Drunk on water?

I once knew a man from Leeds

Who used to deal in seeds...

Poppy seeds don't you know?

He told me he had a problem with water. 
  I felt so sad for the fellow.
  'Every time I drink water,' he said, 'I always get stone drunk.    It's so awful!'
  I said to him, 'That is so awful.  How do you get by without drinking water?'
  He looked so forlorn.
  'It is a struggle,' he replied.  'A desperate daily struggle, a struggle where I suffer very badly.  What I do is, whenever I need to drink, I mix my water with cockney tea blend.  It tastes strange, and makes my head go all weird, but it works and it is the only way I can drink water.
  The other day, at work, while at a meeting someone got me some water from the dispenser unit.  I drank the water because I didn't want anyone to think I was being rude.  I got so drunk and made a fool out of myself.  It was awful.  I danced around on the desk and my manager was outraged.  I tried to explain my situation but he thought I was lying, and he sacked me there and then for drunken misconduct...
  'It was a sad moment for me because I worked so hard to get that job.
  'Now I am a washer man - but whenever I get a drop of water in my mouth I get drunk and end up getting into fights with people.'

I felt I needed to help this person out.
  So I did some research. 
  And after some time I discovered this strange ancient Shamanistic method for removing Drunk Water Disease.
 
One day we decided to carry out the Shamanistic method.
  It was going to be a day of cleansing.
  So we sat out in a forest, and I read the ancient words, and blew honey dew leaves through a fire. 
  My friend inhaled the honey dew and already I saw a change come over him.
  He started to speak:
  'I feel...
  'I feel!
  'I feel happy!  Happy happy Hippo!'
  And then I watched with my own eyes as my friend transformed into a great big fat old hippo!
  Ha Ha!
  What  a sight it was!
  'I am going off to find my friends now,' said the Hippo.
  And he plodded away to a zoo.
  So he was a hippo all along, eh?
  That explains a few things.
  Now my friend could relax in a swamp with all the other big hippos, and get a drunk as he wanted because he didn't have to work anymore!

THE END!!!

YouTube Channel

My Books

Witches Brew a short text based adventure game!

Almost a dinosaur

Ha ha!

Amazing!

Prehistoric beasts roaming the earth.  Imagine being stuck in a jungle.  Your plane crashes and your trapped in this place, all alone, armed with nothing but your wits.

Because that is all that you have got in, the deep jungle.

It is like a whole new world to you.  Everything in this new dimension wants to kill you -

the plants

the insects

the reptiles

Everything is after your blood.

It is a foul thing.

But your worst enemy will always be yourself.

Panic you lose your wits, and then you die. 

But there are times where it really doesn't matter how skilled you are - when you are taken out of your chosen environment you drop to the bottom of the food chain - and then survival is more about luck, than skill.

Because there is something out there in the forests.

It's bigger and badder than you.

And nothing will hold it off.

And once its got you,  it's game over, and your elements will join with the dense living underground of the underworld - that vast jungle where man has no influence and no power.

IN the jungle all is as dark as night.

For in that place there are creatures who breathed air before man, vast monsters who care not for the rule of man. 

This is there domain -

They survived the thing that killed the dinosaurs - and they will rule in the dark forests long after man has sunk under the the shadowy mountain of fate.

15 foot crocodile

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YouTube Channel

My Books

Witches Brew a short text based adventure game!

Living Ghosts

You can always have a  laugh at ghosts stories...

Are they real...

Are they fake...

You can film them and everyone will just say - "Great special effects son!  Did you do that on Windows Film Maker!"

It's crazy crazy stuff...

But then there is the strange world of the sea...

O yes!

The sea is the strangest place of them all!

The last great mystery!

Who knows what is going on in that beautiful and deadly place.

And I don't mind not to know either.

I prefer the deep gloomy depths of the inner world to remain as dark and out of bounds as the confines of a madman's mind...

Living ghosts...

PS

New game in the works

Elfin Quest...

the more upbeat sequel to Witches Brew!!!!

YouTube Channel

My Books

Witches Brew a short text based adventure game!

My next project...Crows Eye

Crows Eye

My next project

My Poetry

I have written a lot of poetry on my Twitter account - and other things that enter my mind -

My Twitter Page

A friend is a friend?

So I was following the low road home, and a good friend of mine cast me into a deep hole in the ground.
  I begged them, 'Please help me get up!' but they laughed and walked away.
  So there I remained, for an hour or so.  Then vast hands dragged me down, and I saw a terrible monster, huge in stature, great in power, hideous in malice.
  I was dragged through a great canyon of gloom, this journey lasted days, finally we stopped and then the monster held my head down in a pool of darkness, till I almost chocked.
  Then I was brought up and nailed to a charred tree - lightning struck me for three days.
  Then tiny creatures crawled into my flesh - a grasshopper made camp on my tongue, and whispered in my mouth - "fools be fools!"

