------------------------------- you? I wonder... Me? I'm a flyover that snakes its way Halifax (I'll let you decide s a quarter past twelve AM and in Abbey Park (about three moths dance across my stories e I've written published pieces liar with my name and work and oday - but everything accepted res from the real universe ould it be that everybody hether this dairy will be of arly debatable question. Good e first entry and all. If I kind of conclusion, forgive me t know how easy it is to keep e why I don't buy a car or a nnel and back home again. You g around at this time of night chos! rapists! werewolves! their holes at the same time. s simply dance and the tunnel k more than ten yards without e pretty hellishly weird. Thing s to understand is the amount alk. Problems, riddles, ideas, ave - many times - clicked into hts, or as my footsteps have und. Found. for shelter and I haven't been use I want to be here. I like rive, ride, bus it home... home nd not think of each other. It's not very big, not really, cross the daylight-busy tarmac. that, a DIY superstore. Down hy, cobbled road to an ancient res either end. Park near the - stop- and then turn and run. home in the morning mist. to scribble that. Writing can it though, I think. If anything happens on the way, not in Intensive Care. ething: Chesters. Stuart ------------------------------- bet. It's because I write, that's , that's another strong one; here's more... Something I hink perhaps- oh hang on rough, staring at me all the . He grunted. responsibilities such as work, because I've realised I have ). Older readers, or you the majority might have some I explain? nyway. Tunnel and observe people. ue and tease, maybe even... hrough, panting wheezily, eyes really look at me. Animals s kittens scuttle on past with- ah: myself. bout seven months ago, after ich involved my mum and my fteen; four years younger than I can do is write short r too sick to print or too is makes me pretty talentless om three jobs since I left the the conclusion that, not only loyable. I take creativity way the other in Graphics, and on d for a guy who's ambition used ty, not because I wouldn't like fidence and don't have any l rejects: Gemma Forrest, an as sex with anything in ed (and she was once, as far as ou ask); Steven Warwick, a layabout who collects billion sussed (but he hasn't); Tim o lives with his braindead, e this, thinks Manchester's in , like Steve, he's very gory fiction; and lastly, DIY store up on Pellon Lane. st: she's become what I would er than me, a late-developer I about twelve) but despite her mature - she could do a hell of e hours a day, of that there's worked a late shift, she comes a while. I enjoy our he next one down when it to see what she does. I don't Though I'm probably wrong. er parents in the Canary night, so she told me a couple balls to tell her this but... e crazy). ry cold. Tomorrow I'll tell you ou'll keep reading. I have much much more is going to happen. ------------------------------- ght, I stalked two teenage ir heads and giggling like el they muted themselves for a it came: em." the Tunnel. iciously intensified by the f thing you'd expect might school classroom when the d scantily dressed, and I , (excitedly?) until they nnel. Then, I closed my note- m. to hide in the shadows, and yet oes to ring as a distant menace b Lane, kicking each other, d back again (one even threw ir careless, chaotic wandering ng the desperate faces of ed and abused... And my - Karen. `How have you earned ht. `Where did you buy your eing more careful on the il? Hell, do really, honestly up with a hell of a lot of feelings or opinions of fair advantage of the innocent ? What gives them the right? A lottery of fate? sniggering and playfighting hey increased their speed, kept ch other. Head down, I just lights buzzed. Footsteps was around. r, we were nothing but midges. ps would appear that led up to here, no matter how late the o do it soon. Immediately. print, I noticed the pair had on a low wall. They were like Kittens in a cardboard ssing them wasn't right. What d to go along with my feelings if afterwords it felt wrong - ed. I looked up. The girls and shivering. Slowly, quietly, d. The three of us stared out ng to the hum of hidden s. tement- rage- the world shook a fountain of glass. I lashed aking through hair, splitting iners. The first shriek of ly this could not be round was natural? Not this em in fours, the other arkling with balls colour, I , down onto cold brick. her stomach. She gargled, ther girl had gone- vanished- grabbed a breast- squeezed it- said (it's hard to remember). never never never, or you are came out steadily, but in irous to rape- to torture- to ral to this pathetic moth that breast was completely flat into flesh. The girl's eyes t my other hand fumbling for my going to- I was going to- d ran. Ran, ran, ran... Where, hell am I? What gives me the ht, I'd better head home. If okay guy, as you'll soon see. ------------------------------- today and added some graffiti FUSION" I wrote... Done all iting. My A-level in graphic u know. i in the Tunnel at this moment ON Tour 90", "Smoke POT- it's "I love TSO 92" (in jagged eekie Chappies!", and of course ginal - "Kay&Jonny", complete t from beneath the &. ifax before. I do not feel good "mine" now. Like an animal hit or something. lked through the subway after e was pissed through (it's only k at me at all. He reminded me ories. Strange - maybe he was. 't stay open. This job (job?) live. Friday tomorrow, should mma. We'll see. ------------------------------- sual to catch the drunks as ked once and spat on three ble name-calling attacks) but I thetic and pointless sins one out half past eleven. With no ed, I felt my skin dampen: what f? uckin homework or summing?" swarming her, licking her ears, and still studying at school. tened of the term "work" and f higher education for as long xpects to use her eventually a. Still, I'm not one to let's be fair - no matter how mma is still a little girl. e surrounding males barked with riously funny. I ignored them or argue about anything they ly) result in them completely iss. demanded. and tottered around, waiting ring my usual, negative with an impatient sigh (the aindead males than for her). ously I was either stupid or d calmed, Gemma wormed herself ace gazing into mine. dge girls like that... Smooth hing in case it's just make-up , and beautiful blue eyes... ou stare for long enough. nd what've you got? A human ten you. a short black skirt, a thin rough it) and a dark denim hefty chest to poke through. and here's the proof"? "Gemma, little girl, I'm just not em for a start.") ed it again. "Ah, nothing." t came with a smile. ?" She's always asking me that ording to Gemma - unless he's en you start it?" given up on her and drifted on could see faint shadows waving thern box. ing bastard," she muttered. you sit under this stupid pped. "I've told you, I'm not off with your boyfriends." . I can imagine at this stage ll my problem is. I ought to ant, my real, inner-feelings h those of Gemma's. Second, I that have, for that past three nts from the scummiest depths hird, I consider myself a very , good joke, right? Right. nterested. How many times do I away and she ended up grabbing isted. "Don't you fucking lie emma." And then she jumped on me. st admit. Threatened to do it - ver actually physically thrown erfume and beer, and as we ug her teeth into my neck. I to clear a guy's thoughts. nd, extracted, pushed, chin up, ead between my knees. OFF me!" s don't you? Eh?" rting my ears-" onto my lips and let it build was hypnotized. And fell. ! on her upper lip. She closed aware of the escape route .. No. I don't think she wanted he caught it on her cheeks, her spit back, as if unnaffected. winkled... This attack was a ed on. bombshelled her forehead - and and voices. I clambered off ware of being congratulated by class face-shower. ------------------------------- ess my parents are rowing. emma... Head jammed between my the light of the Tunnel. lutter and I wonder... Have ------------------------------- y - God said - is the day when t. ------------------------------- ying how shit and hopeless ificent and promising and going to be? No, probably not. cript and it was late m school and I could hear Mum hoes off before he walking into in the hallway. Mum and Richard tiptoed up to the livingroom become like him... Wasting his . REAL career, REAL job... " lad I was eighteen when I younger and I might have taken the house with the bang of the eps were quick. They had to be; I was both. -" et. The sky was white, the ] cars were droning by. "No, t like me. Hasn't that twigged stake." , no! That's not true!" ter. Richard jogged to catch up ed away, teeth together. If he into tears too, and then before my knees, begging for a be right where I was (where no. e, I mean, Stu, I wanna read w-" " ent, thought about apologising, blood crouched sobbing in the m the streets alone what am I e with Richard what the hell am s published am I supposed to ow it away what am I supposed I supposed to do what am I o feelings. Adults are evil in e a child and you can pass s and it... Hurts. Why else g hours writing shit nobody his for ARE my parents. When eep weep weep cry burn in Hell to your own son. UP THE ARSE no love whatsoever. . You want monsters and ghosts ds, look up James Herbert or ny times (nothing wrong with down on ice cold stone when nd write under the Drug Tunnel verhead lights and the chatter , new questions about horror read this, because I've done with no market in mind, no confine me. And yet my chosen ay? I don't know. I don't give actually happened, but it's nal style; there are self- with dialogue and look at it that way. I've used agery as I can. You need ot just a block of boring text. derstand: feelings, emotions, worked." atic, huh? ------------------------------- ------------------------------- ng shite for the past few days. m not going to edit anything e, you're with my feelings. I t slip away like that again. e to tell. that was. Just when I thought I kirt, along comes Mr Knowitall spectrum of hatred. ight?" ohol. I shuffled away. He here without being pissed? : Question of the month. rned away, as if in repulse. l twat: when he first arrives questions. Nice company. Then lley". He proceeds to declare on and on and on, until I k off. It's always the same ?" not. I looked at Steve through touched you up when-" nna talk, talk quietly and wn sick ideas. Understand?" haven't got a sister!" Something musta happened. This ou?" OFF, cunt." all normality. It's never g seems to have really... began this diary. Quite odd, st Friday." anybody last Friday." . as it fluttered against the it fell on the floor and began so interesting then. ur dick out and spunked all in her face, alright? I spat." lt like repeatedly whacking him sness, then pissing in his y teeth scraped together. pe, and a good job it is too; ly would have repeatedly d in his mouth: I'm a fucking ucky stars I found writing, hispered, more to himself than omething. No change there. "You 've gotta be past fifty to ce and all that. You've nothing ked at me again, his goatee What ever you want to say... Everything in the world has en he first came out with it oint I suppose - most things r destroyed. Only the super- ology - or the incredibly rich e voice in the world. d Steve in an equally soft ed. . The lights buzzed. hed. icked it. "Why what?" this!" His voice echoed the sness. Take religions which .. Like, say, Christianity. n't/weren't willing to accept ce - so they scribbled down a werful Spirit) being the ruler blindingly obvious fictional sad pricks believe in it all. en again, isn't everything?) a young, fairly attractive, ing the early hours of the tebook for absolutely no reason t. And it doesn't fit with don't think). There >HAS< to ty... I've been molested, e, shouted at, I'm afraid of re, I'm attracting my peers' for my being here is any one of them was true he'd d me. I reckon I'd never see complex jigsaws. silence. "I'll sort you next e. Sure you're not walkin up ff down the Tunnel. He came rong way. A couple of other bodies have ng this but to be quite tion. Sorry. asn't just my knackered brain. ------------------------------- then hello again, then "Gemma, ut she didn't stop, didn't sit hat I had her in the first I suppose. but she was human... And the roll about on the floor of her face. What I bastard I am. think- bly like me to] the past half hour. Haven't alarm installing company, has en I first met him I admired , most cornered pissants on the to boot. nly job he can get. He hates it to keep money coming in from regnant his parents chucked him like to be chucked out by your thing in common: they're both ike rabbits. share none of the same other stands up. Doesn't work, he bollocks. The only thing d she's got a fanny. In out in y cokey and you fuck up your ing from our conversation. We old), about books and stories, use in my forthcoming fiction, . "Jobs are okay," I remember ing for the first week or two of your life." er impatient response --> That, ng great. tractions about becoming a " as such, there are no set pay (at least, for your first on the employment market] orth relating. know. Funny how things can hrough the murky teenage ere times when Tim slapped me lf... And yet he was sat here chatting to me like we've or story I'd written myself out -dropped class, Tim got great punch-bag. After "Bleeding ed talking to me about horror oks. me one strange and bitterly [it had to be a trick]. As it e became good mates. He even k him why he'd punched the shit nated me, it did, how anybody nted fiction and turn from bad - and still doesn't to this rd when everything's boiled ang out in the Tunnel for so d to the fact that he's partly childhood was panel-beaten like him. Every slap, every -> it's all still in me, some- -scarring trauma - many people d of thing, and far worse - but nnot see it. childhood thinking about m down as incidents in stories, of a murderer instead of a es my fiction: with out it, he is own description) --> stuck perhaps: me, his Frankensteins e's average company, and - I ot the kind of guy to spice up ------------------------------- cted to my often bizzare and . which you regularly spend time , the local library, your ound to crop up sooner or that one. 's time appearing in my dreams. sitting in a mind-rendered ths which have my "friends'" a reason). ross-legged in the middle of hter (up-down) between my eyes. ly naked - and there were three in a neat line just ahead of nd wrapped around each was a a picture of a sky-blue car imes, which is why I went into this morning and bought myself into supermarkets - they're hing deathtrap, full of stuck ugh nobody seems to notice, ling and scuttling and nibbling ks. But I'll tell you about rld in general - another time. ngs to discuss). e, paid a visit to the "Wines & ' guess what I found... w the wine is the exact same e he popped his cloggs, hence a hectic fishing trip and reamscape which I am now - on reacting to. A good excuse to down the wine nearly a month's dole). Right beneath an off-putting thorne entrance. ey're gonna get found, but the average by-the-side-of-the d the path's sacred: if you shit. Yeah, right). he Tunnel, just like the one I at school. Only better - and hy? It's only a horse with a about that? What makes it so othing except the way it looks. ------------------------------- ked naked through the Tunnel. lmost painful `prickling' ose teenage girls a while ago and cold against my skin. f occasional vehicles made me d, then got dressed. Nobody do that again. I don't feel nk it'll be worth keeping you ere must be a reason for it. u when/if I find out). ------------------------------- ------------------------------- Tom today (I'm not only now - I'm squeezing out some d, but I feel disappointed, andle when I was attending the ago (before it closed down due ne of the few "clubs" I've ever ere. erning writer's groups: one or dominate and even destroy what althy workshop; they can become writing to and for each other; lly) hostile and off-putting to "nice" (any work read out d the table). be heading off in any of these out my, shall we say "sicker" s to the set tasks. the workshop seemed like heaven the door was met by a huge Yes! It was as though I had at p in touch by sending mail to eople who regularly attended, lified by a workshop, or taken for that matter. They're just I'll ever understand why a ings) can possibly be rejected dly laid out manuscript, some- e"? floating around, plus a full than three months ago called l: he reckons it kicks the shit ay's market, but what the hell a book published. Not anymore, ame-based. Too commercial. titions because of the language es this sucks: where's the d fuckstains who haven't a clue = modern language, you prune- gged yet? Just because I don't a & biscuit party doesn't mean rejected, that's it. No more empts at "breaking through". best work I've ever done, so hell, why dream of t, I know I don't. I think too the Tunnel tonight. So I've omes more vunerable? At night p at night - some even alarm body could open the front door hts intact makes you realise insane - me perhaps? - to walk to open a front door, it o close up behind, to creep, to ------------------------------- lysis aren't I? Not to mention I don't know whether that's a t writing as a form of therapy, said a lot of what I'm writing Psychotic Dreams. ell tell you a little about does get accepted for s and additions and God-knows- oint taking a week or so out name - Psychotic Dreams is why fuss?] obiographical; after over- other, I went into suicide-mode ferent ways. think teenagers are perfectly ctive phase. It's just standard yourself did you? What the surface - to the outside e it is trivial, or something th occurs is it? It's not so to emotional shreds. If, on icide, think about that one. at, chain-reacting power. A power that, once freed, can book about the confessions of rban life has been one of abuse s are his only escape from a raped him of all forms of es... And learns to solidify threads of hope remain, only to side world. He decides to tic, perverted fantasies ---> . Animal cruelty. Child sex. it ought to be banned, it haps it is... But it was either . ------------------------------- her, I don't think I want her omething's gone wrong. Some- wrong. es seem thicker. Their heads... y're just... More defined. latter of Gemma. ------------------------------- y to write. Wasn't Gemma. Was Dianne. pockets. Shivering I think... clouds of supergiant moths. I p, pen pointed at the roof, and ... Believe... sa as she came out of the lpattern wall opposite. Her ing shadows spun webs across aid, "Please... I need to know t voice. My book eased d. ring and breathless - as I rose d the Tunnel bugs from my skin. ho- like-" nally threatening. I was the drils of smoke rising from my ted her feet. Scratched an h her tongue. ously. `I want to steal you to a thousand pieces. Girl girl , if- if you-" She took a deep, hisper. A strong, confident, ist. e me your shit, Chesters, you streaks of red desperation, fell- "Why am I pregnant why a perfect vaccum. My heart. times must I scribble bull- ne mothnest? Here, on the floor e reality of truth. fter page of pathetic lies] .." I crouched, made as if to ever. o words of comfort, no escort hung forever between us. and ruthless riddle-thought. of drink and an invisible nage male, asleep from he flicker of TV in his closed ourful wordshit smeared across he Tunnel through the northern low, staring as he passed. ut here you two friends? or ind]. miling a true smile. Her eyes d, charcoaling speech. What nd of a petrified lifeform, , it's own jarred existence. oh-kay...?" as confused just confused pper legs, her stomach, between ht. HOUGHTS I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO AW HER LEGS] , never... I would never do out for a few seconds. Went ivity. aa-) some... Things. But never, I you aren't, perhaps it's just ntly triggered nightmare had ke. I grinned when I realized an all-destroying sea of dark ng the walls. "Cath & Kim", marks of a hundred people Dianne", I thought of r when normality crept back... n. Run like the wind!] across the floor, climbing to . "Bye." She waved. back if you want to talk," I etime..." in silence, like a traveller to her own, alien universe. he same; from the moment they the darkness, they are in MY of this rotten, battered ours] rite anymore. I'll be better ------------------------------- dn't. There's more good in me "wrong" with me. You try t. It soon gets to you. appened. metimes I think it's better to to write them down... Ah I n't I can't I can't. ntry was a bastard to write. nning of this diary, I never t from each of my "friends" and e as a result of Karen's return I mean come on, I've lingered of a toilet for nearly a whole little outside, anyway. In my here between reacting to the down as it goes on. If I don't l be buggered if I know. I'm der. so there's little I can tell elf sorted, or in so much of a ve become the last person on ame. I know that wasn't perhaps "Here Dianne, kill me! Kill me e her my trust. And I ask you, left the Tunnel two days ago ountry - but it's taken until ugh here. Sometimes many nights ul. Oh, cars drift by up on the very often, nobody comes. mpty. I'll start on the last n. ... But when the vehicles above ing at that strange blue-car disturb them, make them shoot ete like ping-pong balls in rs either. ------------------------------- of Dianne. Or Karen. Or anybody full of drunks I didn't spend get into any shit, not after tonight, like there's some kind he lighter: perhaps it's a tool They'd no longer be moths of . Sounds like good fun. rrived late, or taken the day l be back (hopefully)... God I really stem from the past, or n the logic of time? umatic/damaging experience" has (and, perhaps more import- ction... There are none of e deepest chasms of my brain, of that. nest? Well... Who am I writing n-existant audience... Or just ts and brother. If they're the it... But... Is it possible to me lengths of time due to the n" (temporary mental illness?) become the truth: I sincerely t nothing "traumatic" has eans, if I am lying to myself, is that DID happen. (damaging) (damaging) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (fragile) (damaging) (damaging) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (damaging) out Karen? No.... Neither of , not that I know of. do? Are the attributes "good" very human being is "neutral" aggressive genes)... ie: must be a certain age - perhaps (nurture, basically) - at consciously? - "decides" ted more towards "good" than ...? Or is it winging up and s this state of imbalance any ---------------EVIL neutral point" found? Who is to ttering around on this line ow what, but something is. This cus. or anything. predefined by no-" hen I hope I'll be able to tell ith Karen. ------------------------------- iends, for Sunday is the day ck all will happen to anybody." ------------------------------- than usual. It's still daylight of black ones... Just bigger t yet. I never see them arrive. t- POOMF! the air is alive with here do they come from? through at this kind of hour. me as per usual. They're afraid now. Can't be sure of course, ndering in through a black box, an't enter this dimension). or a murder down here wouldn't tion. Ha! Blind bastards... what ever they do. Hell, ne. Come on Kaz... just then. I was scribbling shadow in the nothern box. As d the feeling of being watched her, it did, I swear to God it ourse. g. Came half-way into the n. o. t the fuck am I hanging about at a BITCH! