quarry.

  I peer around a doorway and am surprised to see a famous professor from Earth. Swiftly I attack him. When I kick him in the stomach, he collapses like a sack of heavy air.

  I pull him to his feet and interrogate him. It seems that he has been creating Alien monsters with an evil Alien academic who wants to take over the planet Earth. At first he assumed the Alien was well intentioned, but the monsters they made were increasingly violent and deranged.

  He introduces me to his first monster, who is very courteous, but I am told that all the subsequent monsters would tear my head off at the slightest provocation. I decide to let the professor go, for the time being, and, hefting my Beretta, I go in search of my nemesis.

  New Job

  After a tortured night I awake full of determination.

  I review my position, and consider with circumspect gravity my inner strength. My new job demands much, and I eat my breakfast while wearing a serious and adult expression. I suck the hot coffee with a professionally pained mouth, and flip the pages of my broadsheet nonchalantly.

  I swoop back up the stairs in my towelling dressing-gown, and fling open my wardrobe in a manner that I assume to be casual and easy. My suit hangs in front of me, full of nothing. It is up to me to fill it with myself.

  I pull on the trousers, and carefully fold my penis behind the zip, fastening the button with what I hope is a manly grin. I tuck my shirt into the trousers, and spend some time with my understated tie.

  My jacket feels slightly small under my arms, but it is nothing anyone would notice.

  I wonder what my new workmates will be like, and fantasise briefly about the relationships I may possibly enjoy with other members of the organisation.

  I glance once again at my digital watch, and decide that I am ready. I pull on my coat, check that I have my keys, and walk out of the front door, slamming it firmly behind me.

  I stand outside, looking blankly ahead, realising I don’t have a new job at all.

  Loyalty Card

  I am in the foyer of the supermarket, an empty wire trolley idling beneath my imperceptibly trembling fingers. The light is bright, and the smell is of nothing at all. My mind is blank. There is a route to be followed: straight ahead, turn right then right again, travelling aisle by aisle until (I am planning ahead) I end up in the wines, beers and spirits. My experience in these matters tells me that I will have run out of money by then, unless I am careful. I will have to be careful.

  But, almost immediately, things start to go wrong. Here I am, transfixed by the twitching red muscles in the meat aisle. This isn’t very good. I take a deep breath and move away. Nothing to see here. There is the rattle of teeth, of fingernails, bones, in the cardboard cereal packets, sloshings of lumpy fluids in jars and tins, and the muffled howls of the doomed. I jerk my head away from the cans of ‘processed meats’ and the hanks of hair in the salad bags.

  In the frozen-food cabinets; plastic sacks of severed fingers, cling film stretched fetishistically over pale limbs bent double and tied with white string, blood pooling darkly in the polystyrene trays.

  Death warrants – signed, but with the name left blank – among the Sunday papers.

  I can’t do it. I can’t shop. Looking determinedly straight ahead, I remove a bottle (whiskey? vodka? I am unsure) and stand in line at the checkout. Do I have a loyalty card? I stare in fear at my interrogator.

  ‘Yes,’ I whimper. ‘I mean, no.’

  Airborne

  One rainy day whilst out shopping for groceries, I am surrounded by a growing crowd who are under the impression that I can fly. It seems that a dreadful mistake has been made: the local paper has printed an article about a gentleman who really does have this enviable talent, but they have put my photograph abo
ve the article. I am unsure about how the newspaper came to have a picture of me, but that is the least of my worries, faced, as I am, with this heckling crowd of strangers. I protest, but the crowd will give no quarter until I show them my incredible powers.

  At last, I give in to them, and stand, flapping my arms and jumping as high as I can into the damp air. This goes on for some time, and I become increasingly frightened that the now-disenchanted crowd will attack me, believing me to be a self-promoting charlatan. But in the end they straggle off, muttering. Thanking my lucky stars, I rush home, too upset to continue my shopping.