Then a bird made a nest on my head, and plucked out pieces of my hair to keep the nest warm.
  "Let me live in your hair for two weeks,' said the bird to me.  'Let my hatch lings grow.  And when they are gone, I promise to give you my wings and my claws.  And then you can go forth and wreck vengeance.'
  So I waited two weeks - and with my wings finally grown I pulled myself out of the tree, and made my way into the skies, and looked down upon a world of scuttling beetles.
  And for sometime I swirled among the vapours, and when I spied my quarry I came down like a sheet of light, for I had seen the bold crown of my ageing foe - "Remember me?" I whispered in his ear.  "I will go easy on you - for my heart knows pain."
  And I struck out his eyes and when he stumbled he fell into the deep hole in the ground, and when he hit the bottom he broke his neck - and his suffering ended in one go.
  And I flew away, happy that I shown mercy to my lost friend of old, and then I found a tree and built a new kingdom there!
  The rest of the story is told in the leaves that decorated the floor last autumn....

THE END

I have made some new friends ...

I turned a corner, I was very close to my destination and didn't think anything about the shadowy figure that was following me.  "Not far to go!  Not far to go!"

Then I felt a strong hand grab my shoulder hold it tightly, cutting the circulation of the blood.

I fell to the ground.

When I awoke I was lying in a dark room.

A loud voice that came from all directions so as to fill the room completely said to me, "You do not know yourself, or your luck, or how happy you will be in the next few hours!"

"I...I   don't understand," said I.

Then I heard laughter.  The room reverbeerated with it.

The darkness grinned with it.

And then I felt a terrible chill.

"You have made some new friends..." said the voice, ominously alluding to something dark and terrible -

And then the lights turned on


and then I saw this -

THE TRUTH 

Introducing Martin & the Chipmunks!! (New series)

Crazy cartoon show!  Martin the owl flies into a YouTube screen near you!  IN this episode Martin the owl tries to protect his home from a burglar...   with disastrous results...


Insane crazy wacky comic show!

Episode 2 is in the works

Join the Septic Brood now on Twitter to receive regular updates on the works

My Twitter account

Fly away with Twitter and join the brood my hatch-lings...

The Septic stork needs you
!!!

Don’t go up to the top floor!

Here is a new short story

starting below...
=======================


I had just moved into the new house with my poor mother when the old proprietor handed me the keys, gazed back up at the old building, sighed, and then said to me, ‘Enjoy the house!  It’s a beautiful building.  Just make sure you don’t go up to the top floor!’
  I laughed at him, of course, thinking he was having a joke, but when I laughed he gave me a funny, almost offended glance, and then stalked away before I even had chance to ask him what he meant.

It turned out I had inherited a sizable and attractive house.  When I first glanced about it I thought, I could live here quite comfortably.
  The first floor was a series of passages leading to several rooms all of which were very large, and clean, well ordered and full of light and air.  The house had a bar, at the back, and a cellar, and beside this a small archway led to the kitchen which was elegantly combined with the dining room, and beside this was an excellently proportioned living room.  There were also two good-sized bedrooms on the ground floor, and a bathroom with a wonderful marble floor.
  It was marvellous!  I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to own all this.
  Of course I decided it was time to peruse the second floor.  And so off I went to explore, and at the top of the steps I found something that amazed me.  The second floor was a mirror of the first floor, with exactly the same rooms, exactly the same size and in the same places.  There was one marked difference; the condition of the rooms was slightly lived, there was a certain shoddiness, with peeling paint and large accumulations of dust in certain areas.  But the living room was huge, and it had a great window that looked out on the grounds below, and positioned beneath it was a fire, and even now a living flame was already flickering away inside it!
  Now I made my way to the third and final floor - but stopped fast at the first steps.  Now here was another significant change in the quality of the building.  This final set of steps was without a carpet, and the walls without decorations, and the little window by the side of the steps was stuffed up by a scruffy, greasy curtain.  There was something grey and depressing about this part of the house, and the gathering of dust was so amazing I could plough my hand through it and leave a finger trail behind like it was a pile of old mud.
  I shook my head, but for some reason could not put my foot on that first step leading upwards.  It was like an invisible wall stood against me - and not just that, but an awful feeling of claustrophobia that vanished the moment I walked away.
  Now I remembered the old man's words - don’t go up to the top floor!  I think it was his fault I feared those steps!  He had put ideas in my head!  Well, whatever, I didn’t explore any further that day, and returned back down below.