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck f ------------------------------- ht. Shame you can't erase ink t? his morning, rather)... Him and ss out of me, of course. Got me ht ---> Hell, you know the m. if I'm being dragged too close r that might entail). Am I pid questions, forgive me: I that matter, and even then I 've become a very lonely and admitting it's not my fault. else did. Where's the wrong in s and grow up? more? thirteen; I got laid when I y "mates" were still having t's not my fault, okay? IT'S anywhere in life? Hell, DO you or is that yet another fucking t is normal? Is normal wanting osy garden, a handful of kids, coming to this place? Stop ps I'm a cut above the rest. I tclubbing, girlhunting, r multi-named activities m happy... And yet not happy... p and as confused as buggery, ou want to spit; nightclubs are when you first walk in through quite what you dreamt it would plenty of that] ood in your mate's eyes. But . Who would understand and who explainably found yourself in selves- ctive to our eye- s are most important- therwise- e never noticed before. A de the head of my unicorn. I y are now? S'nothing on the em out, obliterating the memory ream? Did the moths do ike what she said at all. ERS FUCK THE BITCH] ------------------------------- ber who they all are? isn't a book. There is no plot. can remind you when ever I . my world. You need to know on this diary exists. all. Even love. When misused, can of course be illusionary... fore so often a cheap, pathetic r whisper that to her. Why say age would not look twice at ejection in her greenblue eyes. of the crystal clear perfection present youth population. If have anything at all. If what y won't have anything at all. rds. attractive by several members tive members of the opposite Important? Special? s on TV declare: if you're in l of your life. But looks are auty catalogue prior to being ust naturally keep. Forever. , perhaps. Because I show no acted to me: it's NOT the way nge for her. She believes I'm elieve - in many ways - I'm slide down her body as she ds me back. Gemma? ER?] ny, I respect the girl. But I e talks. I don't like the way , her ignorance, her periodic exually involved with her. When hed: I was nothing, nothing at knew my name: that's all that y". te success as a writer and saw shadows, did she allow me to expectation. here. I'm no longer asleep. le peer-tides. No, kiddo: I'm chool. inny white twig of a child - ion: the Eleven Plus Year. It'd ack then - I didn't of course - e still caught my eye; I don't ble to imagine I could feel so I would meet again and become ds destined to fall in love 't know. rough school called Holmfield from where I still live to ed the all-important test (or got offered a place at sixth hool called North Halifax re... And yet physically she it happens sometimes. Boys and had no tits whatsoever, not exchanged words with Karen. She ng God-knows-what in the up a book at random ("Human another) and wandered over to n she jumped and I apologised. sit here?" taring, as if her brain had hit 's filing cabinets. When her ound me. You can't forget some m. You just can't. w hellos in the corridors for the piss taken out of me for ar tart" so for a while best to avoid contact with t understand the appalling ressure). etic talker, something which her. Throughout her childhood , a very minor amount of true, k very quickly (and she'll be ice I find... Wonderful. Just CHILDISH] h form, we'd become very good our homework down the deserted chool (Karen doesn't live very writing and she showed great s for a few (admittedly wn simply because she'd been as just a teenage fetish - when antastic legend. uscripts to read - beginning, lding up to my more intense, me I left school we were ready of us poured anything out. One direction of partners and up enough confidence to direct e, because I think we're STILL look at or desire any other erfect partner. Another stupid sturbated over a girl I knew " with that girl - it was the existing-person" wank. By the ll bet there was only Gemma and ist... It was as though I was , I won't jack off over you hormones under control, I'm not you're shuffling up through becomes the most important y above exams - but now? e schoolboy kind of way. But... must must must be mine. rlier this year, and stopped er for about five months, so ight. I walked her home: one of had. Company, that's all she y. ight o'clock, and either runs he Tunnel and talks to me until due. I hate all vehicles e said before, but in Karen's ort is quite understandable: ill, I don't think I'd be up to and I hugged for the first time ke I could crush her if I put This, I fully expected: her precious to me... Like a rare destroyed - ruined - by the I was as gentle as I have been is pleased me. I think a kiss against her cheek, but alas, we osite each other on the floor d, Karen with a bright yellow thing but her usual, empty caring much; she shouldn't have deserts all over the island," the Sahara, only not as hot or kin cool, yeah. Like- really book. Waited. Glanced. Her eyes he has a way of looking at me - which I find mysteriously ose who believe personality is ct" from a person and "insert" twitch, every move, EVERYTHING is entry for two and a quarter about Karen. She borders on scription of her appearance? A vations? I could give you each, bserve: it's by far the best lysis in today's society. Hell, bastard diary] ossed a small, shiny keyring through my fingers. It was ture of a beach at sunset and fully inside. "I know it's not hardly any money and my mum ged. I saw this fuckin ace hat serpents kinda curlin round ouldn't afford so I got you a nk? I think it's nice." didn't sound too much like be: I still treasure Karen's ezing." I laughed too. "Of ould fry an egg on the floor. gg on the floor cos it'd get ppose it would." o anyway... I went swimming in the sand kinda sloped down tarted you know? Only this e German... But I think he was nd helped me swim back to the twisty kinda dive-thing and obviously much-enjoyed d of her amazing child-woman in recalling every event. al, and I looked up from a book as I listened. But Karen didn't look like she was going l you next time, maybe." have you written any more y, ignoring her question. ot anythin for me to read or and your book and stuff?" ually believe I'm gonna get a ey won't write back Karen, they teenager." you're a teenager." will. I'm not experienced led, echoing the Tunnel. The negative all the time okay? tive. They WILL reply because I yway," She stood and looked miss my bus. S'been nice. this somebody you met?" at- you met a bloke out there?" t!" she began to walk away. t has gone numb I will see you ------------------------------- . Here's something I haven't aren works. It was my second (my first being at a branch of e there were so stuck up I quit about a month, working after- st week I thought it was okay - s up my spine - and then a new hing went haywire. way I looked, the way I stacked ucking pencil. In the end I fat arse and left - setting ehouse alight on my way home. I'm on the subject, lasted just ition with a re-vamp crew who sive new supermarket just out hich is how I came to find this st wasn't for me: I got tools (I never was any good at by the gaffer himself - the bastard. I thought that kind gly head in school playgrounds. and trashed the half- helves and cupboards and d up when I'd done, narrow-eyed you think you're doing?" he e (and horribly self-indulgent) xt Stephen King and that one ths with a copy of my latest signature. Of course, the guy o a loud "Go home and fuck your u fat cunt!" before he could ey drain your life away like lips by some kinda gigantic, ll it the Vortex lite lady in a fur coat just a gorgeously cheerful and orry about this. Let me pick ke about Karen is her apparent onths of full-time work I think xtended chat (yes, even for oducts, barcodes and prices is he went on holiday she was things we used to talk about - o change the world... Nothing e. I gave her a redraft of the took it home and brought it that she'd read it. I know ew nightmare sequence' I'd put '... Only I hadn't written a (though I often wonder if ut it doesn't look like it (the m surprised none of my other Tim, Steve, Gemma... er... fucking popular guy I am. e dark, handsome bloke whilst ith him. If that's the case I'm rience is okay (I got mine from even, believe it or not) but g long-term... Surely, please ays. ay. An unwelcome black figure that dump... The moment I c doors, it brought the few employment I'd spent there memory; it's not like I could been entirely revamped with . I think it was just... c. t as many as there was when I e still around alright: I behind the lawnmower displays - ng like giant black crickets, n't know what they do, what ck up the dust, but they big they are because they're be surprised if - out in the our average cat. ut there are no moths in Retail me until I'd finished my unter, folded my arms and eighbour and turned to face me, fuck're YOU doin here?" k like?" I said. as if she couldn't quite grasp in front of her, in the fucking at the stuff I intended to buy me: "What's the fuckin rope sh bags... Do you?" king my head round. "Argue with he manager, do you mind if I oyed. Good. ing the queue simply because about looking like an insane Dis is that most people tend to death at the moment. they call em, no shit) and ill bleeped. you're doing... But..." what I'm doing." looked at me, seriously. Karen tries, but it's a rare and e convincing attempts. I gave h the counter and flopped it methin?" he rope through. I bagged it nine... Stu-u?" She took it. "See ya later ge and recipt- Stu, will you be o come down and talk... Stu cut me off from her beautiful, colourful, Bug-infested world moths are big big big. And . ------------------------------- his wobbly, drunken state. The uding like exhaust fumes, his rangely fatter than usual. And his was TV influence at it's brother?" - That before he'd swer." He collapsed beside me, of his mouth. ng in my notebook. "Three bolted upright. "You made a ow did your parents react to d to his son. `Very s tonight, Steve," I said and tired." t slightly, say something ell you?) it, right?" body has ever offered me a g dick,' I thought, but st to see where it all ended e Your Brother More Than You' e... For the first time ever, lly done some serious research poken to Richard, or even Mum. ious about (excuse the ing his fag out. se, and stubbed it out on the teve." f his nut to realise what I'd , found nothing there, flopped n she loves you," He said in a hersing that line since he got He watched the moths for a e nail more-or-less on the head he deserved a respectful bardment. By not answering, I uspicions either. Perhaps he'd idea, thinking this one had s?" He blurted suddenly. I rawling for the southern box. `wins' the next time Steve indeed). But we'll see. ------------------------------- of the day wandering rather gh - there's always people and s... And then suddenly I'm server. Being scrutinized and wn beside me, peering inquisi- ou paintin things?" She agrams I'd been doing. "Can I " to draw a surprisingly ly she stopped and looked at me d-innocence. can you make pictures with no r a response, a sharp female 've I told you about talkin ed hastily towards the source and a muffled yelp echoed teps receded. se - come and put the colours domestic bollocks out of this won't have any choice but to rents WILL find this place... iece of work, this study of I've seen him strolling round uck-up bitch of a girlfriend. t the moment (ie: nothing is eriously `in the shit' when he into my lair. OY] undoubtedly KILL the Dad, why don't you just come ust bring your shitty little come on come on come on come atience is the key, I think. they've nothing better to do ver to return. ning. I reckon one of my ! a !aHa! a ! c tiles have fallen away in the dence of course, but it's quite one of the fragments fall out t I'll be fucked if I can find too keen on hanging around rd would turn up. ------------------------------- ------------------------------- That's a long way for you, uch better to get a car and life, get grown-up. ng. walk - not run, jog, sprint, l the way back home, from the How? ll back into my own chaotic ke trying to fall asleep: the ever remembered, never quite and from this place - it takes o quite literally "leave myself really believe I'm somewhere o, I dunno what/where it is. es, I'm not sure, I CAN'T be occupied while walking to a , to simply observe your people, the activities, the ion of walking in the first these `normal' methods if the r (or both). ea during the daytime, but at ars to function as they should ck his head in nick it", etc). ed small goblin-type creatures f occupied. These ugly monsters rcraft. Destination Tunnel. Or em weather reports, ETA's, tions with my imaginary e menu... Anything to keep the nd in my fucked up brain, I o music, I can't enjoy the it all too well. The only cking intensely... I feel to cross over to a strange, st "body leave" I've ever had. g Karen> orth? Yes Illingworth!--- ghts> I'm back home. Stop at the cratch head, glance at watch shit could really be something my physical fitness - Jesus, I st the repetitiveness that's een on through. Isn't that nice all in and see me? thin voice and sat down hed as she rummaged through piece of lined A4 with a few t offered it. I paused before " day?" lous I met somebody." ," She rattled the sheet of ng poem, read it, go on." Her I thought she was going to for a while to see if it would they didn't. She started biting round and round my head t you down hing I said tch the birds I fly ond the hills our side . Folded it up. Gave it back to . d, I wrote it." She gasped. "Thanks." ke it back. I looked at the d take it back. And I smiled rt little skirt down, giving me ers. T THOSE OFF] y notebook back into E Mr Nice Guy Chesters," Karen y think you're some kind of l you now, you're fucking NOT but you're NOT. You thought u? Nobody at all. And now some- kin jealous aren'tcha. Well breath. "The boy... The man I come true, do you see what I'm ad come true. I want to be with because you're my best friend, so fuckin hard... You're you just say you're jealous, here we fuckin stand, just say at her and threw my book down SENSELESS. *KILL* HER *NOW* DO IT--] whispered. "Okay, I'm going, and began to walk away. Her lesh. She started weeping... he night. d stupid laugh. write this entry, I found a ------------------------------- they've always- rday didn't you? Well forget after people. I'm sick of it. to hang on tightly to the ne, always, I'm treated like h it all. Well bollocks. ht's little episode with Karen. hern box. Just a shadow-curve. these words down. Her fingers just peeped- what shall I do? I do?] slid away. S'gone now, and I her. Perhaps she's a ghost. A ... Hell, maybe it's not Dianne p in my head... But I don't ed... Stomach-curve? ith real terror in them down g now: a sort of skin-tingling, e with cold needles. The whole m scared. Like seeing it under opylene rope. A bundle of A cigarette lighter. A healthy . Buzzing lights that don't aic stones; icy and tiny and crack in the wall beside the iously, just what the fuck am I ------------------------------- Huddled up near the southern footsteps began to echo. e didn't take any notice: with reath, she was up, backing e her - you know as well as I at. today's entry. I got a rejection slip today, ry compendium being launched been getting on my tits all out on my computer without f writing... Or anything else MUST. I don't know who I am, out. ... ------------------------------- op for a chat. He was with a per usual. the scruffy one," bowl?" same in here. m alone," - Jee, some defence tu?" al insults out - I get most of listening to Tim's mates it's hilarious. Tonight I've bullethole", "cockwash", ggot man" - although, glancing (a converted telephone book), I scrub that out. Yup, done. received (from Tim obviously) Stories Published?' but on ----> (a) it didn't even ice But Dim really wanted an k in here and repeated himself. it? Can't you see it? I can t as a cock in a mousetrap: ey don't care about me, or each f sub/urban youth. Everything's . it extinct. And hope, don't yeah, I still have hope. I ut... Whatever it is I've got ile ex-schoolboys keep coming er day was pretty harsh. Not a e. In fact, it seems to me t me off the writing business t these days - a hell of a lot orkshop period - but stuff of aging nature, really does get blishes horror/fantasy of any ider material of "any horrific guidelines. And yet they don't t have it. Won't tolerate it. e modern fiction without using lly as insulting letter. Would , five lines into it, and just Why can't writers and editors n up and attempt to understand word `fuck'? Why do you find four letters and roughly means ou know! I mean... Why do you entire population of this ng basis, too? k' into my prose just for the ou're very wrong indeed. I ers - about the present, what their age, background or `bad language' or `swearing', n fact. talking in the street? Have in the playground? There is no . It's one of those small ply must be accepted. ven if it soon becomes, as I replacement for the commonly bleeding'? l then, please cancel my itty little 'zine. y walked through: a black man ------------------------------- nt visions, same moths, thoughts, half-asleep- ell you: h a box of tools sauntered up flyover. The advert it c film - was way out of date, of felt-tip and spraycan hing, smiling, unseen in the work. He packed up his tools unnel. rds him - so pathetically blank ormal down here in the misty d found I was looking into... . Empty, bottomless, looking . Pushed me out, sucked me in. pain. My fist hit it, over. Nausea washed over me. My passed. Avoiding me. but what does it matter? ------------------------------- t- as the events of the non- in a rush of blood and flame of a cigarette lighter, ths have appeared as they he thought of burning them his book for all the bitter nsider self-combustion. weather in this industrial ing when self-discussed. They nets... Try to scrape me back ine punishment I'm not quite HAVE thought- I HAVE thought- s CRACKED-] in this town - and listen to alive, this place is living, ng and destroying mutant moths, 's spinal cord, it's lover and will CLICK. - my unassigned tools buried ibble as always, popping my s in the social seas... And s dance and the shadows of ghts buzz (like the growlnoise y fingers across my skin and but the skin of a shark, a r chunk of the mosaic unlodge ghtening speed, but, as always, f fallen stone. have a T ladies and gents. A ------------------------------- n today, something that could n read this. I dont like bedroom window! Arrived beside by a cold, cloudy darkness, e woman who'd given birth to me her home of every trace of a Mum. to not d that before, about me using language like ned it. Still, she shouldn't ilt, should she? Not at half e day God told us all to cool it. Play back the tape, omething special, something Okay, okay, here goes. d-" now." one!" d. Fishcirclemouths, but no an explosion of glass and d the shining dice bounce and nd weeds in its path, until it and the front door was locked. s and walked away. heart? ecause you've suddenly become r, the piper, the freeman... A ape of a planet you arrived on ward customers. ate moment between two randy ary precautions. Lumbered with amnation by a mother obsessed CKING BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH a product in a supermarket. I'm I attended, a brick in their a human doormat for lazy, ged by others via a physical xistant God. Trapped in a of this doomed planet, with no ng to an abnormal heart-beat. war - an end to the suffering sh species that does not ime and matter. But there is a tained power, offered by true - his is escape from pressure. another part is certainty - he Tunnel. ------------------------------- good... Fed to evil... what? ams. Link worlds. Funny how the ntle, cosy bedbeater what? I f life's domestic requirements ow what? on't you just speak louder, I suppose I'd better go and take I dunno, tink them. The walls mean I'm cracking too? And why compared to every other day bit beside my unicorn where the STAy d I'm terrified because I've but I'm alright. particularly comforting the past few weeks I think o I'm not gonna panic. If this gonna let it say it. I'm not ! SHI T FU c f you scribble shite like that p shit: this diary IS you, boy. ANITY. he shape of four letters. I rry, messy, anger - I must have nse of things - well, better ence right up front, right ht there! 