Greatest Halloween Mask of all Time...

I made it myself!


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NFL Round-up: Week 6...

Who Rocked?
The Eagles of Philadelphia are an impressive side and should, if my estimations are correct, find themselves as a Wild Card team along with the Saints when both teams finish as runners-up in their divisions to the Giants and Falcons respectively. Michael Vick at starting QB may sound strange to those who are yet to adjust to his reinstatement, but he’s damn effective and getting the most out this offence. They nudged the Falcons this week and despite a rough division, should continue to impress.

The Saints got back on track by throttling the Bucs, who were exposed as pretenders. Their record is good despite their weaknesses all over the field, quite in contrast to that of their conquerors, but I think the Bucs will continue to play erratically until the season’s close.

The Texans bounced back by making hard work of beating the sliding Chiefs. It was a must-win game and kudos to the unit for making-up for last week’s tough loss to the Giants.


Whose chances were knocked?
Green Bay – my pre-season Superbowl pick – just can’t do anything right at the moment. After losing an agonising overtime game to the Redskins last week, they fell again to the Dolphins – a side a team with SB aspirations should be brushing aside with ease. Harsh as it is to the young and talented team from Miami, they shouldn’t have the muscle to push-around GB’s vaunted defence. If Green Bay don’t get a wriggle on Chicago could be the surprise winners in the North or, rather unpalatably for the Lambeau faithful, the Vikes could put-in a late season surge and steal it from under their noses.

The Chargers are officially a disappointment. As with every year in the AFC West, a late-season surge can still reverse the fortunes of a team that has squandered its talent for years, but they look truly woeful. Their fellow perennial challengers, the Denver Broncos, are equally inept this season and the Raiders – NFL.com’s Vic Carrucci’s choice for the Playoffs – could well make it to the postseason.


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NFL Round-up: Week 5...

Who Rocked?
The Buccaneers continued their impressive start to the season by edging the Bengals by a slim 3 point margin. Although they ply their trade in a division with two genuine title contenders, the Falcons’ and Saints’ ability to tear strips off each other leaves the possibility of a decent record open. They won’t win the division, but they could surprise everybody and nick a Wild Card berth if the better units from the NFC North and East continue to take games off each other and finish with records that belie their talent.

The Colts beat the high-flying Chiefs in a game that restored normality and put the Colts back in the driving seat of their division.

Biased as this may be, the Cardinals pulled a huge shock out of the bag by beating a shell-shocked New Orleans side that is bleeding points as fast as it is losing confidence. Gone is the swagger of their Superbowl winning season, and in its place some pointed questions remain.

The Titans won a corker against the plummeting Cowboys who are rooted to the bottom of their division. The Colts, Titans and Texans are making the race for the AFC South division crown interesting, and with the forgotten Jaguars healthy victory over the winless Bills, it is surely the best in football right now.


Whose chances were knocked?
The Detroit Lions stiffed the much-improved Rams by an embarrassing score line of 44-6. The Rams have got to stop losing games like this if they hope to challenge for their division, which they can given the lack of a dominant contender in the NFC West. The Rams under Bradford and Spagnolo are better than this – much better. They will likely win the big and lose the little on the way to a disappointing 7-9 record and be left scratching their heads when the division goes to either the Cardinals (unlikely) or the Seahawks (probable) with a marginally better record.

The fancied Texans were handed a battering by the soaring Giants, who, if anything, look better than they did right now than when they won the Superbowl in January ’08. Manning is quietly compiling a fantastic record and reputation as a starter and, if the trend continues, should lead the G-men to the NFC East title and maybe even the Conference at the end of this muddled year.


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Back to the Game...

After almost a month of frippery, it is time to return to my favourite pastime: writing about the NFL.

As you may have noticed (for all of you who follow THE HARE BLOGS), I have been updating my Twitter account with scores and news from the league, but, due to many annual celebrations, have reserved the blog itself for other projects.

While I've been working on other projects, the NFL drama has been unfolding as the weeks have rolled by.

Over the next four days I will publish a round-up of the weeks that have elapsed since I last reported on the League. By Tuesday we'll be back on track and the focus will return to regularly updating you on the hottest topics.

I hope you've enjoyed our month of celebration, and that you're excited about business returning to usual.


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The Walled Garden...

The poetic Nightmares of Nudds

Frame One
The Storm Breaks…



Hi. Forgive my narrative interjection. I know the story’s been cantering along at a rare old pace, but things are about to get…well…a bit messy, and it’s only right I bring you up to speed with what’s been going on, and then maybe get round to telling you how this meandering spiel of claptrap comes to a close, but I still have four client responses to input before five, and I really want to get out on time so I get to watch Hollyoaks. Sarah died in a parachuting accident last week – her cords were cut in error by her jealous, lesbian lover, Lydia – and it’s all getting a bit too spicy to miss.
Allow me to introduce myself: my name is the Chronicler. Since this tale began, way back in the annals of CMS, I have been observing the ludicrous events that are somehow glued together by your part in them to form what will later be looked back on as your life. I hate to say this but so far it’s a dull read.
For a while I toyed with the idea of remaining completely omniscient – a detached third-person narrator – but the temptation, nay, need to inject myself into this tale in whose ending even I have a part to play, was too great, and I indulged myself towards the end of book two, as you may, if you’ve been paying attention, remember.
So who am I? Am I God? Yes. For the time being at least, let’s say that I am God. But even God’s got to earn a crust and the recession has made jobs scarce. With that in mind, I‘m sure you’ll appreciate my reasons for taking a job in a local custodian for a measly seventeen thou per year. My job title is Corporate Actions Support Clerk. I’m still not entirely sure what that means, but I haven’t been fired yet. Though that might have a lot to do with the fact that no one knows what my job is supposed to entail…I’m God…I’m just kind of…there. Despite the ambiguity of my responsibilities, work’s an alright craic because of the other Support Clerks. We formed a workers union so we had a reason to take five tea-breaks a day. It’s called Support Clerks – Rescuing Our Tattered Economy, or SCROTE for short.
Yeah, the other SCROTEs are pretty cool. On CAT-Z we’ve got Vishnu; Rama handles DERIK; and my best pal, Jesus, well – he’s on BFGDONE, which is a ball ache because of HSBC. We have a lot of fun chats with Ganesh who works for JP Morgan, and occasionally we get a really badly written e-mail from Hercules who works in the mailroom of Goldman Sachs, but he only got the job because Zeus founded the company in 500 BC, and daddy’s special little boy must have the best of everything – jumped up, ‘roid-fuelled, prick of a demi-god that he is.
So now you know who I am, let me bring you up to speed. After Xandor’s deposition, and Andrew and Jo’s return to the world of man, Nudds assumed the throne and started bonking Xandor’s ex-bit-of-crumpet, Amy Galveston. After she let slip that Nudds’s kinfolk weren’t actually extinct, rather imprisoned in a far-off network of caves – constructed in much the same fashion as Amsterdam’s concentric dam system, which is really rather amazing (check it out on Google. You won’t believe it), the young and easily exited king set off to free them.
Eventually, after an unnecessarily protracted account of what happened along the way, he succeeded and returned home triumphant. But while in the caves he was overcome by the noxious fumes of desire that had fuelled the Lepracorns almost non-stop horn-banter over twenty years of imprisonment, and found himself up to his root in young, nubile Lepraqueens. He was subsequently infected with a virulent strain of horn-rot, which, when mixed with the prevalent oxygen of the outside world, became super-aggressive and mutated all of the horny little toss-pots into stony-faced gargoyles with gnarly wings and fearsome fangs.
So Nudds, smacked off his little bee-sting-tits on his newfound powers of flight and super-strength decided it’d be a jolly good romp to declare war on humanity – the very race of his saviours from book one – Jo and Andrew.
And what of these two human heroes who have, perhaps, faded from focus? Well, they are alive and Jo is well, now managing Sharpie International and engaging in a mentally un-stimulating, but extremely colourful affair with David Beckham. Andrew, on the other hand, is less than content with his lot.
Upon returning to our world, he jacked in his crappy job as a Bank Clerk and went back to University to study football management. One whirlwind year later, during which he used a time-turner borrowed from Hermione Granger whom he met while she was shooting for Burberry in Manchester town centre in order to cram three years worth of classes into one and dabble in prostitutes without anyone finding out, he was appointed manager of Premiership side Everton, after David Moyes was savagely raped to death by a rabid Sam Allardyce who has gone a little funny in the head since leaving Bolton.
And it is with Andrew that this final instalment begins. While the enthusiastic hoards of Nudds’s horny minions lay to waste the maidenhoods of many languid students and homeless folk who were, as usual, basking in the faint Mancunian sun instead of working, Andrew was biting his nails on the sideline of the FA cup final, which was being contested by Everton and his boyhood team, Blackburn. Andrew was desperately trying to throw the game and as we enter the present moment, things are going his way. The score is 1-0 Blackburn…the time is now…


Frame Two



Andrew has supported Blackburn since he was a little man-boy. In the darkest days of the CMS, nothing kept his spirits up quite like the image of Colin Hendry and Alan Shearer toasting their Premiership success in the showers. Hendry’s powerful, long-range balls; Shearer’s gentle touch; his sudden and remarkable finishes; his dribbling prowess… Those things were the stuff of wet and dry dreams, internet previews and legend.
As we join him, he is on the verge of writing a new page in the history books of Blackburn by losing to them in the final of the cup that most epitomises the motto of the club; Arte et Labore. Gritty football, toughed out in the trenches and moments of dazzling artistry make the FA cup what it is: a true celebration of English stubbornness. And the ability to make a shitty, two-footed tackle while the ref isn’t looking. But that, like Paul Scholes, is quintessentially English anyhow.
So this is how things stand: Everton are playing woefully. With the forward partnership of Oldham and Arteta, they have shined all season long. The on- and off-field chemistry of the two blue-clad bum-bandits has been consigned to Mark Lawrenson’s personal wank-bank, which contains little other than bare-torso-shots of Gary Linekar on the beach. So it came as quite a surprise to the toffee fans to see their manager play both attackers in defence, with the overweight Phil Jagielka filling in up front. Nico Kalinic, Premiership Golden Boot winner four seasons on the trot, put Blackburn in the lead after 17 minutes with a spectacular 70 yard bicycle kick that he timed to perfection to ricochet off a passing seagull into the top corner. In fairness to Tim Howard, it was un-saveable and exactly what the world has come to expect from the young Croatian superstar who most certainly wasn’t a flop or a waste of money.
Suddenly, a Sapphic opening tears through the skies above the centre-circle halting the players in their tracks. The gaggle of millionaire idiots point to the heavens and leap around like baboons in an eclipse, fondling each other for comfort. The fans too are incensed. Taken by a primal fear that society had tried, but failed to extinguish thanks to the ever-present additives in Pukka Pies.
Of all the many people in the stadium, Andrew stands out from the bustling milieu – a figure of contemplative stoicism. He had been places in his life. Places no one else but Jo had been. He had seen things there. Horrible and wonderful things that made him the man he is today. He feels in his pocket for a small, black box branded with the Sharpie logo and squeezes it between his thumb and forefinger. Now it was a matter of time. Rather than panicking, he just stands there – his eyes fixed on the sky. As well you know, Andrew’s not the kind of guy to get flustered. Not even when a thirty foot vagina interrupts the FA Cup final and starts spewing out nasty little gargoyles, all of which are hell-bent on engaging his heralded European signings in furious bouts of horn-stabbing.
That much, Andrew could take. But there was one sight he hadn’t been prepared for – that of his old drinking buddy Nudds, sticking his gnarled walnut whip of a horn into Louis Saha’s back-facing-belly-button.
Gargoyles? Fine. Nudds waving his ding-a-ling around the place? Not cool. Something had to be done. With the referee, linesmen and fourth official incapacitated the clock continues to tick away to Blackburn’s historic victory. Andrew storms the field, ripping his shirt off as he strides towards the rampant little fudge-packer.
“NUDDS!” he yells, cracking his hirsute knuckles, “YOUR ASS IS MINE!”


Frame Three
Something’s got to give



“Nudds, you little SLAG!” hollers Andrew. “Get over here and fight like a man!”
“But I’m not a man,” grins Nudds, as he skips around on his pointy shoes that are dangling listlessly at the end of his freakishly long legs, which are attached to an oddly stumpy body, atop which is perched a lunaresque noggin. “I’m a monstrous little bitch. I’ve got all sorts of diseases and I’ll give you the sneezes.”
“What happened to you?”
“I got Dorian Grayed.”
“?”
“I went too far into sin and I couldn’t come back out again. Jeez, Andrew, don’t you read classic literature?”
“I used work in a custodian. Any kind of mental activity was strongly discouraged by my superiors and now I’m a football manager. Ever since Graham Le Saux retired there’s been no-one worth talking to in the premiership. And what with Norwich’s slide to league one, you can’t even rut Delia at halftime. I’ve gone back to orange segments and shouting at the boys. I much preferred gut-scraping ol’ Delia.”
“Aye, she’s on my hit-list,” says Nudds as he lowers his horn and lunges at Andrew. Our hero dodges the strike, but Nudds’s horn catches his clean, pressed shirt (DKNY) and rips it almost in half.
“You little shit ‘ouse,” grumbles the Nigel Mansell look-alike as he tears the rest of his shirt away to reveal a rippling torso that clearly borrowed its colourway from the personal sample-library of Johnoldham. On his right pectoral the tattooed logo of Blackburn Rovers quivers as his boyhood team close in on footballing glory.
As Kalinic clears the ball from his own goal line to the rapturous applause of the Blackburn fans, Nudds charges at Andrew again, but this time Andrew pre-empts the attack and skips to the side, placing both hands at the sweating base of Nudds’s mighty forehead-totem as he runs past.
“Now I’ve got you, you little squirt!” He swings the king round and round and, as his long, spindly legs cut through the air, they become a blur in the attacking third of the field. Suddenly and without warning, one of Mikel Arteta’s searching long balls bounces at the feet of John Oldham who had, against Andrew’s wishes, strayed forward. John lines up the most blistering shot you can imagine but spoons it left, despite the ball being almost impossible to miss. The ball flies towards Nudds’s flailing feet and, by some freakish twist of providence, connects perfectly with his Lepracorny laces and sores into the top corner. Paul Robinson is beaten with ease – he was, after all, more concerned with stuffing as many pies as possible into his fatty, fat, fat gob.
Andrew stares in disbelief as his players dance around with joy, hugging him and trying to fondle his enormous testicles. All he can do is stand there and weep on the inside. The final whistle blows and, as Andrew stands there gripping Nudds’s horn with both hands, the match goes to penalties.


Frame Four
Peace at last



The crowd is deathly quiet as the players approach the spot. Paul Robinson stops eating pies for a second and attempts to save the first Everton penalty but…NO NEED! The ball whizzes over the bar and Andrew risks a sly grin. Nudds – the goal scorer – wriggles under his old friend’s vice-like grip.
“Hold still you little arse,” whispers Andrew. “We might just get out of this one yet!”
Next to step up is Blackburn striker Nico Kalinic. With the cool, clinical air that has been his season-long trademark, Kalinic slots the ball into the bottom corner. Blackburn lead 1-0. Everton’s second man approaches the penalty spot, his knees are trembling. He puts the ball down, breaths deeply for a moment and then pounds the ball towards the bottom left hand corner. Paul Robinson is nowhere near, but a stash of his pies – meat and potato – block the shot and the ball bounces harmlessly away from goal. Andrew lets out a chuckle. But the next two Blackburn players miss, mirroring their Evertonian counterparts. With two from each side left to take penalties the score remains 1-0.
The simply gorgeous Mikel Arteta strides to the spot with all the confidence of a Viagra-fuelled not-so-dangle bit. He waves to the crowd, does three forward flips, an arabesque, 25 one-handed push-ups and then strikes – all in one fluid motion. The ball seems to travel in slow motion towards the top right corner, but Paul Robinson – who is, at this moment in time, crying into his bib (fatty, fatty, fat, fat) – is moving in even-slower motion and his limp dive fails to reach the pinpoint shot. It’s one all. Andrew starts to sweat. Blackburn’s next striker steps up and the shot is…SAVED! by Tim Howard doing a brilliant octopus impression. But wait! As the American keeper falls to the ground he lands awkwardly and the crowd is stunned into silence by the sickening splintering of bone and the accompanying howl of agony. Andrew does a little jig for joy – although the scores are all square Blackburn must be the favourites now! So with each team having one shot remaining, the hopes of all toffee fans the world over are placed in the sweaty, knob-grabbing hands of John Oldham. The golden-haired, bareback riding ring-tickler squares the ball and tightens the hot-pink laces of his pristine white boots which, along with the rest of his immaculately preened form, hadn’t even entertained the notion of, let alone actually seen mud, all season long. The crowd is silent. He snaps his fingers. ‘Single Ladies,’ by Beyoncé starts playing as he runs towards to ball and scuffs an awfully contacted ball into the bottom right, sending the hideously fat mess (Paul Robinson, former England keeper) the wrong way. The crowd erupts. Andrew swallows.
So the score stands at 2-1 to Everton and Blackburn must score or lose at the very last. The crowd noise evaporates and the ground is wrapped in a blanket of hush. There is much debate going on amongst the Everton players as to who should take the keeper gloves. Eventually, second-goal-hero, John Oldham pulls them on and walks towards the goalmouth. He turns to face Blackburn’s final striker – Pascal Chimbonda – upon whose shoulders the fate of the Northern town’s dreams rest. Oldham cracks his knuckles and blows a kiss towards Mikel as the ref blows his whistle and Chimbonda sends a shot hurtling towards goal. Oldham dives! It’s to the left! It’s perfect! He’s not going to make it!
And then, from somewhere on his person, a pair of corded GHDs appear. He hurls them towards the rocketing ball, swinging the super-hot ceramic straighteners like a lasso. The ball clips the inside of the post and the tip of the straighteners at the same moment and stops dead mid-air. As the ball falls to the ground, millimetres short of the goal line, and John Oldham picks himself up from the dirt, the crowd explode in joyful exaltation of their new hero. Andrew sobs quietly to himself as he is handed the FA cup. He kisses it like you would kiss your mother-in-law’s boobs (with reluctance for any of you who found that ambiguous), while still holding Nudds by the horn. The Blackburn players are disconsolate; the Evertonians are manic.
Suddenly, the celebrations are interrupted by the roar of a jet engine. The ground falls into curious silence and every head present turns skyward as a bright yellow Harrier Jump-jet descends.