  That evening, alone, I once again try to fly. It proves to be a futile exercise, but addictive. Night after night I stand on my roof, flapping my arms and making small jumps on the tiles. Try as I might, I never manage to get airborne.

  Futile Gesture

  I find myself in a responsible position within a reputable institution, and my evening arrival at home is welcomed by my beautiful wife. We share many interests, and spend pleasantly frequent hours discussing cultural matters. Our house is more than adequate for our needs, although we both ruefully agree that if we were ever to have children a relocation could be in order. But in the meantime we enjoy our life together.

  One evening I am suddenly conscious of a noise from the kitchen. I ask my wife to pause the video, and pace uneasily towards the door that leads to it. I walk softly in my stockinged feet towards the door. I pick up an empty wine bottle and slowly turn the handle. I feel more animal than human, more ready to deal with an intruder than I ever have before. I burst open the door, the neck of my wine bottle in my clenched fist.

  There is nobody in the kitchen. I give the back yard a cursory check, but the flat feeling I have tells me that nothing will be there.

  Determined to make something of my foolishness, I pointlessly grate some Edam cheese. I almost continue the grating until my fingers are bleeding, but I decide that it would be a futile gesture. I return to the living room for the rest of the video, leaving the Edam to curl and atrophy in the kitchen.

  Chip Shop

  Despite my reservations, I am wandering the streets of the town in the company of several people with whom I have little in common. The evening has been dominated by seemingly random sallies into pubs populated almost exclusively by large men in vests, with whom I have absolutely nothing in common.

  Every glance upwards reveals a sky that has been soaked the colour of lager. Every time I attempt to join in the obvious jollity of the occasion I am drowned out by the inadvertent yelping of my compatriots, and I resort to adopting a vacuous yet friendly expression whenever any enquiry is directed in my direction.

  We stand in a huddle of indecision outside a brightly lit doorway, and earnest debate falls around my ears as I watch, with unbelieving nausea, a chef in the chip shop opposite shoo a flaming, but living, pigeon from the window of his establishment. The flying, sputtering lump of flame erupts from the window. My attention is distracted by an enquiry from my colleagues regarding money. I answer with rapidity, only to turn my gaze back to find the burning bird has disappeared from my view.

  After an eternity of boredom we emerge from the club. The pigeon is lying in the gutter, curiously expanded, horribly burnt, utterly dead.

  Haunted

  While I am searching for an old diary in the attic, I find a large cardboard box full of ring-binders, which, in turn, are full of notes I once made concerning the construction of an emotional puncture kit.

  The find seems providential: my love-life is in tatters. Constructed almost entirely of half-truths, fabricated intuitions and vaguely remembered urges, my private life is transparently in desperate want of repair. If ever I needed the emotional puncture kit, it is at this emotional juncture.

  Unfortunately, I need to locate several parts to build the puncture kit, and despite many pleading telephone calls to various ironmongers, greengrocers, bookmakers, stationery shops and butchers, I am unable to assemble the kit.

  I look out of the window, and notice that tumbleweed is blowing past the house. The sight adds to my increasing depression, and I hasten to the town to actively seek the parts I need.

  A pawnbroker’s catches my eye, and I step inside the musty shop. I explain my predicament to the papery man behind the grille, and he shows me a box that houses some small rodents. The pawnbroker tells me that the rodents may not replace my love-life, but they will love me if I love them. And if I fail to love them, they will punish me with their sharp teeth.

  Not quite knowing why, I buy the rodents and hurry home. Once there, I tell them sweet things, and get them a saucer of milk.

  Later, my husband returns. It seems that he has successfully sold my old diary to a major publisher. I am oddly unmoved, but then, I have my rodents.

  Statue

  I am commissioned by a wealthy opera singer to carve a marble sculpture of her torso. Without shame, she disrobes, and I make preparatory drawings, noting the lines of her voluptuous curves and the weight of her voluminous tresses.