6 17 18 19 20 21 21 22 23 24 25 . Shit ing - all fucking day is quite e spent a hell of a lot of time exciting - I must have looked nce the start of the year, and be fucked if I'm gonna sit down fternoon, soaking up abuse from s! I've got a home! - and it's lking, DICKWEEDS. fuck is happening I don't ll. I have some change and I e dole office but I'm due for EEK what am I going to do NG B.F.M.F.B.F.H darling. I am hoping they'll upper's in the oven, there's ice family get-together p and down the Tunnel twenty inutes. What the fuck am I go back and talk to Mum and friends - loads of writing going; the writer's group - d did I? Why Stu? Because you ly doing >> FUCK ALL << down O fucking great, as if she's ng great, I'm stuck here in t the colours in now, I would ase put the colours in in my hand. this up, and I'm- I swear that ppened. The words - STAy - are m... But I feel like laughing, - Dianne I mean. She actually mach, come to think of it, she it frightens me because I d SHE knows I didn't, but I ed; she said come on over here A couple of little guys. tely what she said, exactly oice didn't echo. It was really through some other... Thing, in it. uldn't feel it when I touched e Tunnel towards her, looking uddenly it was all so big and n she slipped out of the box anne, wait! Hang on!" - only my ike normal, so I'm not sure if he metal fence that boxes off y do take a while to get nd for a while I couldn't hear or anything - anything at all - -buzzing (ever-living?) lights. outed. I turned round, stared s a short, scruffy tube, which nk of the London Underground. in, sat precariously (with it's on the fence I'd just crashed couldn't make a sound, never uckin dog turd with arms and ncing in it's mouth. "Hey, before. Something wrong?" at's right, you read correctly used to offer a lift to. The t of my coat pocket on the rican accent, oddly enough) how nd that he wanted a FUCKING ING kip (only my coat doesn't but (shit no) he didn't blown-up paper bag and dressed silver studs, rather like the ssed up in - whip in one hand, him alright. The only thing I e twat's name. right now," I knew what he was ift. Well fuck you, gobb-o, I Been chucked out, didn'tcha bastarding cunting mother. am would dump you out on the oblin, edging around on the n shitniggle like that stop ya ched his cigar out and pointed ing. "I got urgent business to coupla human footsteps short've that dump is don'tcha?" ced the ten pound note that now of this diary. "Ten fuckin made every fuckin night since Think about it, Chesters." The ndards). "Whatchoo gonna do u gotcha self a Tunnel, yeah, in package. If you wanna keep our bones, you'd better start ng?" tle cunt's name. hat easy, Chesters," The cigar time pointed downhill. He yourself,' "Five for me, five he deal." down. There was another he brightly illuminated te, like the shadow of a badly out it," I said reluctantly. s. "Did you hear-" But he was take. "Thanks," I snatched it nose. "Come on then, climb coat pocket and lifted it nce. de pocket?" he grumbled, -like eyes. "Fuck me Chesters, n my pocket, hands on the mself into the deep end. "No it and stamped on it. He nd foul-mouthed shitbag) by Tunnel. He rolled like a perly, I mean, unlike the night when Karen turned on the no, this was REAL laughter). T'Nucy Nit. p like a big dog turd. I suddenly accepting - and g, dragging minutes of endless the Beechwood Road turn-off e two big, green boxing gloves r side. the library, I plucked the Men and eased them down onto y both shrieked in chorus and he roadside wall. "Always put , unseen. "Joo want the whole ow featherlight but full of or something), then announced: gentlemen. Have a pleasant to swirl round for the journey fused Man's Journey, I was visible again, screamed up e're lookin after you, fucko! k of this shit you ugly little ange eyes twinkling like fire ll take you." He hissed. With- ows. t supposed to mean?" I shifted slid up the wall, stealing the Except there was no trace of istening spiderwebs and rain- croscopic. "Hey, are you d. I looked back down the road ... Getting closer. I stood he light source exploded and I t was: car headlights. - those goblins were heavier badly - and the car rattled er of rainwater. I watched it, ly describe as `an air of e scene (the night, the cold, ether. ht, I could see the colour of . at least TRY to get some h the goblins was real or into my underpants. r buy myself a few changes of going to wash? How am I going ge in the Tunnel: I've walked ese entries are going to get a ------------------------------- ack to me today. A memory - my ence - perhaps the underlying the idea of rape. Rape Nina, eight years since, and next door and working in some hey called her, and never only I lost my ball over the k, I had to had to knock. d. e door closed. Warm, funny, echo of a radio somewhere (I ture and alien ornaments and ent and sat on the settee and then out into the green as resting contently in a patch ll from her garden! The whole he whole of it: jagged-hole an white sky, so I stayed for a er back and I turned and said nd she said no, it's okay, and and smelt it and saw that she ne (manners and all that even it was hot); freezing ice, as her lips turned bronze and idge. If you ever want one, ite blouse thing... Hung ellow like dog's wee. She nated because her (what and plain to shape beyond that ad ever been before to clicked open (more skin and entrefocus for my eyes only she d me looking. Cold sticky hardly touched my lolly, even tching flies as Mum would say. treet and friends yelled, Mum birds flew overhead in a " there was a little nipple much much smaller than Mum's y liked it, my lolly dropped on d look look looked. ly up and down and round the ore at me, like she wanted to re so blue I couldn't stare for ink and so big nipples did y nice she was beautiful, I lips- tongue- swallowed, can't home. Dog wee yellow all over ib like Richie's old one that oing...', `Can I touch...', ang and echoed but never never t... Come on." e sweet-smelling tatty house, hhhh," buttons undone clung to pinkish red nipples, nythin like this you have never tell anybody, okay?" 't speak so nodded yes yes yes paul won't tell anybody else o shake. It's okay." you never said this happened to be older I- anny as well. Honest. Go on I reached out and up and- and- like skin I had wanted to feel gers across not soft but hard na made a noise so I snatched bronze lips. Bead of wee still hing... And her chest was ath soft lips against mine, too was shaking- sweating- ee of home friends mum brother she licked and pulled up g in her mouth and then things ied me to different places and erself as I watched through ff branch that was my own ke these days now in Adult us both on it bottom top bottom days, and forever after when I . There are great problems. And is the fact that I'm quite Perhaps from a dream, perhaps t it did NOT happen, not in haps I made up the part where I up thoughts - and recorded a f to say to myself, my REAL e another eight fucking years end in this place now that the I'm engraving marks in the riend STAy over there. some boxer shorts, some sand- of fruit from one of the stalls h the dosh because I'm sure back tonight, outside the l be very happy to oblige. ook a slow bite from the Boots' ne of the voices... (could it moment I was filled with so rensound that I let a gooey and splat on the floor like 't! needles & pins and I ached was with somebody ELSE this riends TONIGHT?) otsteps. And then in they came em, masking their lower faces she was talking to me over a hat the fuck's going on?" ion (whatsisname? what?), a bloke. perately, almost bleeding with ot and lightning fast - shoot red into my lair like marines a sound but all I got was a stuck there - an elastic band, n help me please)] like a pirate for treasure and r some time. "WHAT HAPPENED!" ke that one but I couldn't see her hair her touch her being... e and mouth to stop running but s like "how are you?" and "mum sic hints of communication ttractive, Poor Stuart way. It Hunky. I'm Bruce," He offered me his eezed it tightly to show I guy was big and the guy was don't fuck with people who talk ker, or who see the Retail Bugs YOU). o, please..." I waved them her not an appalling mess like nnies don'tcha see how shallow my sleeve. "I want you to . We'll find somewhere for will) "We'll gotoa-a-a-" n-" jumper. That was when Bruce of the Machine's stomachlights tatue from a mythical film (I onaughts") and about as as a cup of cold coffee on a It's quite obvious to me that is guy a medalion) "Are you this subway?" (it's not a Drug Tunnel) "Can't you smell nd, wrinkling his nose up. how do you think it's going to hin again, that lovely spiky en Karen's cuntlips yet has it is a friend of mine. I can r a place to kip because I with Karen at the moment," (I me) "But I can give you n I smile, now: my lips are much, but a little. I'll f my coat and took a few -?" ervice." was lying, but I just winked. an, what they symbolise? Or do algolem's cock inside you all he place stunk. The lights ks staggered past, squinting ped midnight. whispered. "It's morning now. ed her jacket. ly under my message "ENDLESS thed and stopped massaging his ." you can tell?" so much to just leave it as Isn't she?" I added (please ed. "Maybe she was for a while, over now. Perhaps a fantasy, me iled to himself. "She said I rsely, viciously. y hostile eyes, before nodding sn't whispering anymore - in er." will you?" e wanted to cry part of me the blood across the walls of smug hedgehog chin out of the east (that had stolen my yes to curl up and go to sleep and over but the real real real from a single surviving orrupted heart told me it was my own lack of self- elf-power self self self self rouched beside me. "I'll tell ll her how I feel, okay? he will. I mean- shit, just . bbed his eyes. "You're right, ever will be. I like her, a a great friend, and christ we what you said a few moments is all I wanted." He looked last and I wondered: are you ee?] own at the sleeping girl. ay, and I was left with a patch ould fade so quickly I would in his arms. , we're going home." ow, I promise," She called over herries. "Take care, don't go proh-hom-iss..." d thinking fucked up thoughts) e little guys were back, so I prepare myself for the long rch on the fence. "You gotta on't keep on being the young- They grow up! And there's moping around and wipe that places to go, am I right? nodded. "Right." d we were off - no delays. The idn't complain as much as they I enjoyed myself. de up that bizzare sexual have become so vivid and ot into place around the non- ake it feel as though it DID there was a voice whispering ome when you overheard your ou saw Nina naked one day! u should try and remember the lowing all this? or are you up conscience?" s tonight, but I did come back nds in my pocket, and now... he old ones in the bushes - & sauce) and I'm now going to watch the moths (or are they fall asleep. ing to "solve a jigsaw puzzle" ------------------------------- der the Tunnel, I was outside, ly lingers. I had been blown, I aves. According to my watch it d stiff and starving, so I slideshow. I spent most of it hard (if he was upset, if he ed or letting Mum tear it up ooking for me, if HE'D been n WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? Does me. And let's face it, I do idence anymore, no faith, no l, no nothing... y - I'm obviously going insane, ppens to me- what I see through should I make it up? I spend er making a fictional diary look back and remember it that ity from fantasy? what's real, what's unreal, g... s. And one wine bottle used up. l tell you what happened shall eached into my pocket like I gun or something but instead I ty wine bottle, which crack- leaving me with a circular- owed walking - stopped walking slowly, grinning. ." I smiled, holding up the rolled out of it, hit the he whole of the crane, not just at me, drunk as usual but me, his friend, his contact, ight Zone, gone mad, turned , I think - and I advanced as still giving me abuse, but in ic voice. t us master, we're sorry-] realised the smell and the alls and the new grafitti done might be my own and might not ome to Daddy... is voice fresh and new and low ath the Tim. The darkest depths kicked me and driven me to k. "What the fuck are you gonna ad with that, eh? You're fucked tricity. My fingers were n was running with sweat. clenched teeth. go-" Three more. Tim in the lead, all, I was his friend. led, arms held out. "You're are ya Stu, eh? You're just a screamed and that I was the ght with the teenage girls - n, terrified of insanity, eld high and ready to strike. but I do remember slicing open back and slashing him across the ght I would trip. I remember ding me, filling my mouth, l and collapsing not with the e of glass and the crack-whip r... Except her warmth. I do soon, I can sense it. They m satisfied that tonight I chased away, away from here and I am ead his guts all over this hurt you in the past or you e breakup. I took the risk , two-sided friendship - would o deep down d n't give a fuck ed, throughout? r. e all over the kitchen floor and the Bug did a million more, ------------------------------- ellow-white like puddles and am in a cardboard tube, a t but I'm not allowed to leave. ike rivers of melted butter Karen. id you could have the spare staying here, I won't let-" rom here, I can see it, I love for hurting you, I can see it, that, crying I think, though tter, like little heating fans, my face. e road that the things we bottles, rope, black bags, k and made-up-fantasies. They to solve - crack that and for anything to happen and what I wait f r doesn't exist ad) up here, do you get it g to make sense. e that is Steve today when he butter) and stopped and e turned to pity and offered ok, before I hooked the rope cross the ground, nearer and wap, nearer and nearer to the ast, and I swung him ---> I ng and crying and bleating like nto the monster's buttercoated en his body to the waist, then f my world, out of my nest, out s I flicked the lighter up and his voice to leave like the ever be back. ough he didn't hear, and I can, ere. to see if I was still alive olice man with him through the a big binliner he was holding something caught, something yes." s, he looked different, not a his eyes was a different ed him. ," he replied, smiling. he waved before disappearing ter the dimension flash, the h and rattle - big it was, staggered up and took hold of e plastic clash of legs, the of Retail Bug shit - black ape of bullets, I sensed - as hrob and thrash and kick and ure. c ld. Tore through my jeans, he bag and skidded down onto lped and eventually leaped free spr ng for the southern box, dimension flash. Tunnel and chasing the remember getting to here, laid in the dark. Magnus said some- o pieces with glass in the back ring aimlessly by a man gnus climbed out of my pocket. sault, sat up and made his eyes id, grinning. "End of the road, ed to be back at the Tunnel in think some more about the past of the things the STAy message somehow, you know, I couldn't, ng, the final frontier, the father felt like before death, urring his vision was and how all sins he must have been. h the dreams," smiled Magnus, could see the bricks in the ace the music, fucko. Stand in urrent." e, out in the middle of the hs, silent and freezing and ing as Magnus disappeared and I y to STAy now and tackle the down, up-down, and to scream nd, right to the fucking END, D, I scribb e to the END, the ------------------------------- inly of Karen. Remember being nto mine. ------------------------------- g s mething, being told ng. ------------------------------- lking, not m h from me - j st d Richard. Mum cryin�. Mum rem er touching my face and . shes where I kept t e items I und glu of all things in plas ------------------------------- eyes. Se med excited. Quite a I h ve met before. Papers ou ." t be good ne s, unless of g it up... Or whate er. I s r n ou

------------------------------- you? I wonder... Me? I'm a flyover that snakes its way Halifax (I'll let you decide s a quarter past twelve AM and in Abbey Park (about three moths dance across my stories e I've written published pieces liar with my name and work and oday - but everything accepted res from the real universe ould it be that everybody hether this dairy will be of arly debatable question. Good e first entry and all. If I kind of conclusion, forgive me t know how easy it is to keep e why I don't buy a car or a nnel and back home again. You g around at this time of night chos! rapists! werewolves! their holes at the same time. s simply dance and the tunnel k more than ten yards without e pretty hellishly weird. Thing s to understand is the amount alk. Problems, riddles, ideas, ave - many times - clicked into hts, or as my footsteps have und. Found. for shelter and I haven't been use I want to be here. I like rive, ride, bus it home... home nd not think of each other. It's not very big, not really, cross the daylight-busy tarmac. that, a DIY superstore. Down hy, cobbled road to an ancient res either end. Park near the - stop- and then turn and run. home in the morning mist. to scribble that. Writing can it though, I think. If anything happens on the way, not in Intensive Care. ething: Chesters. Stuart ------------------------------- bet. It's because I write, that's , that's another strong one; here's more... Something I hink perhaps- oh hang on rough, staring at me all the . He grunted. responsibilities such as work, because I've realised I have ). Older readers, or you the majority might have some I explain? nyway. Tunnel and observe people. ue and tease, maybe even... hrough, panting wheezily, eyes really look at me. Animals s kittens scuttle on past with- ah: myself. bout seven months ago, after ich involved my mum and my fteen; four years younger than I can do is write short r too sick to print or too is makes me pretty talentless om three jobs since I left the the conclusion that, not only loyable. I take creativity way the other in Graphics, and on d for a guy who's ambition used ty, not because I wouldn't like fidence and don't have any l rejects: Gemma Forrest, an as sex with anything in ed (and she was once, as far as ou ask); Steven Warwick, a layabout who collects billion sussed (but he hasn't); Tim o lives with his braindead, e this, thinks Manchester's in , like Steve, he's very gory fiction; and lastly, DIY store up on Pellon Lane. st: she's become what I would er than me, a late-developer I about twelve) but despite her mature - she could do a hell of e hours a day, of that there's worked a late shift, she comes a while. I enjoy our he next one down when it to see what she does. I don't Though I'm probably wrong. er parents in the Canary night, so she told me a couple balls to tell her this but... e crazy). ry cold. Tomorrow I'll tell you ou'll keep reading. I have much much more is going to happen. ------------------------------- ght, I stalked two teenage ir heads and giggling like el they muted themselves for a it came: em." the Tunnel. iciously intensified by the f thing you'd expect might school classroom when the d scantily dressed, and I , (excitedly?) until they nnel. Then, I closed my note- m. to hide in the shadows, and yet oes to ring as a distant menace b Lane, kicking each other, d back again (one even threw ir careless, chaotic wandering ng the desperate faces of ed and abused... And my - Karen. `How have you earned ht. `Where did you buy your eing more careful on the il? Hell, do really, honestly up with a hell of a lot of feelings or opinions of fair advantage of the innocent ? What gives them the right? A lottery of fate? sniggering and playfighting hey increased their speed, kept ch other. Head down, I just lights buzzed. Footsteps was around. r, we were nothing but midges. ps would appear that led up to here, no matter how late the o do it soon. Immediately. print, I noticed the pair had on a low wall. They were like Kittens in a cardboard ssing them wasn't right. What d to go along with my feelings if afterwords it felt wrong - ed. I looked up. The girls and shivering. Slowly, quietly, d. The three of us stared out ng to the hum of hidden s. tement- rage- the world shook a fountain of glass. I lashed aking through hair, splitting iners. The first shriek of ly this could not be round was natural? Not this em in fours, the other arkling with balls colour, I , down onto cold brick. her stomach. She gargled, ther girl had gone- vanished- grabbed a breast- squeezed it- said (it's hard to remember). never never never, or you are came out steadily, but in irous to rape- to torture- to ral to this pathetic moth that breast was completely flat into flesh. The girl's eyes t my other hand fumbling for my going to- I was going to- d ran. Ran, ran, ran... Where, hell am I? What gives me the ht, I'd better head home. If okay guy, as you'll soon see. ------------------------------- today and added some graffiti FUSION" I wrote... Done all iting. My A-level in graphic u know. i in the Tunnel at this moment ON Tour 90", "Smoke POT- it's "I love TSO 92" (in jagged eekie Chappies!", and of course ginal - "Kay&Jonny", complete t from beneath the &. ifax before. I do not feel good "mine" now. Like an animal hit or something. lked through the subway after e was pissed through (it's only k at me at all. He reminded me ories. Strange - maybe he was. 