Frame Five
All’s well that end’s well

“You’re a little late,” shouts Andrew above the snarl of the dying jet-engine.
“We missed the shoot-out?” says Jo in disbelief as she hops down from her Sharpie-mobile, helped on her way by David Beckham who follows her out dutifully.
“Yeah…we won.”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it,” sighs Andrew, “There’s always next year.”
“I don’t fink so mate,” chuckles Beckham who, to everyone’s surprise, is not above a good hiding, which Andrew coolly administers with his free hand.
“Hush your noise, wide-boy. I’m the gaffer ‘round here.”
“What’s that…that thing you’ve got there, Andrew?” Jo points at Nudds.
“Don’t you recognise him?” asks Andrew with a malicious grin, as he hoists Nudds up to her eye level by the seat of his pants.
“By the Chronicler’s curly shoes! It’s Nudds!” she exclaims. “What happened to you?”
“Hmm…My horn…I dipped it in some…sour milk. Got me some horn-rot!”
“I called you in to see if you could cure the little bitch,” says Andrew.
“Have you…dipped your horn since you were infected, Nudds?” asks Jo, as she strokes the deformed king’s jagged shoulder.
“Yup. My Queen. Ol’ Amy Galveston.” Andrew shudders at the remembrance of the now fit ho’s grotesque disguise, which, by mounting him, had led to his first involvements with the CMS.
“Oh dear,” Jo muses, stroking her chin. “These Lepracorns? I can cure, but Amy…I don’t think there’s any saving her.”
“No!” cries Nudds.
“She was a two-faced, cock-hungry bitch anyway, Nudds,” says Andrew, patting him on the back. “There’s plenty more dirt bags in Manchester.”
“Yay!” the little king wriggles with excitement.
“So how to cure these filthy horn-doggies?” asks Andrew.
“Well first things first – you’ve gotta tear off that horn! Then David and I will sort out their odd colouring and deformities with the new Sharpie © skin tone range!”
“You get way too excited over those pens, you know.”
“Ha! You’ve not even seen the peach!” she sings with glee as she hops from foot to foot, waving a flesh coloured phallus above her head.
“Right!” says Andrew, gathering his celebrating players around with a wave of his hairy arm. “Let’s get ripping.”
One by one the Lepracorns are captured in what will be looked back on as the single greatest game of British Bulldog in the history of man. They are handed to Andrew, who systematically rips their horns from their heads before Jo and David Beckham (who keeps looking at Countess Magicbox with pathetic ‘come-to-bed’ eyes) colour them in. Soon all the Lepracorns are healed and it is the team and their hornless compadres begin a victory lap. Even Andrew gets into it.
As they run past my seat, I hop over the barriers, dodging the lame security on my way to give Andrew a big hug.
“What the?” splutters my old work mate, “Wally? What are you doing here?”
“My Wally N. Whip at your service, old pal,” I grin and slap him on the back. “Bad luck on the shoot-out. There’s always next year.”
“God, not you as well! But thank you. I suppose its not all bad. At least John Oldham and Mikel Arteta have got something other than their eternal love to celebrate.”
“Wonderful. There’s nothing quite like two supposedly heterosexual men snogging that gives me a warm feeling inside.”
“Can’t say I feel that, but I think I know what you mean.”
“So what’s next for you, Andrew?”
“Back to the grind, I suppose. My heroing days are behind me.”
“Rubbish,” I cry, “You’re never too old! And besides, the CMS may need you yet.”
“I doubt it,” he moaned, “I heard they were trying to transfer it all to a paperless, STP environment.”
I look at him incredulously.
“Andrew. You and I both know that’ll never happen! And hey, they’re without a king now: Nudds can’t go back like that. He’s lost his horny goodness!”
“Amy will take care of it, I’m sure. She’s always had her eye on the throne. I saw through her manipulative ruse from the start!”
“But Andrew, haven’t you heard about her? Or for everyone else, for that matter?”
“No. I don’t have much contact with alternate dimensions these days.”
“You need to get yourself the next generation I-Phone,” Jo shouts above the noise.
“She’s right,” I beam, waggling my new handset in front of his widening eyes. “It has a constantly updating mini-feed of CMS related events. Wanna hear how everyone is doing?”
Although Andrew clearly doesn’t want to know, I proceed to give him one anyway.
Enjoy:

Although Daniel Charles is dead, his memory lives on. Every year the buffalos migrate to a shrine maintained by Slug who is trying to educate his hairy followers in the ways of ‘ruv’.

Rog returned to the mountains with the rest of the Titans and forgot all about the war. Emmareena no longer resides in his pants which causes him great sadness (if you’d met her, you’d understand). She instead spends her time ruling the fairy kingdom, which has recently been relocated to Castlefield. From her headquarters she is guiding her successor Evie Mae along the path to sparkly wonderfulness.

Johnoldham. Everyone’s favourite ball-buster has a new haircut! An impressive achievement for a man whose physical substance evaporated the day that Xandor fell. He still loves Everton FC and has somehow managed to possess an almost identical host in the real world known as John Oldham. Under his spectral influence he has guided John to FA Cup glory with Everton and entered into a publicly applauded homosexual relationship with Mikel Arteta.

Xandor was interred in London. He works for a custodian in the afterlife, which he obstreperously proclaims to be 23 trillion times as shit as being an evil overlord. I am inclined to agree.

Captain Amandip Blackbeard Singh and Omar Io sailed to Canadia land as promised. Whilst there, The Wylde One escaped over the border and ran for election in the 2000 election as the Republican candidate. He subsequently won by threatening the people of California to fix the vote in his favour or endure a horrendous disembowelling. His presidency is widely considered the worst yet and because of him, America is viewed as a joke and responsible for much of the veil in the world. Omar Io returned to work for BNP Paribas in Glasgow, while Captain Singh enjoyed a prosperous trade in Canadia, peddling the buxom wares of his two ladies of spicy-repute, Cheryline and Dawn. Both women earned fortunes on the back of their industriousness. Cheryline is now teaching young harlots how best to run a man in circles and Dawn is pursuing a watercolour course.

Dr Nudds & Mrs Nudds were also affected by the oxygenated effects of horn-rot, but were so consumed with the act of coitus, they hardly noticed.

The Corrigan Twins choked to death on their superiors. No one – literally no one – gave a flying fuck.

Barnanaman is still ‘avin it large. Apples ‘n’ pears.

Italian Manface still works on the fifth floor, dresses inappropriately for work in those slinky body-socks and is still orientation-challengingly fit. I want her and her broad, boulder shoulders, her full, mountainesque breasts, her jutting, fearsome jaw, her svelte curves, her sturdy, face-hugging thighs and above all, that gloriously mannish face. I would endure years of abuse for one night of abuse at her hands/face. Shudders with glee.

Betsy’s a fucking sheep. Who cares?

The Highlander’s fiancé Fun-Bags, still visits his memorial; adorning it with polling slips and other liberal symbolism. She has, since his death, taken up bingo and claims to have gotten pretty good at it (is that even possible?).

The Purple Akis are now extinct in the CMS, but their larger, angrier, more sordid descendant can be found roaming the streets of Merseyside.

Nightrider found himself out of work after Xandor’s deposition. So he gathered up the remaining Creepy Creelys, loaded up his car (Kitt) and drove down to Australia where he’s been selling the little critters for five bob a pop. Bargain.

Shelly went travelling around the world to ‘find herself’. This is amusing for two reasons: 1) It is painfully obvious that there is nothing about her worth finding and 2) It is hilariously sad that she thinks this ‘spiritual journey’ will result in her cripplingly low social status being raised or, in effect, her getting laid. Neither of which look likely to happen any time soon.

Kimberli is no longer working with The Porter – they split up over his frequent and massive infidelities. The Porter – now single after dumping Daniel Charles who attempted un-suicide as a result – has written several java scripts to remind himself of how many days he has spent in the ether. This is a depressing and ultimately pointless exercise, but it keeps him from actually acting on his discontent and going back to the real world.

Jeremy Kyle died. In his tireless search for people less articulate than him, he was finally forced to rent zoo-creatures for his half-hour show in order to make himself feel/appear more intelligent than he actually was. This eventually backfired when a large, semi-wild gorilla named Brutus, didn’t take kindly to being told that he – king of the jungle as he was – needed to get off his backside and hold down a job. Brutus got on Jeremy’s backside and raped him to death in front of a live audience who thought it was fucking mint.

Discofish discovered that God is indeed a DJ, and likes to spin mad-real-discs 24-7. Cream!

The Nokia N95 and Magicbox have a seaside cottage on the Isle of Skye. It’s really picturesque and peaceful. They have recently opened a B&B and are taking bookings for next summer. Get it quick to avoid disappointment!

Le Snake Enorme (LSE) has been tunnelling towards the centre of the Earth, heading south since the end of book one. We expect him to resurface sometime in the next 2-4 years. Well – that’s what the politicians tell us anyway.

Patrick Porter. Rest assured, whatever you’re doing, whenever you’re doing it, somewhere in the world, Patrick Porter is smoking a cigarette.

Amy Galveston fell ill with internal horn-rot and, after a long, painful, totally deserved illness, died alone in Nudds’s castle leaving the reins of the CMS to be handed to Sean Coalborn who forged a new government, employing his friends as department heads. Driscollus was put in charge of admin as his many sappy unions resulted in a never-ending supply of trees and thus paper. LIO was made Chancellor of the Exchequer – a job he took believing it had something to do with the interviewing of ex-girlfriends and a limitless supply of ‘sloppy-seconds’. Cliff became foreign minister; a role that allowed him to return to Brighton where he rents a small place by the sea and lives with his girlfriend Ana and their dog called Bertie. Ana never vacuums and it really pisses him off.

Claude Bastian has, this very second, reached a roaring climax inside the mouth of a seventeen-year old Italian waitress. He does not leave a tip.

“So what happens now? I ask, as Andrew makes his way off the field, cradling the exhausted, though cured, Nudds.
“To me? Guess I’ll go home to Michelle. Not seen her much lately – been hanging around with those bum-boys.” He jabs a thumb in the direction of John Oldham and Mikel Arteta who are furiously making out.
“What about Nudds?” I say, stroking the little guy’s hair. “He can’t go back to the CMS. He’s lost everything.”
“I’ll take care of him,” smiles Andrew, looking down at the bundle of perversion in his arms. “He can live with us until he’s totally better and after that…well – I know a place where…oddballs, like him can be at peace. It’s a valley not far from here. You may have heard of it? Glossop I believe its called. He will be safe there and can live out his days in peace, far away from the CMS and all the horrors of his past.”
I smiled as I watched the hero walk away with his new charge. They had escaped the CMS and learned a valuable lesson along the way: life is too short and too precious to waste, and that to be happy we must cast off the chains with which life restrains us, leave the drudgery behind and chase that pot of gold that awaits us all at the end of our own personal rainbows.




THE END


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Hanging in There..?

Still awake? Tomorrow holds a real Tour de Force - the conclusion of the Complete Magicbox Saga!

The final installment, The Walled Garden takes a slightly different format from the previous two and is a much shorter, heavily illustrated tale. With five chapters (referred to for some unknown and grossly pretentious reason as 'scenes') it is a mere quip in comparison to its predecessors.

Following the completion of this unnecessarily long-winded tale, a series of illustrated character profiles will follow.

Oh. You. Lucky. Devils... x


Pick up THE HARE newspaper at Night and Day, Bar Centro, Font or Tiger Lounge in Manchester town centre, or the Oakwood in Glossop.

E-mail theharenewspaper@hotmail.co.uk with questions, comments or contributory pieces.

A Lepracornvertible Bond...

The Bardic Musings of Nudds

Stanza one

Twas late in the year,
In the CMS valley,
When a young Lepracorn,
On troubles did tarry,
His mind was awash,
Wish visions of death,
And a disbelief he,
Was the only one left,
He turned to his queen,
Whose assets were plenty,
And asked for her guidance,
For he was but twenty.
She spoke with a wisdom,
Of many a year,
And to his Jap’s eye
Brought a sorrowful tear,
She spokes of a legend,
To deaf ears had fallen,
That spoke of a place,
That history had stolen,
A land of his kin,
Excluded forgotten,
Awaiting a King,
Of heroes begotten,
The mantel was his,
Should he choose to explore,
The manifold mysteries
Laid at his door,
He was the last,
The loneliest one,
But through him the others,
Could bath in the sun,
Released from their caves,
Their centuries’ cell,
And loosed on the world,
Freed from their hell…

Nudds stared out across the pink sky of the CMS. One year had passed since the great war, which had seen Xandor beheaded by his heroic, though tragic son, Daniel Charles. Andrew and Jo had returned to their world, and as Nudds had expected, failed to text or e-mail to let him know they’d arrived home safely. Currently his horn was dry, but he was feeling drowsy. A haunting dream had plagued the hours of darkness that ran longer than usual during the drawn-out winter months, and had moved him to distraction. Having regained his imagination, and thus his ability to think freely, he had found rebuilding the damaged and fractured CMS child’s-play. Assuming the vacated role of King was not only a logical, but publicly supported move, and Amy Galveston (who was surprisingly attractive, if not quite as amazing as Jaime Murray, Hustle, Series one Episode six, Pole Dancing daydream) had happily agreed to become his queen.
The Titans had returned to the mountains, glad to be free of the pesky Akis. Emmareena had claimed much of the land for her fairy folk, and was grooming the young Evie-Mae as her successor. The Pirates, headed now by Omar Io who had united them all under one banner – The Jolly Eric – were heading off to a largely unknown land dubbed Canadia by those few explorers who had dared travel so far. Nudds doubted they would return for at least six months so the likelihood of post-war squabbles was significantly reduced. But as well as he had done to restore the world to peace, and no matter how considerate and measured his policies and legislation were, the troubles of the miniature monarch were internal. He was stalked by a memory that he was sure was his own making. He was harassed, and harangued to madness with the visions of others like him; a whole tribe, maybe even a country of Lepracorns, all smiling and calling his name…dancing to the Guanaco-Skin drum that pattered out the beat of his hammering heart…
“Nudds?” Amy approached.
“Oh…hi sweetheart,” he said, swinging his little legs as they dangled listlessly over the edge the castle rampart.
“What are you doing up here? You’ve watched the suns-set everyday this week. Is everything alright?”
“It is here,” he said, waving a cursory arm across his kingdom, “But I’m not so sure it is in here.” He tapped his noggin. “The suns…they are a beautiful thing. But the sight of them is too often taken for granted. They are ever burning beacons of liberty. They hang above us, their reddish glow an ever-present reminder of the blood spilled so that those who look upon them may do so. The fire that burns in them, burned in us all once…when we were forced to do or die.” He looked up at her, crystal green eyes glinting in the fading light. “Where does it go? Where do those feelings go? That desperation to survive. The drive to win at all costs. To be the best…Where is it now? Must we be moments from death to feel alive? Are we all so blind?”
“Where has this come from,” said Amy, who had grown to love the young king during his recovery from almost absolute retardation. The fluctuation in his IQ was startling, and she found his transformation unnerving, though not unattractive. He was kind and thoughtful, but the latter to a fault. He had become inward, and if it weren’t for the drugs he took to calm his fizzing mind, he would surely work himself into a suicidal frenzy.
“I don’t know,” he sighed, scratching his horn, which was, as it always did in Amy’s presence, tingling. “I’ve been having this dream…at least I think it’s a dream. It’s bothering me.”
“I can see that,” she said, stroking his shoulder, “What’s this dream about?”
“I keep…I keep seeing…No…It’s silly. Stupid. I don’t know…”
“Tell me,” she cooed, gripping his chin gently between two knuckles and turning his face to meet hers. She kissed him delicately. “You can trust me.” He smiled weakly. She was right, of course he could trust her. Maybe he’d feel better to get it off his chest, no matter how childish it sounded.
“I keep seeing other people like me…”
“Other kings?”
“No, no…other Lepracorns…” Had Nudds been looking at his girlfriend, he would have noticed the colour drain from her face like the value of Bradford and Bingley Shares, but as his eyes were rooted on an indeterminable point of horizon, he missed the transformation and she was able to recover her composure.
“That’s…strange,” was all she managed as her brain floundered for answers: what should she say? How could she tell him? Would it be fair? Could she stand to lose another lover to a quest he couldn’t possibly refuse? Thankfully, her reeling mind was given more time as Nudds, as was his habit now the floodgates of imagination had burst, rambled onwards with all the tact and gentility of a runaway steamroller.
“Strange indeed,” he said, flicking a loose stone over the edge of the battlements. It tumbled hundreds of feet, breaking the smooth, glass-like plane of the moat with such speed it barely made a ripple. “It’s so very real…so very, very real. More like a memory, but not a personal one. Like it’s been implanted in my head somehow. It wasn’t there before the war, that’s for sure! And now it’s all I can think about…all I am…It seems to me, Amy, that there might be some truth in this vision. I don’t know if what I’m seeing is real, or whether it ever was real, but I get the feeling it is definitely something. And if not a memory, a fabrication of my subconscious instructing me to investigate. Too long I have masqueraded under the blissfully ignorant title of “The last loneliest Lepracorn,” with little proof other than the fact I am here and no other appears to refute I am unique. But, my dear, if there is one thing that is certain, absence of proof does not necessarily mean absence, period. It is so much easier to prove than it is to disprove, and it is the startling truth that no man or Lepracorn, yours truly admitted, has put a concerted effort into uncovering some solid proof that I am in fact mistaken, and am in fact one of many…What do you think, my dear?”
She opened her mouth and stopped. She had no choice. He was almost there himself anyway, she reasoned. Why not tell him? If anything it would make his life easier from here on.
“Tell me,” she said, fidgeting as she spoke, “Tell me…are you intent on exploring these visions.”
“Yes…” he frowned as he noticed her nervousness, “Amy, whatever’s the matter? You’re acting like you know something.”
She sighed and said, “So whatever I say, you would pursue this…this dream?”
“I don’t think I have a choice.”
“Very well,” she said, her shoulders sagging, “I do know something. Something I should have told you months ago, as soon as the country had settled down after the war. But I couldn’t, Nudds. I love you, and I couldn’t bear the thought of you risking your life when we were so happy.”
“Risking my life? What are you talking about?”
“Years ago,” she said as she paced the battlements, “When Xandor had risen to power and was plotting to steal the Black Harpie from Countess Magicbox, the Lepracorns of the CMS planned to steal the harpie first in order to prevent the dark lord from doing what he eventually did. But as careful as your people were, there was a spy among them. He informed Xandor of his people’s plans. For this deed, Xandor anointed him his right-hand man and sent him to the other world to hunt for the Black Harpie. It took him nearly twenty years to find it, but when he stole it from Countess Magicbox and returned to the CMS, cutting a way through the dimensional wall using his horn, he found out that Lord Xandor had betrayed his promise not to harm the Lepracorns and had instead, imprisoned them in their caves by collapsing the walls around them. To protect himself further, the dark lord – ruthless as ever – flung the treacherous Lepracorn across the land, right to the other side of the world, where as far as we know, he still is. But unbeknownst to the bearded Lord, one Lepracorn, while out for a stroll with his son past Xandor’s then unprotected castle, had overheard the plan to trap his people, so he rushed back to their network of underground caves, leaving his son underneath a toadstool in case anything happened to their home. Sure enough, no sooner had the brave Lepracorn entered the caverns, Xandor collapsed all the exits, trapping the Lepracorns forever. In the same dastardly swipe, Xandor severed the imaginations of the whole population, rendering any kind of search for the Lepracorns impossible. The last, loneliest Lepracorn who had just watched his daddy get trapped underground, and felt the minds of his kinfolk leave their bodies, screamed with such anguish that his horn began to bristle with raw emotional power. Without knowing, the young Lepracorn cast a protection charm over his old home, preventing anything from entering the caverns, and thus protecting his people from Xandor’s ravenous minions. It was an old and powerful spell – the likes of which can only be reversed by the caster. Safe as the Lepracorns were, they were trapped: trapped until the boy returned to lift the charm that, over time, became a curse of sorts.”
“What happened to the young boy?” said Nudds, his eyes glistening with tears.
“He grew into a fine young man, and helped the heroes save the CMS. Currently he’s winning the people’s hearts in his new role as king…”
Nudds’s jaw dropped. He was the boy? He had placed a protection charm over the forgotten kingdom of his fellow Lepracorns!
“But why can’t I remember?”
“You were very young…and a protection charm is the hardest spell to perform. Not even Xandor managed it, hence that horrible Basilisk of his.”
“Ah, the LSE, I’d almost forgotten about it’s annoying stench.”
“You must’ve been exhausted. In fact, it’s a wonder you didn’t die!”
“Why have I been having these dreams? Why now?” he asked, gnawing his nails and scanning the horizon with jittery eyes.
“I’d guess that the charm you placed on the caves has stopped the imaginations of your people reconnecting properly, and they’re still out there, floating around in the Porter’s domain. I think you can probably see them in your sleep when you are closest to our old friend.”
The Lepracorn nodded and chewed his lip.
“How long have you known?” he said, not making eye-contact. She said nothing. “How long,” he said, though calmly and kindly. There was no hint of malice or anger in his controlled tone.
“Since the day it happened.” Nudds exhaled in disbelief. His slight form seemed to shrink in seconds to a waiflike shadow of his normal self.
“And you never said?”
“I didn’t dare…Nudds, if you go off looking for the cave anything could happen to you! Xandor may be gone, but his influence isn’t. The caves are the last monument to his power. Those who are loyal to him will defend their discovery to the death. The destruction of the Corn Caves, was a huge political step. It is still a marker for all evil overlords to live by. They will kill you if they know you have even an inkling that the caves exist! It’s a death trap!”
“But they’re my kind! I have to save them.”
Amy wanted to scream WHY!? But she knew the answer. She would do the same if she were in his position. All the arguments she came up with against her lover’s quest sounded selfish and cowardly. Perhaps he was too gung-ho about the whole thing, but his heart was a compass that knew nothing but morality. It was his duty to try, even if it meant the death of him.