The first few weeks of my new life in the house were wonderful, and relatives visited, and we had parties and mother seemed happy.  I don’t know how, but I almost forgot about the third floor!  A whole section  of the house I had completely forgotten about.  And yet every time I did remember the final set of steps leading to the top, a sudden gloom clouded my mind, and I shuddered with a inexplicable sense of fear.
  It was about our third week in when the first strange thing happened.
  I was on the second floor, in the living room, stoking up the fire, and whistling a tune, quite mindful of anything other than my good humour, when I noticed the cabinet door behind me.
  Now I hadn’t checked this place before so I opened the door, to find a little set of steps on the other side.  They curved round and then went up, and no doubt ended at the top floor.  A second secret set of steps?  “How strange!”  I thought.
  I decided to ascend, and then I had to stop, for halfway up a solid metal gate closed the way off.
  Now I looked at the gate, and with the attitude of any other normal human being I thought “what’s this doing here?” and felt quite ruffled to find my steps blocked by such a thing, and when I started to think of plans to have the gate removed I heard footsteps from above!  Then, on the other side of the gate, standing on the steps just above me, an old man appeared!
  I’ll be honest with you, I was scared, and I ran down the steps in a panic, but then a took a grip of myself, and returned, to find the man had gone, but the gate would not budge by my hands.
  I returned to the room below shaking.  The man I saw did bear a resemblance to the old proprietor who had left the keys to me, but even so, if it was him, he was still an intruder, and had no right to camp himself in my property.
  Eventually I returned downstairs and somehow forgot the matter.

The next morning I checked on my mother, who had been very quiet in her room, and had not stirred for breakfast, to find she had disappeared.
  She had gone off exploring on her own…  and then I thought in dread of the third floor, had she gone up to the top without me? And when I remembered the strange man that lived up there terror gripped me!
  I had been living in the house for a month, and still had not gone up into the third floor.  It was crazy!  It was only then I realised how mad it all was.  Really , it was like my house was two different countries, with the border lying between the second and third floor, and then over that border was some foreign land where I was not welcome.
  Well!  I thought now, plucking myself up.  “This has to end!”
  I wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.  I charged my way up to the top!
  When I reached the third set of steps I did hesitate for a while, but then remembered myself, and I tore down the greasy curtain, allowing a pale oily light threw, and then I blasted my way up to the top without stopping!
  So now I had reached the top floor, for the first time in my life.  The first thing I noticed was how cold it was.  And that was because none of the windows up here had glass panes, and a cold breeze was freely running through!
  I shivered, then braced myself, before beginning to explore.
  Again, the third floor was a mirror of the floors below, only the quality of the rooms was seriously degraded, with  chipped wooden floors and naked walls, and windows torn out and left as holes before the open air.  No furniture, no furnishings.  There were no lights, only a chill darkness.
  I shook my head wearily.  What was this?  It was like no one had lived here, and the place was left to fall into ruin.  Then I remembered my mother, and I had to find her, for she had to be hiding somewhere, in these creaky worn halls.
  As I reached a large open room, adjacent to the secret steps beyond the gate which led down the living room below, a ladder dropped down before me. I climbed it, till I reached the attic above, in the roof of the house.  Dust was in my eyes but when I had rubbed it out, an unimaginable sight awaited me.
  It was the old man, standing on a chair, with a taught rope fastened round his neck.  Right beside the chair was a huge wooden chest…
  ‘I told you!’ he said.  ‘Don’t go up to the top floor!’  He kicked the chair away from under him, and the rope snapped about his throat.  I rushed to grab his legs, to support him, but I was too late to save the mad fellow…  By the time I readjusted the chair, and was able to climb up myself and cut him down, I found he was dead, and a great gloom clouded my mind.

The authorities quickly zoomed in and carried the dead body away on a stretcher.  I was left with a strange burden to bear.  Nobody could explain what the man was doing in the roof; he had possibly fabricated a key which granted him access to the house after we had handed over the legal deeds, but how he had obtained sustenance and carried out his affairs without my knowing, I don’t know.  I could only guess he was mad!
  But then of course there was the question of my mother.  My mother!  Where had she got to?  On that we were all stumped.  She had completely vanished.  But the authorities were out with search parties already, and I could only sit in my chair and dwell in thought and hope for the best.

