Somewhere On The Other Side Of The Sun

“And, how does the report look?”

“Interesting if nothing else.”

“I see. Proceed.”

“They haven’t reached Level 5 yet so that’s a bad thing.”

“They still favour certain patches of dirt over others?”

“Worse. They create what they call ‘Flags’ for each patch of dirt. It’s basically a set of colours and one or two graphic elements which represent what patch of dirt you belong to. And they appear to be quite willing to fight over it. That and colour.”

“They’d fight over colour?”

“Yes, colour, even the nuances of the sounds they make or ‘accents’ as they call them.”

“How bizarre. So no real overall governing body, no true word-wide leadership?”

“No, there are one or two that claim to be but they’re largely ineffective.”

“Nice thoughts and nothing more?”

“Yes, that sort of thing.”

“I see. Art?”

“The number one image the entire population of the planet has been exposed to is something called ‘The Dynamic Ribbon Device’ which represents some sort of energy-giving elixir they drink on a regular basis.”

“Their art is based around something they drink? Fascinating.”

“I told you it was interesting. Wait till you hear about food.”

“Go on.”

“Mainly dried out strips of starch sold to them in packets, at least the ones in the major
metropolises.”

“Crazy. What about religion?”

“Their gods are named ‘Shit’ and ‘Fuck’ or at least those are, from what we can tell, their sacred words. You can’t say them in public without fear of reprisal and they’re all incredibly sensitive about them, which usually indicates some kind of reference to a god of some kind.”

“I’ve heard enough.”

“Come back once it’s done another lap around the galaxy?”

“Yes. We’ll come back then. Put it down as ‘can do better.’”

Gator In A Bar

You call it killing but it’s really just fighting till one of us dies. So I fight and I kill. And I’m a gator so you call it hunting because I eat what I kill. Would you feel better about yourselves if you ate what you killed?

But humans are family, so one of your brothers kills it or invents something that kills it and then gives it to another brother who gives it to another and another until you eat it and so you don’t think “you” hunt.

I don’t hunt anymore. Not since you took me from the swamp. Put me here in this bar. In the pit. In the middle. And you wrestle me. Thinking you’re tough. That wrestling a wild animal when you’re drunk enough, out with your buddies or your bitch, makes you a man. From the sounds of things, that’s something to be proud of. Doesn’t really count when you’ve ripped all my teeth out.

I’m an animal so I don’t know if I’m capable of hate but if I am, then I hate you. You have become more than food to me. And I’ve noticed in the fractals of your behaviour, the way you slouch against the bar, eyes like a cows, that you are lazy in the short term and in the long term. I smiled even though you wouldn’t have noticed it, even if you’d looked. I smiled because I felt what could’ve been some miracle new tooth growing or maybe it’s just bone rubbed free and clear from my featureless gums.

But it’s there. My tongue knew it was there.

Which is why, now, while you clown around, putting your neck in my mouth, I’m getting ready to draw that sharpness, that last tiny spark of me still alive, across your throat. Then as you die, I will die. Shots ringing out will be the last thing I hear, your blood will be the last thing I taste and then I will be back in the swamp. Beneath the water. Forever.

End Of A Rainbow

And we will speak in no more tongues and you will not understand me, nor I, you. We will yell and scream and bang on invisible walls with bloody knuckles, like visitors in a prison. You may crow that you have won and I might do the same. But really, there are no victors here. Only those who once could’ve been friends.

We Write And We Read And We Wait

And we struck a giant stone disk through the center of the world and started it turning, it took a while for someone to figure out that whatever they wrote at the outer edges of the disk would eventually travel to the other side of the world and back but they did. And so every day, millions crowd the slow rotating surface, some writing (but only as long as they are willing to walk and follow the slowly turning disk), some reading (but only as long as their eyes still see), across its circumference around the globe, some searching its outer rim for messages from the missing, the far away and the not heard from for too long. And some, writing messages to the same.

Everything Is Disgusting. Part 8.

"So." Said Weatherson. Eggbert gave him a blank stare. Then suddenly remembered why he was there.

"Oh! The campaign." Eggbert shuffled the boards into some semblance of order. The suit had left a big puddle of drool over them. It was kind of disgusting. But then, this was advertising. Everything was disgusting.

"Never mind about explaining it to me. I already know what it's all about."

"Bu-"

"Shut up you stupid little man. Tell Johnny I think it's great and that the ape can tango however he wants, as long he keep raking in the cash while he does it." Now Eggbert was really confused.

"I told you Eggbert. You'd be surprised what I bug."

Eggbert made his way back to the agency, the suit drove them in his Porsche (creatives get awards, suits get paid). Eggbert fed him a banana and thought about what had just happened. Did Johnny know Weatherson was bugging the agency? Did he mind? If he didn't, how would he react. Eggbert's stomach did a back flip with a half-turn into splits. He hadn't signed on for this. He just wanted to know how to make good ads. The ones that made him laugh when he was a kid. He wanted to make kids laugh too. He wanted to think of funny things to say about other people's things. He wanted to sit in a room and get paid to daydream. Not get involved in all this stupid intrigue. Eggbert sighed.

Everything Is Disgusting. Part 7.