Stanza two

And so the young king decided,
He had not a choice,
And departed at once,
To the tune of a voice,
Calling him home,
And hoping to heaven,
That her miniscule lover,
Would be home safe by seven,
But It wasn’t to be,
And on he did plod,
While his queen wept with sorrow,
And prayed to her God,
“Oh send him back soon,
I need him I do,
My life would be ruined,
And the CMS too,”
But will he return?
With nought but a scratch,
Or will Xandor’s faithful,
The Lepracorn catch…

An autumnal film seemed to coat the surrounding landscape, as the knotted bark of the nearby trees, glinted a fiery ruby in the suns waning light. Like currents of magma the bark did shine forth; lustrous and polished to an unnatural degree. Nudds collapsed against the foot of one such shimmering tree and uncorked his gourd, spilling the welcome water down his chin as he gulped greedily from the leather container. His mouth was dry as sand, and his throat was just as coarse. He coughed unhealthily. One too many cheeky Marlboro fags with Andrew after a hard day’s saving the world had left him a shadow of the ‘corn he once was. Those days were gone. Andrew was gone. He was in his own world living his own life. Word on the inter-dimensional grapevine was that he’d had a child…a real family of his own.
Lucky man, thought Nudds, wondering what Andrew’s child looked like, whether it looked like its old man or, like most babies, an extra from E.T. He sighed and checked his water bottle; empty. He cracked open a whiskey miniature which, in his child-size hands, looked like a quart at least, and drank heartily.
He wished he had a family. He had always been alone, and he had carried the abandonment issues that made him irritable and sometimes hard to love, with him ever since, wrongly believing he had been discarded by his parents. Now he knew the truth he couldn’t be happier that he had been loved, but whenever he thought of his father his found himself sadder than he had ever known; for now he knew that Xandor, had robbed him of a beautiful life that he had never imagined could have been his.
Suddenly, without warning, one of the ruby-red trees creaked and collapsed at Nudds’s feet. He jumped up in a flash, his thirst forgotten and his senses sharpened. A guttural groan rumbled through the earth beneath his feet. His muscles were tense; poised to run, but the sound came from no particular direction, simply around, and therefore he had no idea which way would lead away from the danger he could smell on the air.
“Oh…” the groan took on an accent, and a syllabic form that had previously been lacking. “Oh, my head.”
Nudds relaxed slightly, the heels of his readied feet descending to earth. His shoulders slumped, and his primed fists lowered as he scanned the near horizon for the source.
“Hello..?” he tried, his voice cracking with uncertainty. Nothing. He tried another swig at his gourd but it was bone dry, sapped of its last by his hungry throat. He coughed raucously, and, tasting the metallic tang of fresh blood, spat on the cracked dirt that spread out from beneath his Corny shoes and decorated the ground with a lattice tile, as far as the eye could see.
“Ooooh, keep it down, could you,” said the rumbling voice. “That coughing…it’s driving me mad.”
“I think I must be going insane,” thought Nudds, his eyebrow raising involuntarily as he searched in vain for the root of the noise. Ironically it was the root that led him to the detached voice’s owner, as the tangled knot of shoots protruding from the base of the fallen tree began to twitch and buckle; eventually curling themselves into what looked like feet, before the trunk rocked from side to side, and pressed its newly formed soles into the cracking ground. With a rasping crackle the Dryad straightened itself out to full height, towering above the little Nudds. The king trembled as the shadow of the Dryad drained the colour of the world around, and his mammoth, wooden head rose up, blocking the sun. Nudds swallowed hard and did what he could to compose himself. He was the king, he told himself, he need not be afraid! But somewhere in the depths of his mind was the distant echo of Xandor’s maniacal laughter, reminding him that for everyone citizen that loved him, and appreciated the changes he had made in the CMS, there was a counterpart, an equally ardent supporter of everything against what the king of sub-stature stood for.
“Urg,” the Dryad grunted, “Why you got a branch on your head, funny man?”
“’Tis a horn,” said Nudds, his mouth reacting to the question without need for encouragement.
“Not seen a funny branch-face like you for a long time.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Nudds, relaxing in the presence of the Scandalously Mimicked Ent (SME). “We’ve been off the scene for some time.”
“Hard to find work?”
“No…a faked extinction.”
“Hard times.”
“Tell me about it,” said Nudds as he lowered himself to the ground and crossed his legs. His curly-tipped New Balance pixie shoes waggled with interest as the SME did the same, dropping to Earth with a crash.
“I’ve had a bit of trouble finding work,” sighed the Dryad, picking a loose piece of bark from the area Nudds imagined would be anatomically classed as the forehead, and flicking it away morosely.
“What’s your line of business?” asked the curious king.
“Well…in the glory days; right before Xandor’s ascension to power, I’d carved for myself a pretty decent career as a Stock Broker. But this credit crunch…bloody hell…it’s felled any ambition I had of staying in that game. All these idiot bankers, moving money around like a pile of matchsticks. They didn’t care what happened to me…so I was left out in the cold; unemployed and apparently unemployable.”
“How come? You seem like a respectable…tree.”
“Well I thought so to,” said the Dryad, apparently taking little offence to the blanket term ‘tree’. He was a Driscollus Beechus, a variety common in the inanimate state, but rather rare amongst trees blessed, or cursed, with sentience. “But I tried applying to the fire service…no chance.”
“Too flammable?”
“It wasn’t that. I just wasn’t gay enough, straight enough, short enough, fat enough, sick enough or female enough to fill their necessary criteria.”
“Ah, equality?”
The Dryad nodded.
“I never stood a chance. I was fit, strong, brave and keen, but unfortunately able bodied, able to lift even the heaviest man and use fire fighting equipment with ease and composure even when under duress.”
“Not what they were looking for?”
“Nope. These days you only get in if you pray to an unheard of God five times a day, were born outside of the CMS, have at least seven convictions for no crime less heinous than assault (preferably murder or sex offences) and have sub par eyesight. I did complain, as any self respecting tree would, but I was provided with the following scenario…”

The Dryad’s eyes misted over as he took himself and his mental passenger back to the office in which his rejection was made official…

“You see Mr Driscollus,” said the portly fire chief from behind his cluttered desk. Coffee cups were piled high in a pyramid of laziness, and unmarked forms were strewn from either end of the bureau, covering the once lustrous surface, which had been dulled by time, as had the harassed Chief’s enthusiasm for the force. “You’re just too…suitable.”
“Too suitable, sir”?
The chief scrunched up his eyes and shook his head in frustration as if he was trying to shake his mute tongue back to life.
“Yes, yes,” he spluttered, “too suitable. And stop calling me sir, damn it. Nobody is that respectful these days. That kind of respect suggests hierarchy.”
“Isn’t there a hierarchy, sir…sorry.”
“Well of course there is; there has to be. Imagine anything getting done in a socialist society. Ha! There’s a joke. But we can’t allude to status, you see. Its unseemly. If you call me sir, and I don’t call you sir back, which of course I won’t because, why should I? I’m better than you! If you call me sir and I don’t return the geniality then that implies that I am better than you.”
“But you are, sir. You just said so.”
“Well I’m allowed to say it,” said the chief, starting to sweat, “But that’s because I’m in charge. I’m just not allowed to imply it. The crime’s in the implication you see. People have become so sensitised to political incorrectness that a full-on assault of taboo bypasses their senses when presented in the right context, by the right people. But a suitable error, or a decision made on solid fact that disregards the illogic of social equality is inexcusable. That kind of underhand dissension is unforgivable.”
“I’m not sure I understand, s—”
“Let me put it this way: Let’s imagine a house is burning.”
“Right.”
“And there’s a woman on the third floor, screaming her lungs out for someone to save her.”
“Check.”
“And along we come in out bright red engine, manly thighs pumping beneath our red-blooded hearts as we leap to action; to her sole aid no less, throw up a ladder and scale the dizzy heights to her rescue.”
“Textbook, sir.”
“No it’s not bloody textbook! It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. Here we are with all our black and gold clad heroes, risking our bloody lives to save this young damsel in distress and what does she see? She sees a man climbing up a ladder, instructing her to climb onto his back. Does that sound fair to you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well that’s why you’re just too suitable. That kind of blind logic has no place in today’s world. Let me tell you, she doesn’t see a hero, she sees an insult! By us coming to her aid we are implying that she cannot help herself. We are demeaning her character as a woman, and insulting her survival skills…I knew a man, called Tommy he was, had a great future ahead of him, but he had one flaw…he was just too suitable for the job. He saved a woman and got three years for sexual harassment. Granted he may have squeezed her thighs a little tightly on the descent, but come on! He was doing his job! Anyway, ever since that incident we’ve only been able to take on weaklings, cowards, and non-English speaking immigrants to fill our ranks.”
“But, sir…”
“Yes, Driscollus?”
“What if I was stuck in a blaze, and you sent a four and a half foot tall woman to get me down from the third floor. I weigh over twenty five stone, how could she possibly lift me?”
“Well, since Sally Gunnell left the force to pursue an odd, but strangely inspiring career in public speaking, I would wager she couldn’t. But when confronted with our attempt to not offend, you would surely have looked inside yourself and discovered a way to save your own bark covered arse, and spare us the embarrassment of explaining to the press why we let another forest fire sweep Australia when a few well place Lumberjacks could’ve sorted the mess out quick-time. But oh no, send the lumber-Jills and see how they fare! Well, they probably would’ve done alright if they hadn’t been doing their hair.”
“That’s a bit sexist, sir.”
“Did I mention that the reason why doing their hair took so long was because they were all blind?”
“Ah…”
“And so they are the suitable unsuitables. They tick all the boxes of inapplicability. They are perfect.”
“Perfect, sir?”
“Well, they say true perfection is flawed, so philosophically I guess they are.”
“Sounds like a load of bollocks sir.”
“That’s the system Driscollus, that’s the system…”

“Golly,” said Nudds, hardly able to believe the tale of woe. “That’s terrible! What will you do now?”
“Well,” said the lumbering woodsman, shifting on his uncomfortably bony arse, “no time to be bitter about it,” his brow seemed to flatten; the deep grooves of his brown bark reducing and giving the appearance of sanguinity, and youth, “At least I can focus on my true love now.”
“Which is?”
“Snow boarding.”
“Really?” said Nudds, “I’ve never seen a tree snowboard?”
“It’s quite a sight,” grinned the Dryad, his cracking lips curling back to reveal two rows of gravestone sized teeth that glinted a healthy beige in the simmering heat. “So tell me, little branch face, what ails you? I’ve been growing round these parts for more years than I care to remember and not once have I seen a man, branch faced or otherwise, with so much weight on his shoulders.”
“I’m on a quest,” said Nudds proudly.
“Ooo, I like a good quest. Is Peter Jackson involved?”
“No, it’s an independent production.”
“Shame. He did a good job with the Ents. By brother Barry Entwistle was in the battle of Isengard. He was the one with a big, dangly groin branch. Very artsy. Likes to paint.”
“That’s…nice,” said Nudds, wishing Driscollus was less involved with his own thoughts. “My quest is a little different.”
“No ring?”
“No…”
“No elves?”
“Not yet…”
“What about hobbits.”
“I think I’ve kind of got the Halfling market collared,” grunted Nudds. “I’m searching for the rest of my people. They were imprisoned many years ago by Xandor. I need to find them. Do you know anyone who could help me?”
The SME groaned as he searched his data-bark for an answer. His eyes closed and his head lolled to one side. Wispy words slipped from his unconsciously moving lips. Eventually, after a sneaky little kip at the King’s expense, Driscollus opened his eyes and said:
“Y’know, I think I might. The last branch face I saw was chatting on about a cave of trapped branch faces. He was in a bad way though; drunk and all over the place. He’d been banished or something; thrown to the other side of the world by Xandor. He only found his way back to these parts a couple of weeks back. He said he was gonna move on, though. So you’re a few days behind him. I’m sure he could help you.”
“Hmm, he sounds like the betrayer. I would like to find him, but I’m not sure I’d give him a chance to talk.” The small king bristled with rage. “How can I find him? Where has he gone?”
“That way,” said the dryad, pointing to the East in the direction of the Desert of Moor.
“Aw, crap,” whined Nudds, “Not the Desert of Moor. That is the most desolate place in the world.”
“They say the wind speaks…”
“And that men go insane from listening to it for too long.”
“They say it is the resting place of the goddess Andi’s tortured mind.”
“She was driven mad by her own incompetence…”
“The God’s expected so much…”
“But she had not the experience,” said Nudds, grinding his teeth at the thought of irresponsible employers. “She’d only worked in Natwest. Poor girl. Never stood a chance.”
“She was perfectly unsuitable,” nodded Driscollus.
“And so she went mad. Her mindless droning forever to fill the void of the Moorfields.”
“’Tis a map of her mind,” lamented the wooden man.
“Empty…barren…desolate…”
“Shortcut to Brighton, though, mate. I reckon that’s were the little branch face was heading.”
“Brighton! The cad! I must give chase.”
“look,” said Driscollus, scratching his barky arse, “I don’t mean to be rude, but old branch face was a damn sight bigger than you and walked pretty fast for a drunk. I doubt you’ll catch him before he makes it out of the desert and by all accounts you’re little legs would likely strand you in the wilderness and leave you at the mercy of the Moorfield spirits.”
“What do you suggest I do?”
“Ride on my back. I’ve got nothing going on in my life and wouldn’t mind a trip. I can walk ten times faster than even the fastest branch face. Especially one that doesn’t know he’s being chased.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“You’re the king, aren’t you? Of course! It would be an honour!”
Welling with pride, Nudds hopped on to Driscollus’s back and together they set off on the trail of the betrayer, not in any way looking like extras from a certain trilogy of films about a ring or something like that…

Stanza Three

To the desert of moor,
Our heroes did tread,
With excitement and hope,
Tempering dread,
The branch face had run,
From his terrible deeds,
But the King of the land,
Was hot on his heels,
With a tree for friend,
And a blaze in his heart,
They rumbled along,
At the pace of a dart,
The moors were as dusty,
And more desolate yet,
Than the dunes of Sahara,
And the peaks of Tibet,
But on they did plod,
In chase of their prey,
For neither could sleep,
‘til he lay in his grave.

