“…numbers 2, 29, 17, 6 and 34. The bonus number 20. Those winning numbers again…” I muted the radio. I didn’t need to hear twice. I didn’t want to hear twice. I just wanted to keep drinking down this beautiful feeling you get when you win ten million euro. I’m guessing that you’ve never experienced his, so I’ll try to explain it. As a child, did you ever run down a hill so fast that you couldn’t actually stop? If you haven’t, go now. It’s quite the experience, and costs less than comparable highs, such as glue. Now, imagine that you are running down that hill, but to cushion your inevitable faceplant you have a massive pile of €50 notes. Are you giggling? You should be. I know I was.
I had strolled into the local Spar, receiving the nod from the manager, fluorescent light reflecting from the sweat on his bald head. He had frowned when I detoured from my usual aisle - Bargains and Sell-By-Date Specials – and went toward the “Vice Counter”, as I like to call it. A parade of dazed and pasty soap opera ‘stars’ had gazed back from the shiny scandal-rags, trying to convince the overweight and middle-aged that celebrities were “just like us!” but with better publicists. Calorie-laden sugar highs had jostled for attention with authoritative cigarettes, who wore their warnings with indifference. Damages sperm? Who wants kids anyway?
I wouldn’t call myself a gambling man, but buying the occasional lottery ticket was my Dadaist way of getting back at the Man. As Keith had told me
“Buy food? That’s what He wants, man. All those E-numbers? Frickin’ mind control, man!”
It seemed that the manager cared deeply about my health, though. He had punched those numbers in himself, claiming that
“Fugghan Quik-Pik’s a bleedin’ scam boss. Never seen a Quik-Pik winner, ‘n oive sold thousands of the feckers!”
I was grateful – and not a little freaked out – by his kindness. His head seemed to be getting shinier by the minute, so I duly made my escape to my lodgings.
“Lodgings” are the best way to describe them. Once you lodged yourself in the narrow confines, it was very hard to become dislodged. The general design approach I had gone for was “cluster bombs filled with rubbish”. Several pizza boxes lingered in the corner from the heady days when I could afford such luxuries. They were on the cusp of sprouting legs and marching off to the bin anyway, so the scientist within me refused to dismantle the important experiment. In lieu of a sofa, I had piled all my clothing in the general shape of a beanbag. Next to the ‘beanbag’ was a coffee table – so named for the elaborate pattern of coffee-rings on the surface – with the Leaning Tower of Cigarette Butts perched precariously on the top. A desk slumped in the corner of the room like a tramp. It had been bought in a whirl of freshman enthusiasm, but I was quick to realize that ‘student’ was a misnomer: the true student couldn’t find a lecture hall with a map and compass. And that was just the Geography students. I’d describe the smell of the room, but I’ve just eaten, and the manuscript wouldn’t be accepted with recycled scrambled eggs on it, now would it? In short, it was a place Stig of the Dump would turn his nose up at.
I had crouched over my wind up radio - my landlord, who bears an unfortunate resemblance to an anorexic stick insect, rivals Ebenezer Scrooge for fuel consumption - and those glorious numbers had filled my box room. Not that that was an incredible feat. I smiled. What would I buy first?
“Oh Christ” moaned my liver.
I took out my 1980’s cop movie surplus mobile and dialed Keith’s number. I needed to get very mindless on as many illicit substances as possible, and Keith was the only man up to the task. His brain had long succumbed to the tug of various narcotics, and now his psychedelic-Swiss-cheese noggin responded to only three things: shiny objects, primary colours and more narcotics.
No signal. Honest to God, stepping into this flat is like going back to the Industrial Revolution; all that’s missing is the flat caps and elaborate facial hair. I ran down to the street, and Keith answered. I waited a few seconds for him to work out which end he spoke into, and began.
“Keith!”
A noise like a badger snuffling through leaves.
“Keith, come over to mine, we have to plan a night to forget!”
Notice how I start every sentence with his name; he thinks that you’re talking to someone else if you don’t address him.
“Dude, can we even, like fit in your apartment at the same time?”
“For someone who couldn’t pick himself out of a police line-up, you’ve got a clever mouth”
“Uh?”
Long sentences that aren’t punctuated by the word “like” tend to confuse him.
