We never knew Davis

Too late, as ever with Davis. He was buried in the one suit he owned, inside the breast pocket of which he’d popped the letter before going out into town for his last night.

It could have been the start of a poem or suicide note, you simply couldn’t tell with Davis. He’d written both before, sometimes in the same project. He had worked for two years in a series of mainline railway stations in a variety of jobs. He was tall and slim, dark, he wore spectacles and what used to be known as stout boots. He was an atheist and a big drinker but only on Fridays.

He was my friend and we often went rambling over England. Davis had emerged from Pentonville prison in 1882 as a rumpled man, convinced that his role there as the Chaplin had resulted in his crisis of faith. He came directly to my home in Yorkshire to remind me of our childhood together and of the fact that his ‘descent into religion’ was the only reason that my wife Mary was my wife rather than his.

To an extent, of course, he was correct.

Mary, Davis and I had revolved around each other before he had taken up the cloth and Mary had taken my hand. Writing now, forty years after his death in 1884, I can see that Mary and Davis loved each other.

She is my friend and we have a house, two grown children – both boys, now men and both abroad. We talk about Davis but although our conversations are joined at the words, they are separate and personal.

Not for the reason you think though.

I was in the knowledge, you see, that Davis had murdered Mary’s father.

Dead Island - game footage FTW!

I am thinking of asking Stephen King or Simon Pegg… or both.

Yes, I‚Äôm going to ask them to use their actual talent to create some text that I can use to sell my book, Dead Idea. The text will be loosely based on my book. The text will be ‘leaked’ online in order to convince people that my book (Dead Idea) is creatively rich and interesting. The text will also convince people I have the talent and that the content of my book will be up to the same standard.

I’m also going to ask my pal Paul to write some slow, mawkish music using his oboe and the D-minor chord. I am going to include this as an MP3.

Simon Pegg & Stephen King
My new book – called Dead Idea Рis using some tried and tested ideas all of which have been imagined and creatively realised by people way more talented and original than I am.

It‚Äôs a book (called Dead Idea) about zombies attacking people who aren‚Äôt zombies yet but will be if they don’t beat the zombies. It’s set in a football stadium or a nightclub or somewhere.

If I’m really honest, I’ve not really put that much thought into writing it. There are no novel nor interesting angles or techniques in there. I mean, why bother? It’s not as if I have the talent or the inclination to provide any insight or originality. It’s not as if people want those kind of disruptive problems.

Interviews for Dead Idea
Of course, when I’m interviewed about it I’m going to talk about “metaphors”, “analogies”, “zeitgeisty moments”, “modern moral morays” and “insightful commentary”.

I’m also going to talk about “a bit of fun”, “awesome bloody madness”, “game-changing genre reboot” and “recapturing the adrenalin of zombie lit from back in the day”.

Depends on who is doing the interview.

The simple fact that I’m using some tired mechanics wrapped up in a few clichés shouldn’t make any difference to the piece of text I’m asking Mr King or Mr Pegg to produce for me.

They have free reign, well near as damn it. I’ve asked them to make sure that they “Pep it up a bit. Make it emotional but not so emotional that it actually forces the target market to assess their emotions in the world outside of schlock and awesomeness.

Dead Idea – Remember How You Felt!
The idea is to evoke enough emotion in the reader so that, in this age of fragmented media and information overload, they remember the name of my new book – Dead Idea ‚Äì and they don’t notice the weary ideas and pedestrian writing when it finally rolls out. By the time it rolls out I want my consumers to defend Dead Idea like it was their own child about to be murdered in its holiday bed.

Ideally the consumer will confuse the text written for me with my own actual work.

You see, I need people to remember, I do not want them to think about Dead Idea. Jesus Christ! If they actually think about Dead Idea and the amount of money I’m asking them to fork o over for my bland rehashing of an idea that’s been done, if I may say so, to undeath – well, I’m fucked.

Importantly I need them to start talking about the name of my book (that’s Dead Idea) now so that I can convince retailers to buy in stock before the reviews are out.

My problem is, however, that I’ve not finished Dead Idea (the name of my new book) and the bits I have finished are, frankly, so utterly uninspiring that I can’t even get my girlfriend or any of my friends to show much interest in it.

So, I get someone else to use their work to convince potential clients that my work is worth buying.

My problem – although I trust both Messrs Pegg and Mr King’s talents – is that the glut of zombie popular culture that I’m attempting to extract the last few fruits of profit from requires a Unique Selling Point. Hence the dead child.

Dead Idea
Sure some people’s children have actually died, but we cannot sacrifice the creative force for the minority. Sure, I could ask Messrs Pegg and King to ensure that the dead child appears peripherally rather than right up front but, honestly, where’s the emotional impact?