't stay open. This job (job?) live. Friday tomorrow, should mma. We'll see. ------------------------------- sual to catch the drunks as ked once and spat on three ble name-calling attacks) but I thetic and pointless sins one out half past eleven. With no ed, I felt my skin dampen: what f? uckin homework or summing?" swarming her, licking her ears, and still studying at school. tened of the term "work" and f higher education for as long xpects to use her eventually a. Still, I'm not one to let's be fair - no matter how mma is still a little girl. e surrounding males barked with riously funny. I ignored them or argue about anything they ly) result in them completely iss. demanded. and tottered around, waiting ring my usual, negative with an impatient sigh (the aindead males than for her). ously I was either stupid or d calmed, Gemma wormed herself ace gazing into mine. dge girls like that... Smooth hing in case it's just make-up , and beautiful blue eyes... ou stare for long enough. nd what've you got? A human ten you. a short black skirt, a thin rough it) and a dark denim hefty chest to poke through. and here's the proof"? "Gemma, little girl, I'm just not em for a start.") ed it again. "Ah, nothing." t came with a smile. ?" She's always asking me that ording to Gemma - unless he's en you start it?" given up on her and drifted on could see faint shadows waving thern box. ing bastard," she muttered. you sit under this stupid pped. "I've told you, I'm not off with your boyfriends." . I can imagine at this stage ll my problem is. I ought to ant, my real, inner-feelings h those of Gemma's. Second, I that have, for that past three nts from the scummiest depths hird, I consider myself a very , good joke, right? Right. nterested. How many times do I away and she ended up grabbing isted. "Don't you fucking lie emma." And then she jumped on me. st admit. Threatened to do it - ver actually physically thrown erfume and beer, and as we ug her teeth into my neck. I to clear a guy's thoughts. nd, extracted, pushed, chin up, ead between my knees. OFF me!" s don't you? Eh?" rting my ears-" onto my lips and let it build was hypnotized. And fell. ! on her upper lip. She closed aware of the escape route .. No. I don't think she wanted he caught it on her cheeks, her spit back, as if unnaffected. winkled... This attack was a ed on. bombshelled her forehead - and and voices. I clambered off ware of being congratulated by class face-shower. ------------------------------- ess my parents are rowing. emma... Head jammed between my the light of the Tunnel. lutter and I wonder... Have ------------------------------- y - God said - is the day when t. ------------------------------- ying how shit and hopeless ificent and promising and going to be? No, probably not. cript and it was late m school and I could hear Mum hoes off before he walking into in the hallway. Mum and Richard tiptoed up to the livingroom become like him... Wasting his . REAL career, REAL job... " lad I was eighteen when I younger and I might have taken the house with the bang of the eps were quick. They had to be; I was both. -" et. The sky was white, the ] cars were droning by. "No, t like me. Hasn't that twigged stake." , no! That's not true!" ter. Richard jogged to catch up ed away, teeth together. If he into tears too, and then before my knees, begging for a be right where I was (where no. e, I mean, Stu, I wanna read w-" " ent, thought about apologising, blood crouched sobbing in the m the streets alone what am I e with Richard what the hell am s published am I supposed to ow it away what am I supposed I supposed to do what am I o feelings. Adults are evil in e a child and you can pass s and it... Hurts. Why else g hours writing shit nobody his for ARE my parents. When eep weep weep cry burn in Hell to your own son. UP THE ARSE no love whatsoever. . You want monsters and ghosts ds, look up James Herbert or ny times (nothing wrong with down on ice cold stone when nd write under the Drug Tunnel verhead lights and the chatter , new questions about horror read this, because I've done with no market in mind, no confine me. And yet my chosen ay? I don't know. I don't give actually happened, but it's nal style; there are self- with dialogue and look at it that way. I've used agery as I can. You need ot just a block of boring text. derstand: feelings, emotions, worked." atic, huh? ------------------------------- ------------------------------- ng shite for the past few days. m not going to edit anything e, you're with my feelings. I t slip away like that again. e to tell. that was. Just when I thought I kirt, along comes Mr Knowitall spectrum of hatred. ight?" ohol. I shuffled away. He here without being pissed? : Question of the month. rned away, as if in repulse. l twat: when he first arrives questions. Nice company. Then lley". He proceeds to declare on and on and on, until I k off. It's always the same ?" not. I looked at Steve through touched you up when-" nna talk, talk quietly and wn sick ideas. Understand?" haven't got a sister!" Something musta happened. This ou?" OFF, cunt." all normality. It's never g seems to have really... began this diary. Quite odd, st Friday." anybody last Friday." . as it fluttered against the it fell on the floor and began so interesting then. ur dick out and spunked all in her face, alright? I spat." lt like repeatedly whacking him sness, then pissing in his y teeth scraped together. pe, and a good job it is too; ly would have repeatedly d in his mouth: I'm a fucking ucky stars I found writing, hispered, more to himself than omething. No change there. "You 've gotta be past fifty to ce and all that. You've nothing ked at me again, his goatee What ever you want to say... Everything in the world has en he first came out with it oint I suppose - most things r destroyed. Only the super- ology - or the incredibly rich e voice in the world. d Steve in an equally soft ed. . The lights buzzed. hed. icked it. "Why what?" this!" His voice echoed the sness. Take religions which .. Like, say, Christianity. n't/weren't willing to accept ce - so they scribbled down a werful Spirit) being the ruler blindingly obvious fictional sad pricks believe in it all. en again, isn't everything?) a young, fairly attractive, ing the early hours of the tebook for absolutely no reason t. And it doesn't fit with don't think). There >HAS< to ty... I've been molested, e, shouted at, I'm afraid of re, I'm attracting my peers' for my being here is any one of them was true he'd d me. I reckon I'd never see complex jigsaws. silence. "I'll sort you next e. Sure you're not walkin up ff down the Tunnel. He came rong way. A couple of other bodies have ng this but to be quite tion. Sorry. asn't just my knackered brain. ------------------------------- then hello again, then "Gemma, ut she didn't stop, didn't sit hat I had her in the first I suppose. but she was human... And the roll about on the floor of her face. What I bastard I am. think- bly like me to] the past half hour. Haven't alarm installing company, has en I first met him I admired , most cornered pissants on the to boot. nly job he can get. He hates it to keep money coming in from regnant his parents chucked him like to be chucked out by your thing in common: they're both ike rabbits. share none of the same other stands up. Doesn't work, he bollocks. The only thing d she's got a fanny. In out in y cokey and you fuck up your ing from our conversation. We old), about books and stories, use in my forthcoming fiction, . "Jobs are okay," I remember ing for the first week or two of your life." er impatient response --> That, ng great. tractions about becoming a " as such, there are no set pay (at least, for your first on the employment market] orth relating. know. Funny how things can hrough the murky teenage ere times when Tim slapped me lf... And yet he was sat here chatting to me like we've or story I'd written myself out -dropped class, Tim got great punch-bag. After "Bleeding ed talking to me about horror oks. me one strange and bitterly [it had to be a trick]. As it e became good mates. He even k him why he'd punched the shit nated me, it did, how anybody nted fiction and turn from bad - and still doesn't to this rd when everything's boiled ang out in the Tunnel for so d to the fact that he's partly childhood was panel-beaten like him. Every slap, every -> it's all still in me, some- -scarring trauma - many people d of thing, and far worse - but nnot see it. childhood thinking about m down as incidents in stories, of a murderer instead of a es my fiction: with out it, he is own description) --> stuck perhaps: me, his Frankensteins e's average company, and - I ot the kind of guy to spice up ------------------------------- cted to my often bizzare and . which you regularly spend time , the local library, your ound to crop up sooner or that one. 's time appearing in my dreams. sitting in a mind-rendered ths which have my "friends'" a reason). ross-legged in the middle of hter (up-down) between my eyes. ly naked - and there were three in a neat line just ahead of nd wrapped around each was a a picture of a sky-blue car imes, which is why I went into this morning and bought myself into supermarkets - they're hing deathtrap, full of stuck ugh nobody seems to notice, ling and scuttling and nibbling ks. But I'll tell you about rld in general - another time. ngs to discuss). e, paid a visit to the "Wines & ' guess what I found... w the wine is the exact same e he popped his cloggs, hence a hectic fishing trip and reamscape which I am now - on reacting to. A good excuse to down the wine nearly a month's dole). Right beneath an off-putting thorne entrance. ey're gonna get found, but the average by-the-side-of-the d the path's sacred: if you shit. Yeah, right). he Tunnel, just like the one I at school. Only better - and hy? It's only a horse with a about that? What makes it so othing except the way it looks. ------------------------------- ked naked through the Tunnel. lmost painful `prickling' ose teenage girls a while ago and cold against my skin. f occasional vehicles made me d, then got dressed. Nobody do that again. I don't feel nk it'll be worth keeping you ere must be a reason for it. u when/if I find out). ------------------------------- ------------------------------- Tom today (I'm not only now - I'm squeezing out some d, but I feel disappointed, andle when I was attending the ago (before it closed down due ne of the few "clubs" I've ever ere. erning writer's groups: one or dominate and even destroy what althy workshop; they can become writing to and for each other; lly) hostile and off-putting to "nice" (any work read out d the table). be heading off in any of these out my, shall we say "sicker" s to the set tasks. the workshop seemed like heaven the door was met by a huge Yes! It was as though I had at p in touch by sending mail to eople who regularly attended, lified by a workshop, or taken for that matter. They're just I'll ever understand why a ings) can possibly be rejected dly laid out manuscript, some- e"? floating around, plus a full than three months ago called l: he reckons it kicks the shit ay's market, but what the hell a book published. Not anymore, ame-based. Too commercial. titions because of the language es this sucks: where's the d fuckstains who haven't a clue = modern language, you prune- gged yet? Just because I don't a & biscuit party doesn't mean rejected, that's it. No more empts at "breaking through". best work I've ever done, so hell, why dream of t, I know I don't. I think too the Tunnel tonight. So I've omes more vunerable? At night p at night - some even alarm body could open the front door hts intact makes you realise insane - me perhaps? - to walk to open a front door, it o close up behind, to creep, to ------------------------------- lysis aren't I? Not to mention I don't know whether that's a t writing as a form of therapy, said a lot of what I'm writing Psychotic Dreams. ell tell you a little about does get accepted for s and additions and God-knows- oint taking a week or so out name - Psychotic Dreams is why fuss?] obiographical; after over- other, I went into suicide-mode ferent ways. think teenagers are perfectly ctive phase. It's just standard yourself did you? What the surface - to the outside e it is trivial, or something th occurs is it? It's not so to emotional shreds. If, on icide, think about that one. at, chain-reacting power. A power that, once freed, can book about the confessions of rban life has been one of abuse s are his only escape from a raped him of all forms of es... And learns to solidify threads of hope remain, only to side world. He decides to tic, perverted fantasies ---> . Animal cruelty. Child sex. it ought to be banned, it haps it is... But it was either . ------------------------------- her, I don't think I want her omething's gone wrong. Some- wrong. es seem thicker. Their heads... y're just... More defined. latter of Gemma. ------------------------------- y to write. Wasn't Gemma. Was Dianne. pockets. Shivering I think... clouds of supergiant moths. I p, pen pointed at the roof, and ... Believe... sa as she came out of the lpattern wall opposite. Her ing shadows spun webs across aid, "Please... I need to know t voice. My book eased d. ring and breathless - as I rose d the Tunnel bugs from my skin. ho- like-" nally threatening. I was the drils of smoke rising from my ted her feet. Scratched an h her tongue. ously. `I want to steal you to a thousand pieces. Girl girl , if- if you-" She took a deep, hisper. A strong, confident, ist. e me your shit, Chesters, you streaks of red desperation, fell- "Why am I pregnant why a perfect vaccum. My heart. times must I scribble bull- ne mothnest? Here, on the floor e reality of truth. fter page of pathetic lies] .." I crouched, made as if to ever. o words of comfort, no escort hung forever between us. and ruthless riddle-thought. of drink and an invisible nage male, asleep from he flicker of TV in his closed ourful wordshit smeared across he Tunnel through the northern low, staring as he passed. ut here you two friends? or ind]. miling a true smile. Her eyes d, charcoaling speech. What nd of a petrified lifeform, , it's own jarred existence. oh-kay...?" as confused just confused pper legs, her stomach, between ht. HOUGHTS I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO AW HER LEGS] , never... I would never do out for a few seconds. Went ivity. aa-) some... Things. But never, I you aren't, perhaps it's just ntly triggered nightmare had ke. I grinned when I realized an all-destroying sea of dark ng the walls. "Cath & Kim", marks of a hundred people Dianne", I thought of r when normality crept back... n. Run like the wind!] across the floor, climbing to . "Bye." She waved. back if you want to talk," I etime..." in silence, like a traveller to her own, alien universe. he same; from the moment they the darkness, they are in MY of this rotten, battered ours] rite anymore. I'll be better ------------------------------- dn't. There's more good in me "wrong" with me. You try t. It soon gets to you. appened. metimes I think it's better to to write them down... Ah I n't I can't I can't. ntry was a bastard to write. nning of this diary, I never t from each of my "friends" and e as a result of Karen's return I mean come on, I've lingered of a toilet for nearly a whole little outside, anyway. In my here between reacting to the down as it goes on. If I don't l be buggered if I know. I'm der. so there's little I can tell elf sorted, or in so much of a ve become the last person on ame. I know that wasn't perhaps "Here Dianne, kill me! Kill me e her my trust. And I ask you, left the Tunnel two days ago ountry - but it's taken until ugh here. Sometimes many nights ul. Oh, cars drift by up on the very often, nobody comes. mpty. I'll start on the last n. ... But when the vehicles above ing at that strange blue-car disturb them, make them shoot ete like ping-pong balls in rs either. ------------------------------- of Dianne. Or Karen. Or anybody full of drunks I didn't spend get into any shit, not after tonight, like there's some kind he lighter: perhaps it's a tool They'd no longer be moths of . Sounds like good fun. rrived late, or taken the day l be back (hopefully)... God I really stem from the past, or n the logic of time? umatic/damaging experience" has (and, perhaps more import- ction... There are none of e deepest chasms of my brain, of that. nest? Well... Who am I writing n-existant audience... Or just ts and brother. If they're the it... But... Is it possible to me lengths of time due to the n" (temporary mental illness?) become the truth: I sincerely t nothing "traumatic" has eans, if I am lying to myself, is that DID happen. (damaging) (damaging) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (fragile) (damaging) (damaging) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (damaging) out Karen? No.... Neither of , not that I know of. do? Are the attributes "good" very human being is "neutral" aggressive genes)... ie: must be a certain age - perhaps (nurture, basically) - at consciously? - "decides" ted more towards "good" than ...? Or is it winging up and s this state of imbalance any ---------------EVIL neutral point" found? Who is to ttering around on this line ow what, but something is. This cus. or anything. predefined by no-" hen I hope I'll be able to tell ith Karen. ------------------------------- iends, for Sunday is the day ck all will happen to anybody." ------------------------------- than usual. It's still daylight of black ones... Just bigger t yet. I never see them arrive. t- POOMF! the air is alive with here do they come from? through at this kind of hour. me as per usual. They're afraid now. Can't be sure of course, ndering in through a black box, an't enter this dimension). or a murder down here wouldn't tion. Ha! Blind bastards... what ever they do. Hell, ne. Come on Kaz... just then. I was scribbling shadow in the nothern box. As d the feeling of being watched her, it did, I swear to God it ourse. g. Came half-way into the n. o. t the fuck am I hanging about at a BITCH! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck f ------------------------------- ht. Shame you can't erase ink t? his morning, rather)... Him and ss out of me, of course. Got me ht ---> Hell, you know the m. if I'm being dragged too close r that might entail). Am I pid questions, forgive me: I that matter, and even then I 've become a very lonely and admitting it's not my fault. else did. Where's the wrong in s and grow up? more? thirteen; I got laid when I y "mates" were still having t's not my fault, okay? IT'S anywhere in life? Hell, DO you or is that yet another fucking t is normal? Is normal wanting osy garden, a handful of kids, coming to this place? Stop ps I'm a cut above the rest. I tclubbing, girlhunting, r multi-named activities m happy... And yet not happy... p and as confused as buggery, ou want to spit; nightclubs are when you first walk in through quite what you dreamt it would plenty of that] ood in your mate's eyes. But . Who would understand and who explainably found yourself in selves- ctive to our eye- s are most important- therwise- e never noticed before. A de the head of my unicorn. I y are now? S'nothing on the em out, obliterating the memory ream? Did the moths do ike what she said at all. ERS FUCK THE BITCH] ------------------------------- ber who they all are? isn't a book. There is no plot. can remind you when ever I . my world. You need to know on this diary exists. all. Even love. When misused, can of course be illusionary... fore so often a cheap, pathetic r whisper that to her. Why say age would not look twice at ejection in her greenblue eyes. of the crystal clear perfection present youth population. If have anything at all. If what y won't have anything at all. rds. attractive by several members tive members of the opposite Important? Special? s on TV declare: if you're in l of your life. But looks are auty catalogue prior to being ust naturally keep. Forever. , perhaps. Because I show no acted to me: it's NOT the way nge for her. She believes I'm elieve - in many ways - I'm slide down her body as she ds me back. Gemma? ER?] ny, I respect the girl. But I e talks. I don't like the way , her ignorance, her periodic exually involved with her. When hed: I was nothing, nothing at knew my name: that's all that y". te success as a writer and saw shadows, did she allow me to expectation. here. I'm no longer asleep. le peer-tides. No, kiddo: I'm chool. inny white twig of a child - ion: the Eleven Plus Year. It'd ack then - I didn't of course - e still caught my eye; I don't ble to imagine I could feel so I would meet again and become ds destined to fall in love 't know. rough school called Holmfield from where I still live to ed the all-important test (or got offered a place at sixth hool called North Halifax re... And yet physically she it happens sometimes. Boys and had no tits whatsoever, not exchanged words with Karen. She ng God-knows-what in the up a book at random ("Human another) and wandered over to n she jumped and I apologised. sit here?" taring, as if her brain had hit 's filing cabinets. When her ound me. You can't forget some m. You just can't. w hellos in the corridors for the piss taken out of me for ar tart" so for a while best to avoid contact with t understand the appalling ressure). etic talker, something which her. Throughout her childhood , a very minor amount of true, k very quickly (and she'll be ice I find... Wonderful. Just CHILDISH] h form, we'd become very good our homework down the deserted chool (Karen doesn't live very writing and she showed great s for a few (admittedly wn simply because she'd been as just a teenage fetish - when antastic legend. uscripts to read - beginning, lding up to my more intense, me I left school we were ready of us poured anything out. One direction of partners and up enough confidence to direct e, because I think we're STILL look at or desire any other erfect partner. Another stupid sturbated over a girl I knew " with that girl - it was the existing-person" wank. By the ll bet there was only Gemma and ist... It was as though I was , I won't jack off over you hormones under control, I'm not you're shuffling up through becomes the most important y above exams - but now? e schoolboy kind of way. But... must must must be mine. rlier this year, and stopped er for about five months, so ight. I walked her home: one of had. Company, that's all she y. ight o'clock, and either runs he Tunnel and talks to me until due. I hate all vehicles e said before, but in Karen's ort is quite understandable: ill, I don't think I'd be up to and I hugged for the first time ke I could crush her if I put This, I fully expected: her precious to me... Like a rare destroyed - ruined - by the I was as gentle as I have been is pleased me. I think a kiss against her cheek, but alas, we osite each other on the floor d, Karen with a bright yellow thing but her usual, empty caring much; she shouldn't have deserts all over the island," the Sahara, only not as hot or kin cool, yeah. Like- really book. Waited. Glanced. Her eyes he has a way of looking at me - which I find mysteriously ose who believe personality is ct" from a person and "insert" twitch, every move, EVERYTHING is entry for two and a quarter about Karen. She borders on scription of her appearance? A vations? I could give you each, bserve: it's by far the best lysis in today's society. Hell, bastard diary] ossed a small, shiny keyring through my fingers. It was ture of a beach at sunset and fully inside. "I know it's not hardly any money and my mum ged. I saw this fuckin ace hat serpents kinda curlin round ouldn't afford so I got you a nk? I think it's nice." didn't sound too much like be: I still treasure Karen's ezing." I laughed too. "Of ould fry an egg on the floor. gg on the floor cos it'd get ppose it would." o anyway... I went swimming in the sand kinda sloped down tarted you know? Only this e German... But I think he was nd helped me swim back to the twisty kinda dive-thing and obviously much-enjoyed d of her amazing child-woman in recalling every event. al, and I looked up from a book as I listened. But Karen didn't look like she was going l you next time, maybe." have you written any more y, ignoring her question. ot anythin for me to read or and your book and stuff?" ually believe I'm gonna get a ey won't write back Karen, they teenager." you're a teenager." will. I'm not experienced led, echoing