“Come. To. Mine. Now.”
End call.
I skipped back up the steps to my apartment, held my breath, turned sideways and stepped in. It’s hard to gasp when you’re holding your breath, but I did when I realized my ticket wasn’t where I had left it. I searched the room from top to bottom. It took roughly 47 seconds. I happened to glance towards the window and there it was. It looked like a tarred-and-feathered potato with random twigs for legs. But its seemingly scruffy body contained an evil, scheming brain and a black, shriveled excuse of a heart. The Magpie.
I ask you, dear reader, to recall the idea of running full tilt down a hill, only to land in a pile of €50 notes. Imagine if that pile turned out to be a very cleverly disguised pack of rabid wolverines that had just got root canal. They’re angry, they’re in pain, and you appear to them to be a punching bag full of painkillers. Moments before you are torn apart, your heart attempts to escape through your mouth, your internal organs try to vacate the premises by the “emergency exit” and your brain cryogenically freezes itself. That moment of sheer terror has enveloped your plucky narrator. Now multiply it by a number with lots of zeros. That’s what it’s like to watch €10 million fly out the window in the mouth of a vindictive villain.
I tore down the stairs, crashing through Keith.
“Dude…? Are you on America’s Most Wanted or something?”
“Follow! Magpie! €10 million! Now!” I screamed over my shoulder as I exploded through the door.
“Is the magpie on America’s Most Wanted?”
Keith’s car was pulled up on the pavement. He could only have parked closer if he had crashed through a wall or two. Being Keith, the car door was open and the engine was running. He must have thought he got a taxi or something. I leaped into the car, and was about to screech off Starsky & Hutch style till I noticed Mr. Potato Bird across the road, staring at me malevolently with its one eye. It performed a little jig of victory, flapping its tattered wings and stepping from one misshapen leg to the other. I hurtled across the road, followed by Keith. The bird took off through the park. I elegantly flipped over the fence and came to a soft landing in a pile of grass clippings.
“Good thing they didn’t lock that gate, man” Keith said, as he strolled past. It was a good thing that I had a football field worth of grass in my mouth, or someone would have got seriously offended. My battered little buddy wheeled toward a copse of trees, and we followed.
It landed in its lair: the upper branches of a monkey puzzle tree. Keith stared at the tree and scratched his head in confusion.
“How are you gonna get up there?” Keith asked.
“Assuming that I’m the one who’s climbing it?”
“It’s not my ticket, man” he grinned.
Back seat drivers. I don’t drive (how could I afford the insurance?) but I still find them annoying. However, back seat climbers rank on the annoyance scale around the same level as “railroad-spike-through-forehead”.
“Dude!” he called, “move your foot to the right!”
It was as if some malevolent animal had greased that exact spot up.
“Advice. Not. Wanted.” I grumbled through gritted teeth.
Several splinters, a torn pair of jeans and enough cursing to give a convent of nuns a heart attack later, I reached the nest. The numbers looked back at me from different parts of the nest. €10 million worth of refurbishment. Once again, I ask you to remember those enraged wolverines. A twist of fate has placed a machinegun and 10,000 rounds in your hands. You feel a grim resignation to the task that lies ahead. Sure, the wolverines are just angry because they got painful dental work done. Maybe on a different day, you’d find a shared love of the work of Gary Newman, and sit around drinking beer and singing “Cars”. But not today. Your trigger finger twitches. You are, to put it indelicately, gonna tear these sons-of-bitches a thousand new holes to breath through.
I didn’t have a Gatling gun, but I did have 10 tonnes of unrefined anger to spill on this miserable excuse of a nest. I was about to do a demolition job on the lair, when I noticed the trophies of his various evil shenanigans. Watches, earrings, gold chains…the Magpie had tangled with the wealthiest and had won. The once-evil spud had – indirectly – decided to go Robin Hood, and I was a lucky benefactor.
I got out of the tree the easy way. Once the dust had settled and I had checked my ribs, I dusted myself off, checked the time on my two new Rolex’s, confirmed it on my diamond-embedded Cartier and adjusted my Chanel earrings.
“An interesting look, I must say” murmured Keith.