Everyone was gone by the time it happened.
  I was on my own, and I poured myself a drink, for my nerves were shaken, and my wits exhausted with the burden I carried.
  That was when I saw the huge wooden chest by the fireplace before me.  The same wooden chest that had been in the top floor, by the spot where the old man had hung himself.  Now the lock flicked open by itself, and the lid slid back…  White fingers flopped out and groped about like little grubs.  And then out crawled a gaunt and shaggy figure.  Pale and emaciated, and clad in rags - an old hag with dark eyes and a hooked nose, and an evil toothy grin…
  Good grief!  No!  I looked again, and saw, beyond that vile visage of a leering hag, my own mother, only warped into a vile crow beyond description!
  ‘Mother!’ I cried, ‘what has happened to you?’
  She laughed, and then croaked, ‘I am not your mother!  And I never was!’
  Dropping my drink I fled to my room and locked the door.  That mad thing is now smashing against it, hacking away with a great cleaver!  Already the wood is giving way, but the window will not budge, and there now seems no escape for me!
  As I desperately write the last lines of this record, I don’t think I shall ever know the dark riddle that creeps along the twisted ways of this house.
  There is only one thing I do know for certain, just before the darkness takes me - and that is the number of my days…

The End

How the toy maker died

There used to be an old toymaker.  He built a house in the middle of a wood, beside a beautiful birch tree and a tiny stream that twinkled by.  He was alone in the world and he carved a family of wooden toys and dropped one of his tears in each of their hearts, and at night time they came alive, and talked to him, and sang him songs and kept him company.
  Just down the stream, and not very far away, two trolls lived.  They built a rundown shack, and they were poor and mean fellows, and hunted rabbits in the wood, and were hungry and lean.  They were ugly, bony men, with long arms and groping fingers, and their hair was red and tatty, and their eyes large and black.
  They spent all day grumbling over their lot in life, until one struck up an idea on how to enrich their pitiable way of life.

‘Now our lives are miserable as you well know,’ said the troll. ‘We’ve had a meagre way of life for a long time; but here’s a plan I’ve had, and I’ve been thinking it through all night.
  ‘-NOW!  There’s the toymaker,’ he started. ‘You know the one I mean. The really odd fellow who lives up from us, just a little way along the stream. Now he’s a strange one, as I’ve said before now, however, it is said he sleeps on a great box of gold! He’s as rich as kings, they say. Now he won’t share any of that with the likes of us so I say we go and take it from him!’
  ‘Do we ask him for it first?’ asked the second troll, but the first troll shook his head.  ‘I say we kill him.  I say we knock him out while he sleeps.  And the best part is no one knows about him, except us of course.  No one will ever know we did the deed!  And the gold will be ours afterwards!’
  ‘I says I like that!’ said the second troll - ‘Sneak into his house!’ he said, ‘knock him over the head!  Yes!  Good idea!’
  They both jingled with excitement.

They waited till nightfall, and with their blood pumping ready for the hunt, they followed the tingling stream, to the house where the toymaker lived.
  The trolls, with their clubs in their hands, waited for the lights in the windows to dim, and then the leader nudged his friends and said, ‘Right!  He’s gone to bed!  Follow my lead!’
  The door was locked, but they were able to snap open the window.  It was an old house, and not strong enough to keep the heavy handed trolls at bay, and so the two easily pulled themselves in, and they crept along the kitchen floor, along the passageways, to the dark room where the toymaker presently slept.
  The two trolls stood either side the bed, and after a One! Two! Three!  They clobbered him to death!  They bashed him till the bed beneath him broke in pieces!  Feathers in the sheets swam peacefully and lithely around the air.  The moon leaned out of the clouds, and turned the room silver, and red, where the blood lay.
  They rummaged about the mess and after seconds the trolls found their quarry.  It was the box beneath the bed, the treasure trove the toymaker slept on!  The troll leader held it up triumphantly in the moonlight, and he nudged his friend and said, ‘Let’s get out back home, lad.  We’ve done good this day!’

But in the sunshine of the following day the two trolls sat miserably around the box with their heads bowed in their hands.  They had spent all night and all morning trying to open it.  But they couldn’t, not for anything!  Neither had been expecting this.  The troll leader bashed the box over his head.  ‘Curse this thing!’ he shouted.  ‘What a nasty trick to play on us!  But know this, brother!’ and he made a pledge, ‘I will open this box whether it kills me!’