The desert nights were the bitterest Nudds had ever known. He hugged his green travelling cloak around his shivering shoulders, and snuggled up the wind-blocking bark of his snoring companion. Like a felled tree, Driscollus was laid out and fast asleep, seemingly untroubled by the constantly blowing winds that changed direction every few seconds and seemed to blow the same dust and sand back and forth across the desert floor. Nudds spat out a mouthful of yellow dirt for the umpteenth time that night, swore, and turned his face towards Driscollus in the hope that sand could not reach him there.
He sat up twelve seconds later, coughing and wheezing, his lungs full of sand once more.
“Bloody, bastard sand!” he roared, standing up and kicking the dirt. Resigning himself to the cold, he removed his cloak and wrapped it around his face like a mask. He lay down again and, once he had managed to control the cold and stay his body from trembling, fell fast asleep.
For hours he slept and for hours the wind blew. Sand banked up around his slender form and by midnight he was buried completely. It was then he made the dubious decision to wake up and, finding himself buried alive, began to panic with as much vigour as a man trapped under three tonnes of condensed sand could muster.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” he panted, hardly able to breath. He had only survived thus far thanks to his cloak shielding his mouth from the sand. He wiggled his horn. Sand fell from the roof of his dusty tomb and stung his eyes, but he managed to hollow out a touch more breathing space, but still the sky was far from view. On the plus side, he found being buried alive to be a warm experience, and averred that, assuming his oxygen held out until morning, Driscollus would save him when he awoke.
What Nudds did not realise was that the dryads often slept for days, and in so deep a slumber they might as well have been logs of no intelligence. And so it was fortunate that the desert was populated by a curious race of…well…Coal.
The Coal (as they like to be referred to) were descended from regular bits of coal that, after generations of observing the mass genocide of their people, finally lost their heads and complained. This uprising, which was long overdue, was covered up rather well by the government who blamed the disappearance of coal from the world’s resources on its lack of sustainability. This is, of course, rubbish. The truth is that The Coal decided it was high time someone said something about all this flippant murder. One piece of coal in particular is revered as the Godfather of the new age. His name is Sean. Sean was, like many other pieces of coal, a young and dreamful coalman who aspired to rise up in the world and make something of himself. But it is the same for so many. Before they know what’s happening they’ve been thrown on the fire; sacrificed to stoke the flames of capitalism; offered to the gods of greed; their own hopes and ambitions forsaken in the name of profit and progress – the fruits of neither will they see.
Sean knew he was destined for an equally anonymous fate and it really narked him off. So one day. He stood up in the middle of coal scuttle and started to have a right go at the capitalists. He was kind of like a coal-shaped Karl Marx without the beard. People listened. People were educated in the cruelty of their own ways, in the careless oppression of a culture that could have offered many things to the world, but had been sucked dry of its resources and its constituents raped of their self-respect.
People liked Sean. He was a leader; destined for great things. He wasn’t coal scuttle grade crap. He had ideas.
Sean’s next idea – post pro-socialist rant – was to take charge of his people and leave town until the heat died down. Sean dreamed of a kingdom of Coalmen and Coalwomen, where the Coalborn (that’s the baby coals) could live in peace and harmony.
Regrettably, Moss Side was taken, Burnage had a strict no-coal policy, and the people of Glossop were still unsure how to deal with anything ‘of colour’. And so Sean, now in the guises of a modern day Moses without the beard, led his people to the Desert of Moor, and there by night, while spared the harsh suns’ rays, they lived in happiness.
The Coalmen, their women and their born loved the cold night air. No chance of accidentally igniting. That had happened a lot in the old days. Sean had changed all that. And the night on which Nudds found himself interred was so gloriously cold, it will come as no surprise to know, that Sean himself was out riding his sheep, taking in the fresh air when he came across an irregular mound of sand and set about digging it up.
Both ‘men’ yelped when they latched eyes on each other. Sean fell back and, being an anthropomorphic lump of coal, had some trouble regaining an upright stance. When he did he eyed Nudds and his horn with suspicion.
“You got a licence for that there horn, mate?” he spoke with a delicate Mancunian accent, nodding at the glittering horn.
“It’s alright,” said Nudds with a wry grin, “the safety catch’s on.”
“Let’s get you dug out shall we?” said Sean, setting to work on the mound of sand that covered Nudds’s legs.
“Who are you?” said the grateful King.
“Sean Coalborn. You?”
“King Nudds. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sean.”
“Likewise. I’ve heard of you, you know. Saved CMS didn’t you?”
“Yep,” beamed Nudds.
“Couldn’t save the King of Pop though, could you.”
“I’m not Jesus,” said Nudds, testily.
“He’s another one you didn’t save. Don’t you feel a bit bad about that?”
“Can’t say I have too much guilt.”
“No, I heard that too. That horn’s seen quite a bit of action, eh?”
“I’m not gonna lie. It’s been dipped on more than one occasion.”
“You always ruin friendships by trying to put your horn up ‘em. Classic case of egomania driven sexual dominance. Freud would be proud.”
“You seem to know a lot of things,” said Nudds, impressed with words his retarded self would’ve found difficult to process while retaining consciousness. He hadn’t met too many people like Sean in the CMS. They would normally find contentment at the bottom of a pint; working all week for labours not their own and dying in financial and emotional poverty. Sean had ideas. Big ideas about boats and planes and once, he even had an idea for an anti-gravity shoe but he lent the plans to MJ and didn’t get them back. He was a doer. He was better than the capitalist machine. He was an individual.
An individual with a flaw. You see, every few seconds or so, Sean would repeat the above spiel in various incarnations, occasionally dropping a word here, a comma there, and basically rehashing his own brilliance. It was true; he had liberated a people, but that kind of biblical victory only serves to inflate one’s awareness of all that’s left to do. He was perennially dissatisfied with his efforts and coped by reminding himself and everyone and thing around that he was a dynamic individual with talent and that he was going places.
True as it was, Nudds was tired of it by the time he had finished pouring sand from his shoes so he discharged a cloud of annoyance from the tip of his horn. That shut Sean up for a moment.
“Wow, that’s pretty neat!” he said, reaching out to touch the cloud and finding himself instantly filled with grumpiness. As soon as his he lost contact with the cloud the feeling washed away and he was happy again. “Can you do other emotions?”
“I can do pretty much anything. I’m still finding things out myself.”
“How big can you make that cloud?” said Sean, his eyes fixated on the bubble of mist that was hanging in the air.
“Around the size of a kitchen. That’s the biggest I’ve managed so far.”
“And you could use it to influence people in range?”
“I guess so,” smiled Nudds, who knew very well the extent of his power and the depraved things Amy had done while under its influence. He hadn’t meant to. He didn’t know how…persuasive he could be.
“You’re quite an ally! Why, back in the old days we could’ve done with a chap like you around.”
“Very nice of you for saying so, and thanks for digging me out there. I was a bit worried.” Sean smiled humbly and waved away the gratitude.
“So what brings you to these parts?” he said, modestly diverting attention from his heroism.
“I’m in search of my people. I’ve heard tell that Lord Xandor imprisoned them while I was a child and I believe I, and only I, have the power to save them from a life beneath the Earth.”
“Ah! A liberator! A man after my own heart! You’re going places, Nudds! Just like me!”
“Would you like to come along, Sean Coalborn? Your trusty sheep looks a hardy beast, from whose teats we might milk a sustaining life juice.”
“Ah…old Betsy’s a barren ride if every I’ve known one. Dry as a stump for four summers now.”
“Poor old girl.”
“Still, she trots on. Going places, y’know.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Whose the tree?”
“Oh, that’s Driscollus. He’s a useful guy. Good at heavy lifting and corporate actions processing.”
“We’ll have none of that rubbish while I’m around! Waste of time!”
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” said Nudds, grinning at Sean’s lust for the ‘places’ he was going and the seemingly bottomless barrel of contempt in which he drowned distractions and trivialities. “First things first, Sean, we have to find the betrayer. He’s a sneaky little bastard: the traitor of my race. He’s been stalking these lands for years now. Exiled by Lord Xandor for his worryingly clear state of mind. The bearded one feared he may be overthrown by the horny aide. After Xandor’s demise and the reattachment of imagination, the betrayer seems to have been on the move. Wandering through disjointed parts of our kingdom, up to no good I’ll bet…”
“Maybe he’s just on a bender?”
“That is also likely. Last I heard he was heading to Brighton. We’ll need to catch him before he gets there. No doubt his horn will make him a hit with the locals who will offer him sanctuary if we let him get too far ahead. You’re an expert of these barren lands. Will you be able to guide us out of the desert safely?”
Sean looked around; his eyes full of tears.
“Out of the desert? I never thought I’d leave…”
“But Sean…we need you. The world needs you…”
“Well…I suppose my work is done here. The Coal are as self-sufficient as ever. They don’t need me like they used to.”
“If you help us I’ll see to it you’re honoured! We’ll have bonfires and circus acts and chestnuts roasting on an open fire in your honour!”
“Not so keen on coal based recreation.”
“Sorry. Didn’t think. Will you help us?”
After a long pause, during which time the wind had picked up such force, Driscollus was roused from his oaken slumber just in time to see the forging of an alliance that would be remembered as the king’s finest hour of diplomacy by generations of liberated citizens, all of whom owed their freedom to that one moment and the two misshapen attempts at life that stood, hand in hand in the desert as the sun rose in the sky.

Stanza four

For hours on end,
Our trio did trek,
Cross lands undulating,
Till theirs homes were but specks,
In the distance behind,
So far away,
They prayed that they would,
Return there someday,
But now there were three,
With their mission defined,
To catch the betrayer,
And pilfer his mind,
At night as Nudds slept,
In the Desert of Moor,
A vision of hope,
Knocked on his door,
His ghostly visage,
With straw coloured hair,
Bronzed rippling biceps,
To which none could compare,
Filled Nudds’s mind,
And his heart with remorse,
That the perma-tanned hero
Now rode on Death’s horse…

“I always thought you were out of your tree. Not in it,” said the hazy spirit of Johnoldham. Nudds rubbed his eyes and looked at the shimmering spectre with more sleepy confusion than fear. Johnoldham was perched on the tip of Driscollus’s uppermost branch, while Nudds was nestled on the Dryad’s head, having arranged the broken, hair-like twigs into something resembling a nest.
“Am I awake?”
“Are we ever truly awake?” said Johnoldham, reaching inside his semi-translucent robe and removing a thin-stemmed glass full of cherry-red liquid. “Woo woo?”
“No, it’s bit early for me thanks.” Johnoldham snorted and polished off the cocktail with the ease of someone whose constitution knew not drunkenness and threw the drained glass over his shoulder. As soon as it left his ghostly fingers, it vanished in the air; it’s insubstantial image dissipating in a cloud of momentarily reflective droplets before it was gone completely. Nudds stared, open mouthed.
“That’s a good trick,” he said in awe.
“It’s hardly compensation for not being able to feel my own balls.” There was an uneasy silence. “I mean like, feel their presence, you know? Not like…touch them…I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to…my spiritual ball bag is bursting at the seams.” The silence from Nudds persisted. “I mean, not literally bursting. What’s there to burst? I don’t exist remember…I’m like your Obi-Wan.”
“Obi-Wan never turned up in Luke Skywalker’s dreams to cogitate on the absence of wanking in the afterlife,” said Nudds, willing himself to wake up.
“Don’t be coming over all sentimental about Obi-Wan! He was a knuckle shuffler like the best of ‘em. Why’d you think he wore that robe? Hides a lot of sins a robe does. And besides, there’s sod all else to do in death but think of life.”
“No TV?”
“Well obviously we’ve got terrestrial, but digital handover isn’t until 2012 on our side so until then I have to keep up to date with the Tour de France on that fiddly website that no one can understand.”
“I see your problem,” said Nudds, hardly surprised Johnoldham’s leanings towards lycra-clad sweaty men had carried over to the afterlife. “I’ve missed you Johnoldham. When you…died…I had to clean out your desk. I broke down on more than one occasion.”
Johnoldham went morbidly pale.
“Oh God. What did you find?”
“Well there was enough bronzer to cure MJ’s vitriligo, seven staplers, a dildo, fifteen un-actioned corporate action responses, a stack of four hundred signed Phil Jagielka postcards, and a nude photo of you and – ”
“Don’t say his name!” screamed Johnoldham, summoning from without his see-through chest a roar of biblical volume.
“Still knocking about in the afterlife is he?”
“He’s doing a fair bit of knocking, that’s for sure. You hear that he split up with the Porter?”
“Poor guy, how’s he holding up?”
“He’s been off work for a couple of weeks. That’s how I’m able to get into your dreams, you see. He’s not guarding the plain between the memories of the living and actual spirits so well. He won’t even notice that I’ve slipped past for an hour or two.”
“Convenient. Any chance you can help us with our quest? I take it you spirits know all about the world of the living?”
“Yeah, I’ve been following you pretty closely. I like your girlfriend. Who’d have thought she’d have such massive bazongers AND be so young!?”
“Bonus all round.”
“As for your little adventure, I’m afraid my questing days are over. It’s my time to kick back and wait for eternity until Everton win the Prem. Then I might make some kind of ghostly reappearance amidst the celebrations. I quite fancy possessing Arteta. My greatest regret in life was never getting inside him.”
Nudds tried to shun the mental image of Johnoldham raiding Arteta’s anus but failed. He was stuck in the horrible reverie when he was jarred from sleep and flung from his eerie, crashing into the ground twenty feet below at Driscollus’s feet. As quickly as he had appeared, Johnoldham was gone; trapped forever between the living and dead, wandering the aisles of limbo like all great heroes do. Men of history never die, they live on in a different way. Their names and actions exist so vividly in our consciousnesses that for them the afterlife is nothing more than a progression: a way to expand their influence, their voices amplified in death.
Nudds rubbed his horn, feeling instantly guilty about such intimate contact while the image of Arteta’s ravaged maidenhood still hung fresh in his troubled mind.
“What the hell happened?” he yelled at Driscollus who was standing still like…well…like a tree. His knotted eyes were fixed dead ahead and whatever they had fixed upon seemed to have struck the fear of God into Sean who too stood as blank-faced and immobile as…well…as a lump of coal.
Nudds – the only member of the triumvirate not to resemble an inanimate object – was duly dynamic and hauled himself to his feet, pointing his horn in the direction of his companions’ interest.
Before him stood a man; a tall, slender man with a bristling mane of curly red hair and frieze of fiery stubble lining his angled, elfin jaw. His cheekbones were high and as pointed as the tips of his ears and the sharp blades of his shoulders. Draped over the yoke of a crisp white shirt, was a salmon coloured cape made from old editions of The Financial Times. In his hand he held a staff, which, in reality, was a large biro no thicker than a stick of rock. Upon Nudds regaining composure, he took the über-biro in both hands and prodded the unreliable nib at the trespassers.
“Who goes there,” he snapped in a high and strident tone. Nudds glared at the man who challenged his authority.
“Your king goes there…I mean here…wherever I am.”
“I have no king!” screeched the man, raising his staff in anger. He ferreted around inside his patchwork cloak that foretold nought but economic doom, and removed with no little delicacy, a crown made of staples and glue that had been polished to a blinding degree of shininess using BNYM issued Hygienics anti-bacterial moisturising hand gel: exactly what the financial sector needs to brighten up its ever darkening reputation.
When quizzed on the necessity of self-drying hand wash, the man responsible for this seemingly inexplicable move had this to say:

“Well, in light of company bonuses being cancelled this year, and everybody teetering on the brink of suicide thanks to reduced job security, the forced implementation of increasingly farcical procedures, a mandatory, company-wide reduction in the number of staplers per staff, our refusal to order the minions nice pens when the CEO is on 20 mill a year, and our insistence on employing poorly qualified management whose heads we feel more than comfortable lopping off whenever the media get a little too close to the truth and start suggestions our incompetent middle-managers are in fact a foil to our own gaffs/laziness/corruption, we thought the staff – the people that really matter – should be rewarded so we spent all their money on anti-bacterial hand gel and another $400,000,000 on installing space-age like dispensers around the bank. This was a good move, because not only does it reduce the likelihood of a swine flu epidemic breaking out and thus forcing us to pay thousands of dollars in sick pay, nobody will want to look like a twat by washing their hands on the go so we’ll never need to replenish the supply of the mysterious clear goo that we felt was a better use of resources than pens that work.”

Needless to say, this outburst of honesty cost him his job.
“Who are you then?” said Nudds, scowling at the self-governing redheaded man.
“I,” and he paused here to create dramatic effect, but left it a touch too long and ended up looking a bit senile and preposterously pathetic, “am the LORD OF INVEST ONE.”
Without pausing for breath, Nudds said:
“Oh, man, that is so gay!”
“’tis not! ‘tis a noble role.”
“Emphasis on the NOB.”
“How dare you slight me! I’ll drown you in reams of wasted paper!”
Nudds was, with every passing moment, becoming less and less angry and more and more bemused by the queer man. The self-dubbed ‘Lord of Invest One’ was hopping madly from foot to foot, waving his biro-staff with reckless disregard and chattering curses and slurs at such an unrelenting pace, the white lines of his teeth blurred as they clattered together. Nudds took this opportunity to stoke the Lord’s ire by approaching him with subtle steps – passing unnoticed thanks to the odd man’s focused indignation – and tearing the corner from his shoddy cape.
He read the article which ran as follows:



Nudds read the article in disbelief. How could corporate fat-cats be so stupid, so arrogant, so self-involved? The Lord of Invest One was dancing around, yelping in tongues when the fancy took him, and looking a bit of a twit. Nudds tugged on his cape.
“Hey…HEY!” he shouted.
“Yes?” said the copper haired man, whose trance seemed to have tempered his foul mood.
“What’s that rubbish you’re singing?”
“It is a song for the gods of Financial Times! They inspired me to take up a career in finance! Thanks to them, I am a Lord!”
“When did you start your career?” asked Nudds, a little worried the strange man was a touch behind on recent events.
“Two years ago, my horny little bitch, two glorious years.”
“Do you still…read the FT?”
“No time! No time! My finger’s on the pulse! My managers inform me of all I need to know. Why, the last time I touched a copy of the FT was when I made this fabulous cape.”
“So you think everything’s hunky-dory with the economy, then?”
“But of course! What could have gone wrong?” He started to laugh sardonically, “I mean we pay the top-dogs so much, how could they make a mistake? And anyway, the government would foresee any sort of crisis. It’s full of honest, selfless, hard-working chaps after all.”
Nudds bit his lip and held out the torn portion of the cape.
“I think you better read this…and the rest,” he said, hanging his head as he thought of the weight of the blow the truth would strike. The Lord of Invest One took the salmon coloured paper and sank to his knees.