It wasn’t exactly €10 million, but Keith and I managed to get hangovers sufficient to turn the Great Wall of China into a pleasant rockery, and the little Potato Bird keeps me in steak and cider. If only I could get all these needles out of my-
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I checked my watch. Late as usual. I silently willed the bus driver to drive faster than 30 miles a fortnight through the miserable, soaking January evening. Then again, no one was ever on time for practise so it didn’t make a shred of difference whether the bus driver continued his attempt to beat the Guinness World Record for Most Passengers Driven (ho ho) To Insanity by Crappy Driving.
I’m the lead singer and guitarist for the most inept band ever to torture an amplifier. I sing and play despite my extreme stage fright, ham-handedness and the fact that the combination of my voice and guitar skills would make deaf people wince with its unique sound of two scalded cats fighting. In a bag. At a road works.
And I’m my own biggest fan.
“Thanks” I muttered, my sarcasm lost on the bus driver who observed me from under his bushy eyebrows like a scientist would peer at a Petri dish. His glasses would have made good microscopes anyway. He finally managed to open the door and I stepped out of the bus, missing the kerb by several feet and ending up in an ankle deep puddle. Speccy the Bus Driver hadn’t quite reached the pavement. I squelched off towards Toms’ house.
Tom was our drummer. He was built like a minifridge (emphasis on mini) with the complexion of an overripe tomato, probably because when he wasn’t beating the hell out of his unfortunate drum kit
he was shouting. He was definitely the most talented of a bad bunch, saving our skins at many gigs with his nifty little solos distracting the punters from their efforts to extract a refund from our manager and keyboardist Jimmy Chon.
Jimmy, as he loved telling us, had played keyboard since he was six. This came as a surprise to most, seeing as he could barely play “Pop Goes The Weasel” let alone a concerto. He also made himself our manager because he knew how to get us gigs. The local pub? No, that would make sense. Instead we became the soundtrack to Chons’ massive extended family. Weddings, parties, anniversaries, you name it we played it. He even tried to get us to play his Great Aunt Xis’ funeral before his faulty common sense meter spluttered to life. Of course we could hardly expect him to ask his family to pay, could we? Actually, we could. And did. Several times, for all the good it did us.
The strains of crashing cymbals became louder than the squishing of my shoes as I got closer to Toms’ garage where we had our gear set up. Judging by the noise, Tom had begun without me. No wonder his mother had a permanent bewildered expression on her face with that cacophony going constantly, a thrumming backbeat that set her dishes shaking and ornaments flying.
I didn’t knock, no point in trying to compete with Tom. I stepped in to wall of noise that was the garage. Tom grinned at me, sweat glistening his shaved head and sticking his Panthera t-shirt to his chest.
“Ready to make some noise?” he said, his tongue stud glittering.
I nodded. I plugged in my guitar and cleared my throat. Just before we could continue the aural assault and battery, Jimmy burst in.
Water beaded his coat, a leather full-length number that he had rushed out to buy after he saw The Matrix. Unfortunately the coat made him look like a transvestite hooker from a distance.
“Lads, the recording studio called!” said Jimmy, brushing water out of his spiky black hair.
“Recording what?” asked two rather confused musicians.
“The deal is done, my friends!” continued Jimmy, oblivious to our expressions as he polished his glasses. My jaw made a plopping noise as it hit the floor.
“You actually persuaded someone to let us into their recording studio?” laughed Tom.
“Hey, he saw our last gig and he was well impressed!”
I shuddered. Our last gig was the talent show. Luckily they didn’t scan us for talent on the way in.
“Dude, I saw kids crying while we were playing!” I said.
“They were overcome by emotion!” replied Jimmy.
“Yeah, nausea and earache…” I muttered.
“When do they want us in?” asked Tom.
“Tomorrow afternoon” answered Jimmy.
“TOMORROW!?”? I shouted, resisting the urge to wrap my hands around his skinny neck. “We only have one song we wrote ourselves!”
“Please stop shouting, you’ll disturb Toms’ mother” soothed Jimmy. “One original song is fine for cutting a demo.”
That song had been the tearjerker at the talent show.
“That song violates human rights man. The only place we’re going to be allowed play it is Guantanamo Bay!” I said.
Jimmy rolled his eyes.
“Wait, that could work! We’ll do a live album Johnny Cash style!”
“Tom, what do you think?” said Jimmy, ignoring me completely.
