Fort Awesome

I had been thinking about how out of touch with nature I am. I drive to work in my metal car. I watch computer-generated films on my DVD player at night. When I sleep, it is on a bed of circuits and lies.

I suppose that’s the reason that I first started to eat handfuls of dirt - to feel more at one with nature. It was only one or two a week to start with. After a long day, I’d nip out to the back garden, before my wife got home, and help myself to a lovely mound of moist soil.

At first you think it’s not all that nice, but, let me tell you, it grows and grows and grows on you. Soon you’re appreciating the nutty, bitter nuances of it’s flavour, and comparing different sections of your garden, to find which has the best bite to it. And the way it makes you feel - wow. I can’t really get it across here. It’s as if, your whole life, you’ve been living in orange packaging, but now the packaging is green, and it’s good for the environment. It as no artificial colours or flavours.

It didn’t take long for me to work up to a good two handfuls a day - one first thing in the morning with my coffee, and then another after my working day was done. Those were some of the best days of my life, really they were.

Of course, I couldn’t stop at two handfuls a day. Not with soil so good. I got so I would sneak it to work worth me, in my coat pocket so that I could chew on it as I typed. It attracted many stares. My colleagues started to ask questions, and were never satisfied with my answers.

Eventually my wife caught me hunched over her pansies, stuffing fistful after fistful of rich earthy goodness into my gaping, salivating mouth. For a long time, she said nothing at all. We just sort of stared at each other. Me, with the brown wrong of soil all down my chin and shirt, looking up like a child caught in the clandestine act of onanism, and her, with her woman’s face and ways, looking back on me like a disgusted, disappointed parent.

After what seemed like forever, it was me who broke the silence. “Oh Daddy,” I said through teeth caked in mud and worm-halves, “Oh I’m so sorry”. As I started to sob, and reach up to those hands, those hands that had caressed me in happier times, she moved away from me, her face sour and twisted beyond recognition. “You fucker…” she said “…you fucker”. And she walked away.

More fool her, I say. Now I have my pick of the soil, and I can eat it whenever I like. I don’t even go to work any more - who needs work when you have all the food and love you need in the fields and in the grass verges of any town in England?

And that’s where you’ll find me - the grass verges - digging up handfuls of wonderful, wonderful soil and scoffing it away, pausing only to vomit or sing a little song now and then. That’s where you’ll find me - the fields - pressing my body against the earth, licking at the bounty it has laid before me and sobbing great big, blissful sobs. Living as nature intended. That’s where you’ll find me. Yeah…

An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman walk into a bar. The Englishman goes up to the barman and says: “I’d like a pint of your finest beer please.” The barman says: “I’m sorry sir, we’re only serving shit beer tonight. Can I interest you in a pint of something that tastes like a homeless man’s sweat?” “No thanks, I’m good,” Says the Englishman, and off he goes to a different bar.

Next the Scotsman goes up to the barman. “I’d like a pint of your finest beer please,” he says. “I’m sorry,” says the barman, “we’re only serving shit beer tonight. Can I interest you in something that tastes like it sputtered out the back end of a sick horse?” “No thanks,” replies the Scotsman, “I’m good.” And off he goes to a different bar.

Finally, up goes the Irishman. “I’d like a pint of your finest beer,” he says to be barman. “I’m sorry,” replies the barman, “we’re only serving shit beer tonight. Can I interest you in something that tastes like raw egg that’s been sitting in the sun for seventy two hours?”

And the Irishman says…

…something really stupid.

In the blackness of my inner dark,
My pain, a simple moth,
Is guided by a beacon of pure, white light,
Through forests, endless charcoal forests,
Pining, questioning, searching.

A lonely bat in the silent cave of my soul.

On it flies, on and on, through the senseless, restless twilight,
Until it settles, as fragile as the first snowflake of winter,
On your tits.

Dear Mr. Roffle,

We here at Stranglex Ltd, the UK’s largest Donkey Strangling enterprise, are delighted to inform you that you have been successful in your application to join us in the role of Donkey Disposal Technician. This short pamphlet will serve as your introduction to what we do here at Stranglex, and how you will play a key role in our vision for the future of throttling donkeys, foals, deer, and small horses.

First of all, you will need to attend one of our training weeks. While in training, you will learn the best way to wrap your hands tightly around an animal’s neck, restricting the flow of blood and oxygen to its brain, and hold them there as it snorts and writhes its life away, finally flopping, spent, to the ground like so much limp meat. You will learn the different types of grip we use, our many corpse disposal techniques, and will be introduced to CleanSleeps™ - the pills that allow our technicians to rid their minds of the pleading whinnies, bulging eyes, and frantic, desperate stares of the animals during their last moments.

Once this training is complete, you will be dispatched into the field, along with your new “Best Friend”, a colleague who will show you the ropes (quite literally!!!), and guide you in your first tentative steps towards a successful career in the strangulation of small, defenceless hoofed animals.

We will call you shortly to inform you of the date of your training week. Until then, we advise that you practice your strangling on the nearest old man.

Yours Sincerely,

Scott Simons,
Recruitment Director,
Stranglex UK Ltd.

“The customer is our God now”