#markflash7

Many happy returns.

To everyone who contributed stories, read some of our prose, or knows us, Merry Christmas.

Meat. Must have it. We hunt in a pack. I organise the reindeer, chasing down arctic foxes. Gored vulpine remains shudder and heave as Rudolf’s red nose presses into the flank, shining and wet. When they've eaten their fill, the real hunt begins. Harnessed to the sleigh, the reindeer circle in the perpetual night, gaining height while I seek out a herd of seals. This is my larder for the year ahead. My fat, fur skins and meat. The candles that light my home, the bones that are carved into tools. What dyes the costume red? What do you think? I've seen the grotesque cartoon mockeries gracing your cards and advertisements. Try living here for a year. Think I've got anything to laugh about? And when I enter your homes, you leave me brandy or wine. I have a job to do. I'd never deliver anything if I actually drank the stuff you gave me. Not to mention the pies, sandwiches and chocolate. Have none of you seen me recently? Couldn't just one of you leave me a fucking salad? Your weakling children are so pleased to see me, for one night only. I am invisible for the rest of the year, left unheeded. If they saw me in June they would be repelled by me. Obese old man smelling of salt, seal blubber and sweat. Undisturbed until December, I'm reminded of your existence by the fledgling letters of greed. Children learning an artificial need, encouraged by parents too stupid to understand what it is they’re encouraging. Begging letters. I want, I want, I want. Ritual is a powerful magic. I cannot abandon you entirely without ceasing to exist myself. An old man dying alone in the snow. My displeasure with this annual summons has to be manifested in small ways. The gift of socks, the right item in the wrong size or colour, the absence of batteries. This piece originally appeared on this page on 27th December 2012.

It’s the trees I object to. The space that could be used for traffic. Instead of sailing down this road into town, I’m trapped behind a hundred other cars, while to the left and right there are green and pleasant spaces, with trees at twenty metre intervals. I’M LATE FOR WORK. Don’t the council understand that commerce is the lifeblood of our city? They’re slowing progress, a barrier to the future. Just give me ten days in charge of their planning office. I’ll soon put a few things right. I’m sure the people who live in those houses are very pleased that they’ve got public lawns and trees separating them from the traffic, but unless they’re paying more council tax for the privilege, then THOSE BASTARDS SHOULD PREPARE FOR AN EXTRA LANE. Oops. Window’s down.

'Poor guy' she thought, looking at the cake vendor standing alone at his stall. The shoppers were all streaming past him and swarming up the escalators to McDonald's and Costa Coffee.  Yet with the full majesty of global capitalism towering above him, their illuminated signs bigger than his entire stall, he defiantly remained.  India kept a close eye on his stall as she passed.  'If I see something I like,' she thought, 'I'm going to buy it.' She nearly missed it, but the crowd cleared at just the right time.  It looked like a chocolate brownie.  India was all about the chocolate brownies. It never knew what hit it.  There was a blur of conversation and possibly some money changed hands, but the next thing the brownie knew was that a bag had been thrown over it, and it was being carried unceremoniously away from its display case.  It considered calling for help. It was only later when India reached the bus stop, licking her chocolate covered lips and feeling in her empty pockets for bus fare, that she began to ponder the wisdom of her impulse buy...

I set the track up and turn the volume control sky high. Then I leave, locking my bedroom door and taking the remote with me. As I stand in the driveway I point the remote at my bedroom window and press play. The less than delicate strains of Tobacco’s ‘Motorlicker’ fill the air. Grinning evilly I jump into the car. I see lights come on in the house as I pull carefully out of the driveway. On the drive into work I wonder idly if the track is on repeat. Do you know, I can’t quite remember myself…

She looked at him jerkily.  The iris tracking across the sclera, pixelated and burnt-in. He smiled, blocky triangles of white bordered by pink. When they kissed, the perspective changed.  Two pink ovals became two pink lines and merged.  Arms wrapped around each other, two distinct beings formed one unique shape. Afterwards, heads, shoulders and arms protruding from a fiercely rectangular bed, they smoked.  Tiny squares of white smoke drifted out toward the perfectly proportioned window.  The tips of the cigarettes cycled between orange and black, the figures lay motionless. She reaches a blocky arm out toward the blocky lamp on the blocky bedside table.  As she hits the switch, I render the scene using every black block at my disposal.

 At first I think I’ve stepped through a mirror, but the glass (now broken) holds the image of a man who looks like a skinny and miserable version of me.  I wonder who on earth would want to immortalise such a pale, unhappy life and stride onwards, brushing myself down as I go.