YOUR NEW BABY BOY WILL LIVE 73 YRS, 127 DAYS, 13 HRS, 48 MINS & 22 SECS
She assumed motherhood had run its course since the day her only child failed to live out his 2nd birthday. How wrong she was. Deep into her 40′s, she gave birth to a replacement son on the proviso that she, and later he, would know the exact length of his life as soon as he was born. Pre-elective C-section, she signed on the dotted line just hours before the incision. As he grew into his teens and subsequent manhood, she procrastinated over the announcement assuming that if she kept the deathdate to herself, he might outlive it. As d-day loomed, she attempted to control proceedings by inviting a family friend and his surgeon wife round for supper. Fatefully, she was summoned to an emergency with no notice. Mother & son faced the countdown together although unlike her, he was not expecting the bullet.
It all came out in court and led to the first amendment of human rights whereby every child born will be told when he or she will die, down to the last tragic second. It tore the economy out of life cover and pensions, and brought companies to their knees who’d gambled on the random nature of longevity. Funerals became life-leaving-do’s. Mass loss of life to plane crashes and homicidal incidents were cut by two thirds thanks to people knowing when and enabling others to avoid that given moment. Population fell initially, but mankind adjusted. Our species was twinned with lemmings.
FLARES ON AN ESCALATOR
She loved shoes. It started young. Age 6, she knocked out her milk teeth in successive nights to earn enough money to get her first heels. She loved shoes to such an extent that on a big night out she’d walk on all fours just to wear two pairs at once. Sad then, that her days would end this way.
KEEP BREATHING
Dear Claude Choules
Today, you died at the unimaginable age of 110.
No other man on earth has seen what you have seen – active service in both world wars.
Your elixir? Keep Breathing.
The world is a poorer place without you, although the soil will be richer, however you choose to go.
At a time of rabid, widespread war, may you rest in peace.
SPECIAL NEEDS LOVE
She held his hand at every turn until the day he lost it to a bull terrier bite. From then on, she pinched his bum through baggy jeans until the day that too disappeared, lost to deep winter frostbite. When she joked it was a case of ‘twice bitten, once shy’, he left her.
BRAIN CELL BILLIONAIRE
She wasn’t the smartest girl, but she was lucky. It was luck that drove her onto the game show, the first of its kind to offer up as a prize, intelligence or money. Now, she got by, paid the rent, brought up her kids, went out when kids allowed. But comfortable? No.
As with all soft, rich quiz shows, choice bailed her out. Every question was alien to her, from the toughest to the opener. She guessed her socks off and nailed the lot. In fifteen years of broadcast, no-one had ever taken the implant, dismissing it as a ratings stunt.
When she choose the cash by judgement rather than luck, they tried to renege. It went to high court. She won and they were forced to operate on/in her perfectly normal head. After several weeks of indifference, she wrote a screenplay that brought down Hollywood. Sadly, we’ll all have to wait until 2014 to see it.
QUEENSLAND CHAPTER 1
It wasn’t just another flood. He knew that. He told others too, but they chose not to listeneth. He paddled for streets upon streets. He found dry land. He foresaw a change in the climate, and not the one everyone else was seeing. He traced it back to New Orleans. He said the poor shall inherit the earth that is left. He said the rich will drown, from the heavens and the seas. He said thou will sink beneath the cracks in the crust. He said thou knows who thou is, does not thou?
It took time but he was right.
The poor lived the longest and reversed the wealth and health of the idiot species.
OUT STEALING TREES
The new terrorism fought not over faith, nor oil, nor land, but the very thing that makes land live: TREES. The bricks and mortar of sap and oxygen was to become the most valuable commodity on the stock exchange, just in time. With this pricelessness came violence on a scale that mankind had never seen, heard or felt.
Factions of botanical fundamentalists formed, cholorcide accounted for millions of innocent plant lovers. But trees carried more worth than people. At night, they stole them, even the very tallest Redwood. Yes, even America’s greatest totems were at risk, despite the manic security mesaures taken up by the Greenocrats (a hybrid party born out of the ashes of the politically dismembered United States).
Yet, within this world, one thief strode for the good of the world. The Robin Hood of the Rainforest, they called him. By stealth, he robbed trees from the rich to give to the poor. Once transplanted they became listed and obtained a status of diplomatic immunity. The trees made roots and the roots gave power. The world’s wealth inverted – the 95% of its riches that once belonged to 5% suddenly became the property of the poorest 5%.
And so it was, abject poverty was wiped off the bottom line of the human race.
FORGETFUL SUNDAY
They were old enough to remember but chose not to.
They chose to forget.
They looked forward because of something that happened that was never told to anyone, an experience so complex, so testing, that should it appear in film or literature, the life of the maker/writer would end.
This incident kept them going deep into their 90′s.
Once they’d gone, war, on the whole, faded. It took a while but new battles became rarer and century old disputes over land, faith and oil were lost and accepted. The odd one was even resolved. Victors felt empty. The defeated inherited the earth.
We are all historians of the future and have a choice to tell it as it will be or how it should be.
We know which our forefathers will thank us for.
CHARLIE GOT THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
And the debt too.
The running costs had shot up and the energy efficiency audit was very poor. Health & Safety stepped in and closed down the chocolate river, thus haemorrhaging the main revenue stream (this is not a pun, it is a serious matter). The accounts revealed a tax deficit in line with that of the World Recession, as income had been laundered offshore. The pension scheme was ‘akin to aero’ (ie: full of holes) and had triggered a strike in Charlie’s first week of office. The cocoa bean suppliers had also been left unpaid, thus violating their human rights. By week two, Charlie’s heart rate had risen to alarming levels, his cholesterol had quadrupled and he was being treated for panic attacks, all at the age 9. His grandfather took it upon himself to maim the vendor but was arrested for ABH and as a result suffered a stroke and passed away.
Willy Wonka.
What a wonka.
THE SUICIDE FLIES
His nose ran. It ran away. If fled from the flies who sought to bleed it dry. Not by the draining of blood, but by snot. Liquified snot. Snot so thin in viscosity, it could be called snit. Flies love snit almost as much as they love, yes. These flies were no ordinary household pests. They were fundamentalist flies. They knew no fear. They flew by his nostrils, forsaking their own lives in order to plant tear gas incendiary bombs and drain him of snit. By nightfall he’d fallen. The flies fed on him for the next 5 months. In the carcass left upon the kitchen floor, a glint of remorse. His ribcage became a cathedral for fly communion.