the Tunnel. The negative all the time okay? tive. They WILL reply because I yway," She stood and looked miss my bus. S'been nice. this somebody you met?" at- you met a bloke out there?" t!" she began to walk away. t has gone numb I will see you ------------------------------- . Here's something I haven't aren works. It was my second (my first being at a branch of e there were so stuck up I quit about a month, working after- st week I thought it was okay - s up my spine - and then a new hing went haywire. way I looked, the way I stacked ucking pencil. In the end I fat arse and left - setting ehouse alight on my way home. I'm on the subject, lasted just ition with a re-vamp crew who sive new supermarket just out hich is how I came to find this st wasn't for me: I got tools (I never was any good at by the gaffer himself - the bastard. I thought that kind gly head in school playgrounds. and trashed the half- helves and cupboards and d up when I'd done, narrow-eyed you think you're doing?" he e (and horribly self-indulgent) xt Stephen King and that one ths with a copy of my latest signature. Of course, the guy o a loud "Go home and fuck your u fat cunt!" before he could ey drain your life away like lips by some kinda gigantic, ll it the Vortex lite lady in a fur coat just a gorgeously cheerful and orry about this. Let me pick ke about Karen is her apparent onths of full-time work I think xtended chat (yes, even for oducts, barcodes and prices is he went on holiday she was things we used to talk about - o change the world... Nothing e. I gave her a redraft of the took it home and brought it that she'd read it. I know ew nightmare sequence' I'd put '... Only I hadn't written a (though I often wonder if ut it doesn't look like it (the m surprised none of my other Tim, Steve, Gemma... er... fucking popular guy I am. e dark, handsome bloke whilst ith him. If that's the case I'm rience is okay (I got mine from even, believe it or not) but g long-term... Surely, please ays. ay. An unwelcome black figure that dump... The moment I c doors, it brought the few employment I'd spent there memory; it's not like I could been entirely revamped with . I think it was just... c. t as many as there was when I e still around alright: I behind the lawnmower displays - ng like giant black crickets, n't know what they do, what ck up the dust, but they big they are because they're be surprised if - out in the our average cat. ut there are no moths in Retail me until I'd finished my unter, folded my arms and eighbour and turned to face me, fuck're YOU doin here?" k like?" I said. as if she couldn't quite grasp in front of her, in the fucking at the stuff I intended to buy me: "What's the fuckin rope sh bags... Do you?" king my head round. "Argue with he manager, do you mind if I oyed. Good. ing the queue simply because about looking like an insane Dis is that most people tend to death at the moment. they call em, no shit) and ill bleeped. you're doing... But..." what I'm doing." looked at me, seriously. Karen tries, but it's a rare and e convincing attempts. I gave h the counter and flopped it methin?" he rope through. I bagged it nine... Stu-u?" She took it. "See ya later ge and recipt- Stu, will you be o come down and talk... Stu cut me off from her beautiful, colourful, Bug-infested world moths are big big big. And . ------------------------------- his wobbly, drunken state. The uding like exhaust fumes, his rangely fatter than usual. And his was TV influence at it's brother?" - That before he'd swer." He collapsed beside me, of his mouth. ng in my notebook. "Three bolted upright. "You made a ow did your parents react to d to his son. `Very s tonight, Steve," I said and tired." t slightly, say something ell you?) it, right?" body has ever offered me a g dick,' I thought, but st to see where it all ended e Your Brother More Than You' e... For the first time ever, lly done some serious research poken to Richard, or even Mum. ious about (excuse the ing his fag out. se, and stubbed it out on the teve." f his nut to realise what I'd , found nothing there, flopped n she loves you," He said in a hersing that line since he got He watched the moths for a e nail more-or-less on the head he deserved a respectful bardment. By not answering, I uspicions either. Perhaps he'd idea, thinking this one had s?" He blurted suddenly. I rawling for the southern box. `wins' the next time Steve indeed). But we'll see. ------------------------------- of the day wandering rather gh - there's always people and s... And then suddenly I'm server. Being scrutinized and wn beside me, peering inquisi- ou paintin things?" She agrams I'd been doing. "Can I " to draw a surprisingly ly she stopped and looked at me d-innocence. can you make pictures with no r a response, a sharp female 've I told you about talkin ed hastily towards the source and a muffled yelp echoed teps receded. se - come and put the colours domestic bollocks out of this won't have any choice but to rents WILL find this place... iece of work, this study of I've seen him strolling round uck-up bitch of a girlfriend. t the moment (ie: nothing is eriously `in the shit' when he into my lair. OY] undoubtedly KILL the Dad, why don't you just come ust bring your shitty little come on come on come on come atience is the key, I think. they've nothing better to do ver to return. ning. I reckon one of my ! a !aHa! a ! c tiles have fallen away in the dence of course, but it's quite one of the fragments fall out t I'll be fucked if I can find too keen on hanging around rd would turn up. ------------------------------- ------------------------------- That's a long way for you, uch better to get a car and life, get grown-up. ng. walk - not run, jog, sprint, l the way back home, from the How? ll back into my own chaotic ke trying to fall asleep: the ever remembered, never quite and from this place - it takes o quite literally "leave myself really believe I'm somewhere o, I dunno what/where it is. es, I'm not sure, I CAN'T be occupied while walking to a , to simply observe your people, the activities, the ion of walking in the first these `normal' methods if the r (or both). ea during the daytime, but at ars to function as they should ck his head in nick it", etc). ed small goblin-type creatures f occupied. These ugly monsters rcraft. Destination Tunnel. Or em weather reports, ETA's, tions with my imaginary e menu... Anything to keep the nd in my fucked up brain, I o music, I can't enjoy the it all too well. The only cking intensely... I feel to cross over to a strange, st "body leave" I've ever had. g Karen> orth? Yes Illingworth!--- ghts> I'm back home. Stop at the cratch head, glance at watch shit could really be something my physical fitness - Jesus, I st the repetitiveness that's een on through. Isn't that nice all in and see me? thin voice and sat down hed as she rummaged through piece of lined A4 with a few t offered it. I paused before " day?" lous I met somebody." ," She rattled the sheet of ng poem, read it, go on." Her I thought she was going to for a while to see if it would they didn't. She started biting round and round my head t you down hing I said tch the birds I fly ond the hills our side . Folded it up. Gave it back to . d, I wrote it." She gasped. "Thanks." ke it back. I looked at the d take it back. And I smiled rt little skirt down, giving me ers. T THOSE OFF] y notebook back into E Mr Nice Guy Chesters," Karen y think you're some kind of l you now, you're fucking NOT but you're NOT. You thought u? Nobody at all. And now some- kin jealous aren'tcha. Well breath. "The boy... The man I come true, do you see what I'm ad come true. I want to be with because you're my best friend, so fuckin hard... You're you just say you're jealous, here we fuckin stand, just say at her and threw my book down SENSELESS. *KILL* HER *NOW* DO IT--] whispered. "Okay, I'm going, and began to walk away. Her lesh. She started weeping... he night. d stupid laugh. write this entry, I found a ------------------------------- they've always- rday didn't you? Well forget after people. I'm sick of it. to hang on tightly to the ne, always, I'm treated like h it all. Well bollocks. ht's little episode with Karen. hern box. Just a shadow-curve. these words down. Her fingers just peeped- what shall I do? I do?] slid away. S'gone now, and I her. Perhaps she's a ghost. A ... Hell, maybe it's not Dianne p in my head... But I don't ed... Stomach-curve? ith real terror in them down g now: a sort of skin-tingling, e with cold needles. The whole m scared. Like seeing it under opylene rope. A bundle of A cigarette lighter. A healthy . Buzzing lights that don't aic stones; icy and tiny and crack in the wall beside the iously, just what the fuck am I ------------------------------- Huddled up near the southern footsteps began to echo. e didn't take any notice: with reath, she was up, backing e her - you know as well as I at. today's entry. I got a rejection slip today, ry compendium being launched been getting on my tits all out on my computer without f writing... Or anything else MUST. I don't know who I am, out. ... ------------------------------- op for a chat. He was with a per usual. the scruffy one," bowl?" same in here. m alone," - Jee, some defence tu?" al insults out - I get most of listening to Tim's mates it's hilarious. Tonight I've bullethole", "cockwash", ggot man" - although, glancing (a converted telephone book), I scrub that out. Yup, done. received (from Tim obviously) Stories Published?' but on ----> (a) it didn't even ice But Dim really wanted an k in here and repeated himself. it? Can't you see it? I can t as a cock in a mousetrap: ey don't care about me, or each f sub/urban youth. Everything's . it extinct. And hope, don't yeah, I still have hope. I ut... Whatever it is I've got ile ex-schoolboys keep coming er day was pretty harsh. Not a e. In fact, it seems to me t me off the writing business t these days - a hell of a lot orkshop period - but stuff of aging nature, really does get blishes horror/fantasy of any ider material of "any horrific guidelines. And yet they don't t have it. Won't tolerate it. e modern fiction without using lly as insulting letter. Would , five lines into it, and just Why can't writers and editors n up and attempt to understand word `fuck'? Why do you find four letters and roughly means ou know! I mean... Why do you entire population of this ng basis, too? k' into my prose just for the ou're very wrong indeed. I ers - about the present, what their age, background or `bad language' or `swearing', n fact. talking in the street? Have in the playground? There is no . It's one of those small ply must be accepted. ven if it soon becomes, as I replacement for the commonly bleeding'? l then, please cancel my itty little 'zine. y walked through: a black man ------------------------------- nt visions, same moths, thoughts, half-asleep- ell you: h a box of tools sauntered up flyover. The advert it c film - was way out of date, of felt-tip and spraycan hing, smiling, unseen in the work. He packed up his tools unnel. rds him - so pathetically blank ormal down here in the misty d found I was looking into... . Empty, bottomless, looking . Pushed me out, sucked me in. pain. My fist hit it, over. Nausea washed over me. My passed. Avoiding me. but what does it matter? ------------------------------- t- as the events of the non- in a rush of blood and flame of a cigarette lighter, ths have appeared as they he thought of burning them his book for all the bitter nsider self-combustion. weather in this industrial ing when self-discussed. They nets... Try to scrape me back ine punishment I'm not quite HAVE thought- I HAVE thought- s CRACKED-] in this town - and listen to alive, this place is living, ng and destroying mutant moths, 's spinal cord, it's lover and will CLICK. - my unassigned tools buried ibble as always, popping my s in the social seas... And s dance and the shadows of ghts buzz (like the growlnoise y fingers across my skin and but the skin of a shark, a r chunk of the mosaic unlodge ghtening speed, but, as always, f fallen stone. have a T ladies and gents. A ------------------------------- n today, something that could n read this. I dont like bedroom window! Arrived beside by a cold, cloudy darkness, e woman who'd given birth to me her home of every trace of a Mum. to not d that before, about me using language like ned it. Still, she shouldn't ilt, should she? Not at half e day God told us all to cool it. Play back the tape, omething special, something Okay, okay, here goes. d-" now." one!" d. Fishcirclemouths, but no an explosion of glass and d the shining dice bounce and nd weeds in its path, until it and the front door was locked. s and walked away. heart? ecause you've suddenly become r, the piper, the freeman... A ape of a planet you arrived on ward customers. ate moment between two randy ary precautions. Lumbered with amnation by a mother obsessed CKING BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH a product in a supermarket. I'm I attended, a brick in their a human doormat for lazy, ged by others via a physical xistant God. Trapped in a of this doomed planet, with no ng to an abnormal heart-beat. war - an end to the suffering sh species that does not ime and matter. But there is a tained power, offered by true - his is escape from pressure. another part is certainty - he Tunnel. ------------------------------- good... Fed to evil... what? ams. Link worlds. Funny how the ntle, cosy bedbeater what? I f life's domestic requirements ow what? on't you just speak louder, I suppose I'd better go and take I dunno, tink them. The walls mean I'm cracking too? And why compared to every other day bit beside my unicorn where the STAy d I'm terrified because I've but I'm alright. particularly comforting the past few weeks I think o I'm not gonna panic. If this gonna let it say it. I'm not ! SHI T FU c f you scribble shite like that p shit: this diary IS you, boy. ANITY. he shape of four letters. I rry, messy, anger - I must have nse of things - well, better ence right up front, right ht there! 6 17 18 19 20 21 21 22 23 24 25 . Shit ing - all fucking day is quite e spent a hell of a lot of time exciting - I must have looked nce the start of the year, and be fucked if I'm gonna sit down fternoon, soaking up abuse from s! I've got a home! - and it's lking, DICKWEEDS. fuck is happening I don't ll. I have some change and I e dole office but I'm due for EEK what am I going to do NG B.F.M.F.B.F.H darling. I am hoping they'll upper's in the oven, there's ice family get-together p and down the Tunnel twenty inutes. What the fuck am I go back and talk to Mum and friends - loads of writing going; the writer's group - d did I? Why Stu? Because you ly doing >> FUCK ALL << down O fucking great, as if she's ng great, I'm stuck here in t the colours in now, I would ase put the colours in in my hand. this up, and I'm- I swear that ppened. The words - STAy - are m... But I feel like laughing, - Dianne I mean. She actually mach, come to think of it, she it frightens me because I d SHE knows I didn't, but I ed; she said come on over here A couple of little guys. tely what she said, exactly oice didn't echo. It was really through some other... Thing, in it. uldn't feel it when I touched e Tunnel towards her, looking uddenly it was all so big and n she slipped out of the box anne, wait! Hang on!" - only my ike normal, so I'm not sure if he metal fence that boxes off y do take a while to get nd for a while I couldn't hear or anything - anything at all - -buzzing (ever-living?) lights. outed. I turned round, stared s a short, scruffy tube, which nk of the London Underground. in, sat precariously (with it's on the fence I'd just crashed couldn't make a sound, never uckin dog turd with arms and ncing in it's mouth. "Hey, before. Something wrong?" at's right, you read correctly used to offer a lift to. The t of my coat pocket on the rican accent, oddly enough) how nd that he wanted a FUCKING ING kip (only my coat doesn't but (shit no) he didn't blown-up paper bag and dressed silver studs, rather like the ssed up in - whip in one hand, him alright. The only thing I e twat's name. right now," I knew what he was ift. Well fuck you, gobb-o, I Been chucked out, didn'tcha bastarding cunting mother. am would dump you out on the oblin, edging around on the n shitniggle like that stop ya ched his cigar out and pointed ing. "I got urgent business to coupla human footsteps short've that dump is don'tcha?" ced the ten pound note that now of this diary. "Ten fuckin made every fuckin night since Think about it, Chesters." The ndards). "Whatchoo gonna do u gotcha self a Tunnel, yeah, in package. If you wanna keep our bones, you'd better start ng?" tle cunt's name. hat easy, Chesters," The cigar time pointed downhill. He yourself,' "Five for me, five he deal." down. There was another he brightly illuminated te, like the shadow of a badly out it," I said reluctantly. s. "Did you hear-" But he was take. "Thanks," I snatched it nose. "Come on then, climb coat pocket and lifted it nce. de pocket?" he grumbled, -like eyes. "Fuck me Chesters, n my pocket, hands on the mself into the deep end. "No it and stamped on it. He nd foul-mouthed shitbag) by Tunnel. He rolled like a perly, I mean, unlike the night when Karen turned on the no, this was REAL laughter). T'Nucy Nit. p like a big dog turd. I suddenly accepting - and g, dragging minutes of endless the Beechwood Road turn-off e two big, green boxing gloves r side. the library, I plucked the Men and eased them down onto y both shrieked in chorus and he roadside wall. "Always put , unseen. "Joo want the whole ow featherlight but full of or something), then announced: gentlemen. Have a pleasant to swirl round for the journey fused Man's Journey, I was visible again, screamed up e're lookin after you, fucko! k of this shit you ugly little ange eyes twinkling like fire ll take you." He hissed. With- ows. t supposed to mean?" I shifted slid up the wall, stealing the Except there was no trace of istening spiderwebs and rain- croscopic. "Hey, are you d. I looked back down the road ... Getting closer. I stood he light source exploded and I t was: car headlights. - those goblins were heavier badly - and the car rattled er of rainwater. I watched it, ly describe as `an air of e scene (the night, the cold, ether. ht, I could see the colour of . at least TRY to get some h the goblins was real or into my underpants. r buy myself a few changes of going to wash? How am I going ge in the Tunnel: I've walked ese entries are going to get a ------------------------------- ack to me today. A memory - my ence - perhaps the underlying the idea of rape. Rape Nina, eight years since, and next door and working in some hey called her, and never only I lost my ball over the k, I had to had to knock. d. e door closed. Warm, funny, echo of a radio somewhere (I ture and alien ornaments and ent and sat on the settee and then out into the green as resting contently in a patch ll from her garden! The whole he whole of it: jagged-hole an white sky, so I stayed for a er back and I turned and said nd she said no, it's okay, and and smelt it and saw that she ne (manners and all that even it was hot); freezing ice, as her lips turned bronze and idge. If you ever want one, ite blouse thing... Hung ellow like dog's wee. She nated because her (what and plain to shape beyond that ad ever been before to clicked open (more skin and entrefocus for my eyes only she d me looking. Cold sticky hardly touched my lolly, even tching flies as Mum would say. treet and friends yelled, Mum birds flew overhead in a " there was a little nipple much much smaller than Mum's y liked it, my lolly dropped on d look look looked. ly up and down and round the ore at me, like she wanted to re so blue I couldn't stare for ink and so big nipples did y nice she was beautiful, I lips- tongue- swallowed, can't home. Dog wee yellow all over ib like Richie's old one that oing...', `Can I touch...', ang and echoed but never never t... Come on." e sweet-smelling tatty house, hhhh," buttons undone clung to pinkish red nipples, nythin like this you have never tell anybody, okay?" 