I sang in my best Cash impression. “Guantanamo I hate every inch of you…” I crooned.
“Well, we’re definitely not prepared for something like this but it’s an opportunity we should grab, man” replied Tom, doing his best to disregard me.
“You’ve cut me and you’ve scarred me through and thruuuuuuuu…?”
I dodged the drumstick that whistled through the air that my head had been occupying.
“Ha ha! Reduced to one last shot, are w-“. My witty repartee had been stopped by a drumstick to the face. I made a grab for Tom but he jumped backwards. In the ensuing chase we managed to knock over: a bike, most of the drum kit and Jimmy, who had dissolved to tears of laughter on the floor.
“How can those stumpy legs move so bloody quickly?” I grunted.
“How can all that hair move at all?” Tom shot back.
“Maybe we should practise…” tried Jimmy.
And we did. Not that it helped. I still sounded like I hadn’t finished tuning up. Jimmy sounded like a toddler experimenting on a Fisher-Price keyboard and even Tom was off-beat. Not that there was any way a beat was going to hold us together.
“Lets just call it a night.” said Jimmy after yet another missed chord.
“I think we’re getting worse lads.” agreed Tom.
“Tomorrow at 9.00?” I proposed.
“Tomorrow at 10.00. I’m not getting out of bed at 8 on a Saturday just to set up all the gear” whinged Tom.
“I know ‘Desperate Housewives’ is on tonight but can you not just record it and get a good nights sleep?”
A drumstick clanged against the door as I left. That kid must have a bandolier of sticks on him.
I yawned as the bus once again trundled slowly towards Toms’ house, Speccys’ eyebrows knitted together as he carefully navigating the empty early-morning roads. The bus wheezed to a stop, the engine sounding as clapped-out as the driver looked. Jimmy was waiting for me at the bus stop, looking like someone had given him cat food on toast for breakfast.
“Why the face? Today we make it big, man!” I said as I leaped dramatically? from the bus to the pavement.
“Tom’s hurt.” came the reply.
“Is it...is it serious?” I gulped.
“He fell down the stairs last night on his way down to turn the video recorder off” said Jimmy, ashen-faced.?
He actually did watch Desperate Housewives. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
“Is he in hospital?” I asked.
“They released him at about 7.00 in the morning” replied Jimmy. “He can’t use the bass pedal with a cast on his leg!”
“What about the demo?” I murmured.
“Right now we need to know that Tom is ok” said Jimmy. “Lets’ go and check up on the poor bugger”.
“I knew I should have stayed up and watched it!” grinned Tom as we filed in to his room, avoiding puddles of dirty clothes and dishes that were on the verge of growing intelligent life. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Do we get to be the first to sign your cast?” I asked.
“No foul language, Mr. Tern!” Tom said sternly.
“You in much pain?” said Jimmy.
“Nah, they doped me up something crazy!” replied Tom. I noticed a set of bongos under a pile of clutter and pulled them out.
“Can you play these?” I asked Tom. He took them and tapped out an experimental rhythm.
“Is there anything I can’t do?” replied Tom.
“Get a girlfriend?”
Jimmy's face lit up. “Acoustic set?”
“Acoustic set.”
Here we were. I shifted my old acoustic guitar from one shoulder to the other, and checked to see if it was tuned properly.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
And we began to play.
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Instead of posting actual new content, I'm going to go ahead and throw up some old stuff clogging up my hard drive. Enjoy!
The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allan Poe, adapted for stage by James Thorne
Cast
The Narrator Voice, the Narrator Action, Old Man, Three Police Officers
(The Narrator Voice is the internal voice of the Narrator Action. While Voice may scream, shout and froth at the mouth, Action will only betray emotions as dictated in stage directions. Action is a misnomer - he is slow, calculating, collected. Voice is nervous, edgy, flinching, full of empty bravado)
Props
Flashlight, hacksaw, newspaper, hardback novel.
ACT X
The stage is split by a divider which serves as a doorway between a bedroom and a sitting room. Four chairs are on the right hand side, arranged around two planks or a sheet of cardboard lying flat. A bed and a nightstand on the left, the bed facing the divide at an angle, with the head of the bed clearly visible to the audience.
[Voice has positioned himself amongst the audience.]