"So, tell our listeners about the new campaign, you in the suit." Said the DJ. Thank God thought Eggbert. At least he was asking the suit. Suits never knew anything.

"Well, it all has to do with the intrinsic benefits of children's deodorant." Eggbert heard a "thump" as people across the country let their heads hit the table in front of them. Eggbert snatched the boards out the suit's hands, lest he by some miracle actually give away some real information.

"Mr Weatherson, we've got to-" Eggbert began. But as he began, Weatherson shoved his hand in his face in the standard shut the hell up manner. Weatherson pointed towards the door to his office. A small, round man with neatly trimmed blond hair and a skin-tight neon green vest walked in. He looked like a penguin who didn't get the memo about the death of rave music. Sitting down at the mike opposite the DJ, he opened his mouth and began to talk. But it was Weatherson's voice that came out his mouth. Eggbert did not understand.

"Yes Mark. You see I take pride in all my products, and the one's that we make for kids are especially important to me." The small round man rattled on. Weatherson slowly led Eggbert into a side room. It was small and quiet. There were two chairs, a table and not much else. It wasn't the sort of room you'd expect to find in building like Yum MacYummy Head Office.

"What's going on?" Asked Eggbert, forgetting himself and his place for a moment.

"Well, I'm sure you wouldn't want me to blurt all the juicy details of our latest ad campaign all over the air." Eggbert shook his head.

"Rod is my voice. We like to call him the metronome. Well, at least that's what the guys down in sales and distribution call him. I hear them talking about it in the bathroom sometimes."

"You bug your own bathrooms?" Asked Eggbert.

"You'd be surprised at what I bug Mr Eggbert Romel." Eggbert twitched. No one had said his surname in so long. Since he had arrived at the agency, no one had asked. Eggbert decided this was all a little bit too strange and it would be best to get the hell out of here as soon as was humanly possible.

"So what does… "Rod" do exactly?" Why, he asked himself, oh why, was he asking more questions he didn't want the answers to.

"Well, on days when that infernal DJ as he likes to call himself comes round and we do "A Day With Weatherson" he goes in there and pretends to be me. He fools everyone. He's been trained since birth to say absolutely nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Yes. Nothing. He can go on for hours about it. You could spend the whole day talking to him and learn absolutely nothing. He's great. A bit round and penguinish but great none the less."

"That's…amazing." Said Eggbert, wondering how mad this person really was. Quite mad his brain assured him.

Everything Is Disgusting. Part 6.

The secretary walked into Mr Weatherson's office carrying a silver platter with 5 live puppies on it. Eggbert didn't want to know about the puppies. Whatever was going to happen to them, he wanted no part of. The secretary came out a minuet later and told them they could go in if they wanted to. Wanted had nothing to do with it and one would have thought the stupid bitch knew this, but no. Such was not Eggbert's luck, the little that he had. Eggbert kicked the suit in the shins to wake him up. Johnny had told him to do this and it was apparently accepted agency practice. After all they were just suits, if you needed a new one, you just shaved down a monkey and taught him to take notes. A few bananas every now and again and everyone was happy. The suit got up and grumbled something about the distinct lack of breakfast on offer at this particular establishment. Realising he was in fact, not at any particular establishment, he shut up and picked up the thick pieces of cardboard holding the masterful story boards for Johnny's latest wonderful idea. They walked into the office.

Inside the office, Mr Weatherson was busy doing an interview with the radio station he owned, 7FM. Of course the journalist was trying his best to be objective and question Mr Weatherson in a manner which suggested that this was a radio station you, the public could trust but it wasn't working very well.

"Mr Weatherson, some people say your company is dumping toxic baby sealskins in children 's playgrounds across the world. You were seen by several policemen and a judge dumping the sealskins yourself, and there were cameras rolling. How do you respond to that?"

"… What toxic baby sealskins?" There was a brief and awkward silence. Suddenly the sweaty little journalist scum burst out laughing. A nervous, placating sort of laughter. The type of laugh that says "You've just said something that I'm not going to disagree with because you'll fire my ass."

Eggbert sat down in the corner of the office, quietly. Why the hell had they been let into Mr Weatherson's office if he was busy doing a live interview? As the internet would say: wtf? Mr Weatherson turned then and looked at Eggbert. Weatherson's eyes had that bore into your soul quality to them. Then he smiled. The smile was worse.

"You'll have to forgive me. Every now and again I invite a journalist or DJ to spend the day with me so that the buying public can see that I'm just your average sort of guy." Weatherson said.

"Oh" said Eggbert. Eggbert wondered if it was such a good idea to discuss the marketing campaign for Weatherson's new range of children's deodorant on national radio. The suit came alive.

"Mr Weatherson, we're here to show you the new ad campaign and direction for your range of children's deodorant."

"Excellent, let's talk about this with our listeners." Eggbert was getting nervous. What the hell was Weatherson thinking? Johnny would kill him if word of his campaign leaked before it broke. A journalist posing as a tea lady had once infiltrated the agency and written about one of Johnny's campaigns before it broke. Johhny had apparently hung upside down like a bat inside the journalist's bedroom for hours then swooped down and stuck a pen in the man's head. All subsequent tea ladies hired had to be able to prove that they could neither read nor write. How this was done, only Johnny and an elite team of interrogators knew.