  An enormous block of marble is duly delivered to the velvety chamber where I am to carry out my trade. Confidently I take up my mallet and chisel, and begin to rough out the statue.

  Days pass, then weeks, and after a period of many months I announce to my patron that the work is complete. She stares for some time at the fruit of my endeavours. Something is not right. I sense that she is displeased in some way. I shoo her from the chamber, order another block of marble, and begin again.

  I am enshrouded in dust, I work through the night, until my fingers are raw and my breath comes in harsh rasps. Again, my employer is unaccountably dissatisfied.

  I continue to order marble, and continue to carve statue after statue, while the years pass.

  When, eventually, I create a marble likeness of the opera singer on her deathbed with my own wizened and arthritic fingers, she at last nods, smiles, and abandons herself to the relentless pull of eternal sleep.

  I place my chisels carefully on the floor, and lie next to her, placing my dusty hand in her cooling fingers.

  Seaside Town of Vampires

  My holiday takes me to a resort for which I have distant but fond memories of innocent pleasures and fine bars. I wander the littered streets until I find my favourite cantina, now flyblown and murky. The proprietor fails to recognise me, and I order a coffee.

  Sitting outside in the wan sunlight I am depressed by the changes that have taken place in this once-beautiful seaside town. Many shops are boarded up, the youth seem preoccupied with the dusty ground, and the cinema has been transformed into a seemingly unpopular bingo hall.

  Worst of all are the diminutive vampires who bowl along the promenade biting the legs of passers-by. The only way to deal with these pointy-toothed parasites is to kick them viciously into the harbour. I entertain myself morosely in this way for about half an hour, sustaining only slight scratches from the fangs of these riviera nosferatu.

  Things are not what they used to be around here. The thought reminds me uncomfortably of my ageing body, and my own desire to live vicariously the lives of others.

  I realise that although I can understand the sad plight of the vampires, I cannot resist the urge to kick them, flailing, into the grey ocean.

  I return to my room, and sit at the window. If there were an observer, I imagine that they might see the cloud-scattered evening sky reflected in my dark pupils.

  Laboratory

  I obtain a poorly paid job in a dusty laboratory. The afternoon sunlight falls into the room through yellowing venetian blinds, and I pass the time making tea and answering oblique questions desultorily during collapsed conversations.

  As time passes in its tedious way I slowly become aware that the experiments taking place in the laboratory are at best sinister; and at worst evil. At least 80 per cent of the hypotheses are obviously invalid and intended to support revolting surmises.

  I increasingly spend most of my time in the kitchen, staring at the limesc
ale that bedecks the overflow of the sink. I fancy that I can see emergent civilisations in the crust that grows daily around the tap bases. The weeks fall through my fingers.

  Eventually the experiments become too much for me to tolerate. Mice are being sacrificed to a nameless dark presence that hovers over the building, manifesting in the dust, colouring the minds of the scientists with whom I am forced to spend my futile daylight. Somehow the laboratory is filling my dreams with fear.

  I soon recognise that it is the mouldering soul of the building itself that is engineering this mounting horror. Quietly, during my tea-making duties, I plan my escape. I realise that if I mention my discontent to my co-workers all exits will be closed to me.

  At last, with a daring flourish of courage, I attempt to effect my egress. It is with a dreadful terror that I realise the door is locked. I turn, and see the hollow eyes of the scientists upon me. There can be no escape.

  Big Bird

  Whilst on a walking holiday in remote regions, I chance upon a secluded valley, away from the popular walking routes. Some distance along the valley I come across a scene so breathtakingly beautiful that I drop to my knees in wonder. There is something about the serried ranks of deciduous and coniferous trees standing tall on the opposite bank of the river that sets my heart ablaze. The colours of the foliage are poetic, while the arrangement of species seems divinely inspired. Clouds swoop and whirl above the topmost branches, and the river sparkles through an uncertain reflection below.