Honestly? If it was down to me I’d use a dead zombie puppy or kitten but I can’t. My target audience likes puppies and kittens. More people have loved and lost pets than they have children. More of my market has had dead pets than they’ve parented live children for fuck’s sake! Lol.

Using a dead kitten as the key focus, right up front, with no warning, it will not have the same impact. So, I’ve asked Messrs Pegg and King to ensure some form of infanticide occurs from the off.

Real art does that, and you can defend real art against, well, nearly anything. It’s bloody Teflon is real art.

Real artists and works of art such as, well, none leaps immediately to mind, have used dead kids staring you in the face from the first paragraph.

So, I don’t see why the advert for Dead Idea that I’m getting other more talented people to produce and that does not reflect the actual work I’m producing should be judged differently.

And what harm is there in it?

Dead Idea – a Book
People like zombie stuff, that’s for sure. Who wouldn’t? It’s an easy enough trope to manipulate. It is certainly scary in a comforting way. It has also created rule-sets: “Fast zombie vs Slow zombie” etc. The knowledge of these ‘rules’ provides a sense of community among those more inclined to yell, “Fuck you, ya bucket of cum!” than “I’d not thought about it like that, let’s have a talk”.

Zombies are certainly less likely to encourage actual analysis than using the homeless, the disabled, the poor or terrorists as “the other”. The problem is, however, that by now even the most dull-minded of consumers are starting to notice the constant repetition of a Zombies, Zombies and more Zombies.

Well, maybe not the most dull-minded. Certainly not those consumers who are abjectly cowardly in raising an opinion that might see them as “funless” or “just saying it for effect”, and they’re my market. I love those guys.

So, the zombie cult remains profitable and its death still some months off. At least that’s what I’m telling my publisher. I mean, it is still quite possible to elicit cries of “Awesome!” and “Hellz yeah!” and “Genuine LOL” from the Idiocricy by slapping the following onto the Internet and using some pre-seen footage, probably in slow motion and probably with that mawkish music.

“Zombie My Little Pony!”

“Zombie Mario Meets Zombie Obama!”

“Zombie Cake!”

“Zombie Libyan Uprising!”

Don’t Forget! Dead Idea! Coming Soon!
So, I hope that Messrs Pegg or King decide to take me up on my request to enable me to hitchhike their talent. I only want about 400 words out of one of them – plus Paul’s oboe noodling. As long as they remember to ensure that a child dies in there – a zombie child who isn’t actually a zombie at the end of the backwards piece – then I reckon that I can, like a pimp for the soul Рsolicit just enough emotion to make this shit stick long enough for word of mouth to take off.

Some people might complain though. This is not the end of the world, this merely calls for a damage limitation exercise. For that I can trust to the kind of people who are unable to see an advertisement when it’s crammed into their gullets like corn into a French goose. This inability comes from the delicious fact that these people have already committed to the idea that their hobby is actually their world. These are the kind of wonderful consumers who will defend my 400 words of trope-repeating, wearisome tripe against all-comers.

In order to help these fantastically sticky fans along, I’ve already got some arguments lined up for them:

1) It’s just some text, get over it.
2) If this was a poem and not a schlock novel then you’d say it was art!
3) It’s just some fun, get a sense of humour.
4) It’s not EVEN a real CHILD FFS!
5) Why don’t you think about the real dead kids in Africa?
6) Didn’t you hear the music? Didn’t you see it was to be read from back to front? Are you stupid?
7) Do you hate novels? Are you a hater?
Why are you trying to censor stuff? That’s what the Nazis/Communists/Democrats did/do/want to do.
9) Just because you felt bad about the dead child being used to sell a product doesn’t mean you’ve got to bum me out by making me feel bad. STFU!
10) Awwwww are you butt-hurt? Get a life loooza!

And don’t forget… the absolute killer rhetorical response, it’s Number 11, it’s:

11) So, they used a dead child in that advert for killing kids in road accidents!!! Did you object to that too!!! Haterz gonna hate… jus’ sayin’. Piece out.

Yes, I reckon, marketing-wise, I’m on a winner.

George Rugley refuses to talk about the house on the green in the village of Wallington. Save for a petition to have it demolished and the ground on which it stood since 1899 concreted over, George is adamant in his silence.
Read on »

The churchyard was soft

Haring down the hill into the village on his five-speed – past the preparatory school, past the scout hut and the post office Рthen cornering tight right, hardly time to change down, past the hair salon.

Read on »

On the run

This is what it was like before I was born. Before I asked you what death was like and before you showed me.

I’d never seen the image of a dead man Рa corpse picture – let alone the real thing. Back then, I’d never seen a cold morning without breakfast or hope of supper. I hadn’t seen a very great number of things, although I hoped to.

I think I’d seen you – back before I was born. Standing in line, waiting to be dropped into life. I like to think that we’ve had some personal contact, albeit briefly; me to receive orders or maybe make a request. You to look me up and down, smile in a fatherly way and pack me off into the great adventure of life.