In the house where the toymaker used to live, there were no lights, no songs, no cheery talk, just dust and gloom, and an unhappy quiet.
  His old toys were sat on the shelf, one beside the other in a row, looking on their dead master, and each one shed a tear, but they would never bring him to life, as he had done with them.  They whispered, and whistled, and waiting and watched, and when the sun dragged the light away, and the sky was darkness and stars, the toys helped each other down from the desktop, and together, in single file, set out into the wood.  They followed the ways of the stream, to the shack where the trolls lived.  They were sleeping now around a campfire, and the leader was resting his head on the box.
  With a cautious care not known to those of humankind, they slipped the box from under the sleeping trolls’ head, and then they opened the lid, for the box was made for them by the toymaker in person, and only the toys knew the special way it opened.  Inside the box was a pouch of ground dust produced from the seeds of a deadly flower.  They sprinkled the dust on each of the trolls; putting the dust in their mouths and ears and eyes, and that night both trolls died.
  Like the toymaker, they would never see another dawn.
  Before the sun rose the toys put wood around the dead trolls and put a fire on the bodies.  They waited till the early hours of the morning, till the trolls were turned to cinder and dust, and then they worked with such subtle haste, taking every single fragment of the trolls with their tiny hands, till they had bundled the remains into the box, and then closed the lid down over them.
  They returned back to the toymakers house, carrying the box over their tiny wooden shoulders, and they did not stop till they reached home.  They put the box under the broken bed where the toymaker slept, and there the trolls remain, to this very day.

Hell of the Monkey

New story begins below...
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It was only a week after the successful operation when my doctor surprised me in the street, calling my name out, and slapping me on the shoulder.  ‘And how are you feeling?’ he asked, and I replied, ‘Never better.  ‘Ha!’ he laughed, ‘you are a fine species of animal!’
  I was his first patient to participate in a new line of transplant procedure known in France as “animal-viscera”, where defunct internal organs are replaced by genetically enhanced animal replicas.  I told him the operation had worked a spell and I was feeling rather active than usual.
  He smiled at me, but it was more a curious smile, if I have ever known one, than the type of smile one likes to see in reaction to a cheerful word.  He put his fingers on the side of my face, as if to examine me, and after gazing into my eyes he shook his head.  ‘Not yet ready,’ I heard him mumble in a voice that was otherwise inaudible.  As he muttered to himself he began stroking his thin grey goatee beard.  His eyes were great and dark, I had noticed this before, and for awhile I seemed to stand hypnotised before him.  Noting my rigid state I saw his hand move into his pocket and then he said suddenly, ‘This might help!’
  Then, without warning, and certainly without my permission, he drew out a syringe (filled to the brim with a singular orange liquid), and stabbing my hand plunged the contents into my veins!
  He checked my face again, nodded, and stalked away!
  I felt the blood flow through my veins again and checked my sore bleeding hand.  Why had he done that?
  Of course I had to hope it was for the good, he was my doctor after all and I trusted him, and I soon forgot about it because of the important meeting to which my presence was expected.  The chancellor of the Head Bench was waiting for me and I needed to be spick-and-span if I wanted to win him over to my cause.  Yes!  Political matters, I am afraid, but the success of this particular meeting would see me a chair ahead on the bench in parliament, the President of the Elect Council - a position my father held before me.
  ‘I must say you are looking rather well!’ said the chancellor.  ‘And I must agree with the beard!  I know you are one to keep your appearance sharp, but this time I agree with the length of bristles on your face!  The beard leaves you with a noble air!’
  I thanked him, and then reflected on the obscure subject he had touched on because I remember specifically that morning shaving my countenance clean of any hair…
  I started to pour the brandy, and my hand jittered when I noticed the fantastic length of black hair growth on my hand, especially across my knuckles, and along the ridges of my fingers.  I tipped a portion of the brandy on to the table clothe.  The chancellor eyed me inquisitively, raising one of his great bushy brows and he said, ‘I say boy!  Are you alright?’
  I nodded.
  ‘It’s just you seem a bit shaky!  Not like your usual self!  Are you sure you are feeling well enough for this?’
  ‘Of course I am!’ said I, perhaps a little too harshly.  Then I calmed, continued to pour and relaxed myself in my chair.  ‘Sorry!  You know how it is!  Just a little, you know, a little jittery!’
  ‘Ha!’  and the chancellor patted his mouth with his serviette, ‘I never looked on you as the nervous sort!  I remember your father!  Never afraid to speak his mind!