't speak so nodded yes yes yes paul won't tell anybody else o shake. It's okay." you never said this happened to be older I- anny as well. Honest. Go on I reached out and up and- and- like skin I had wanted to feel gers across not soft but hard na made a noise so I snatched bronze lips. Bead of wee still hing... And her chest was ath soft lips against mine, too was shaking- sweating- ee of home friends mum brother she licked and pulled up g in her mouth and then things ied me to different places and erself as I watched through ff branch that was my own ke these days now in Adult us both on it bottom top bottom days, and forever after when I . There are great problems. And is the fact that I'm quite Perhaps from a dream, perhaps t it did NOT happen, not in haps I made up the part where I up thoughts - and recorded a f to say to myself, my REAL e another eight fucking years end in this place now that the I'm engraving marks in the riend STAy over there. some boxer shorts, some sand- of fruit from one of the stalls h the dosh because I'm sure back tonight, outside the l be very happy to oblige. ook a slow bite from the Boots' ne of the voices... (could it moment I was filled with so rensound that I let a gooey and splat on the floor like 't! needles & pins and I ached was with somebody ELSE this riends TONIGHT?) otsteps. And then in they came em, masking their lower faces she was talking to me over a hat the fuck's going on?" ion (whatsisname? what?), a bloke. perately, almost bleeding with ot and lightning fast - shoot red into my lair like marines a sound but all I got was a stuck there - an elastic band, n help me please)] like a pirate for treasure and r some time. "WHAT HAPPENED!" ke that one but I couldn't see her hair her touch her being... e and mouth to stop running but s like "how are you?" and "mum sic hints of communication ttractive, Poor Stuart way. It Hunky. I'm Bruce," He offered me his eezed it tightly to show I guy was big and the guy was don't fuck with people who talk ker, or who see the Retail Bugs YOU). o, please..." I waved them her not an appalling mess like nnies don'tcha see how shallow my sleeve. "I want you to . We'll find somewhere for will) "We'll gotoa-a-a-" n-" jumper. That was when Bruce of the Machine's stomachlights tatue from a mythical film (I onaughts") and about as as a cup of cold coffee on a It's quite obvious to me that is guy a medalion) "Are you this subway?" (it's not a Drug Tunnel) "Can't you smell nd, wrinkling his nose up. how do you think it's going to hin again, that lovely spiky en Karen's cuntlips yet has it is a friend of mine. I can r a place to kip because I with Karen at the moment," (I me) "But I can give you n I smile, now: my lips are much, but a little. I'll f my coat and took a few -?" ervice." was lying, but I just winked. an, what they symbolise? Or do algolem's cock inside you all he place stunk. The lights ks staggered past, squinting ped midnight. whispered. "It's morning now. ed her jacket. ly under my message "ENDLESS thed and stopped massaging his ." you can tell?" so much to just leave it as Isn't she?" I added (please ed. "Maybe she was for a while, over now. Perhaps a fantasy, me iled to himself. "She said I rsely, viciously. y hostile eyes, before nodding sn't whispering anymore - in er." will you?" e wanted to cry part of me the blood across the walls of smug hedgehog chin out of the east (that had stolen my yes to curl up and go to sleep and over but the real real real from a single surviving orrupted heart told me it was my own lack of self- elf-power self self self self rouched beside me. "I'll tell ll her how I feel, okay? he will. I mean- shit, just . bbed his eyes. "You're right, ever will be. I like her, a a great friend, and christ we what you said a few moments is all I wanted." He looked last and I wondered: are you ee?] own at the sleeping girl. ay, and I was left with a patch ould fade so quickly I would in his arms. , we're going home." ow, I promise," She called over herries. "Take care, don't go proh-hom-iss..." d thinking fucked up thoughts) e little guys were back, so I prepare myself for the long rch on the fence. "You gotta on't keep on being the young- They grow up! And there's moping around and wipe that places to go, am I right? nodded. "Right." d we were off - no delays. The idn't complain as much as they I enjoyed myself. de up that bizzare sexual have become so vivid and ot into place around the non- ake it feel as though it DID there was a voice whispering ome when you overheard your ou saw Nina naked one day! u should try and remember the lowing all this? or are you up conscience?" s tonight, but I did come back nds in my pocket, and now... he old ones in the bushes - & sauce) and I'm now going to watch the moths (or are they fall asleep. ing to "solve a jigsaw puzzle" ------------------------------- der the Tunnel, I was outside, ly lingers. I had been blown, I aves. According to my watch it d stiff and starving, so I slideshow. I spent most of it hard (if he was upset, if he ed or letting Mum tear it up ooking for me, if HE'D been n WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? Does me. And let's face it, I do idence anymore, no faith, no l, no nothing... y - I'm obviously going insane, ppens to me- what I see through should I make it up? I spend er making a fictional diary look back and remember it that ity from fantasy? what's real, what's unreal, g... s. And one wine bottle used up. l tell you what happened shall eached into my pocket like I gun or something but instead I ty wine bottle, which crack- leaving me with a circular- owed walking - stopped walking slowly, grinning. ." I smiled, holding up the rolled out of it, hit the he whole of the crane, not just at me, drunk as usual but me, his friend, his contact, ight Zone, gone mad, turned , I think - and I advanced as still giving me abuse, but in ic voice. t us master, we're sorry-] realised the smell and the alls and the new grafitti done might be my own and might not ome to Daddy... is voice fresh and new and low ath the Tim. The darkest depths kicked me and driven me to k. "What the fuck are you gonna ad with that, eh? You're fucked tricity. My fingers were n was running with sweat. clenched teeth. go-" Three more. Tim in the lead, all, I was his friend. led, arms held out. "You're are ya Stu, eh? You're just a screamed and that I was the ght with the teenage girls - n, terrified of insanity, eld high and ready to strike. but I do remember slicing open back and slashing him across the ght I would trip. I remember ding me, filling my mouth, l and collapsing not with the e of glass and the crack-whip r... Except her warmth. I do soon, I can sense it. They m satisfied that tonight I chased away, away from here and I am ead his guts all over this hurt you in the past or you e breakup. I took the risk , two-sided friendship - would o deep down d n't give a fuck ed, throughout? r. e all over the kitchen floor and the Bug did a million more, ------------------------------- ellow-white like puddles and am in a cardboard tube, a t but I'm not allowed to leave. ike rivers of melted butter Karen. id you could have the spare staying here, I won't let-" rom here, I can see it, I love for hurting you, I can see it, that, crying I think, though tter, like little heating fans, my face. e road that the things we bottles, rope, black bags, k and made-up-fantasies. They to solve - crack that and for anything to happen and what I wait f r doesn't exist ad) up here, do you get it g to make sense. e that is Steve today when he butter) and stopped and e turned to pity and offered ok, before I hooked the rope cross the ground, nearer and wap, nearer and nearer to the ast, and I swung him ---> I ng and crying and bleating like nto the monster's buttercoated en his body to the waist, then f my world, out of my nest, out s I flicked the lighter up and his voice to leave like the ever be back. ough he didn't hear, and I can, ere. to see if I was still alive olice man with him through the a big binliner he was holding something caught, something yes." s, he looked different, not a his eyes was a different ed him. ," he replied, smiling. he waved before disappearing ter the dimension flash, the h and rattle - big it was, staggered up and took hold of e plastic clash of legs, the of Retail Bug shit - black ape of bullets, I sensed - as hrob and thrash and kick and ure. c ld. Tore through my jeans, he bag and skidded down onto lped and eventually leaped free spr ng for the southern box, dimension flash. Tunnel and chasing the remember getting to here, laid in the dark. Magnus said some- o pieces with glass in the back ring aimlessly by a man gnus climbed out of my pocket. sault, sat up and made his eyes id, grinning. "End of the road, ed to be back at the Tunnel in think some more about the past of the things the STAy message somehow, you know, I couldn't, ng, the final frontier, the father felt like before death, urring his vision was and how all sins he must have been. h the dreams," smiled Magnus, could see the bricks in the ace the music, fucko. Stand in urrent." e, out in the middle of the hs, silent and freezing and ing as Magnus disappeared and I y to STAy now and tackle the down, up-down, and to scream nd, right to the fucking END, D, I scribb e to the END, the ------------------------------- inly of Karen. Remember being nto mine. ------------------------------- g s mething, being told ng. ------------------------------- lking, not m h from me - j st d Richard. Mum cryin�. Mum rem er touching my face and . shes where I kept t e items I und glu of all things in plas ------------------------------- eyes. Se med excited. Quite a I h ve met before. Papers ou ." t be good ne s, unless of g it up... Or whate er. I s r n ou ------------------------------- you? I wonder... Me? I'm a flyover that snakes its way Halifax (I'll let you decide s a quarter past twelve AM and in Abbey Park (about three moths dance across my stories e I've written published pieces liar with my name and work and oday - but everything accepted res from the real universe ould it be that everybody hether this dairy will be of arly debatable question. Good e first entry and all. If I kind of conclusion, forgive me t know how easy it is to keep e why I don't buy a car or a nnel and back home again. You g around at this time of night chos! rapists! werewolves! their holes at the same time. s simply dance and the tunnel k more than ten yards without e pretty hellishly weird. Thing s to understand is the amount alk. Problems, riddles, ideas, ave - many times - clicked into hts, or as my footsteps have und. Found. for shelter and I haven't been use I want to be here. I like rive, ride, bus it home... home nd not think of each other. It's not very big, not really, cross the daylight-busy tarmac. that, a DIY superstore. Down hy, cobbled road to an ancient res either end. Park near the - stop- and then turn and run. home in the morning mist. to scribble that. Writing can it though, I think. If anything happens on the way, not in Intensive Care. ething: Chesters. Stuart ------------------------------- bet. It's because I write, that's , that's another strong one; here's more... Something I hink perhaps- oh hang on rough, staring at me all the . He grunted. responsibilities such as work, because I've realised I have ). Older readers, or you the majority might have some I explain? nyway. Tunnel and observe people. ue and tease, maybe even... hrough, panting wheezily, eyes really look at me. Animals s kittens scuttle on past with- ah: myself. bout seven months ago, after ich involved my mum and my fteen; four years younger than I can do is write short r too sick to print or too is makes me pretty talentless om three jobs since I left the the conclusion that, not only loyable. I take creativity way the other in Graphics, and on d for a guy who's ambition used ty, not because I wouldn't like fidence and don't have any l rejects: Gemma Forrest, an as sex with anything in ed (and she was once, as far as ou ask); Steven Warwick, a layabout who collects billion sussed (but he hasn't); Tim o lives with his braindead, e this, thinks Manchester's in , like Steve, he's very gory fiction; and lastly, DIY store up on Pellon Lane. st: she's become what I would er than me, a late-developer I about twelve) but despite her mature - she could do a hell of e hours a day, of that there's worked a late shift, she comes a while. I enjoy our he next one down when it to see what she does. I don't Though I'm probably wrong. er parents in the Canary night, so she told me a couple balls to tell her this but... e crazy). ry cold. Tomorrow I'll tell you ou'll keep reading. I have much much more is going to happen. ------------------------------- ght, I stalked two teenage ir heads and giggling like el they muted themselves for a it came: em." the Tunnel. iciously intensified by the f thing you'd expect might school classroom when the d scantily dressed, and I , (excitedly?) until they nnel. Then, I closed my note- m. to hide in the shadows, and yet oes to ring as a distant menace b Lane, kicking each other, d back again (one even threw ir careless, chaotic wandering ng the desperate faces of ed and abused... And my - Karen. `How have you earned ht. `Where did you buy your eing more careful on the il? Hell, do really, honestly up with a hell of a lot of feelings or opinions of fair advantage of the innocent ? What gives them the right? A lottery of fate? sniggering and playfighting hey increased their speed, kept ch other. Head down, I just lights buzzed. Footsteps was around. r, we were nothing but midges. ps would appear that led up to here, no matter how late the o do it soon. Immediately. print, I noticed the pair had on a low wall. They were like Kittens in a cardboard ssing them wasn't right. What d to go along with my feelings if afterwords it felt wrong - ed. I looked up. The girls and shivering. Slowly, quietly, d. The three of us stared out ng to the hum of hidden s. tement- rage- the world shook a fountain of glass. I lashed aking through hair, splitting iners. The first shriek of ly this could not be round was natural? Not this em in fours, the other arkling with balls colour, I , down onto cold brick. her stomach. She gargled, ther girl had gone- vanished- grabbed a breast- squeezed it- said (it's hard to remember). never never never, or you are came out steadily, but in irous to rape- to torture- to ral to this pathetic moth that breast was completely flat into flesh. The girl's eyes t my other hand fumbling for my going to- I was going to- d ran. Ran, ran, ran... Where, hell am I? What gives me the ht, I'd better head home. If okay guy, as you'll soon see. ------------------------------- today and added some graffiti FUSION" I wrote... Done all iting. My A-level in graphic u know. i in the Tunnel at this moment ON Tour 90", "Smoke POT- it's "I love TSO 92" (in jagged eekie Chappies!", and of course ginal - "Kay&Jonny", complete t from beneath the &. ifax before. I do not feel good "mine" now. Like an animal hit or something. lked through the subway after e was pissed through (it's only k at me at all. He reminded me ories. Strange - maybe he was. 't stay open. This job (job?) live. Friday tomorrow, should mma. We'll see. ------------------------------- sual to catch the drunks as ked once and spat on three ble name-calling attacks) but I thetic and pointless sins one out half past eleven. With no ed, I felt my skin dampen: what f? uckin homework or summing?" swarming her, licking her ears, and still studying at school. tened of the term "work" and f higher education for as long xpects to use her eventually a. Still, I'm not one to let's be fair - no matter how mma is still a little girl. e surrounding males barked with riously funny. I ignored them or argue about anything they ly) result in them completely iss. demanded. and tottered around, waiting ring my usual, negative with an impatient sigh (the aindead males than for her). ously I was either stupid or d calmed, Gemma wormed herself ace gazing into mine. dge girls like that... Smooth hing in case it's just make-up , and beautiful blue eyes... ou stare for long enough. nd what've you got? A human ten you. a short black skirt, a thin rough it) and a dark denim hefty chest to poke through. and here's the proof"? "Gemma, little girl, I'm just not em for a start.") ed it again. "Ah, nothing." t came with a smile. ?" She's always asking me that ording to Gemma - unless he's en you start it?" given up on her and drifted on could see faint shadows waving thern box. ing bastard," she muttered. you sit under this stupid pped. "I've told you, I'm not off with your boyfriends." . I can imagine at this stage ll my problem is. I ought to ant, my real, inner-feelings h those of Gemma's. Second, I that have, for that past three nts from the scummiest depths hird, I consider myself a very , good joke, right? Right. nterested. How many times do I away and she ended up grabbing isted. "Don't you fucking lie emma." And then she jumped on me. st admit. Threatened to do it - ver actually physically thrown erfume and beer, and as we ug her teeth into my neck. I to clear a guy's thoughts. nd, extracted, pushed, chin up, ead between my knees. OFF me!" s don't you? Eh?" rting my ears-" onto my lips and let it build was hypnotized. And fell. ! on her upper lip. She closed aware of the escape route .. No. I don't think she wanted he caught it on her cheeks, her spit back, as if unnaffected. winkled... This attack was a ed on. bombshelled her forehead - and and voices. I clambered off ware of being congratulated by class face-shower. ------------------------------- ess my parents are rowing. emma... Head jammed between my the light of the Tunnel. lutter and I wonder... Have ------------------------------- y - God said - is the day when t. ------------------------------- ying how shit and hopeless ificent and promising and going to be? No, probably not. cript and it was late m school and I could hear Mum hoes off before he walking into in the hallway. Mum and Richard tiptoed up to the livingroom become like him... Wasting his . REAL career, REAL job... " lad I was eighteen when I younger and I might have taken the house with the bang of the eps were quick. They had to be; I was both. -" et. The sky was white, the ] cars were droning by. "No, t like me. Hasn't that twigged stake." , no! That's not true!" ter. Richard jogged to catch up ed away, teeth together. If he into tears too, and then before my knees, begging for a be right where I was (where no. e, I mean, Stu, I wanna read w-" " ent, thought about apologising, blood crouched sobbing in the m the streets alone what am I e with Richard what the hell am s published am I supposed to ow it away what am I supposed I supposed to do what am I o feelings. Adults are evil in e a child and you can pass s and it... Hurts. Why else g hours writing shit nobody his for ARE my parents. When eep weep weep cry burn in Hell to your own son. UP THE ARSE no love whatsoever. . You want monsters and ghosts ds, look up James Herbert or ny times (nothing wrong with down on ice cold stone when nd write under the Drug Tunnel verhead lights and the chatter , new questions about horror read this, because I've done with no market in mind, no confine me. And yet my chosen ay? I don't know. I don't give actually happened, but it's nal style; there are self- with dialogue and look at it that way. I've used agery as I can. You need ot just a block of boring text. derstand: feelings, emotions, worked." atic, huh? ------------------------------- ------------------------------- ng shite for the past few days. m not going to edit anything e, you're with my feelings. I t slip away like that again. e to tell. that was. Just when I thought I kirt, along comes Mr Knowitall spectrum of hatred. ight?" ohol. I shuffled away. He here without being pissed? : Question of the month. rned away, as if in repulse. l twat: when he first arrives questions. Nice company. Then lley". He proceeds to declare on and on and on, until I k off. It's always the same ?" not. I looked at Steve through touched you up when-" nna talk, talk quietly and wn sick ideas. Understand?" haven't got a sister!" Something musta happened. This ou?" OFF, cunt." all normality. It's never g seems to have really... began this diary. Quite odd, st Friday." anybody last Friday." . as it fluttered against the it fell on the floor and began so interesting then. ur dick out and spunked all in her face, alright? I spat." lt like repeatedly whacking him sness, then pissing in his y teeth scraped together. pe, and a good job it is too; ly would have repeatedly d in his mouth: I'm a fucking ucky stars I found writing, hispered, more to himself than omething. No change there. "You 've gotta be past fifty to ce and all that. You've nothing ked at me again, his goatee What ever you want to say... Everything in the world has en he first came out with it oint I suppose - most things r destroyed. Only the super- ology - or the incredibly rich e voice in the world. d Steve in an equally soft ed. . The lights buzzed. hed. icked it. "Why what?" this!" His voice echoed the sness. Take religions which .. Like, say, Christianity. n't/weren't willing to accept ce - so they scribbled down a werful Spirit) being the ruler blindingly obvious fictional sad pricks believe in it all. en again, isn't everything?) a young, fairly attractive, ing the early hours of the tebook for absolutely no reason t. And it doesn't fit with don't think). There >HAS< to ty... I've been molested, e, shouted at, I'm afraid of re, I'm attracting my peers' for my being here is any one of them was true he'd d me. I reckon I'd never see complex jigsaws. silence. "I'll sort you next e. Sure you're not walkin up ff down the Tunnel. He came rong way. A couple of other bodies have ng this but to be quite tion. Sorry. asn't just my knackered brain. ------------------------------- then hello again, then "Gemma, ut she didn't stop, didn't sit hat I had her in the first I suppose. but she was human... And the roll about on the floor of her face. What I bastard I am. think- bly like me to] the past half hour. Haven't alarm installing company, has en I first met him I admired , most cornered pissants on the to boot. nly job he can get. He hates it to keep money coming in from regnant his parents chucked him like to be chucked out by your thing in common: they're both ike rabbits. share none of the same other stands up. Doesn't work, he bollocks. The only thing d she's got a fanny. In out in y cokey and you fuck up your ing from our conversation. We old), about books and stories, use in my forthcoming fiction, . "Jobs are okay," I remember ing for the first week or two of your life." er impatient response --> That, ng great. tractions about becoming a " as such, there are no set pay (at least, for your first on the employment market] orth relating. know. Funny how things can hrough the murky teenage ere times when Tim slapped me lf... And yet he was sat here chatting to me like we've or story I'd written myself out -dropped class, Tim got great punch-bag. After "Bleeding ed talking to me about horror oks. me one strange and bitterly [it had to be a trick]. As it e became good mates. He even k him why he'd punched the shit nated me, it did, how anybody nted fiction and turn from bad - and still doesn't to this rd when everything's boiled ang out in the Tunnel for so d to the fact that he's partly childhood was panel-beaten like him. Every slap, every -> it's all still in me, some- -scarring trauma - many people d of thing, and far worse - but nnot see it. childhood thinking about m down as incidents in stories, of a murderer instead of a es my fiction: with out it, he is own description) --> stuck perhaps: me, his Frankensteins e's average company, and - I ot the kind of guy to spice up ------------------------------- cted to my often bizzare and . which you regularly spend time , the local library, your ound to crop up sooner or that one. 