Stanza five

“Are you alright?” Nudds walked behind the Lord of Invest One, who was speeding ahead of the group, still muted by the unexpected collapse of the stock market.
“Fine,” came the terse reply.
“I really am sorry,” said the little king, “I kind of thought you’d have heard…”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been busy. Very busy. I’m very important you see. I use figures. Lots of figures in my job. Loads.”
“Yes…I understand,” said Nudds, not sure how the odd, visibly distraught man, could be consoled. Suddenly, the red-haired maniac stopped dead – so suddenly, in fact, that Nudds careered straight into the back of his slim legs, bounced off, and landed on his arse staring up at his newest companion, in whose eyes a light was starting to shine.
“Maybe…just maybe we can sort this mess out!”
“How?” asked Nudds, rubbing his shocked horn.
“These Lepracorns you keep babbling on about…how many of them are there?”
“I don’t know…thousands I imagine. They’ve been locked in isolation for 20 years…I doubt there’s much in the way of recreation save…well…you know.”
“Brilliant. An injection of small foreign twats is exactly what the economy needs. They are cheap, abundant, desperate for work…this is perfect! If we can find these little shits, and flood the economy with them, they’ll be able to drag us back to black before I can say ‘I love fund accounting, I really, really, really do!’ and I say that a lot so can say it quite fast without messing it up…nine times out of ten I get it bang on!”
“That’s quite impressive…it’s a real mouthful.”
“Sure is! It’s even more of a mouthful when its sharing space with BK’s member. I like to get a-head in this game if you know what I mean?” The Lord of Invest One winked at Nudds, who wasn’t in any way sure whether he was being ironic or confessing to string of homosexual encounters with his company’s CEO. Nudds decided he didn’t want to know, or risk LIO revealing more of his sordid career than necessary.
“So will you help us find my people, then?” asked Nudds, hope saturating every word.
“I will, I will,” beamed LIO, sticking out his hand to shake on it. “And I know just where to start! You’re heading for the forgotten caves right? Well, I used to work in a place called archives and I can tell you: they’re not quite as forgotten as people think! While I was down there, sifting my way through several rainforests worth of useless, outdated shit, I found a map to the place in question…in fact, I think it’s part of my cape somewhere…have a look would you?”
Nudds skim-read the articles of the salmon-coloured cape. Eventually, after five minutes of Driscollus’ bark-scratching, Nudds gave a cry of success, reached out his dainty little hand and ripped another portion of LIO’s cape clean off.
“Hey! Stop doing that! It’s not like I can buy another one of these at toPSShop!”
“Sorry, but look I’ve found it!” He held up the scrap of lighter coloured paper for the team to study. Coalborn tried to have a gander, but his coaly fingers made a right mess of it so Driscollus snatched it off him, but then started to cry when he realised he was holding a dead relative, so LIO took it from him, as sympathetically as a man with the emotional range of a tube-sock could, and read from it aloud.

“The caves of the corns,
Are written in time,
And the path to their door,
Is an underground line,
O’er hills you may labour,
For years, maybe more,
But unless you go deeper,
Your route will be flawed,
Your mind will be lost,
If you do persist,
In walking the route,
That many insist,
Is correct and much safer,
Though tales disagree,
If you want to survive,
Then listen to me,
To the archives you’ll travel,
And then up from deep,
Through an office of madness,
Be sure you don’t sleep,
The door has no key,
But will open with force,
Of desperate love,
And guilty remorse.”

“I hate riddles,” said Nudds, gnashing his teeth.
“What does it mean, Lord?” asked Coalborn.
“It means we have to go underground, through the archives, and then we must endure a tedious escalation process, and finally we must cross an office, swathed in utter bullshit masquerading under the title of ‘business-lingo’, which is about as necessary as a torch on the sun.”
“Yeah…but what if it’s night, eh?” said Driscollus, “You didn’t think of that, did you, eh?” The other three – and Betsy the sheep too – looked at Driscollus, toyed with the idea of stocking up on firewood and then, deciding against spontaneous homicide, shook their heads in despair.
“Lead on to the archives LIO, and none of your spontaneous breakdowns – the closer we get the more pressing I feel our mission becomes!”
And so LIO – the Lord of Invest One – lead them to the dark and towering maw of the archives that sat at the foot of Tedium Mountain. The journey was a swift one, though they were forced to stop to photocopy over a thousand outdated documents, which LIO assured them would guarantee them safe passage past the guards that kept watch over the archives with the sole intention of convincing the world that anything worth guarding was worth its weight in gold. This, as many things in the CMS seemed to be, was a lie, but it was a serviceable and widely accepted one as it seemed to be so blatantly nonsensical that anyone who thought of questioning its validity would stop short of rebellion in the belief that they must have missed the point and would likely end up looking a royal tit when the reason – which most assumed was obvious, though out of reach for drones such as they – was explained to them via an e-mail that had been expertly crafted to use a lot of irrelevant adjectives and non-existent nouns in order to give the impression that there was some extremely complex foundation underpinning patent idiocy.
Reams in hand they approached the guards.
“Halt! Who goes there!” Nudds cringed as he foresaw the utter twatishness of the exchange was set to follow between the guards and LIO.
“’Tis I!” proclaimed LIO, not in any way allaying Nudds’s fears, “The LORD OF INVEST ONE!”
“Have you papers?” screeched the premier of the two guards, both of whom were dressed monkish robes that billowed beneath swathes of unnecessary armour plating. They were both miniscule men – twins of each other – but despite their diminutive stature, their armour was ill-fitting and a size or two too small. They had close-cropped ginger hair, beak-like noses, dark beady eyes, and around them lingered the unmistakable stench of undue self-importance.
“We have many papers,” said LIO proudly.
“Are they special ones?” asked the less forward of the pair.
“No, no,” said LIO casually, “They are effectively useless. No one will ever look at them. They will contribute only to the increasing hoard of meaningless documents, and continue our merciless destruction of the rainforests, and our continued evasion of the implementation of the long-ago promised change-over to a paperless environment.”
“Perfect,” said the ginger little men in unison. “They sound wonderful! You may pass.”
The group lumbered past the two guards. Driscollus – the last to pass – eyed them both with disgust, as their squinty little eyes followed him into the caves below. They licked their lips as the walking paper-factory passed them by: one wrong move in the depths of the archives and he might disappear, only to re-emerge as another thirty or so boxes of fiscal detritus.
“That went well,” said Coalborn, sitting astride Betsy as they rolled along. “What’s next?”
“Let’s not get too cocky,” warned LIO in hushed tones. “I don’t trust those two one bit. They’re the Corrigan twins – nasty little buggers. Blindly loyal, and fanatically stupid – they seem to think working for the archives is a righteous profession. Shameless self-promoters, sickening lap-dogs, unrepentant brown-noses…men like the twins…they just don’t get it.”
“I guess working in a place like this could drive you mad,” said Nudds, looking around the high-ceilinged network of caves through which they were making edgy progress. He shuddered. There was something wrong with the air in that place. It was thin and miserly and hard to draw on, but on the odd occasion one managed to procure a whole lungful of the muggy stuff, it took on the properties of tar and weighed down the tiring bodies of our restless heroes.
“They are a…special breed. They actually wanted to work for the archives. It has been said on many an occasion that their desires show a mammoth lack of foresight, and a level of delusion that, if identified pre-1980, would have constituted madness and resulted in an indefinite stay in an asylum. Thankfully for the twins, the Smiths alienated so many stabile young minds between ’83-’87, that no one notices the mindless twits anymore. They were merely re-dubbed ‘New Romantics’.”
“I guess we have Tony Hadley to thank for that,” piped up Coalborn with an edge of Mancunian bitterness.
“Don’t forget Simon Le Bon. He spent three years prior to an unplanned business trip to Rio, working in fund accounting. It did something odd to his hair, rendered him unable to sing, but left him with such an air of eccentricity and self-assurance, everyone else thought they were crazy for not getting it.”
“Maybe there’s some Merit to the twins’ madness,” mused Nudds, “I mean look at Le Bon: everyone hung with him ‘til he released View to a Kill and atoned for his previous atrocities. Now he’s successful – massively so!”
“But everyone still thinks he’s a prick,” added Coalborn. “If that’s ‘success’ then I’ll take credible obscurity any day.”
As the quad of friends ambled on, deeper and deeper into the archives, the air became hotter and close. Nudds unbuttoned his faux velvet shirt another button and wiped his brow. In that moment, having closed his eyes to remove the streaming sweat that threatened to blind him, he stumbled on an unseen object underfoot and careened to the ground, landing face first in the dirt.
“Ow, bloody hell!” he growled through a mouthful of grit.
“Sowwy!” came a high-pitched warble from beneath Nudds’s legs. The miniature king’s hand flew immediately to his crotch – the voice had come from there: surely his danglebit had not come to life?
Alas, Nudds’s malformed walnut-whip was as listless and lifeless as ever and, of the three states of matter, had come closer to resembling a liquid or gas since leaving his queen’s side than anything approaching a solid. Missions of grand intent tended to render the limp Lepracorn temporarily flaccid.
As it happened the voice – strident and uncultivated as it was – had come from a small slug, around seven inches in length. It was a deep purple and almost invisible against the inky backdrop. From what could only be described as its head, two large, drooping yellow eyes extended on the tips of uneven stalks. The group stood in dumbfounded silence and studied the odd interrupter of their quest.
“What the blazes are you!?” demanded Nudds.
“Sowwy, sowwy,” squeaked the slug, “Me not see you come. Me no see so good. Me slug. Me have werry, werry teeny eye-bits.”
“It’s fine,” said Nudds, his mood softening towards the near-brain-dead mollusc. “What’s your name?”
“Slug, mister.”
“Where do you come from Slug?”
“Come from hairy man, oh yes, yes. Come from big hairy ‘uffalo man.”
“Oh Christ,” said Nudds, passing his dainty hand across his eyes. “Not Daniel bloody Charles?”
“Yes, mister, yes! He the hairy man. I live in his leg for moons. He cut me out with sticks and leave me here long time.”
“What’s Daniel bloody Charles?” asked Coalborn, who was studying Slug with an air of mistrust.
“Daniel Charles was an old…associate of mine. He was a deranged Buffalo Man. A sexual pervert of the highest order and, by some unpredicted twist of fate, a hero that will forever be enshrined in the account of Xandor’s downfall.”
“Sounds like a nice chap,” commented Driscollus respectfully.
“He was fine when he wasn’t trying to mount you…but those instances were few and far between and usually after he had been injected with a near lethal dose of tax and was too bummed out to…perform.”
“What’s this slug all about, though?” asked LIO, prodding Slug with a nearby stick.
“Me grow from bad juice in hairy man’s leg. Me grow big and black and then POP! me born.” He looked up at Nudds with those wide, pleading eyes and then, as if to reassert his lornness, said very quickly with no discernable gap between words: “I have no friends.”
Nudds sighed. He had not envisaged adding another party member – things were getting hard enough to handle as it was – but slug was part Daniel Charles and the harassed king felt he owed his old friend to such a degree that he would care for his pus-filled offspring.
“Well,” said Nudds, deflating to half his limited size, “I think you can be our friend. We will take you with us.” Slug, who was not used to kindness or charity, and had, up until that point, lived in complete solitude, eating and conversing with mud and poo and the like, beamed as prettily as was within a slug’s power.
“Ooo, fank you! Fank you!” he gushed. “Me will guide you deep into caves, yes? Me have bright eyes!”
“Anything from the Paul Simon era?” asked Nudds hopefully.
“No. Just Bright eyes…”
“Nothing at all?”
“Well, I’ve got a remix of it by Harvey from So Solid?”
“Um…”
“And thirteen new edits of Ice, Ice Baby, from Vanilla Ice’s new album..?”
“I think he means he has bright eyes…literally,” said Coalborn, banging his coaly head against the sooty heel of his hand.
“That could be useful!” yelled LIO, “It gets pretty damn dark down there, and we’ve got a ways to go yet!”
“Come on then slug,” said Nudds, sticking out his hand and allowing the slippery little bitch to slither onto his palm. “Let’s do this.”

Stanza six

How long they did trawl,
Through seas of old paper,
Matters not in the face,
Of that most mundane caper,
The archives were barren,
A soulless wasteland,
But they made their way through,
Thanks to Slug of the hand,
LIO was right,
That world was a mess,
And keeping ones mind,
Was a wearisome test,
But hard as it was,
Our heroes prevailed,
And reached a great door,
That to them availed,
A way out of there,
That terrible place,
And a whole host of problems,
That next they must face…