Really, what the man said wasn’t really that funny at all, but for some reason I started to laugh uncontrollably!  A wild howling laugh, and I could actually feel my mouth grow larger than normal!  I will tell you the truth, I don’t know why I started to laugh then in the way I did, but I did; a mad loud hooting laugh like some mad thing.  Even though I felt thoroughly embarrassed I couldn’t stop, and when I tried to stop I lost full control and started to throw my hands about.  Then for no reason I stood up, jumped onto my chair, and in a crouched position started to jump up and down in the same spot.
  The chancellor, who by my unexplainable actions, had been worked into a sweat, mopped fully his howl head with his serviette, and stood abruptly from his chair.  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this!’ he said.
  Without another word he stalked away, and this threw me into a  rage, and I chased after him, but I found myself unable to say a word, only shout mad noises.  Everyone was looking at me, and that was when I noticed my reflection in a glass pane - I was actually running on all fours - using both my arms and legs!  I don’t know why I did this, but for a few seconds it seemed to feel right.  I grunted, stood aright, straightened my back and adjusted my collar.  Ignoring the hundreds of glances that were aimed my way I calmly left the building, and when I was out of eyesight, I picked up speed and just manage to catch the chancellor before he vanished into his taxi.
  ‘Wait!’ I cried.  ‘We haven’t finished!’
  ‘I’m sorry but I wont be made a fool,’ he said.  ‘Unless you regain your temperament we have nothing further to say to one another!’
  I don’t know why but I completely lost my temper with him.  My hands became separate beings and lashed out at him - and he turned and dodged, and then came about again in a diagonal position with his own fist aimed caught me on the chin and knocked me to the pavement floor.
  He drove off and left me there, while I sat up and rubbed the bruise, blinking into the stars and wondering why I had attacked him.  Of course I deserved the punishment in the chin, I could live with that; what I couldn’t live with was my irrational, and uncontrollable behaviour.  Why had I laughed madly in front of my friend, or ran about on all fours like some animal for hundreds of people to look upon with mocking frowns?  It was ridiculous actions for any human being let alone a public figure, and no doubt after the nights high handed conclusion with the chancellor the pages on my political career were slammed too.

What amazed me more than anything, when I got back home, was the beard I had grown.  Before I was about to wash I saw my reflection in my bathroom mirror, and the shock I received by what I saw left me starring in wonder for at least five stupefied minutes.  Not just a beard, but long black hairs over all the face and the throat.  When I touched the hairs I saw my fingers in the mirror, then looked at them closely for the first time to see how long they had grown.  Huge long groping fingers!  I couldn’t believe it and yet all I could do was make a strange inaudible grunting sound.  Then I began hoping around my room, going fourth on all floors, like a proper prince of fools!  I began spilling over book cases, turning up furniture, and it seemed to almost give me some sort of crazy but curious pleasure - like I had achieved something profitable or intellectual, even.  As a man read books to keep his brain keen, I tilted chairs and gazed under tables.
  I shook and quivered with fear.  Had I gone mad?
  I retired to bed and hoped sleep would cure me.
  In the morning a felt a hundred percent myself again.  No longer seeing the point in getting changed, I swung out of my bedroom window, and proceeded to dance cheerily along the rooftops.  A nearby tree looked a good resting spot and I jumped up into the lower branch and climbed up to the top.  I gazed about at the mad town below.  I saw someone walking down below, and I felt I could not stand for this.  “I found this tree, it was mine!”  I leapt out of the branches and growled and threw my fists about at her, and she in turn screamed, and for some reason fell unconscious to the floor.  Minutes later men clad in fearsome military attire marched out of a vehicle, and I was netted, drugged and put to sleep.

When I awoke I found iron bars around me, but it wasn’t until the effects of the drug finally wore off when I realised I was inside a cage!
  I shook the bars with my long leathery fingers, but could make no other sound except a loud resonant scream.
  Then I saw my Doctor!  Dr Pretler entered through a door, and standing before my cage leaned down to look at me.  He chuckled through his grey goatee beard.  ‘Ah!  So you are awake again!  Good!  Good!’
  I had questions, but I could ask them no more than I could open the door to my cage.  I just couldn’t shape words like I wanted to, and every time I put my voice into action I just made mad jumbled sounds.  This eventually infuriated me to such a state I just stopped talking altogether, and sat there like a fool.
  My tormenter just laughed.  ‘Good! Good!’ he kept on saying.  ‘A fine specimen!  You have worked out admirably.’  And again he drew fourth a syringe, containing the same orange liquid as before, and aimed it for my veins - but I scratched him off and the syringe smashed!  He retreated cursing angrily.
  I hugged my short hairy legs to my chest and pondered, ‘Why I am I in such a small place?  I want to be out in the world - I want to be free!’
  Someone was laughing at my side.  I turned about, and in the cage opposite me was a chimpanzee!  The most bizarre thing was, I could understand what he was saying!  It was the most singular experience in my life, and then it also seemed to feel just right - like it was meant to be.
  ‘Got you as well, has he?’ he said, and again he laughed.  ‘You aren’t the first, mate.  You probably wont be the last!’
  ‘What are you going on about?’ I found myself able speak now, and the monkey understood me completely and he replied, ‘You don’t know, do you?’
  I said, ‘Know what?’
  He said, ‘Imagine there was a mirror between us, and I was your reflection.  That’s right my friend.  You are like me.  You are a monkey.’
  What was my reaction to this?  Did I wail and shout with anger and despair.  No, I was quite calm.  When I saw the long hair on my arms, and looked down at my large leather feet, it all made sense.
  ‘But why?’ I said to him, and he shook his head and said, ‘I don’t know!  But I have been trapped here for days.  I don’t know what Pretler is planning, but I know what I’d do if I got my hands on him!’
  ‘So do I,’ said I, with a growl.
  ‘He’s ruined my life,’ said my friend, and I nodded, and muttered a mirror answer, ‘And mine,’ I said.
  I cannot say how long my imprisonment lasted, for I was never allowed to see the light of day, and every now and then Dr Pretler entered the room, deposited food through iron bars of my cage, and then left again through door, chortling.  One day he came and took the cage away containing my friend, the only person I had to keep me company.  It made it easier having someone to share the burden of my misfortune with, a fellow sufferer who carried the same hardship.  When he was gone I went mad, and wailed for hours, but when my energy was spent I recoiled to the corner of my cage, and turned grim and silent.  My eyes must have glazed with fury.  I began to plot and plan…  My life had been destroyed but it had one last thing to live for…revenge…