's time appearing in my dreams. sitting in a mind-rendered ths which have my "friends'" a reason). ross-legged in the middle of hter (up-down) between my eyes. ly naked - and there were three in a neat line just ahead of nd wrapped around each was a a picture of a sky-blue car imes, which is why I went into this morning and bought myself into supermarkets - they're hing deathtrap, full of stuck ugh nobody seems to notice, ling and scuttling and nibbling ks. But I'll tell you about rld in general - another time. ngs to discuss). e, paid a visit to the "Wines & ' guess what I found... w the wine is the exact same e he popped his cloggs, hence a hectic fishing trip and reamscape which I am now - on reacting to. A good excuse to down the wine nearly a month's dole). Right beneath an off-putting thorne entrance. ey're gonna get found, but the average by-the-side-of-the d the path's sacred: if you shit. Yeah, right). he Tunnel, just like the one I at school. Only better - and hy? It's only a horse with a about that? What makes it so othing except the way it looks. ------------------------------- ked naked through the Tunnel. lmost painful `prickling' ose teenage girls a while ago and cold against my skin. f occasional vehicles made me d, then got dressed. Nobody do that again. I don't feel nk it'll be worth keeping you ere must be a reason for it. u when/if I find out). ------------------------------- ------------------------------- Tom today (I'm not only now - I'm squeezing out some d, but I feel disappointed, andle when I was attending the ago (before it closed down due ne of the few "clubs" I've ever ere. erning writer's groups: one or dominate and even destroy what althy workshop; they can become writing to and for each other; lly) hostile and off-putting to "nice" (any work read out d the table). be heading off in any of these out my, shall we say "sicker" s to the set tasks. the workshop seemed like heaven the door was met by a huge Yes! It was as though I had at p in touch by sending mail to eople who regularly attended, lified by a workshop, or taken for that matter. They're just I'll ever understand why a ings) can possibly be rejected dly laid out manuscript, some- e"? floating around, plus a full than three months ago called l: he reckons it kicks the shit ay's market, but what the hell a book published. Not anymore, ame-based. Too commercial. titions because of the language es this sucks: where's the d fuckstains who haven't a clue = modern language, you prune- gged yet? Just because I don't a & biscuit party doesn't mean rejected, that's it. No more empts at "breaking through". best work I've ever done, so hell, why dream of t, I know I don't. I think too the Tunnel tonight. So I've omes more vunerable? At night p at night - some even alarm body could open the front door hts intact makes you realise insane - me perhaps? - to walk to open a front door, it o close up behind, to creep, to ------------------------------- lysis aren't I? Not to mention I don't know whether that's a t writing as a form of therapy, said a lot of what I'm writing Psychotic Dreams. ell tell you a little about does get accepted for s and additions and God-knows- oint taking a week or so out name - Psychotic Dreams is why fuss?] obiographical; after over- other, I went into suicide-mode ferent ways. think teenagers are perfectly ctive phase. It's just standard yourself did you? What the surface - to the outside e it is trivial, or something th occurs is it? It's not so to emotional shreds. If, on icide, think about that one. at, chain-reacting power. A power that, once freed, can book about the confessions of rban life has been one of abuse s are his only escape from a raped him of all forms of es... And learns to solidify threads of hope remain, only to side world. He decides to tic, perverted fantasies ---> . Animal cruelty. Child sex. it ought to be banned, it haps it is... But it was either . ------------------------------- her, I don't think I want her omething's gone wrong. Some- wrong. es seem thicker. Their heads... y're just... More defined. latter of Gemma. ------------------------------- y to write. Wasn't Gemma. Was Dianne. pockets. Shivering I think... clouds of supergiant moths. I p, pen pointed at the roof, and ... Believe... sa as she came out of the lpattern wall opposite. Her ing shadows spun webs across aid, "Please... I need to know t voice. My book eased d. ring and breathless - as I rose d the Tunnel bugs from my skin. ho- like-" nally threatening. I was the drils of smoke rising from my ted her feet. Scratched an h her tongue. ously. `I want to steal you to a thousand pieces. Girl girl , if- if you-" She took a deep, hisper. A strong, confident, ist. e me your shit, Chesters, you streaks of red desperation, fell- "Why am I pregnant why a perfect vaccum. My heart. times must I scribble bull- ne mothnest? Here, on the floor e reality of truth. fter page of pathetic lies] .." I crouched, made as if to ever. o words of comfort, no escort hung forever between us. and ruthless riddle-thought. of drink and an invisible nage male, asleep from he flicker of TV in his closed ourful wordshit smeared across he Tunnel through the northern low, staring as he passed. ut here you two friends? or ind]. miling a true smile. Her eyes d, charcoaling speech. What nd of a petrified lifeform, , it's own jarred existence. oh-kay...?" as confused just confused pper legs, her stomach, between ht. HOUGHTS I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO AW HER LEGS] , never... I would never do out for a few seconds. Went ivity. aa-) some... Things. But never, I you aren't, perhaps it's just ntly triggered nightmare had ke. I grinned when I realized an all-destroying sea of dark ng the walls. "Cath & Kim", marks of a hundred people Dianne", I thought of r when normality crept back... n. Run like the wind!] across the floor, climbing to . "Bye." She waved. back if you want to talk," I etime..." in silence, like a traveller to her own, alien universe. he same; from the moment they the darkness, they are in MY of this rotten, battered ours] rite anymore. I'll be better ------------------------------- dn't. There's more good in me "wrong" with me. You try t. It soon gets to you. appened. metimes I think it's better to to write them down... Ah I n't I can't I can't. ntry was a bastard to write. nning of this diary, I never t from each of my "friends" and e as a result of Karen's return I mean come on, I've lingered of a toilet for nearly a whole little outside, anyway. In my here between reacting to the down as it goes on. If I don't l be buggered if I know. I'm der. so there's little I can tell elf sorted, or in so much of a ve become the last person on ame. I know that wasn't perhaps "Here Dianne, kill me! Kill me e her my trust. And I ask you, left the Tunnel two days ago ountry - but it's taken until ugh here. Sometimes many nights ul. Oh, cars drift by up on the very often, nobody comes. mpty. I'll start on the last n. ... But when the vehicles above ing at that strange blue-car disturb them, make them shoot ete like ping-pong balls in rs either. ------------------------------- of Dianne. Or Karen. Or anybody full of drunks I didn't spend get into any shit, not after tonight, like there's some kind he lighter: perhaps it's a tool They'd no longer be moths of . Sounds like good fun. rrived late, or taken the day l be back (hopefully)... God I really stem from the past, or n the logic of time? umatic/damaging experience" has (and, perhaps more import- ction... There are none of e deepest chasms of my brain, of that. nest? Well... Who am I writing n-existant audience... Or just ts and brother. If they're the it... But... Is it possible to me lengths of time due to the n" (temporary mental illness?) become the truth: I sincerely t nothing "traumatic" has eans, if I am lying to myself, is that DID happen. (damaging) (damaging) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (fragile) (damaging) (damaging) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (damaging) out Karen? No.... Neither of , not that I know of. do? Are the attributes "good" very human being is "neutral" aggressive genes)... ie: must be a certain age - perhaps (nurture, basically) - at consciously? - "decides" ted more towards "good" than ...? Or is it winging up and s this state of imbalance any ---------------EVIL neutral point" found? Who is to ttering around on this line ow what, but something is. This cus. or anything. predefined by no-" hen I hope I'll be able to tell ith Karen. ------------------------------- iends, for Sunday is the day ck all will happen to anybody." ------------------------------- than usual. It's still daylight of black ones... Just bigger t yet. I never see them arrive. t- POOMF! the air is alive with here do they come from? through at this kind of hour. me as per usual. They're afraid now. Can't be sure of course, ndering in through a black box, an't enter this dimension). or a murder down here wouldn't tion. Ha! Blind bastards... what ever they do. Hell, ne. Come on Kaz... just then. I was scribbling shadow in the nothern box. As d the feeling of being watched her, it did, I swear to God it ourse. g. Came half-way into the n. o. t the fuck am I hanging about at a BITCH! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck f ------------------------------- ht. Shame you can't erase ink t? his morning, rather)... Him and ss out of me, of course. Got me ht ---> Hell, you know the m. if I'm being dragged too close r that might entail). Am I pid questions, forgive me: I that matter, and even then I 've become a very lonely and admitting it's not my fault. else did. Where's the wrong in s and grow up? more? thirteen; I got laid when I y "mates" were still having t's not my fault, okay? IT'S anywhere in life? Hell, DO you or is that yet another fucking t is normal? Is normal wanting osy garden, a handful of kids, coming to this place? Stop ps I'm a cut above the rest. I tclubbing, girlhunting, r multi-named activities m happy... And yet not happy... p and as confused as buggery, ou want to spit; nightclubs are when you first walk in through quite what you dreamt it would plenty of that] ood in your mate's eyes. But . Who would understand and who explainably found yourself in selves- ctive to our eye- s are most important- therwise- e never noticed before. A de the head of my unicorn. I y are now? S'nothing on the em out, obliterating the memory ream? Did the moths do ike what she said at all. ERS FUCK THE BITCH] ------------------------------- ber who they all are? isn't a book. There is no plot. can remind you when ever I . my world. You need to know on this diary exists. all. Even love. When misused, can of course be illusionary... fore so often a cheap, pathetic r whisper that to her. Why say age would not look twice at ejection in her greenblue eyes. of the crystal clear perfection present youth population. If have anything at all. If what y won't have anything at all. rds. attractive by several members tive members of the opposite Important? Special? s on TV declare: if you're in l of your life. But looks are auty catalogue prior to being ust naturally keep. Forever. , perhaps. Because I show no acted to me: it's NOT the way nge for her. She believes I'm elieve - in many ways - I'm slide down her body as she ds me back. Gemma? ER?] ny, I respect the girl. But I e talks. I don't like the way , her ignorance, her periodic exually involved with her. When hed: I was nothing, nothing at knew my name: that's all that y". te success as a writer and saw shadows, did she allow me to expectation. here. I'm no longer asleep. le peer-tides. No, kiddo: I'm chool. inny white twig of a child - ion: the Eleven Plus Year. It'd ack then - I didn't of course - e still caught my eye; I don't ble to imagine I could feel so I would meet again and become ds destined to fall in love 't know. rough school called Holmfield from where I still live to ed the all-important test (or got offered a place at sixth hool called North Halifax re... And yet physically she it happens sometimes. Boys and had no tits whatsoever, not exchanged words with Karen. She ng God-knows-what in the up a book at random ("Human another) and wandered over to n she jumped and I apologised. sit here?" taring, as if her brain had hit 's filing cabinets. When her ound me. You can't forget some m. You just can't. w hellos in the corridors for the piss taken out of me for ar tart" so for a while best to avoid contact with t understand the appalling ressure). etic talker, something which her. Throughout her childhood , a very minor amount of true, k very quickly (and she'll be ice I find... Wonderful. Just CHILDISH] h form, we'd become very good our homework down the deserted chool (Karen doesn't live very writing and she showed great s for a few (admittedly wn simply because she'd been as just a teenage fetish - when antastic legend. uscripts to read - beginning, lding up to my more intense, me I left school we were ready of us poured anything out. One direction of partners and up enough confidence to direct e, because I think we're STILL look at or desire any other erfect partner. Another stupid sturbated over a girl I knew " with that girl - it was the existing-person" wank. By the ll bet there was only Gemma and ist... It was as though I was , I won't jack off over you hormones under control, I'm not you're shuffling up through becomes the most important y above exams - but now? e schoolboy kind of way. But... must must must be mine. rlier this year, and stopped er for about five months, so ight. I walked her home: one of had. Company, that's all she y. ight o'clock, and either runs he Tunnel and talks to me until due. I hate all vehicles e said before, but in Karen's ort is quite understandable: ill, I don't think I'd be up to and I hugged for the first time ke I could crush her if I put This, I fully expected: her precious to me... Like a rare destroyed - ruined - by the I was as gentle as I have been is pleased me. I think a kiss against her cheek, but alas, we osite each other on the floor d, Karen with a bright yellow thing but her usual, empty caring much; she shouldn't have deserts all over the island," the Sahara, only not as hot or kin cool, yeah. Like- really book. Waited. Glanced. Her eyes he has a way of looking at me - which I find mysteriously ose who believe personality is ct" from a person and "insert" twitch, every move, EVERYTHING is entry for two and a quarter about Karen. She borders on scription of her appearance? A vations? I could give you each, bserve: it's by far the best lysis in today's society. Hell, bastard diary] ossed a small, shiny keyring through my fingers. It was ture of a beach at sunset and fully inside. "I know it's not hardly any money and my mum ged. I saw this fuckin ace hat serpents kinda curlin round ouldn't afford so I got you a nk? I think it's nice." didn't sound too much like be: I still treasure Karen's ezing." I laughed too. "Of ould fry an egg on the floor. gg on the floor cos it'd get ppose it would." o anyway... I went swimming in the sand kinda sloped down tarted you know? Only this e German... But I think he was nd helped me swim back to the twisty kinda dive-thing and obviously much-enjoyed d of her amazing child-woman in recalling every event. al, and I looked up from a book as I listened. But Karen didn't look like she was going l you next time, maybe." have you written any more y, ignoring her question. ot anythin for me to read or and your book and stuff?" ually believe I'm gonna get a ey won't write back Karen, they teenager." you're a teenager." will. I'm not experienced led, echoing the Tunnel. The negative all the time okay? tive. They WILL reply because I yway," She stood and looked miss my bus. S'been nice. this somebody you met?" at- you met a bloke out there?" t!" she began to walk away. t has gone numb I will see you ------------------------------- . Here's something I haven't aren works. It was my second (my first being at a branch of e there were so stuck up I quit about a month, working after- st week I thought it was okay - s up my spine - and then a new hing went haywire. way I looked, the way I stacked ucking pencil. In the end I fat arse and left - setting ehouse alight on my way home. I'm on the subject, lasted just ition with a re-vamp crew who sive new supermarket just out hich is how I came to find this st wasn't for me: I got tools (I never was any good at by the gaffer himself - the bastard. I thought that kind gly head in school playgrounds. and trashed the half- helves and cupboards and d up when I'd done, narrow-eyed you think you're doing?" he e (and horribly self-indulgent) xt Stephen King and that one ths with a copy of my latest signature. Of course, the guy o a loud "Go home and fuck your u fat cunt!" before he could ey drain your life away like lips by some kinda gigantic, ll it the Vortex lite lady in a fur coat just a gorgeously cheerful and orry about this. Let me pick ke about Karen is her apparent onths of full-time work I think xtended chat (yes, even for oducts, barcodes and prices is he went on holiday she was things we used to talk about - o change the world... Nothing e. I gave her a redraft of the took it home and brought it that she'd read it. I know ew nightmare sequence' I'd put '... Only I hadn't written a (though I often wonder if ut it doesn't look like it (the m surprised none of my other Tim, Steve, Gemma... er... fucking popular guy I am. e dark, handsome bloke whilst ith him. If that's the case I'm rience is okay (I got mine from even, believe it or not) but g long-term... Surely, please ays. ay. An unwelcome black figure that dump... The moment I c doors, it brought the few employment I'd spent there memory; it's not like I could been entirely revamped with . I think it was just... c. t as many as there was when I e still around alright: I behind the lawnmower displays - ng like giant black crickets, n't know what they do, what ck up the dust, but they big they are because they're be surprised if - out in the our average cat. ut there are no moths in Retail me until I'd finished my unter, folded my arms and eighbour and turned to face me, fuck're YOU doin here?" k like?" I said. as if she couldn't quite grasp in front of her, in the fucking at the stuff I intended to buy me: "What's the fuckin rope sh bags... Do you?" king my head round. "Argue with he manager, do you mind if I oyed. Good. ing the queue simply because about looking like an insane Dis is that most people tend to death at the moment. they call em, no shit) and ill bleeped. you're doing... But..." what I'm doing." looked at me, seriously. Karen tries, but it's a rare and e convincing attempts. I gave h the counter and flopped it methin?" he rope through. I bagged it nine... Stu-u?" She took it. "See ya later ge and recipt- Stu, will you be o come down and talk... Stu cut me off from her beautiful, colourful, Bug-infested world moths are big big big. And . ------------------------------- his wobbly, drunken state. The uding like exhaust fumes, his rangely fatter than usual. And his was TV influence at it's brother?" - That before he'd swer." He collapsed beside me, of his mouth. ng in my notebook. "Three bolted upright. "You made a ow did your parents react to d to his son. `Very s tonight, Steve," I said and tired." t slightly, say something ell you?) it, right?" body has ever offered me a g dick,' I thought, but st to see where it all ended e Your Brother More Than You' e... For the first time ever, lly done some serious research poken to Richard, or even Mum. ious about (excuse the ing his fag out. se, and stubbed it out on the teve." f his nut to realise what I'd , found nothing there, flopped n she loves you," He said in a hersing that line since he got He watched the moths for a e nail more-or-less on the head he deserved a respectful bardment. By not answering, I uspicions either. Perhaps he'd idea, thinking this one had s?" He blurted suddenly. I rawling for the southern box. `wins' the next time Steve indeed). But we'll see. ------------------------------- of the day wandering rather gh - there's always people and s... And then suddenly I'm server. Being scrutinized and wn beside me, peering inquisi- ou paintin things?" She agrams I'd been doing. "Can I " to draw a surprisingly ly she stopped and looked at me d-innocence. can you make pictures with no r a response, a sharp female 've I told you about talkin ed hastily towards the source and a muffled yelp echoed teps receded. se - come and put the colours domestic bollocks out of this won't have any choice but to rents WILL find this place... iece of work, this study of I've seen him strolling round uck-up bitch of a girlfriend. t the moment (ie: nothing is eriously `in the shit' when he into my lair. OY] undoubtedly KILL the Dad, why don't you just come ust bring your shitty little come on come on come on come atience is the key, I think. they've nothing better to do ver to return. ning. I reckon one of my ! a !aHa! a ! c tiles have fallen away in the dence of course, but it's quite one of the fragments fall out t I'll be fucked if I can find too keen on hanging around rd would turn up. ------------------------------- ------------------------------- That's a long way for you, uch better to get a car and life, get grown-up. ng. walk - not run, jog, sprint, l the way back home, from the How? ll back into my own chaotic ke trying to fall asleep: the ever remembered, never quite and from this place - it takes o quite literally "leave myself really believe I'm somewhere o, I dunno what/where it is. es, I'm not sure, I CAN'T be occupied while walking to a , to simply observe your people, the activities, the ion of walking in the first these `normal' methods if the r (or both). ea during the daytime, but at ars to function as they should ck his head in nick it", etc). ed small goblin-type creatures f occupied. These ugly monsters rcraft. Destination Tunnel. Or em weather reports, ETA's, tions with my imaginary e menu... Anything to keep the nd in my fucked up brain, I o music, I can't enjoy the it all too well. The only cking intensely... I feel to cross over to a strange, st "body leave" I've ever had. g Karen> orth? Yes Illingworth!