I’d like to think we’d had some acquaintanceship so that we touched maybe before I learnt all about touching in that other way. But sitting here now, looking forward to being caught or to killing and running again – maintaining the chase – I somehow doubt it.

Your rosary feels small and looks like a string of seeds. It’s doing me as much good as any charm. Might as well be a rabbit’s foot or a crescent from Islam. I don’t know. I wish you did.

Before I was born, when I was good, before the blues, cigarettes, tests, longing, loathing and this wet night in a ditch, I seem to remember your bright face smiling, beaming. Beautiful, as beautiful as anything that has crossed my path since. Much more beautiful than my mother, who was never that.

I was good before I was born, made up of all the particles from that start of the atheist universe as I was, I was as good as anything because I was anything.

Now I am bad – a butcher.

A sales problem

He lost her hard but all he can think is that sales are wonderful but filthy things. They are the public’s gaze made concrete. It’s getting to the sales channels that involves the grubbiness.

We are all battling for the market and battling with the stall holders and the licensors for a chance to put a For Sale sign up on a pitch, and then close it. Closing it is the game, he considers, for the artist, the car salesman, the video game maker… but not for the lover. The lover, not the fucker or the seducer. The lover.

Now, he’s given up drinking and smoking. He also appears to have given up any form of structure that could count. Where is the car? He should have remembered to pick the car up from the garage, which would have enabled him to do the grocery shopping, which would have allowed him the chance of a happy relationship. He didn’t want to go out into the humidity and the people. It’s too hot. 32 degrees or somewhere around it, and his forehead is peeling, ripping into raw shreds with the humidity.

That’s not to say that he’s not happy. He was. He is. It’s all very jolly Рand he awards himself a point for not swearing at this point. This is something else that he’s given myself: the chance to be happy by awarding himself points for easily achieved goals.

He should have picked up the car. If for nothing other than the fact that it would have got him out of the house for a few hours and he need the exercise. He see all these other people beavering around the place, getting on with things and whether or not they seem happy, at least they seem attached, or engaged or not bothered.

Their feet seem connected to the ground, their hands grip the bannisters of the stairs leading to public squares where they sit eating sandwiches and reading the papers.

Time was when this would make him feel very paranoid, as if they were doing all of that purely in order, in order to show that he wasn’t. For him, easting a sandwich in a public place was a performance. Was he eating the correct sandwich? Was he in the appropriate public place? Would the combination of food and situation look attractive enough to ensure at least one passing look that passed with a significant enough pause to mean positive contact? Or would he have got the mixture wrong, ensuring that the looks were simple, half-covered guffaws?

That was when he was earning enough money to afford the time and the sandwich let alone the vanity and the eye contact.

Now he doesn‚Äôt bother to attempt the concoction. Watching other people simply having lunch hours or park picnics doesn’t make him hate them with envy and pain. He rather likes it in fact, or at least the idea of it.

Not having to get drunk is also worth 10 points, even in the heat. Not waking up hungover and slack jawed definitely has its advantages.

He are, is, are, am, going to join a gym next week in fact, when he can get out of the house. Jemma wants him to, despite the cost… to her earnings. She’s learnt that not only will it make him feel better, it will also make him feel. She’s been through a lot coping with him coping. HIs little black dog, his trophy of specialiness has become a yappy thing to her. She should really have left him on more than one occasion. Certainly the time that he declared that he should hold on to his depression because that was him when she thought it was fast becoming the thing to have for a modern western professional. At least now that ‚ÄòStress‚Äô got fewer column inches.

People nod a great deal when you watch them through glass windows, eating outside. But he digresses.

The other time she should have walked was when, drunkenly, he threw away both the wedding bands, and “invested” their savings in yet another new computer, scanner and high-speed Internet connection in order to set-up his own design company.

This had come from visiting the MCA during some exhibition or other on some designer or other. Of course, at that particular upswing, he knew that he could do better. How diffficult could it be?

Extremely bloody hard if you have no colour sense, no contacts and only a rudimentary idea about connecting lines. Nevertheless, there was more expenditure.

He created more design theories in a three day high than any actual designs in the three month period up to and including the time that Jem sold the kit and recouped about 60 per cent of the outlay.

Theoretically he was brilliant. Practice however, meant judgement of solid creativity.

Now he’s got a cheap handheld, and the occasional job writing ad copy from the remainder or his friends.

But, yes, he digresses.

HIs weekend had been poor. Drunk on the Friday, through Saturday punctuating the slurs and falls with love cries and fights with Jemma. All of this in the house that she was trying to turn into a home.

He didn’t want to go out, and he didn’t want to stay in. He wanted to smoke dope and drink his way into a good idea or a fab