[No lights]
[Pause]
[Voice stands up]
VOICE: TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how [visible effort to compose himself] calmly, I can tell you the whole story.
[As he speaks he makes his way to the front of the stage, stopping to catch the eye of audience members, to speak directly to them.]
[Enter ACTION and OLD MAN stage right. They take seats, OLD MAN reading a newspaper, ACTION reading the novel]
[Lights stage right]
VOICE: It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye!
[OLD MAN looks at ACTION over the top of his newspaper, then turns his attention to the audience]
VOICE: Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture -- a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold.
[OLD MAN returns to his paper]
[VOICE] And so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.
[Lights off]
[Exit ACTION Stage Right]
[OLD MAN makes his way to bed. He wears a nightcap in bed, and ensures that the “vulture eye” is not visible to the audience]
VOICE: [Paces up and down in front of audience, turning to them to emphasise certain points] Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.
[Enter ACTION Stage Left with flashlight, creeping towards the divide. He acts out what VOICE says.]
And every night about midnight I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern all closed, closed so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly, very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this? And then when my head was well in the room I undid the lantern cautiously -- oh, so cautiously -- cautiously (for the hinges creaked), I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.
[As VOICE speaks, ACTION switches on the torch and aims it at OLD MAN’S face. The vulture eye is not visible. He freezes. He then switches the torch on and off in sync with VOICE‘S counting]
VOICE: And this I did for one, two, three, four, five, six, SEVEN long nights, every night just at midnight, but I found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye.
[Stage Lights slowly increase in brightness]
[As above, ACTION acts out VOICE’S words. However, he does not speak, he merely mimes]
VOICE: And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night.
[Lights dim again]
VOICE: So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
[ACTION acts out VOICE’S words, moving even slower than he did the first time]
VOICE: Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers, of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was opening the door little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea, [ACTION shakes with silent laughter] and perhaps he heard me, for he [OLD MAN twitches violently, exposing the vulture eye] moved on the bed suddenly as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back -- but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, for the shutters were close fastened through fear of robbers, and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.
[ VOICE begins to creep into the audience. As ACTION raises his torch, he fumbles it. OLD MAN sits bolt upright in bed.]
OLD MAN: Who’s there!?
[VOICE and ACTION simultaneously flinch, VOICE gasping.]
I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed, listening; just as I have done night after night hearkening to the death watches in the wall.
[Pause]
[OLD MAN lets out a moan - a death rattle - a suppressed scream]
VOICE: The low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself,
OLD MAN: [hoarse whisper] It is nothing but the wind in the chimney, it is only a mouse crossing the floor.
VOICE: Yes he has been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions ; but he had found all in vain. ALL IN VAIN, because Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard, to feel the presence of my head within the room. When I had waited a long time very patiently without hearing him lie down I resolved to open a little -- a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it -- you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily -- until at length a single dim ray like the thread of the spider shot out from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye.
[With shaking hands, ACTION aims the torch at the vulture eye.]
VOICE: It was open, wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness -- all a dull blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones, but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by instinct precisely upon the damned spot.
[Slow heartbeat looped]
VOICE: And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
[OLD MAN steps from the bed, and slowly walks towards the light in time with heartbeat. He should be practically face to face with ACTION]
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased.[Loop fast heartbeat] It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder, every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme![Loop both slow heartbeat and quick heartbeat] It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! -- do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me -- the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come!
[All lights burst on and off as ACTION and OLD MAN scream]
[ACTION throws OLD MAN to the ground near the bed, grabs a pillow and holds it over his face]
[The beat slows, and stops]
[ACTION acts out VOICE’S words]
VOICE: At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.
[Exit ACTION Stage Right. He returns Stage Right with a saw.]
If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. [ACTION knees over body and sets to work with saw]. I took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, [ACTION raises the cardboard so to block the view of the audience] and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly so cunningly, that no human eye -- not even his -- could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out -- no stain of any kind -- no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that.
When I had made an end of these labours, it was four o'clock -- still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking [Staff knocks out a triple knock] at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, -- for what had I now to fear?
[Enter THREE OFFICERS STAGE RIGHT. They mime along to VOICE‘S words.]