“I am glad to be out of there…” said Nudds, wiping his murky brow for the hundredth time that hour. “That place gave me the willies!”
“We’re not safe yet,” warned LIO, who seemed to have calmed down considerably since they entered the caves. It was as if being in company had returned his mental state to something approaching sane. “These are the Halls of Escalation,” he said with grandiose fear dripping from his tone. He introduced the scene by opening his arms as if to embrace the bustling milieu like an old friend. Before the motley crew were hundreds upon thousands of shiny silver escalators. They rose up from the floor; connecting moving-stairways from further underground with the level on which they stood; and then carrying on up – high as the eye could see.
Directly in front of them stood a desk and behind that desk sat a young, beautiful-in-a-plain-Jane-kind-of-way receptionist. She looked up from the papers that littered her rectangular, metal-framed desk and smiled generically.
“Can I help you, sir?” she said, directing the enquiry at LIO who was heading the pack. He beamed widely.
“At last! Some respect,” he chortled, clapping his hands together with delight. He approached the young woman; heels squeaking on the highly polished floor-tiles.
“We have a problem,” LIO began. The receptionist interjected instantly with a worried expression accompanied by the clucking of her tongue and the shaking of her blonde head.
“Oh dear, oh dear…well, you came to the right place,” she said comfortingly, reaching out a slender hand and touching the back of LIO’s, which was pressed flat against the surface of her desk. Her cherry-red nails traced fine-lines on his hand as they retracted their soothing touch. “This is where we resolve problems by ascertaining responsibility. Thanks to our advanced escalatory hierarchy, no problem remains in anyone’s hands for long enough for it to be considered critical at any one moment in time. That is of course until the problem becomes an issue, and then of course whoever is left holding the issue is terminated.”
“Like a career-based game of pass the parcel?” chimed Nudds. She looked at him coldly.
“No! It is not so trivial. It is a well-thought-out process. It is the way business works. You wouldn’t understand, little man.”
“Yes, Nudds,” sneered LIO, clearly enjoying the preference the terse bimbo was showing him, “Leave it to the…professionals.”
Nudds buttoned his lip and listened in silent cynicism.
“Now it’s very simple,” continued the receptionist, focusing her eyes on LIO, “you take your problem up one of these three escalators. At the top of each escalator you will meet a fellow employee who will reluctantly take your problem from you.”
“Should we give him any information.”
“What…like an audit trail?”
“Yeah…”
She laughed. One short, brusque laugh.
“No,” she said, patting our red-headed friend on the hand, “No, that would heighten the chance of early-resolution. We don’t have a faculty for that.
“Okay…”
“Once you have offloaded your baggage onto the poor sod who will likely come under fire for being in possession of some royal fuck-up that’s nothing to do with him and therefore totally beyond his powers to solve, your problem will further escalate through the appropriate channels until it reaches the top.”
“What happens at the top?” asked LIO, with an air of grandeur. She looked at him blankly.
“Well…what do you think happens?”
“I don’t know…it ceases to exist..?”
“…I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.”
“But you know it does.”
“…I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.”
“But it says it right there on your sheet…I can see it!” LIO protested.
“…I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.”
“Okay, fine. Look, we’d better get going…this problem isn’t going to resolve itself!”
“Alright,” she said, appearing to relax the moment LIO stopped grilling her, “Of what nature is your problem: personal; professional; or penile?”
“Um…personal?”
“Good…here is my number. Take the middle escalator. That’ll lead you to the right place. Oh, and don’t look over the sides…really…don’t.”
“Okay… and thanks,” LIO smiled, took the blonde’s number and motioned to his companions to follow. As the ragtag bunch of crusaders passed the desk they each made some sign to her: Sean bowed, and old Betsy attempted a curtsy, which nearly threw her rider off; Driscollus doffed his leaf; and Nudds, ferrying Slug around on his shoulder, made an obscene, autoerotic gesture with his right hand and his horn, which caused her to blush and cross her legs.
“Right, now, can anyone think of a problem?” said LIO as they mounted the first escalator, which stretched up and up and up into the seemingly endless space above their heads. There was some kind of illusionary trickery afoot. Nudds could sense it. They hadn’t been that far underground, but the network of escalators all around and, more pertinently, above them seemed to go as high as the moon, maybe Mars even.
“I’ve got a problem,” said Nudds, sheepishly, “But I think we’re in the wrong queue for that…my horn’s been dry lately. Really fucking dry.”
LIO looked at his kingly companion and wished to God that he would stop drawing attention to the fact that the semi-sentient, shape-shifting, bolt-firing protrusion that burst forth from his messy crop of auburn hair was tantamount to a futuristic sex-organ and prone to sudden bouts of wetness.
“Nudds’s bone-dry bone stump…anyone think of a problem?”
“Ol’ Betsy’s got gout,” said Sean tearfully.
“I’ve got some flaky bark,” muttered Driscollus.
“SLUG KNOWS!” cried the demented mollusc from the king’s bony shoulder.
“What is it, Slug? What can we tell them?”
“We is in the personal line isn’t we?”
“Yes…”
“That means that we is going to HR!”
Everyone gasped. HR were known throughout the land for being an obstinate, unhelpful, deliberately obstructive, intermittently coy, sporadically aggressive, silver-tongued, blinkered, myopic, self-serving department of well-dressed, oddly shaggable hags.
And utter fucking cunts.
“We is telling them that we has been sick. More times than is ok.”
“How can anyone put a limit on sick days?” growled Nudds. “It’s not like you can help it!” Everyone looked at him – even Slug turned to face the cherubic little nonce.
“HR, Nudds…H-fucking-R,” cried LIO, “Don’t you know what that means? Heartless Revenge. That’s what they’re all about. Somewhere along the line, something really, really bad happened to each and every member of HR. They reached 26, were still living with their parents, spending Saturday night in with Ant, Dec, and Ann Summer’s latest gizmo when they realised that the only way they could be happy was to get a job telling other people – other, better qualified people – that sense, compassion, and hard work count for nothing in the face of pure, undiluted bitterness. They are like careers advisors with a more ambiguous title. The kind of people who get qualifications in literacy, or construction…not English or architecture…. They know just enough about everything to have an ill-informed, poorly reasoned, and inadequately referenced opinion on just about any corporate subject you could think of. Their roll in the corporate hierarchy is that of a spanner. Their purpose is to tighten up loose nuts – to pull all the parts together – but when mishandled, or carelessly applied, can end up wrecking the whole bloody machine.”
“I like that,” grinned Nudds, “Sums it up real nice.”
“Okay, so is we agreeing?” asked Slug, “Is we agreeing that we is sick, sick?”
“Yes, alright,” said LIO, pleasantly, patting the slimy slug on his dodgy eye-stalks.
“Here comes the first stop!” said Sean, pointing ahead with a trembling finger.
“Hello,” said the dour-faced woman that awaited their arrival. It was clear to see that she had once been attractive, maybe even beautiful, but time and countless failures had rendered her a haggard and unforgiving figure. He cragged countenance was severe and dispassionate. She probably had children and probably hated them for robbing her of her youth and elasticity. She probably had a car – a saloon would have sat well with her deportment – but she probably hated it and wished she drove a 1967 Spitfire instead. She almost certainly had a husband who was distant and unfaithful, but whom she stayed with out of stubbornness and cruelty. She definitely lived in a new-build house on one of those colourless estates. She knew she was paid too much for being nothing more than a glorified, and widely regarded as inept, councillor, but she wanted more. She hated the underlings, as she called them: the worker bees; the drones; the proletariat. She hated them because they were young and beautiful and optimistic. They deserved not a shred of compassion. They had it all and had done nothing to deserve it. She had a chip the size of Death Valley on her shoulder. She was bitter, acerbic, and twisted. She had been young. She wanted to be a chef when she was a little girl, you know? But she burnt her Victoria sponge in year 7 and it all went downhill from there. The world was against her. She was a victim. By the time she got round to picking A-levels she chose a broad spectrum of subjects to maximise her opportunities when applying for University – by then she might know what she wanted. But she didn’t. So she chose HR, not really understanding that the course cost not just £3500, but also a portion of soul – collected twice per semester. She had had promise once. She remembered it. She still had the photographs of her and an earlier (not burnt) Victoria sponge. But it hadn’t gone right and she hadn’t got over it. And now she stood before our intrepid travellers, wearing those kind-of-sexy, thick framed, Osiris glasses from Specsavers, in a blouse that cost more than LIO earned in a month, a pair of unappreciated Manolos that she felt she deserved – such luxuries were her right…they were due compensation for her woes – and a pencil skirt that was made from the reconstituted skin of employees she had fired for being sick, handsome, or just plain nice.
“Hello,” said LIO, smiling through his fear. He had seen all of the above in her staid expression before his feet had left the moving stairs and touched stationary ground once more. She was terrifying. It was like looking at a corpse. A really sexy corpse that was hot for all the wrong reasons. Women like her…they just looked like they needed a good time. Like one night of mad rabbit-style-love-making would help them snap out of it. But no. No one would satisfy those deeply-rooted, deeply-sadistic urges of animalistic monkey-lust that pulsed beneath the surface. LIO went through a host of emotions while they stood in tacit examination of each other. At first he wanted to run, but then he found a tugging sensation in the seat of his pants urged him to stay…she was beautiful…wasn’t she? Then a flash of malice that crossed her face – scarring it in its brief appearance –doused his fiery balls with an icy wave. Then he hated her. And from that hatred returned the desire; the anger; the frustration. He wanted to bend her over an MFD. He wanted to cure her ills. But she wanted his nads on a spike. And she would have them. O, dear God would she have them…
“Name.”
“Max,” said LIO, without flinching. The whole party raised a collective eyebrow. Max? So that was the name of the copper-haired maniac! The Lord of Invest One had seemed an unlikely birth name, after all…
“Problem?”
“Um…well Slug here has been off sick,” said LIO, doing his freewheeling best to convince the hard-faced bitch their problem was genuine.
“How many times, Slug,” she sneered his name.
“Um…sixsies?” said Slug, racking his pathetically slow brain for the rules and regulations of the company. “Yes…sixsies in four months and one day.”
“Six!” cried the hawk-nosed harridan. “This is most irregular! Which days were you off?”
“Um…fwee fwidays…a moonday and two toosdies,” said Slug, whose well-groomed response drew nods of approval from his on-looking friends. The granite-faced termagant was madly scribbling notes.
“Three Fridays and a Monday?”
“Um…yes.”
“That’s awfully…suspicious wouldn’t you say?”
Now, normally Slug – despite his clinical retardation and shoddy grasp of English – would have argued that the days taken sick were of no relation to each other and that the fact that they wrapped around a weekend – which is of course what the pernickety old hag was angling at when she termed them suspicious – was neither here nor there. He would have argued – and quite rightly so – that one could look back over any arbitrary dataset and draw meaningless conclusions. It is easy to see patterns where there are none. Especially if you are looking for them. This was HR’s problem. It wasn’t that their answers to questions or problems were without foundation, it was the simple fact that the questions were wrong. It was as if they were driving towards a crossroads with the instruction to turn right in order to reach their destination. Approaching the same junction from the wrong road will lead to a justifiable, but equally wrong conclusion. This was HR’s modus operandi. And it sucked.
As it happened, though, Slug was in no mood to curry sympathy for his pseudo-genuine plight. It was – as he knew – far more beneficial for the party that he might surrender himself to the vicious virago in order to earn them passage onwards.
“Um…yers. Ver ‘spicious.”
“This is a very serious matter…”
“Ver’ sers,” nodded Slug. “Sowwy.”
“‘Sowwy’ won’t cut it, Mr Slug.” She glared at the quivering worm. “This problem had become an issue. I am hereby issuing you, Mr Slug, with a verbal warning. You must also collect three slaps on the–” she was about to say wrist, but check herself and instead said; “slimy underbelly. Go up this here escalator to receive your punishment.”
“Can me friendies come?” squeaked Slug. The tribe of misfits put on their Sunday-best faces and, for the briefest of jiffies, the stony-faced shrew softened and yielded to the mollusc’s cutesy request.
“I suppose so,” she sighed, and with it releasing a decade’s worth of withheld generosity. Woe betide any man who crossed her over the next ten years, for they would receive nought of the compassion she had stooped to offer the charred lump, the autonomous tree, the slimy slug, the red-haired loon, and their horny little friend (of whose kingship she was ignorant, but whose cheeky grin stirred in her a long-forgotten yearning for furious horn-action).
“Ta muchly,” said Slug, baring his toothless gums in something that lay firmly between a grin and the onset of a stroke.
The ragtag bunch of friends bundled past the zealous Xanthippe and stepped on to the next escalator – the heights of which they were reluctant, but obliged, to scale.
As the snappy hellcat faded from view, they relaxed and all took turn in congratulating Slug on his sterling performance. But their joy was short-lived for the next guardian of escalation they were to meet instilled in them a mixture of fear and anger, on no-one’s part more than Nudds’s who, upon being confronted with the bearded midget, whose short, stout horn gave-away his identity at once, was compelled to do away with formalities and strike him down where he stood.
Atop that second escalator, the Betrayer awaited their arrival. From beneath the weighty folds of his charcoal cowl his tiny sapphire eyes studied them as they approached. In his right hand he held a gnarled, wooden staff, which he tapped rhythmically on the shiny floor underfoot. His left hand was suspiciously hidden from view and, Nudds expected, that the perverse little git was likely indulging in a cheeky tug to pass the time. The cloak quivering ceased and the left-hand emerged as the group approached the squat little man. He was, in proportions as Nudds would probably be after a decade or two of indulgence. He was short in stature, but not noticeably narrow in the shoulders, and wore a burgeoning paunch in the same way a war-hero would wear the Victoria Cross.
“You…” hissed Nudds.
“’Tis I, little one,” said the old Lepracorn prophetically.
“You don’t look surprised to see me,” growled the king.
“Nothing surprises me anymore. I’ve spent significant time in Brighton. I’ve seen it all.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting.”
“For us?”
“No…my punishment. During my banishment I took to the bottle somewhat. I turned up here, half-cut and out of my mind on horny juices when you’re departed friend, Countess Magicbox, returned to us our severed imaginations. Needless to say I was reprimanded for my intrusion and have been here every since, waiting for a resolution to my problem.”
“But that was almost a year ago!”
“Things have been a little…disorganised. They dumped me here on the second level and have been guarding me ever since. I believe the technical term is ‘brushing under the carpet’.”
“Where’s your guard now?”
“Havin’ a slash, I think. But the cheeky sod’s been gone for nearly half an hour. He’s not qualified to administer my punishment.”
“Typical.”
At this moment, LIO took the fore and began to quiz the betrayer in accordance with the normal line of furious curiosity one recently wronged – as they had been by the officious harridan of HR – employs when encountering another of similar affliction who seems not to have been punished as severely as they.
“So you turned up here…what happened?” he asked bitterly.
“I was implicated in an attempt to save the bank thousands through a systematic process of ‘fudging’.”
“Ah, well then. Sounds like a disciplinary calling,” said LIO superiorly.
“It shouldn’t have been,” grumbled the Betrayer, “I’m innocent.”
“But are you?”
“Yes!”
“Well that’s beside the point,” smirked LIO, knowing full-well the procedural implications of false accusation. “If you are innocent you’re sure to be punished.”
“But it wasn’t my fault!” protested the Betrayer, ramming his staff against the ground.
“Look at Nick Leeson,” said LIO, continuing despite the obvious agitation of the little man, “Guilty?”
“Of course!”
“Disciplinary?” The Betrayer was silent. “No,” stated LIO, “Yacht? Yes. Mansion on a remote desert island? You bet. Scot-free? Mint. Now back to you: can you prove you’re innocent?”
“Yeah…as long as they don’t ask me questions I don’t understand.”
“I take it that’s what they did,” said LIO.
“…”
“There you go. Next thing you know you wake up in a ditch with a verbal warning round your neck and a written one on your inner thigh.” The Betrayer winced. “In blood,” grinned LIO, “your blood. And the piss of a fawn.”
“Yes,” conceded the Betrayer, “That does sound about right…A written warning in my own blood,” he said ruefully.
“And fawny piss,” added the Lord.
“Sorry…I forgot about the piss.”
“Never forget about the fawny wee juice,” said LIO, his eyes narrowing. It was, again, Nudds’s turn to take over the interrogation and he pucshed past his knowledgable friend so that he and the Betrayer stood toe-to-toe.
“You and I…we have a lot to talk about.”
“I am sorry, you know,” said the Betrayer, appearing at once to shrink to half his already limited size when confronted with Nudds’s massively kingliness and shinier – however arid – horn. “Sorry for you, but not for what I did.”
“How does that figure?” glared the pint-sized monarch.
“If it hadn’t been for my actions, however immoral they were, Xandor would have succeeded in overthrowing the CMS. You would have been lost as our people were, and the CMS would never have known the Golden-age your reign has brought upon it. I am proud for the part I played in your ascension to the throne.”
Nudds smacked him in the mouth. How dare he take credit for the way things had turned out! He could not have known the conclusion would be so rosy!
“I suppose I deserved that,” he said from the floor. A trickle of blood escaped the corner of his arrow mouth and stained one of the two white strips of hair that ran perpendicular to the cleft of his chin, with claret.
“You’re damn right you did,” snapped Nudds, but then, after a few moments of calm reflection added in a sympathetic tone; “But perhaps you are right. Who knows the will of providence? It is not for me to condemn you when it is still possible for you to atone for your sins.” With that he reached out a hand and helped the wizened old-corn to his feet. “I must admit,” said Nudds, “I expected you to be taller and less…ginger.”
“Time has not been kind,” said the booze-addled turncoat.
“But you think legend would have recorded your…gingerness.”
“Legend has a habit of dropping the unseemly truths. I don’t think people would be so fearful of me if they knew I was…well…you know…at a hirsute disadvantage.”
“Yeah the ginger-haired midget doesn’t have the same ring to it as cold-hearted betrayer.”
“I know I deserve this badgering, given my colourful history, but do you think you could lay off now? I have feelings you know!”
“Alright,” said Nudds, his mind brimful with future put-downs, “I’ll let you off the hook for now. Provided, that is, you help us get out of here! Do you know how to escape?”
“I’ve heard rumours,” mused the Betrayer, “But if what I think I know is true, all ways out of here are risky and mind-numbingly boring.”
“We’ll have to chance it,” said Nudds without a waver of uncertainty in his tone, “We’ve got to save my…our people.”
“Very well,” sighed the Betrayer, who could see the chance of arriving in Brighton in time for gay festivities slipping from his grasp, “I heard my guardian mention ‘the board room’. From what I gather it’s at the top of the escalatory chain. It’s where the top-brass hang out, puffing on cigars and churning out royal BS.”
“Sounds heavenly.”
“It’s not far off…but I don’t know it’s possibly to actually get there.”
“Surely you just follow the escalatory chain right to the top,” said Coalborn, who was in the process of subtly milking Betsy’s one, semi-functional teat for its tasty juice-milk.
Everyone turned to him – a blank look adorning each and every countenance.
“Have you ever worked in a corporate environment?” asked LIO.
“Do you even know what we’re dealing with?” said Driscollus.
“It is never that simple,” added Nudds. “The fact the management reside on-site is a miracle in itself. It would be stretch too far to imagine they were contactable.”
“Nudds is right,” confirmed the Betrayer, “Managers tend to keep themselves to themselves. They are like raindrops – from a distance they appear powerful and majestic, sweeping across the land and bending it to their will, but up close they lose all their allure. They just come across a bit wet.”
“If…if we manage to reach the board room,” said Nudds, “What can we expect?”
The betrayer checked his watch and inhaled sharply.
“Damn…a pointless review meeting was scheduled for this week,” and then, looking at his unexpectedly welcoming companions said, in a grim and portentous tone: “Looks like we’re in this for the long-haul.”

Stanza seven

And so with another,
Intrepid acquired,
To the manager’s office,
Our group did aspire,
To enter and cross,
In preference with ease,
But knowing their luck,
They will not succeed,
In fleeing the caverns,
That so far at least,
Had slowed to a halt,
Their march to the East,
And so they pushed on,
And their hopes did rely,
Of the gingery midget,
Telling no lies…