And so I remained patient, and waited, and as I hoped the good doctor rewarded my good behaviour, and removed me from the cage and brought me out to the laboratory that lay outside the door beyond.  ‘It has worked perfectly,’ he said.  ‘It,’ and at this point the was referring to me! ‘has absolutely no knowledge of its former life.  Ha!  I have succeeded where others have failed!  Those doubters will now eat their words when they see my latest triumph!’
  Now at this point I wasted no more time.  I attacked with only the veracity an animal has.  I clawed him with my hands, I gnawed him with my teeth.  I vented my days of fury upon him fully, ripped him to shreds, and scattered him across the room.  I tore up his books, his papers, tipped over his vials of chemicals, and drained out every last ebb of that putrid orange liquid till it seeped into the cracks in the floor.
  When the deed was done I sought the nearest window, snapped it clean open and swung out into the open air.
  I have been on the run ever since, chased hither and thither by those of my former kind.  I found my way back to my old apartment, and there I shall stay, till I am found.  I do not know my fate, but I do not think I will be looked upon as anything other than a savage animal.
  And so I have decided to discharge my final thoughts in this analogue, for others to wonder on, and perhaps, with hope, prevent such events that have distressed me from ever occurring again.  For now though I leave you with a misty far well.  I do not know if my fate would have been different had I not attacked the doctor in the way I did, or if my mind had not started to turn more and more animal…
  The one thing I did know, and that was the number of my days…

Just because monkeys seem the same doesn’t mean to say we are the same.

The End

The Hell of the Clown

A short story about a man besieged in his house for no reason by a clown...

Story begins below
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The unfortunate circumstances, which I shall now relate, fired up the moment I cast my mad brother out onto the streets…

We were always worried about him when he was young, because of the strange symbols he drew on walls; but when he turned to grave digging father would have no more of it and he was cast out of the house and spent some time in the asylum.
  Years later I looked after him on a temporary basis, and on his twenty seventh birthday it seemed he had been cured of his strange ways.  He took to reading books, and for awhile worked in the Hales Library.  I was pleased for him, and my heart was content and glad!
  The one night I awoke, startled from my sleep, to the sound of rattling and clanging below.  I ventured downstairs as hastily as my feet would carry me, gazed with my tired eyes to see my brother leaning on the wall, with mud on his hands and feet.  I questioned him, and after he caught his breath, for he appeared to be recovering from some exertion, he replied, ‘Walking!  That’s all.  I fell over.  I’m sorry for the noise!’
  A day later my nose made me wince with the horrific, nay incomprehensible smell which entered it.  Following the direction of this sent to its source found me before the door to my brothers room; I knocked and when there was no response I forced my way through.
  And there he was, as of old, sat amid a pile of bones, holding a skull in his hand.  With tears in his eyes he said to me, ‘Forgive me brother!’
  And so it was I cast him out, because I could not stand no more of this, and I did not see him again.
  A day later, and the day before I write this note, the strange events I am about to record took place…