--- ghts> I'm back home. Stop at the cratch head, glance at watch shit could really be something my physical fitness - Jesus, I st the repetitiveness that's een on through. Isn't that nice all in and see me? thin voice and sat down hed as she rummaged through piece of lined A4 with a few t offered it. I paused before " day?" lous I met somebody." ," She rattled the sheet of ng poem, read it, go on." Her I thought she was going to for a while to see if it would they didn't. She started biting round and round my head t you down hing I said tch the birds I fly ond the hills our side . Folded it up. Gave it back to . d, I wrote it." She gasped. "Thanks." ke it back. I looked at the d take it back. And I smiled rt little skirt down, giving me ers. T THOSE OFF] y notebook back into E Mr Nice Guy Chesters," Karen y think you're some kind of l you now, you're fucking NOT but you're NOT. You thought u? Nobody at all. And now some- kin jealous aren'tcha. Well breath. "The boy... The man I come true, do you see what I'm ad come true. I want to be with because you're my best friend, so fuckin hard... You're you just say you're jealous, here we fuckin stand, just say at her and threw my book down SENSELESS. *KILL* HER *NOW* DO IT--] whispered. "Okay, I'm going, and began to walk away. Her lesh. She started weeping... he night. d stupid laugh. write this entry, I found a ------------------------------- they've always- rday didn't you? Well forget after people. I'm sick of it. to hang on tightly to the ne, always, I'm treated like h it all. Well bollocks. ht's little episode with Karen. hern box. Just a shadow-curve. these words down. Her fingers just peeped- what shall I do? I do?] slid away. S'gone now, and I her. Perhaps she's a ghost. A ... Hell, maybe it's not Dianne p in my head... But I don't ed... Stomach-curve? ith real terror in them down g now: a sort of skin-tingling, e with cold needles. The whole m scared. Like seeing it under opylene rope. A bundle of A cigarette lighter. A healthy . Buzzing lights that don't aic stones; icy and tiny and crack in the wall beside the iously, just what the fuck am I ------------------------------- Huddled up near the southern footsteps began to echo. e didn't take any notice: with reath, she was up, backing e her - you know as well as I at. today's entry. I got a rejection slip today, ry compendium being launched been getting on my tits all out on my computer without f writing... Or anything else MUST. I don't know who I am, out. ... ------------------------------- op for a chat. He was with a per usual. the scruffy one," bowl?" same in here. m alone," - Jee, some defence tu?" al insults out - I get most of listening to Tim's mates it's hilarious. Tonight I've bullethole", "cockwash", ggot man" - although, glancing (a converted telephone book), I scrub that out. Yup, done. received (from Tim obviously) Stories Published?' but on ----> (a) it didn't even ice But Dim really wanted an k in here and repeated himself. it? Can't you see it? I can t as a cock in a mousetrap: ey don't care about me, or each f sub/urban youth. Everything's . it extinct. And hope, don't yeah, I still have hope. I ut... Whatever it is I've got ile ex-schoolboys keep coming er day was pretty harsh. Not a e. In fact, it seems to me t me off the writing business t these days - a hell of a lot orkshop period - but stuff of aging nature, really does get blishes horror/fantasy of any ider material of "any horrific guidelines. And yet they don't t have it. Won't tolerate it. e modern fiction without using lly as insulting letter. Would , five lines into it, and just Why can't writers and editors n up and attempt to understand word `fuck'? Why do you find four letters and roughly means ou know! I mean... Why do you entire population of this ng basis, too? k' into my prose just for the ou're very wrong indeed. I ers - about the present, what their age, background or `bad language' or `swearing', n fact. talking in the street? Have in the playground? There is no . It's one of those small ply must be accepted. ven if it soon becomes, as I replacement for the commonly bleeding'? l then, please cancel my itty little 'zine. y walked through: a black man ------------------------------- nt visions, same moths, thoughts, half-asleep- ell you: h a box of tools sauntered up flyover. The advert it c film - was way out of date, of felt-tip and spraycan hing, smiling, unseen in the work. He packed up his tools unnel. rds him - so pathetically blank ormal down here in the misty d found I was looking into... . Empty, bottomless, looking . Pushed me out, sucked me in. pain. My fist hit it, over. Nausea washed over me. My passed. Avoiding me. but what does it matter? ------------------------------- t- as the events of the non- in a rush of blood and flame of a cigarette lighter, ths have appeared as they he thought of burning them his book for all the bitter nsider self-combustion. weather in this industrial ing when self-discussed. They nets... Try to scrape me back ine punishment I'm not quite HAVE thought- I HAVE thought- s CRACKED-] in this town - and listen to alive, this place is living, ng and destroying mutant moths, 's spinal cord, it's lover and will CLICK. - my unassigned tools buried ibble as always, popping my s in the social seas... And s dance and the shadows of ghts buzz (like the growlnoise y fingers across my skin and but the skin of a shark, a r chunk of the mosaic unlodge ghtening speed, but, as always, f fallen stone. have a T ladies and gents. A ------------------------------- n today, something that could n read this. I dont like bedroom window! Arrived beside by a cold, cloudy darkness, e woman who'd given birth to me her home of every trace of a Mum. to not d that before, about me using language like ned it. Still, she shouldn't ilt, should she? Not at half e day God told us all to cool it. Play back the tape, omething special, something Okay, okay, here goes. d-" now." one!" d. Fishcirclemouths, but no an explosion of glass and d the shining dice bounce and nd weeds in its path, until it and the front door was locked. s and walked away. heart? ecause you've suddenly become r, the piper, the freeman... A ape of a planet you arrived on ward customers. ate moment between two randy ary precautions. Lumbered with amnation by a mother obsessed CKING BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH a product in a supermarket. I'm I attended, a brick in their a human doormat for lazy, ged by others via a physical xistant God. Trapped in a of this doomed planet, with no ng to an abnormal heart-beat. war - an end to the suffering sh species that does not ime and matter. But there is a tained power, offered by true - his is escape from pressure. another part is certainty - he Tunnel. ------------------------------- good... Fed to evil... what? ams. Link worlds. Funny how the ntle, cosy bedbeater what? I f life's domestic requirements ow what? on't you just speak louder, I suppose I'd better go and take I dunno, tink them. The walls mean I'm cracking too? And why compared to every other day bit beside my unicorn where the STAy d I'm terrified because I've but I'm alright. particularly comforting the past few weeks I think o I'm not gonna panic. If this gonna let it say it. I'm not ! SHI T FU c f you scribble shite like that p shit: this diary IS you, boy. ANITY. he shape of four letters. I rry, messy, anger - I must have nse of things - well, better ence right up front, right ht there! 6 17 18 19 20 21 21 22 23 24 25 . Shit ing - all fucking day is quite e spent a hell of a lot of time exciting - I must have looked nce the start of the year, and be fucked if I'm gonna sit down fternoon, soaking up abuse from s! I've got a home! - and it's lking, DICKWEEDS. fuck is happening I don't ll. I have some change and I e dole office but I'm due for EEK what am I going to do NG B.F.M.F.B.F.H darling. I am hoping they'll upper's in the oven, there's ice family get-together p and down the Tunnel twenty inutes. What the fuck am I go back and talk to Mum and friends - loads of writing going; the writer's group - d did I? Why Stu? Because you ly doing >> FUCK ALL << down O fucking great, as if she's ng great, I'm stuck here in t the colours in now, I would ase put the colours in in my hand. this up, and I'm- I swear that ppened. The words - STAy - are m... But I feel like laughing, - Dianne I mean. She actually mach, come to think of it, she it frightens me because I d SHE knows I didn't, but I ed; she said come on over here A couple of little guys. tely what she said, exactly oice didn't echo. It was really through some other... Thing, in it. uldn't feel it when I touched e Tunnel towards her, looking uddenly it was all so big and n she slipped out of the box anne, wait! Hang on!" - only my ike normal, so I'm not sure if he metal fence that boxes off y do take a while to get nd for a while I couldn't hear or anything - anything at all - -buzzing (ever-living?) lights. outed. I turned round, stared s a short, scruffy tube, which nk of the London Underground. in, sat precariously (with it's on the fence I'd just crashed couldn't make a sound, never uckin dog turd with arms and ncing in it's mouth. "Hey, before. Something wrong?" at's right, you read correctly used to offer a lift to. The t of my coat pocket on the rican accent, oddly enough) how nd that he wanted a FUCKING ING kip (only my coat doesn't but (shit no) he didn't blown-up paper bag and dressed silver studs, rather like the ssed up in - whip in one hand, him alright. The only thing I e twat's name. right now," I knew what he was ift. Well fuck you, gobb-o, I Been chucked out, didn'tcha bastarding cunting mother. am would dump you out on the oblin, edging around on the n shitniggle like that stop ya ched his cigar out and pointed ing. "I got urgent business to coupla human footsteps short've that dump is don'tcha?" ced the ten pound note that now of this diary. "Ten fuckin made every fuckin night since Think about it, Chesters." The ndards). "Whatchoo gonna do u gotcha self a Tunnel, yeah, in package. If you wanna keep our bones, you'd better start ng?" tle cunt's name. hat easy, Chesters," The cigar time pointed downhill. He yourself,' "Five for me, five he deal." down. There was another he brightly illuminated te, like the shadow of a badly out it," I said reluctantly. s. "Did you hear-" But he was take. "Thanks," I snatched it nose. "Come on then, climb coat pocket and lifted it nce. de pocket?" he grumbled, -like eyes. "Fuck me Chesters, n my pocket, hands on the mself into the deep end. "No it and stamped on it. He nd foul-mouthed shitbag) by Tunnel. He rolled like a perly, I mean, unlike the night when Karen turned on the no, this was REAL laughter). T'Nucy Nit. p like a big dog turd. I suddenly accepting - and g, dragging minutes of endless the Beechwood Road turn-off e two big, green boxing gloves r side. the library, I plucked the Men and eased them down onto y both shrieked in chorus and he roadside wall. "Always put , unseen. "Joo want the whole ow featherlight but full of or something), then announced: gentlemen. Have a pleasant to swirl round for the journey fused Man's Journey, I was visible again, screamed up e're lookin after you, fucko! k of this shit you ugly little ange eyes twinkling like fire ll take you." He hissed. With- ows. t supposed to mean?" I shifted slid up the wall, stealing the Except there was no trace of istening spiderwebs and rain- croscopic. "Hey, are you d. I looked back down the road ... Getting closer. I stood he light source exploded and I t was: car headlights. - those goblins were heavier badly - and the car rattled er of rainwater. I watched it, ly describe as `an air of e scene (the night, the cold, ether. ht, I could see the colour of . at least TRY to get some h the goblins was real or into my underpants. r buy myself a few changes of going to wash? How am I going ge in the Tunnel: I've walked ese entries are going to get a ------------------------------- ack to me today. A memory - my ence - perhaps the underlying the idea of rape. Rape Nina, eight years since, and next door and working in some hey called her, and never only I lost my ball over the k, I had to had to knock. d. e door closed. Warm, funny, echo of a radio somewhere (I ture and alien ornaments and ent and sat on the settee and then out into the green as resting contently in a patch ll from her garden! The whole he whole of it: jagged-hole an white sky, so I stayed for a er back and I turned and said nd she said no, it's okay, and and smelt it and saw that she ne (manners and all that even it was hot); freezing ice, as her lips turned bronze and idge. If you ever want one, ite blouse thing... Hung ellow like dog's wee. She nated because her (what and plain to shape beyond that ad ever been before to clicked open (more skin and entrefocus for my eyes only she d me looking. Cold sticky hardly touched my lolly, even tching flies as Mum would say. treet and friends yelled, Mum birds flew overhead in a " there was a little nipple much much smaller than Mum's y liked it, my lolly dropped on d look look looked. ly up and down and round the ore at me, like she wanted to re so blue I couldn't stare for ink and so big nipples did y nice she was beautiful, I lips- tongue- swallowed, can't home. Dog wee yellow all over ib like Richie's old one that oing...', `Can I touch...', ang and echoed but never never t... Come on." e sweet-smelling tatty house, hhhh," buttons undone clung to pinkish red nipples, nythin like this you have never tell anybody, okay?" 't speak so nodded yes yes yes paul won't tell anybody else o shake. It's okay." you never said this happened to be older I- anny as well. Honest. Go on I reached out and up and- and- like skin I had wanted to feel gers across not soft but hard na made a noise so I snatched bronze lips. Bead of wee still hing... And her chest was ath soft lips against mine, too was shaking- sweating- ee of home friends mum brother she licked and pulled up g in her mouth and then things ied me to different places and erself as I watched through ff branch that was my own ke these days now in Adult us both on it bottom top bottom days, and forever after when I . There are great problems. And is the fact that I'm quite Perhaps from a dream, perhaps t it did NOT happen, not in haps I made up the part where I up thoughts - and recorded a f to say to myself, my REAL e another eight fucking years end in this place now that the I'm engraving marks in the riend STAy over there. some boxer shorts, some sand- of fruit from one of the stalls h the dosh because I'm sure back tonight, outside the l be very happy to oblige. ook a slow bite from the Boots' ne of the voices... (could it moment I was filled with so rensound that I let a gooey and splat on the floor like 't! needles & pins and I ached was with somebody ELSE this riends TONIGHT?) otsteps. And then in they came em, masking their lower faces she was talking to me over a hat the fuck's going on?" ion (whatsisname? what?), a bloke. perately, almost bleeding with ot and lightning fast - shoot red into my lair like marines a sound but all I got was a stuck there - an elastic band, n help me please)] like a pirate for treasure and r some time. "WHAT HAPPENED!" ke that one but I couldn't see her hair her touch her being... e and mouth to stop running but s like "how are you?" and "mum sic hints of communication ttractive, Poor Stuart way. It Hunky. I'm Bruce," He offered me his eezed it tightly to show I guy was big and the guy was don't fuck with people who talk ker, or who see the Retail Bugs YOU). o, please..." I waved them her not an appalling mess like nnies don'tcha see how shallow my sleeve. "I want you to . We'll find somewhere for will) "We'll gotoa-a-a-" n-" jumper. That was when Bruce of the Machine's stomachlights tatue from a mythical film (I onaughts") and about as as a cup of cold coffee on a It's quite obvious to me that is guy a medalion) "Are you this subway?" (it's not a Drug Tunnel) "Can't you smell nd, wrinkling his nose up. how do you think it's going to hin again, that lovely spiky en Karen's cuntlips yet has it is a friend of mine. I can r a place to kip because I with Karen at the moment," (I me) "But I can give you n I smile, now: my lips are much, but a little. I'll f my coat and took a few -?" ervice." was lying, but I just winked. an, what they symbolise? Or do algolem's cock inside you all he place stunk. The lights ks staggered past, squinting ped midnight. whispered. "It's morning now. ed her jacket. ly under my message "ENDLESS thed and stopped massaging his ." you can tell?" so much to just leave it as Isn't she?" I added (please ed. "Maybe she was for a while, over now. Perhaps a fantasy, me iled to himself. "She said I rsely, viciously. y hostile eyes, before nodding sn't whispering anymore - in er." will you?" e wanted to cry part of me the blood across the walls of smug hedgehog chin out of the east (that had stolen my yes to curl up and go to sleep and over but the real real real from a single surviving orrupted heart told me it was my own lack of self- elf-power self self self self rouched beside me. "I'll tell ll her how I feel, okay? he will. I mean- shit, just . bbed his eyes. "You're right, ever will be. I like her, a a great friend, and christ we what you said a few moments is all I wanted." He looked last and I wondered: are you ee?] own at the sleeping girl. ay, and I was left with a patch ould fade so quickly I would in his arms. , we're going home." ow, I promise," She called over herries. "Take care, don't go proh-hom-iss..." d thinking fucked up thoughts) e little guys were back, so I prepare myself for the long rch on the fence. "You gotta on't keep on being the young- They grow up! And there's moping around and wipe that places to go, am I right? nodded. "Right." d we were off - no delays. The idn't complain as much as they I enjoyed myself. de up that bizzare sexual have become so vivid and ot into place around the non- ake it feel as though it DID there was a voice whispering ome when you overheard your ou saw Nina naked one day! u should try and remember the lowing all this? or are you up conscience?" s tonight, but I did come back nds in my pocket, and now... he old ones in the bushes - & sauce) and I'm now going to watch the moths (or are they fall asleep. ing to "solve a jigsaw puzzle" ------------------------------- der the Tunnel, I was outside, ly lingers. I had been blown, I aves. According to my watch it d stiff and starving, so I slideshow. I spent most of it hard (if he was upset, if he ed or letting Mum tear it up ooking for me, if HE'D been n WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? Does me. And let's face it, I do idence anymore, no faith, no l, no nothing... y - I'm obviously going insane, ppens to me- what I see through should I make it up? I spend er making a fictional diary look back and remember it that ity from fantasy? what's real, what's unreal, g... s. And one wine bottle used up. l tell you what happened shall eached into my pocket like I gun or something but instead I ty wine bottle, which crack- leaving me with a circular- owed walking - stopped walking slowly, grinning. ." I smiled, holding up the rolled out of it, hit the he whole of the crane, not just at me, drunk as usual but me, his friend, his contact, ight Zone, gone mad, turned , I think - and I advanced as still giving me abuse, but in ic voice. t us master, we're sorry-] realised the smell and the alls and the new grafitti done might be my own and might not ome to Daddy... is voice fresh and new and low ath the Tim. The darkest depths kicked me and driven me to k. "What the fuck are you gonna ad with that, eh? You're fucked tricity. My fingers were n was running with sweat. clenched teeth. go-" Three more. Tim in the lead, all, I was his friend. led, arms held out. "You're are ya Stu, eh? You're just a screamed and that I was the ght with the teenage girls - n, terrified of insanity, eld high and ready to strike. but I do remember slicing open back and slashing him across the ght I would trip. I remember ding me, filling my mouth, l and collapsing not with the e of glass and the crack-whip r... Except her warmth. I do soon, I can sense it. They m satisfied that tonight I chased away, away from here and I am ead his guts all over this hurt you in the past or you e breakup. I took the risk , two-sided friendship - would o deep down d n't give a fuck ed, throughout? r. e all over the kitchen floor and the Bug did a million more, ------------------------------- ellow-white like puddles and am in a cardboard tube, a t but I'm not allowed to leave. ike rivers of melted butter Karen. id you could have the spare staying here, I won't let-" rom here, I can see it, I love for hurting you, I can see it, that, crying I think, though tter, like little heating fans, my face. e road that the things we bottles, rope, black bags, k and made-up-fantasies. They to solve - crack that and for anything to happen and what I wait f r doesn't exist ad) up here, do you get it g to make sense. e that is Steve today when he butter) and stopped and e turned to pity and offered ok, before I hooked the rope cross the ground, nearer and wap, nearer and nearer to the ast, and I swung him ---> I ng and crying and bleating like nto the monster's buttercoated en his body to the waist, then f my world, out of my nest, out s I flicked the lighter up and his voice to leave like the ever be back. ough he didn't hear, and I can, ere. to see if I was still alive olice man with him through the a big binliner he was holding something caught, something yes." s, he looked different, not a his eyes was a different ed him. ," he replied, smiling. he waved before disappearing ter the dimension flash, the h and rattle - big it was, staggered up and took hold of e plastic clash of legs, the of Retail Bug shit - black ape of bullets, I sensed - as hrob and thrash and kick and ure. c ld. Tore through my jeans, he bag and skidded down onto lped and eventually leaped free spr ng for the southern box, dimension flash. Tunnel and chasing the remember getting to here, laid in the dark. Magnus said some- o pieces with glass in the back ring aimlessly by a man gnus climbed out of my pocket. sault, sat up and made his eyes id, grinning. "End of the road, ed to be back at the Tunnel in think some more about the past of the things the STAy message somehow, you know, I couldn't, ng, the final frontier, the father felt like before death, urring his vision was and how all sins he must have been. h the dreams," smiled Magnus, could see the bricks in the ace the music, fucko. Stand in urrent." e, out in the middle of the hs, silent and freezing and ing as Magnus disappeared and I y to STAy now and tackle the down, up-down, and to scream nd, right to the fucking END, D, I scribb e to the END, the ------------------------------- inly of Karen. Remember being nto mine. ------------------------------- g s mething, being told ng. ------------------------------- lking, not m h from me - j st d Richard. Mum cryin�. Mum rem er touching my face and . shes where I kept t e items I und glu of all things in plas ------------------------------- eyes. Se med excited. Quite a I h ve met before. Papers ou ." t be good ne s, unless of g it up... Or whate er. I s r n ou