“What will your guardian do when he realises you’re gone?” asked Nudds, as the six-strong group (seven including Betsy, the worn-out, well-ridden, humble old ewe) left the Betrayer’s point of escalation behind.
“Poor kid will have no choice but to escalate himself up the professional column. He’ll end up where we hope to – the very top!”
“How much further is it?” asked Sean, shivering.
“My willy’s cold,” whined Slug. The sextet looked at the socially uncultivated mollusc with a mixture of fondness and disgust.
“Not much further now,” said the Betrayer, hugging his dark cowl close.
“I can see it!” cried Driscollus who, being the tallest, had the ad/disadvantage of being able to see further than the rest.
“What does it look like?” said Nudds, rubbing his hands in excitement, though continuing until it became a conscious action for the warmth it granted him – a welcome thing, given the constantly thinning atmosphere.
“It’s just a door,” said Driscollus anticlimactically, “a door made of solid gold! But wait…” The lumbering tree (now that’s genius – Ed) murmured something to himself. It was as if he was verbally processing some deeply disturbing thought that needed to be said out-loud to be believed.
“What is it? Come on Driscollus, tell us!”
“I…”
“This is beyond a Joak!”
“But I…I can’t be sure…”
“Don’t be a sap, man! Tell us!”
“It’s…it’s…floating…”
“What?”
“The escalators…they lead to nothing…they get close to the door but then they just…stop. The problems fall into a…”
The group dared, for the first time, to look over the sides of the escalator and saw, with horror, that they were separated by nothing more substantial than a kilometre of space, from a huge, bubbling melting pot.
“Oh, shit monkey,” said Nudds. And never before had the phrase been more apt.
“Well this makes perfect fucking sense,” grumbled the Betrayer, sliding dejectedly down the wall of the escalator until he was resting on his slightly chubby haunches. “I knew they’d screw us over if we gave them the chance.”
“But I was only a wittle sicky,” said Slug pathetically. He had started to cry.
“Cheer up old son,” said Nudds, stroking his friend’s slimy behind. “We might make it out yet.”
“As long as everyone…stays…CALM!” said LIO, promptly wetting himself. They were now but ten feet from the abyss and no closer to thinking of a solution. Fortunately, the guiding hand of fate chose to intervene by loosening LIO’s control over his bladder thus spraying the group with piping-hot piddle. Now, those who had sufficient rational, and some understanding of social courtesy, took the steaming jets to the face men – seeing it wise not to object as they were but a few urine-soaked seconds from death and it was not the time to fall-out with ones friends. Betsy, however, was not so accustomed to restraint and, upon receiving a particularly spicy stream of man-wee, she reared up, throwing her rider, and charged with all the beautiful ignorance of a barely sentient creature, towards the lip of the escalator. Fortunately for ol’ Betsy, Driscollus was in her way and by barrelling into his woody thigh at top speed she sent him tumbling over the edge instead. But as luck would have it, Driscollus was just tall enough so that the bristly crop of hair – in which Nudds had forged for himself an eerie of sorts – caught on the step of the Golden gate and within five seconds of losing his balance, he found himself firmly wedged between escalator and door. The escalator ground to a halt as it encountered resistance from Driscollus’s foot-root. The group cheered. They were saved! Sean hugged ol’ Betsy and planted a piss-drenched kiss on her meaty chops. He then milked for her his own coaly teat, and presented their unwitting saviour with a goblet of finest man-syrup for her unintentional heroism.
“We’re saved!” cried Nudds, choosing not to dwell on LIO’s obvious embarrassment at having weed himself.
“I’m caught between a step and a hard place,” moaned Driscollus, who was doing a sterling job of keeping very, very still.
“Well, we’d be fools to look a gift horse in the mouth,” said Sean, placing one tentative foot on Driscollus’s root.
“Ouch,” he said with deliberated suppression.
“Sorry.”
“Sean’s right,” said the Betrayer, “Single file now! And mind you don’t rock the oak! The last thing we need is a trip to the melting pot.”
“It would be a shame,” said Nudds, as he ushered his companions over the gap. “A shame to fail when I feel we are so close…”
A few minutes of careful shimmying later, the whole party, Driscollus – who had been hauled onto the step by the remaining group once they had crossed safely – included, stood before the Golden gate that led to the reputedly ominous board room.
“Should we knock?” said Nudds, with his child-sized fist raised before the door. Everyone returned unsure looks, save LIO who was furiously scrubbing his crotch with a particularly absorbent section – the AIM page – of the FT. The group turned to him: he the unspoken expert on all things corporate and a little bit gay. In the pause that filled the ceasing of violent groin attention and answer to Nudds’s query, a sudden burst of putrid gas seeped from beneath the Golden door. It was, although only a misty cloud at its most visible, possessed of an almost human, or, at the very least, alien quality. It was composed of nought but loosely associated molecules and yet had hands that seemed to scratch with spiteful vigour, the innermost layers of ones flesh. It was rancid – an acrid, lingering stench. It was stale and fresh all at once. It was the smell of ripe decomposition or, for want of a more vivid description, it was the smell of shit – the rehashed, impersonal, duplicitous, backhanded, insincere, de-motivating brand of shit – often attributed to the bull – that was the common expulsion of the self-important nitwits that the powers that be saw fit to remove from the productive workflow by giving them titles that ensured they would never again be involved in actual work, and spend their days peering with ignorant curiosity over the shoulders of those who, on merit at least, were their superior.
“Well don’t bother knocking,” said LIO. There was a hint of impatience in his voice, but it was all totally understandable – how would you feel if you’d messed yourself because the hand of providence – however divine it may profess to be – had fiddled with your plumbing. In front of your mates, no less. “If you knock you’ll give us away. No one important knocks. The best way to sneak in unnoticed is to stride in bold as brass as if everyone else present is there unnecessarily – almost naively – early, and greet the speaker with a supercilious flick of the head that signals they are at liberty to continue. No one will bat an eyelid.”
“But we’re supposed to cross the room, aren’t we? Isn’t that all there is to it?” asked Sean.
“Werry ‘ard,” mumbled Slug. “So werry ‘ard. Me is finkin’ vat it’s not so simples. Loadsa nice mens and ladies come here and I has never ‘eard of one of um leafing.”
“Well it must be more taxing than a jolly jaunt across a room,” said Sean, rubbing his coaly chin. The funny thing – and yes, there is only one – about being an anthropomorphic lump of coal, is that you are, in relative terms, never dirty. Status quos, multifarious as they are, have none in their annals as muck-ridden as those of the Coal born. Sooty little bastards. And so the observation of Sean stroking his coaly chin and, duly so, receiving coaly fingers for his actions, is, to the Coal born, a non-event, whereas to LIO – a patron of cleanliness – the thought of soot upon skin is as disgusting as being invited to a fondue party between Jade Goody’s legs. It was postulated at the time of the Coal born rebellion that the reason nobody stopped them from escaping their myriad scuttles, was because nobody wanted to get their hands dirty. It is supposed that the phrase “washing ones hands” of something, originated from Sean’s filthy revolution.
And so Nudds agreed with LIO’s assertion that confidence was the best guise, and officially washed his hands of responsibility should their plan go awry. They took a collective breath and pushed through the ingress.
The choked on the smog. They had not been prepared for the sudden shift in atmosphere and its rife toxicity. Before them lay pile after pile of suited corpses, all in varying stages of decay. It was from these cadaverous mounds that the smell emanated. They had died of boredom or sheer madness when trying to cross the office, which, it had to be said, was particularly long and thin for an office, and more like a gauntlet – a likeness further characterised by the ornate decoration of the walls. Where one would have expected frosted sheet glass, an abundance of Ikea-beech wood, metal-framed chairs, and sterile décor, there were renaissance style portraits of former CEOs presented in art deco frames that resembled interwoven foliage, picked out in gold-leaf, the walls were painted and had at one time been coloured a garish red and smoky charcoal, were now dulled and faded with age and spoiled by the noxious fumes given off by the copious carcasses.
On the long, narrow desk that marshalled the centre of the room lay pens discarded by deceased owners. They lay there like relics of some history-steeped field of war; the discarded weapons of warriors who had fought for the losing side.
And most fearsome of all was the bespectacled orator that stood on a stout plinth at the head of the room – his droning voice almost inaudible over the vast distance between speaker and listeners. Behind him hung a projector screen, onto which fuzzy diagrams, charts, and graphs flickered and flashed. In his strident, Manhattan drawl, he talked at inappropriate length about facts and figures; revenue and risk; pay-scales and procedures.
“He’s so…so…” Nudds yawned, “so boring.”
“An awful…terrible…public…YAWN…speaker…” mumbled LIO, his eyelids becoming heavy.
“Think I need…to…slee–” Sean tumbled head first over Betsy; his face smashing into the ground. The others looked at him with weary eyes, and then at each other – they did nothing: they could barely move their limbs, let alone coordinate a revival of their friend. They yawned as one. The hot, stuffy room; the asphyxiating stench of corpses; the thickness of the muggy atmosphere…there was no respite. The lullaby-like tones of the speaker lapped around their ears like docile waves lapping at the shores of oblivion.
“Eh-eh-ehhhnd,” stuttered the incompetent orator, “theyuh wurz signif-fi-fi-fi-kent riise in prorfits this turm.”
“I don’t care…” Nudds, “I really…don’t…care.”
“Fur-fur-further morh, we don’t hahv to wuhry about hour compeitors gainainainaining any gr-gr-ground awn us, b’cauz we’ve elimmmm-inated the majority awf risk by fi-fi-fi-fi-firing almost awl of hour staff.” The New Yorker had barely finished the sentence before Nudds – struggling against the tide of sleep that was pulling him under – followed Sean’s lead and crashed into the hard ground. Seconds later Slug gave a whimpering cry and succumbed to the boredom of the quarterly report, and, with a deep, defeated sigh, LIO keeled over and lay prone alongside his pals.
Only Driscollus remained and, as he stood there, watching guard over his slumbering friends, a piercing shriek stopped the speaker dead. One of the corpses near the front had started to move and, with the last dregs of resolve, was edging closer and closer to the distant door on the far wall of the office that led to the outside world; to fresh air; to freedom. The speaker looked at the jerky corpse with curiosity and detestation. And then, without warning or build-up, he barked a series of words at the struggling cadaver.
“TAX!”
“Noooo,” wailed the dying man.
“INCOMETAX!”
“Giiiiiarrrghhh!”
“SCRIPS, DRIPS, and PAPER CLIPS!”
“MOTHER OF GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!”
There was a poignant silence. The orator stepped down from the micro-stage from which he had orchestrated the carnage that spanned the many metres between him and the last conscious observer of the bloody scene – Driscollus the tree-man. The spectacled speaker knelt down by the man whose ragged suit was stained with blood, and piss, and shit, and tears, and whispered:
“Custody.” The man dropped dead. The speaker rose; his pallid complexion making him appear to Driscollus as a spirit escaping its physical bonds. Their eyes met across the room and Driscollus felt a cold sap dripping down the seat of where he should have been wearing pants. He looked at his little friends – each and every one of them in slumber-land, and close to death. What were they thinking of at that moment? What perverted pictures played through their worn-out minds? What would be the last imprint of their consciousness when the speaker finished what a few choice words had begun..?

The reverie of Nudds:
I am Nudds. I am King. What would the world be like if drugs were legal? Clean, top-grade cocaine sold over the counter; imported legally – never to know the soft, fleshy cage of the smuggler’s anus. What a tragedy that would be. Coke is one thing. Who doesn’t snort a bit of Charlie? I know I do. Tony Blair was off his tits on the shit. But really…where will it end? A cheeky line of china white on lunch break is alright – I can handle my drugs! Havin’ a laugh! But it’s the smack that gets me down. Can you imagine buying proper hard Aunt Hazel from boots? “Alright love, I’ll have a pack of Jonnies, a box of Rusks, and a seven% solution.” And then you’d get every bobby dazzler wired to the mains, snortin’ the talc and powdering baby’s bum-bum with a bit of snow. Legend. I took acid once. It was shit. But weed! Who doesn’t smoke a bit of weed? My old mam smokes a pipe for fucks sake. A pot-pipe, at her age! Blow me. Look at the Dutch, they’ve got it right. All you need is canals. Stick a fucking canal in the middle of Brixton and its suddenly capital of fucking culture 2010. Think about old Gordon Brown trying to found a string of sex-clubs in Buckinghamshire. No chance. Whack a canal in there though and all of a sudden Tesco metro start selling gift cards for three-way anal sex games and you can pick up a value harness on your weekly shop.

The reverie of Slug:
One days I wakes up and I has legs AND better than that! I has a real willy! A whole one to my selfsies. And its rather big. Like a baby twixt me thighs!

The reverie of LIO:
There are too many people in the world. Too many, god damn useless people. I reckon if we shave the population down by about 5.5 billion, the world would be left with a manageable population. You could have like, I don’t know, twenty people per country. Loads of space. But I guess Luxembourg wouldn’t have room for twenty so maybe adjust the number relative to siz. Say, three burly men for Germany, four or five sultry Spanish maidens for the Iberian peninsula, and one small girl for Luxembourg. Maybe a wee lad in Belgium. Now with that kind of spread you could change things. It’d all run smoothly ‘til the Jerries invade Luxembourg and plunder the little girl. But needs must. It’s hardly the holocaust is it so all’s well! I’ll have Edinburgh. Nudds can have Manchester, or maybe Sheffield. We can have races on the M1 and Gordon Brown won’t be able to stop us from staying up late and playing SNES. That’s the life. Now all I need is a handgun and a bit of time…

The Reverie of Sean.
I really want this. I need it. This is my chance to be something. Here I am, standing on a stage, shitting ma breaks, with a huge audience waiting my solo performance of Celine Dion’s ‘my heart will go on’. Because of the spotlights the crowd is all but invisible to me, but I can feel them there, bearing down on me…expectations high…
The year is 2021 and television has had to up the ante to compete with super-realistic computer games and legalised crack. Britain’s got talent ain’t what it used to be. I see Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and the Tasty crumpet that is Amanda Holden. Man, I’d love to spread jam all over her boobs. So it’s my shot, but I’m nervous. Well nervous. The seven year old ballerina that performed right before me got three Xs and was dropped through a trapdoor into a gigantic, glass-fronted tank full of ravenous crocodiles. She was torn to shreds. I can still hear her mum screaming. Three acts prior, a little boy and his dog committed a few acts that, under Tony Blair’s evangelical rule, would’ve seen him banged up in Strangeways for four and twenty summers. Needless to say he was buzzed out of there and shot – just once – through the jugular. There was a bit of a delay after that – there was a lot to clear up, but the crowd loved it. Now it’s my turn. If I fail I’ll be in for a forfeit that may well cost me my life and if not that, my integrity/sanity at the very least.
So I step out to rapturous applause and under the sultry, cock-arresting pout of Amanda Holden. I break into song and even before I get to the rousing key-change when you realise Jack is dead and not coming back, my voice wavers and Piers hits the button. Simon soon follows and I plead with Amanda with my eyes for mercy. But there’s an odd smile on her face and she hits the buzzer anyway. The crowd go silent as they wait for a trapdoor to open or a gunshot to ring out, but nothing. Then, as if in a dream, Amanda Holden stands up and walks on stage. She slides on smooth, caramel-coloured shoulder out from beneath her red dress and beckons me towards her. I stagger, unable to believe my luck and, by the time I’ve reached her, her dress is on the floor and she’s wearing nothing but black stockings and a provocative grin. I spring to attention and am about to fill my boots when she holds up a hand to stop me in my tracks. I feel the lingering presence of two, heaving, masculine bodies behind me. I look over my shoulder tentatively while the crowd giggles with sordid anticipation. Piers Morgan is totally naked and Simon Cowell has his wrinkled midget-cock pocking through the specially elongated fly of his high-rise chinos. I swallow hard and accept my lot. Amanda arranges herself on the stage and, doing my best to focus on the split second of pleasure I will enjoy with her and her alone, I step up and slide in balls-deep only to have bliss bastardised a second later as Piers bloody Morgan rams his tabloid sized nob up my jacksy. I wince but carry on. The crowd love it. Simon Cowell, grinning from ear to ear, positions himself to the fore and, due more to the motion of Piers Morgan’s ceaseless thrusting. I am forced to accept Simon Cowell’s meagre offering in my gob. Amanda’s enjoying it though, and it’s a damn sight better than the crocodiles, but if only Piers would stop that grunting; that animalistic quivering; the cruel scratching of his untrimmed fingernails on my coaly back, I might be able to enjoy being knee-deep in Amanda Holden. He shakes violently. His back contracts. I close my eyes and wait for the money shot. Amanda moans. And I…

The whole room shook.
The speaker fell from his stage, bashed his head on the edge of the table and lost consciousness. The group awoke, one by one, to see Driscollus lying face down. The felling of the mighty oak had saved the day! His crashing to earth had stirred them all from their private reveries. Nudds cheered and hugged LIO. He went to high-five Sean who looked severely traumatised and massively guilty, like he had been caught having a Tommy tank by his grandma who insisted he carry on and she watch so she could see how they did it ‘these days’.
“Driscollus, you diamond!” cried Nudds, skipping around the now silent room. “You did it! We’re free!”

Stanza eight

Out of the caves,
Not a moment to soon,
It felt like an age,
Since they’d last seen the moon,
And there it did hang,
In the sky up above,
The were close to the end,
Of their mission of love,
With the betrayer in debt,
He did swear on his horn,
That he fight to the death,
To free the trapped ‘corns,
Who still after years,
Were prisoners of war,
And prayed that their saviour,
Would open the door…

“We are close now,” whispered the Betrayer as they slunk through a dense forest – the finger-like roots tugged at the hems of their trousers as they ran – their passage illuminated by the silvery threads of the moon that wove and draped a comforting blanker across the nightscape.
“My horn is tingling,” said Nudds who, in his tiredness, ha accepted the kind offer made by Sean to mount and ride Betsy. Sean had insisted. Ever since he had come-to in the board room he had shunned physical contact with other living creatures and particularly despised the gentle rocking motion that was afforded those who sat astride the dried-up old ewe.
Suddenly the trees – that had so recently been too dense and scraggly to see through – parted and before them rose from the earth – like a corded forearm and fist bursting through sheet ice and forever encapsulated in the moment of desperation to survive – a mountain of rubble. It erupted from the surface; the rock CAscading over itself in natural plumes.
“There it is,” said the Betrayer in hushed tones. Nudds was too awestruck by the majesty of his forgotten home to notice that the squat, gingery bastard was wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.
“My home…” uttered the reminiscent king. Without warning a memory flashed into his mind. Was it his? He could not tell. It seemed the consciousness of his brethren abounded those straits which they had traversed. They were inundated with the severed thoughts of the forgotten race that hung in the air like a bad smell.
On a genuinely olfactory note, however, the air was fresh and crisp and smelled of New Pine or one of those other non-descript air-freshener flavours. Like black ice. I mean what the fuck. What on earth does ‘black ice’ smell like? Like John Virgo’s aftershave, that’s what!
“Look,” said Sean tersely, “If you guys don’t mind, can we get a move on. I really need to get home for some counselling. I saw some bad things back there in the board room. Some horrible, horrible things…”
“Sean’s right,” said Nudds determinedly, “We mustn’t waste another second. I can hardly stand it – hearing their thoughts so loud! Help me, my friend!” He turned to the Betrayer who was resolutely eyeing up the gigantic mound of rubble.
“It hardly seems right to call you the betrayer now,” said Nudds, laying a hand on the suddenly stoic midget. “Not when we’re on the cusp of liberating our people.”
“I wronged them all…” he said, words catching in his throat. “I don’t deserve their forgiveness.”
“What you did is in the past…”
“I just want to be accepted…”
“And you shall be!”
“And loved…”
“That you will!”
“And all I want is to hear them call out my name! Cliff! Cliff! We love you! I saw it at Wimbledon once…it looked good.”
“We will have it all…Cliff. Fear not! But help me! Together our horn lasers can break the charm I placed around our people. Ready now…one…two…THREE!”
A mighty eruption of rainbow-coloured light spewed forth from the tips of their sodden horns. Pure emotion coursed through their veins, filling their dual lasers with enough energy to banish the curse of years before and break through the collapsed walls. Rubble flew up and around the group. Those who were not involved in the spell covered their eyes with their hands and arms. Sean hid behind Betsy. A minute later the spell had been broken and before the league of extraordinary misfits and gaping tunnel loomed.
“We did it,” said Nudds in an echoic tone, “We broke the spell!”
From the deep, lightless hollow the distant sound of melodic laughter and the snap of lather on bum-cheek could be heard. The titillating sounds were carried to the groups’ confused ears on the back of a bassy, orgasmic moan.
“What the Dickens are they doing in there?” said LIO, cupping his ear and learning into the gaping orifice.
“Sounds…loose,” said Nudds. This was not how he had imagined his triumphant return to his home land. He had imagined fanfares and streamers; fireworks and illuminations; brass bands and blowjobs. Looks like the last part was the only one close to the mark.
“Well…” said the horny little king, “I guess we’d better investigate.” And with that, he stepped over the threshold, shuddering as he did so. The stench of old sweat hung in the air. And there was something else…the smell of…well, let’s just say it smelt like the unaired bedroom of a fourteen year old boy the morning after his girlfriend – a young strumpet of dubious character – had been over to stay and had left without her Primark knickers before dawn. They travelled deep into the moist tunnels that twisted and turned to the core of the mountain when all of a sudden the burrow through which they had been walking, opened out into an enormous, high-ceilinged cavern of gold. From their vantage point, which was about halfway up the wall of the circular cave they were staring out across, they could see it all – all of the Lepracorns kingdom. In the very centre of the domed cavern, was an enormous golden fountain – a statue in the image of the late Lord Xandor of whose betrayal the poor fools had been unaware. From Xandor’s generous gusset, streams of water poured forth and filled a multi-tiered moat that fanned out from the base of the golden effigy until it merged eventually, with the concentric canals that, despite appearing flat as a pancake, were brimful with flowing water that whizzed around and around in an anti-clockwise direction. The majority of the cavern was filled with these canals or other similar forms of irrigation, but it appeared that the presence of the canal system was as much for fun as it was agriculture for on the crest of the never ending waves that began with Xandor’s crotch and continued at high-speed until they disappeared off into unmarked caverns, through cast-iron grates, were tens upon tens of happy-looking Lepracorns skidding along on inflatable rings and yelping with joy and mindless excitement at the top of the squeaky voices.
But this was an afterthought – a forgettable quirk of the background – when considering the scene that dominated the fore. Our heroes stood with no little unease, in full view of a hundred or so Lepracorns indulging in a spot of kinky horn-play. Most of them were coupled, but there was the odd group of three or more dotted around, with one particularly memorable scene that included seven male Lepracorns doing their homosexual best to impersonate a daisy chain.
Most of our heroes turned away, but Nudds could not. He watched, slack-jawed, as his kinsfolk poked, infiltrated and rammed each other to a state of apoplectic frenzy. He was so taken-aback he had not the strength or inclination to stop Cliff from having a danger-tug. No one noticed anyway. In fact, Nudds and LIO stood out like sore thumbs. Coal born was alright because he was naturally filthy. Driscollus was inexhaustible fodder for ‘got wood’ jokes, so he was okay. Ol’ Betsy had enjoyed more cock than Jenna Jameson and that kind of experience can be seen in the eyes. And as for Slug…well…he just looked like a nob.
“What…is…going…on!?” said Nudds, alerting the nearest couple to his presence. It was his mum and dad.
“Hi son!” said his father, in too blasé a tone for a corn who had not seen his own flesh and blood for nearly twenty years. “You look well.” Not for one second did the aging corn, whose abs were chiselled from years of kinky horning, miss a thrust, a pump or squirt. He relentlessly pounded Nudds’s mum in the fashion one often dreams of dismantling an HR rep: remorselessly; degradingly; unyieldingly.
“What are you doing…dad..?” said Nudds, taking the revelation of his parentage in stride.
“I’m servicing your mum, son. There’s sod all else to do down here. We’ve been at it for years. Doesn’t take much mental energy, you know? In fact, come to think of it, the blanker your mind, the easier it is! Actually, come to think of it, I haven’t come to think of anything for nigh on twenty years. What’s that voice I can hear in my head, son?”
“That’s your conscience, dad. We reattached it.”
“Oh blimey,” said the older corn, stopping for the first time, in his relentless pummelling of Mrs Nudds’s experienced hide. Nudds’s dad looked the king up and down. Nudds himself avoided eye-contact where possible – it is very hard to have a conversation of any seriousness with your father while he is buried balls deep in your mum. “The shit is about to hit the fan. As soon as everyone realises they’re able to realise stuff, they’ll realise they’re naked and broad-daylight-boning.”
“You know what, dad,” said Nudds, studying the ceiling, “You’re just as eloquent as I’d hoped.” His wryness was lost on his father.
“Thanks, son. Means a lot to hear you say that. Been a rough ride, these past twenty years. I used to be a scholar you know? Professor of geology. But I’ve been up to my nuts in your mam’s guts for so long now I doubt I could tell the difference between quartz or calcite anymore.”
Nudds whirled on his heal and glared at Cliff. He was doing his laudable best to avoid the graphic scene of penetration with which he was confronted.
“Betrayal is one thing,” the king fumed, “imprisoning a race is another. Consigning an entire culture the annals of history I can just about handle…but nothing in my remarkably fraught life could have prepared me for…this. I do NOT enjoy meeting my bloody father while he’s tatties deep in my MUM!”
“It’s only natural darling,” said his mother, speaking for the first time through the mouthfuls of pillow on which she’d been biting.
“Mum, I love you unconditionally and all,” Nudds refused to look at his mother’s flushed cheeks, “But if you could not talk to me when your ass is winking at the sun, I’d appreciate it.”
“Righto love. Would you like a biscuit?” She offered him a digestive. A chocolate one.
“Yeah…thanks.” He took it. It was a chocolate one after all. Yum. Shaking himself out of his almost numbed state, his fury returned and he glowered at Cliff once more. “You,” he said, pointing an accusing finger, “You degraded them…they’re animals!”
“They look pretty happy,” observed Cliff as a buck in the near-distance blew his beans over the pert chest of a young Cheryl Cole-esque Lepraqueen.
“They’re a virulent bunch of aids-ridden bum-broncos! They’re an inbred colony of sexually active shag-monkeys, rife with disease and nonchalant t’wards their ills! You did this! You butt-raped a nation!”
“I’m just saying,” said Cliff, holding his hands up in defence, “That they seem to be enjoying the butt-raping. That’s all I’m saying. Just gonna throw that out there.”
“I will deal with you later,” growled Nudds, returning his gaze to his father who, although the possessor of a legendary and oft aspired-to level of prowess, had reached the point of no return and was making the sort of face one would associate with bulldogs, piss and thistles.
“Champion,” he said, letting out a long, wheezing breath. “Thanks love.” He patted Mrs Nudds on the backside and hopped off, helping himself to a digestive on the way.
“Dad,” said Nudds, “What’s that stuff on your horn?”
“What, this?” said the panting patriarch, snapping a shard of greenish crust from the base of his bum-baster. Nudds nodded. “Ah, we’ve all got a bad case of horn-rot, my boy. All this shagging leaves its mark, I’m afraid.”
“All of you?”
“Every last one. We’re infested.”
“Good lord…that’s awful!”
“You get used to it. It’s kind of like having a rubbish job. You put up with the scummy shit that grows over your soul, because you get paid or, in our case, laid for the bother.”
“We have to get you out here! There are doctors who could help you!”
Nudds’s father hung his horn and shook his head as he said: “It’s too late, son. We’re a doomed race. The only flipside to our lot is that we now have nought to live for but pleasure.”
“Dad we have to go,” said Nudds, suddenly taken by a dizzy feeling that sent him staggering around the caves.
“Son, what is it?”
“I feel dizzy, dad…like all my inhibitions are leaving my body…” As the reeling king spoke, the rest of his party began to sway. Tottering from side to side, weaving around and about each other. LIO collapsed with a shudder.
“Ah, it’s the gas,” said Papa Nudds prophetically.
“The…gas?” wheezed Nudds.
“Yes. Our perennially sweaty bodies let off a heady musk that intoxicates the mind making it even more prone to sexual deviance. That’s why we’ve been at it for so long. It’s a vicious circle.”
“What…should I…do?” gasped Nudds as he felt the lucidity of thought leave him.
“Go with it! There’s plenty of young maidens around for you to bounce! Fill your boots son, and your mates too. That wooden chap will be a real hit! Not so sure about the coaly bitch through. I know, set him alight. The girls love a hot bit of stuff, eh? What? Eh?”
“Very…good…dad,” said Nudds as his consciousness succumbed and his raging mastodon of an erection took over his being.