In the afternoon I like to sit in my chair and read, with the sunlight pouring through my French patio it was otherwise a beautiful day.  And I sat contentedly pouring over the pages of my book, when for some reason I felt a chill run down my spine, and as if by instinct I lowered the book I was reading to look to look out of the window - to my surprise, and later I must admit, my horror, I saw a clown!  He was actually stood in my garden!
  I gazed at it, and without doubt, it gazed back at me, with serene green eyes.  With a face as white as snow, red smiling lips and blue hair, accompanied by the bright dress he donned I would have described him as an otherwise jolly looking character had he, for example, showed up for a children’s show, and not for some mysterious and unwarranted reason on the doorstep of my own private property.
  I opened the window and shouted at him - what do you want!  He pointed at me, increased the width of his grin, till his expressions perfected a type of leer, and then he merely walked away without offering by-or-leave or even a simple explanation!
  Disturbed I returned to my book - but I couldn’t read it of course, not after that experience.  I put it down and thought what the clown could have been about - when placing the book on the dresser, and standing up to make my way for the kitchen, I saw again the face of the clown pressed right against my own window!  The condensation of his breath had turned to dew on the open pane!
  ‘Get away you scoundrel!’ I cried, ‘I don’t know what game you are playing but I am not laughing at it!’
  But my whole constitution changed when I gazed closely at the character that affronted my privacy; for he removed a white glove from his hand - and I saw that beneath the glove was a hand that carried no skin or flesh - and now the death-like bony fingers tapped my window!

I knew now that I wasn’t dealing with some sad lunatic.  This was serious.  Something deadlier than I could have dreamed.
  I prayed that I was dreaming, and if so please let me awake!  But no, I was trapped - and even though the leering visage of that creature had moved from my window pane, it did not bring me comfort.
  So he had moved from the window, but the question was where had he repositioned  himself?

With terror forcing my heart to beat like I had been in a marathon, I checked all the doors, and the windows as well, to ensure they were all sealed and locked.  I fell against the wall and started to pant, and tried to regain my breath and likewise remain calm.  I would need all my senses in fine tune if I was to deal with this problem sensibly.
  Just as I regained my nerve I heard a shrill, and horrible laughter, right outside my front door.  Good grief!  It was still there, and on my trial!
  ‘Now look here my good man!’ I shouted at it, ‘I don’t know what your game is!  But if it is to scare me you have succeeded.  Now be of with you.  I want no trouble!’
  My words proved useless, for now the clown began fiddling with the door handle.
  ‘Be off with you!’ I cried, and I began to think “Did I lock the door?” but as the door had not moved
I presumed I must have done.  ‘I am a peaceful man!’ I shouted at it.  ‘I don’t deserve this!’
  That was when paranoia took me, fully, and I rushed about checking all the doors and windows again, when suddenly there was BANG
  But it came from above?
  Now I realised I hadn’t checked the bedroom window!  I rushed up the stairs with all speed, to find that the clown had grabbed my ladder, and had thrown it up to the window.  He was at that very moment climbing it and nearing the top!  I could have allowed terror to get the better of me, and collapse with sheer fright, but I held fast as always, and when the clowns head was peeping in view of the window seal I reached out, and pushed the blasted fellow back down!
  I tipped the ladder back on him, like an old warrior from the dark ages defending a castle turret, and afterwards slammed the window to, locking it firmly at the same time.
  Now all areas were sealed, I fell down on the floor and tipped my head into my gibbering hands.  What was happening?  For no reason my life was falling apart.  And now I had something I have never felt before - a feeling of utter doom.  The order that I knew was suddenly gone, and minutes seemed like hours there was just no knowing what would happen next.
  All I could do was wait, and hope.
  Then the door slammed below…  But … but it was locked?
  I rushed out to the landing, and found the clown, stood there, at the bottom of the stairs, gazing at me with a great grin on his face.  As soon as I saw him he began to ascend!  With a cry, for that was all I could do, I rushed back into my room and slammed the door to.  I threw my work desk against the door, and then put my own weight against it in the hope the clown wouldn’t be able to break through.  Now my terror was truly immense.  To think that thing was in my house, outside my room, and the only item I had for defence was a thin door jammed too by a cranky old desk.  I only hoped I had enough strength to prevent him from entering.  I now regretted my folly at pushing the ladder down, if I had thought about it I should have grabbed it, and pulled it in, and now I could have used it to climb down and call for  help from one of my neighbours.
  Still, I rushed to the window and throwing it open I shouted out several times, “Help me!  A mad man is attacking me!”
  But when the handle to my door was twitched behind me I had to resume my place by the desk, and with the help of the desk and my weight I was able to prevent him from entering.

These could be the last few lines I ever write in this, possibly the last entry in this unfortunate  journal.  I have been trapped in my room for a whole day now, and I am weary with fatigue, and hunger, and thirst, but whenever my eyes droop, I hear him scratching at my door, clawing to get in.  I swear he is leaning by the door handle, and I heard a little chuckle sound down by the crack of the door.
  I secretly hoped, especially after a few hours, the clown would just go away; but indeed he has not moved.
  I know sleep will soon take me, and then that fiend will easily be able to enter, and then I will be at his mercy.  If only I knew what it was he wanted…
  But there is one thing I did now know; the hideous secret that most mankind hope to evade, and yet always fall into - and that was the number of my days…