Morning

This piece was written two and a half years ago. It worries me. I however like the tell it as he sees it nature of the main character. I think it reflects on the blind acceptance we encounter after a night out. This was intended to be a short from the book.

Morning

Hello, my name is Michael, I am sitting in my living room. Something is not right today. Had a good time last night, probably too good. Is the sky normally green in the morning? I turn to the penguin in the armchair next to me, I ask him if he will turn the telly down. He graciously nods and reduces the volume. The channel hops back and forth for a while before decide to graze on the news for a time. Breaking news, mad axe murdering goldfish, nothing interesting, no wait, go back. A large goldfish swims leisurely across the screen, from the presenters left. He, I presume, uses his chosen implement to behead the reporter. Following this he, how many axe murderers are female nowadays anyway, begins hacking at the corpse with gratuitous fervour. Every stroke, a graceful arc of blood, eviscerated gore pattering on the news desk, scarlet ichor misting the walls. The fish turns to the camera, a bubble of water emerges from his, women don’t do things like that, mouth before rising to the ceiling and bursting.

Went for a walk to clear my head. Going to have to douse the volcano in the back yard, might damage the azaleas. It begins to rain, water dripping from the pavement before plummeting down to the sky. If I wasn’t wearing baggy trousers I would be soaked. I saw a monkey walking his dog, he nodded, I returned the compliment. Went to work, flexible hours are nice. Someone had let the onions out, they were war dancing round the tied up senior management team, prodding them with makeshift spears (pencils). I could help them but they gave last months promotion to Cynthia “look at my cleavage” Patterson. She can’t even spell financial co-ordinator. I moved on.

My office, my sanctuary. I cleared my desk and lay down. I detached and used my left arm to scratch my back. that’s the best thing about having a prosthesis, you can scratch all those hard to reach places. It’s a long story, lets just say chainsaws and delusional ants are not good bedfellows. Suddenly my ears pick up, and triangulate the sound of a wardrum. Damn. The onions must be sailing on the fourth floor. This building genius you see. The fourth floor is directly above this one, the forty fifth. It makes sense if you think about it apparently. I just reckon its to do with the boss only having to go up 12 steps to get back to his office after lunch. Talk of the devil.

Dave Richmond CEO, was calling my name. the onions were feeding him feet first through an A2 shredder. The strained groans of the machine fighting to pull him through. His now silent mouth opening and closing slowly reminded me of the goldfish on the telly. His feet and lower legs had already turned to bright red ribbons in a currently small pile on the floor. His blood trickling down the equipment like freshly juiced OJ, pure and still warm. His waist approaches the aperture. The gorping has stopped now just feint panting. His pupils are blown and he is in massive hydraulic shock. It will be over soon. The machine grinds to a halt and smoke weeps from around his waist. Heh. He always wanted to wear a grass skirt.

For whatever reason I ignored Randal(he’s mute) being raped by Sheila on the photocopier. I just wanted to go to the rooftop, don’t know why. Floor 633497 (the tech guys had some spare numbers left), HQ of a notorious mafia family. Few enter here, many fear here, these guys seem alright to me. Beethoven’s 5th, quaint. The room small, cosy with a round card table at its epicentre, 37 legs in total(health and safety‘s final solution to wobbly table accidents). I enter the boss’ office. The music died. Shot three times in the head. Apparently Frederico doesn’t like classical, the boss handed me a six shooter and looked pensively upward. The rooftop.

The twang of snapping elevator cables is certainly a unique sound, typically associated with snapping nerves. A rushing sound as I migrate to the ceiling. 3 hours of freefall remaining. Approx. 20,000 floors to go. Oh so that’s what that puddle on the floor is. Give or take 178minutes later, I was feeling rather pensive. I asked the lift to please stop falling. It agreed. I asked it to take me to the roof. It did. I stepped outside and exploded. Well I would have done if I could be bothered. Why on earth is 95% of the buildings staff on the roof. But they are queuing so I will join. The line terminated at the perimeter of the roof. Next to the termination was a sign. 3 hours of fun. Cost of use. Life. Everyone else was in spacesuits. Obviously their bodies were prepared to explode. Every ten seconds or so the next person in the line tripped over the edge. Jumping in a spacesuit isn’t easy.

I saw a little hut. An alarm bell went off in my head. If it’s ever happened to you, you will know how much that hurts. After ramming my prosthetic into my aural canal I managed to expel the unwanted metal. The hut had a sign saying do not enter. I entered. The universe unmade itself. The sign did make sense. Its simplicity probably prevented unnecessary attention. I was on a platform. Not unlike an aircraft carrier deck, just without the aircraft and about the size of my kitchen. With me was pure evil and the cutest baby in the universe(can you still win that competition legitimately if you’re the sloe entrant?). The baby was in a pram and in it’s hand was a lollipop. It had take me written on a postik note attached to the pop. Pure evil just pointed. It had to be done.

I took it. The baby began to cry, hot tears rolling down it’s flushed face. It’s eyes screwing up in anger, eyebrows frowning. It’s mouth, toothless, wide open, gums bearing. It’s wailing louder and louder. Its legs kicking and arms rocking the pram. It’s anger growing. It’s eyes were bloodshot. Blood began to trickle from it’s ear. Its pupils blew and the wailing turned to angry, bone jarring, screaming. The blood seeping and staining the light pillow. Blood began to dribble down it’s cheeks, emerging from somewhere within the eye socket. Angrier and angrier.

[time is slowed down for the next 1.25 seconds to describe the event s in appropriate detail]

The babies eyes detonated. It was a heinous blast of blood and jelly prevailing several feet into the void. Blood begins jetting, like a red geyser, from every orifice. The baby begins to lift up out of the pram. Its gut wrenching sound burrowing into your soul and ripping its face off. Transfixed I cannot look away. The babies belly button bursts in a violent outgushing of flesh and claret, spewing into the void from the fissure. The tear extends up the torso. Crack. The sternum splits. The ribcage erupts in unrelinquished glory like an airbag filled with tissue. Lumps of organ, shards of bone. More blood than a dozen men splashes over everything. A large portion of the skull is arcing through the air toward me. A slow and gentle dance. I know I will never move in time. Slowly. Slowly. Closer. Closer.

Hello, my name is Michael, I am sitting in my living room. Something is not right today. Had a good time last night, probably too good. Is the sky normally green in the morning?