Stanza Nine

So all through the night,
The young king did hump,
Blowing on tits,
And nibbling on rump,
But come the bright morn,
As the fresh air appeared,
The young king did realise,
The worst of his fears,
For twixt his taught thighs,
And upon his sharp horn,
Was a crusty green lesion;
The curse of the ‘corn,
His bonking had left,
Him cruelly diseased,
He knew that his missus,
Would not be best pleased,
So he rallied his troops,
The return of the king,
And on their long journey,
He’d buy her a ring,
Marriage would ease,
That guilt deep inside,
But the scab on his horn,
He’d endeavour to hide.

“What happened last night?” said Sean. He was slumped over Betsy’s back. His arms hung down by her withered flanks and, every so often, a jet of projectile vomit would spew from his chapped lips and splatter around Nudds’s feet. The king, who was walking alongside his coaly mate, didn’t seem to mind. With every step his curly little pixie shoes were become more and more covered in sick, and yet not once did he pause in his tireless march home to chastise his irresponsibly hung-over friend, or to change his slip-ons for a clean pair of fresh-smelling brogues.
“What do you think happened, Sean? What do you think?” snapped Nudds.
“Well…” said the coalman, squeezing every available fibre of effort he could summon into scouring his brain for something at least resembling a memory. “I feel like I got drunk and had sex with about a hundred women.”
“Lepraqueens…”
“Yeah…Lepraqueens, but unless I was absolutely toasted I couldn’t have been drunk, because I don’t even remember the intention to drink. Let alone drinking itself.”
“That’s because there was no drink,” said Nudds tersely. “It was gas. We were drugged out of our minds on sexy Lepracorn fumes. And we all…filled our boots.”
“And a lot more!” said LIO, who was walking with a confident, John Wayne-esque swagger.
“Yep,” smiled a subdued Driscollus, “If I’d bottled all the sap I leaked last night I would’ve made packet.”
“A load, even,” chuckled Cliff, who too was grinning from ear to ear. Behind our intrepid travellers, the Lepracorns followed. At the front of the horny pack were an abundance of Lepraqueens who had received a right royal servicing the night before at the horn of Nudds. They kept giggling and cooing for the boys up front to stop and pay them some attention. They were enjoying varying degrees of success. Driscollus, LIO and Cliff were winking and pointing and shouting lewd things back at them, much to their delight. Sean kept throwing up in their general direction, which he meant as a compliment was received a mixed reception, whilst Nudds ignored the harem of harlots into which he had ploughed his previously faithful horn. He was racked with guilt and compelled to act. He wanted to show Amy how much he loved her so he had resolved to buy her an engagement ring and propose immediately upon their return.
This is the way men deal with guilt. They are so unused to feelings of any kind they do very, very crazy things whenever their uncontrollable hormonal responses come a knockin’.
On a cheery note, the mission had been a success and the Lepracorns were free. But another fear festered in the back of the king’s mind. The icky fungus that they had all contracted through frequent, unprotected, genuinely filthy sexual contact, was spreading – it’s effects unknown or, at least, concealed by the Lepracorns who all went a shifty shade of red and lost the ability to speak in anything but a mumble whenever the topic was raised by the curious group of travellers who had given them their freedom.
On the frequent – and by this point, embarrassingly direct – occasions that Nudds inquired as to the prognosis of one with horn-rot, he was faced with blank stares and drifting sentences of vague content. The spreading spore sat heavy on his mind as his kingdom came into view.
Their trek had lasted months, but since this is going on a bit (as usual) and nothing remotely interesting or amusing happened over its duration, forgive me for skipping what would have been a long, exceedingly tedious account of jack-shit.
“Wow,” said LIO, as Nudds’s castle appeared from behind a range of lush green hills that I have thus far failed to mention, but felt would add a tangible, cinematic quality to this scene – much like the bit in Land Before Time, when Littlefoot and his Dinosaur pals find the green valley (they did it – they did it together). “It’s a palace fit for a king,” he added, rather unnecessarily.
“And within it my queen awaits!” said Nudds, sucking it up and charging ahead of the group who were, at the sight of the majestic spires, whooping with delight and non-sexual ecstasy.
The young king barrelled through the unlocked doors of his mighty citadel and careered up the winding flights of stairs that led to his beloved’s chamber. He burst through the door to find her reclining on a rocking chair, leafing through the latest copy of Attitude with a guilty look on her face.
“My sweet!” he cried.
“Nudds! My darling! You have returned to me!”
“Returned triumphant, my little cherry tree! And with much in my heart to bear to you.”
“Bear it – bear it all over my face!” she implored. Now, usually I would be tempted to graphically describe a rampant love scene, in which Nudds – voracious little horn-doggy, that he is – would mercilessly drill his sex-starved missus. But this is a love scene, and the actual smashing-up that is heavily alluded to will follow his overblown speech. I’m not going to go into detail. I think I’ve exhausted my capacity for colourful metaphors. Make it up yourselves. But remember: it’s got to be messy.
“I love you, Amy. I love you more than words can say.” This is convenient – had Nudds’s eloquence extended to the realms of romantic expression you might have been in for an epic divulgence of heartfelt claptrap. As it was I can use this opportunity to say that the coming proposal will be much to the liking of Driscollus who has, for the duration of this story, been silently contemplating an occasion on which he might get chance to wear his finest wedding day Polo-sack, which he sewed himself from Sports World off-cuts.
“I love you too.”
“Amy…while I was away I did some thinking. There isn’t anyone else in this whole imaginary world that I’d rather spend my pathetic life with… Will you…marry me, Amy?”
There was an tense pause, inserted solely to create dramatic effect, because her answer is bleeding obviously going to be:
“Yes, yes! A thousand times yes!” they embraced and…well, now it’s over to you to imagine the most uncomfortable, anti-climatic 27 seconds-including-undressing-time experience of his fiancée’s seasoned life.


Stanza Ten

After the grimmest coital snippet of Amy’s life was over, and their engagement announced to the cheering masses, she retired to her private quarters and studied the life-size posters of Chad Michael Murray, Brad Pitt (in fight club – Ooo la la!) and Stone Cold Steve Austin that decorated her walls. She sighed. She was tied for life to a pint-sized midget for whom her feelings had waned since his departure. With him gone she had overseen the running of the CMS and found that sole-power was to her liking. Things had almost been better in the Xandor days. At least he had a fuzzy beard which had, once upon a time, tickled her thighs. She felt a sudden pang of grief for her dead son, Daniel Charles, whose slimy offspring had returned with Nudds and reminded her of his unique charms. Nudds, however unwitting in those days, had been an active member of the resistance that led to the death of both men in her life. How could she love him after that? Sure, when the war finished she had been swept up in the optimism of change, and fallen for him genuinely. His horn was prolific. She had enjoyed their fledgling courtship but now…things were changing again. With the Lepracorns’ return she felt the world was on the brink of a new dawn and she – the soon to be queen of CMS – was steering the ship over the horizon.
Soon her chance would come to wrench power from her spouse, whose obvious infidelity had rankled her beyond belief. No one fucks with Amy Galveston and lives to tell the tale. Following a barrage of senseless, painfully ignorant e-mails, the spiteful black-widow will pounce and devour. No trace will be left.
But how to depose Nudds? He was annoyingly diligent in his duties, and a well-loved king. Straight-up regicide would not go down well and, in a land that still permitted the death penalty – administered via the Herzog method – nobody was safe. Getting herself killed was not on the agenda. She had to be smart. She had to wait for an opportunity.
And as fate, and the ostensible desire of the author to hurry this tale along to its conclusion, one such opportunity is about to present itself…NOW!
“Yeeeearrrrrrghhh!” came the blood-curdling scream from above. Amy hopped out of bed, kissed Chad Michael Murray’s airbrushed abs, adjusted her skewed night-dress and dashed out of her room in the direction of the sound.
“Yeeeeerrrrrrggggg!” came the second cry. It was closer now. It was coming from Nudds’s room. Her heart fluttered with hope – maybe he was having a heart attack! Result! She’d always said those two Pepperami’s a day would be the end of him. Serves him right the porky little bitch.
She burst through the door and was confronted with a sight the finest words of Bram Stoker would struggle to do justice.
Lying, curled-up in the foetus position in the middle of a wine-red rug, was Nudds. His skin was grey and cracked like dodgy masonry; his horn was translucent and iridescent like diamond; his eyes were red and blazing with the fury of a thousand women scorned. Every few seconds his increasingly granitic body was overtaken by violent convulsions, accompanied by a gut-churning howl.
“Help me,” he growled gutturally.
“What’s happening to you?” she asked, feeling in that instant an overwhelming wave of guilt for planning his demise. Now that he was on death’s door she found herself reconsidering her feelings. There was, at least, a shred of love left in her heart for him.
“The infection…” he spluttered through plumes of scarlet blood that dripped down his chin, “It’s spreading. The others. Find the others. Quickly! Secure the castle!”
He wailed again, but she had already taken flight and was sprinting down the corridors, banging on doors and knocking people up with desperation. A few curious heads appeared and started discussing what might be going on, but she didn’t stop to explain. She sprinted on, rousing as many able-bodies as she could. She was ten feet from the doors to the great banquet hall where all the others Lepracorns had taken up residence when a cry, ten thousand times as deafening and spine-chilling as Nudds’s ripped through the otherwise still night. She stopped dead in her tracks. There was silence. Then there was laughter. A creepy, maniacal laughter. At first there was but one voice, but it was soon joined by another, and another, and another, until every single one of the disease-ridden gargoyles that had, just a few hours before been happy, smiling Lepracorns, was cackling in unison.
She stood, rooted to the spot. What could she do? The corns within the hall had obviously survived the painful transformation process. There was thousands of them. And she was but one.
“I’m afraid all hell is about to break loose,” came a voice that she thought she recognised from behind her. There was a faint recollection of that voice – like the memory of a dream; of something not quite right; of something out of tune…
She swivelled on her heels slowly, until she was facing the monstrosity who had addressed her.
It was Nudds. But it wasn’t. He was only recognisable by the cheeky twinkle in his now red eyes. His skin was grey as a Mancunian sky and crackled and split with every ragged breath he took. From his shoulder blades, through his tattered clothes, hooked, leathery wings had sprouted. The slate-coloured membrane quivering as his whole body – still in shock from the agonising transformation – shook and trembled. Sharpened teeth lined his jaws – standing to attention like regimented soldiers, garbed inn ivory armour. They gnashed at the howls of his kin, saliva dripping between them.
“What have you become?” she asked, cowering at the sight of his mutilated form. He was a grotesque; a beast; a freak show; a monster.
“I have become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. It is time for me to leave the CMS and go on to pastures new; to lay to waste those who stand in my way. I want to be king of the world and, with my new strength, nothing will be able to stop me from attaining my goal!”
“You’re mad,” she whimpered. Funny how just a few long-winded paragraphs ago she had the upper hand. Not now, though. Now she was shitting herself.
“MINIONS!” Nudds’s voice boomed from his stony maw. It echoed in his cheeks as a bomb-blast would a high-ceilinged cavern. There was silence from the great hall. A horrible, eerie silence that was more terrifying than the inhuman chatter of the newly spawned gargoyles. Then, as if to mark the very second that the sun rose on this new and awful dawn, the doors to the banqueting hall were flung open, with such force that the hinges were jarred in their settings and chunks of dislodged masonry jumped from the wall. From the cloud of dust and smoke that billowed in the ingress, the first of many squat, hulking forms emerged. It was Nudds’s dad. He too had become a winged rock-monster and as the rest of their race followed him through the doorway, it became apparent that none had avoided that fate.
“Ah, my people,” said Nudds, his voice slithering across the gap between him and his igneous army – a gap populated by nought but Amy’s rigid form. “Too long you have dwelt in the shadows. Today you will bask in the sun of a new world! A world that will be ours! The world of man.”
There was a rapturous cheer from the crowd. Towards the back, one of the less experienced Lepracorns had a bit of an accident that his father watched with shame.
“Clean that up,” he whispered, “Now is not the time. We’re going to war. Didn’t you hear?”
“Nudds, don’t do this!” cried Amy, feeling that nothing but catastrophe would follow the assault on the real world.
“Out of my way, wench!” Nudds shoved her aside. That’d teach her for sending so many ignorant e-mails. Nudds arched his back and, with a mighty roar, unleashed a beam of such intense light from his horn, all those present had to shield their eyes. The laser cut through the ceiling and the roof, sending a spree of rubble raining down, and on into the sky where it seemed to meet some resistance before tearing through and invisible barrier. The penetration was accompanied by a biblical clap of thunder as the portal to the world of humans began to widen. “To the skies my winged bunch of freaks! Through the gap in the heavens! We will march on them today! We will be victorious! And all the worlds will be under our control!”
“But Nudds,” said Amy, clinging to the tattered shreds of his green velvet tunic, “You have plenty here…why make them suffer? Why? You worked so hard to protect them! Why!?”
“We protect the week so we appear good,” smiled the king with a malicious grin, “We sustain them. We have the power to pull them up to our level, but we do not. We force them to languish in an impoverished limbo so they depend on us. And when we decide, the rug will be pulled from beneath their feet so suddenly that they will not see us coming. We will be richer and they will cease to exist. ‘tis the way of things, my queen. ‘tis the way of the CMS.”

And so to the skies,
The gargoyles did take,
With Nudds at their helm,
And blood-thirst to slake,
Through the gap in the sky,
To our world they did go,
Will they defeat us?
Well, nobody knows!
With Andrew and Jo,
Still there to protect,
The hatred of Nudds,
We might yet deflect,
But the young king was keen,
And unbendingly cruel,
He’d slaughter and pillage,
His way to our rule,
Behind him was Amy,
With her nerves ever twitching,
And to make matters worse,
Her foo-foo was itching,
That horny invader,
Had left her diseased,
And fled from the scene;
(She was not best pleased),
So come back again,
There remains only one
Part to this tale,
And then I’ll be done.

I promise. X


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