VOICE: There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they had been deputed to search the premises. I smiled, -- for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I brought them into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.
The officers were satisfied. My MANNER had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone.
[loop ears ringing on low volume, increasing and decreasing volume regularly]
My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears; but still they sat, and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct : I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness -- until, at length, I found that the noise was NOT within my ears.
[add slow heartbeat loop]
VOICE: No doubt I now grew VERY pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND -- MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON. I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased.
[Increase volume of loop. NOTE: While VOICE is extremely agitated here, ACTION is not to literally interpret what VOICE says. VOICE will be the one foaming at the mouth and ranting, ACTION will show increasing signs of discomfort]
VOICE: I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why WOULD they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. O God! what COULD I do? I foamed -- I raved -- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, [ACTION scrapes chair forwards and backwards subtly] but the noise arose over all and continually increased. [Loop fast heartbeat] It grew louder -- louder -- louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly , and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! -- no, no? They heard! -- they suspected! -- they KNEW! -- they were making a mockery of my horror! -- this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!
[Loop all heartbeats and ears ringing, max volume!]
VOICE: Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! -- and now -- again -- hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER! --
VOICE and ACTION: Villains! dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!
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None of these are mine - I'm a man of words and flag signals - that the black and white one is by the extremely talented Doreen Kennedy.
Finally, the title. Afficitious is an old-fashioned word for "false". So basically the title means "Mostly Non-False Tales".
Yeah.
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Now I don't mean to be too generalising here - plenty of Irish beaches are extremely difficult to guard, and lifeguards at beaches along the West coast earn every cent they make - but Killiney Beach could be lifeguarded by a chimp trained to point out Bono of U2's house.
And if you look to your left, you can see Enya's cas- *screeches* *flings poo*
The duties of a lifeguard on Killiney Beach:
- Open the hut at 11:50. Recoil at the stench of mould and unwashed gear. Open shutters as a token gesture.
- Drag the "End of Patrol Zone" signs to either end of the patrol zone. Patrons like to look at these while swimming 50 metres away on the wrong side of them.
- Tie the flagpole onto the railings. Studiously ignore the empty Blue Flag* pole, which is twice the size of the pole in use, and can actually be seen from the entire beach and car park.
- Put on the kettle. This stage is crucial.
- Seal the door against the rain. Silently thank the gods that someone wants to pay you for this job.
*Blue Flag is a quality standard. If you have it, you have very high quality swimming water. Killiney has this standard, but when it rains - most of the time - run-off from the surrounding area takes the standard below Blue Flag, but well within national limits.
These main duties can be supplemented by such activities as: cooking an elaborate a meal as you can with one saucepan on a battered relic of a cooker, rock juggling, reading the increasingly-less relevant newspaper that was bought on the first day, or seeing how much tea the human body can take before it supernovas into a being of pure caffeine.
Yesterday, a grand total of three swimmers entered the water over the course of six hours. The most exciting event of the day was a man walking a big dog, picking up said dog's...leavings in a piece of seaweed, and casting them seaward. While I was in the water swimming. He then attempted to exchange pleasantries with the two lifeguards at the hut. Finally, he loaded his massive balls into a wheelbarrow and headed back to the car park.
Seriously though, I could be wearing a paper hat and flipping burgers, a job an untrained chimp could probably do, and the guys I work with are great craic. I just like to complain.
In other news, I'm going along to an open extras casting for a TV series called "Camelot".
Quoting Monty Python? I'm sorry sir, we're going to have to return you your virginity
Once again, I'll leave you with an epic tune.
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Hello my dear reader, and welcome. I'm going to keep this one short, as I should really get out of bed and go to the beach. The reason I'm not excited about going to the beach can be answered by this haiku:
Rhythmic sky-water,
Feckin' Irish summer starts,
I sit in my hut.
If you took a gander at my personal information - and you really should, I have all sorts of cool things like my mother's maiden name, and credit card number - you'll know that I work as a lifeguard. In Ireland, that means taking off my top hat and buckled shoes for June, July and August, and sitting in a tiny hut on Killiney Beach watching the water cycle in all its glory. I also tell people where Bono's house is, and on very rare occasions, where Enya's castle is.
That'll be it for the minute, I'll leave you with an epic tune I discovered the other day.
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