Post by ian on Jun 20, 2009 10:31:10 GMT
THE SPOTTER
1
Deep breath.
They never told me it could go wrong.
They never told me what to do if there was blood and now here I am, back in my flat, covered in it from head to toe and they've cut themselves off from me.
I dumped the knife of course. I don't know where it came from and can't remember getting rid of it - I was in a black panic afterwards - but it's gone, and good riddance. It was a big knife; long and slender and very sharp. The cutting edge was concave with use and the wooden handle was black with age, so I suppose it was the Spotter Knife.
They didn't tell me about the Spotter Knife either.
Or what do if the blip came early. There was no plan B.
The bastards didn't tell me very much at all.
Deep breath.
I would burn the clothes - the ones they said I should wear on my mission - but my flat is fully central heated and there is no fireplace. I tried to burn the raincoat in the bath. Have you ever tried to burn clothes in your bath? Of course you haven't, you've got a sight more sense than I have. But I was desperate then, not thinking straight. I must get rid of them somehow though; they're all blood stained. The blood is everywhere. I've seen people get killed in news reel footage, and none of them seemed to bleed much - even that Viet Cong that got shot through the temple by the Yank only gave off a small squirt as he went over. Small in terms of what happened to me, anyway.
Deep breath.
I'm getting calmer now, starting to think straight again. Oxygen is a wonderful thing, isn't it?
I know; I'll cut up my clothes and flush them. A raincoat, track suit bottoms and a pair of espedrilliolas - or whatever you call 'em - that's all I was wearing. If I cut them small enough, they probably won't block the toilet and afterwards everything will be tickety-boo again.
Well, it won't because my life is ruined. Again. This is not so important; I have had my life re-built before and I can get it done again. But only if I am not suspected of murder.
The important problem is that there's some unfinished business to attend to.
2
It was a strange and darkly wonderful thing that I saw. I won't bore you with the details about how I came to be in that pub. It was in Weild. Or a small Hampshire village with a name like that, anyhow.
Okay, I will bore you with the details: I had the collapsing. Black walls folding in. Chemo-electrical problems. S'old hat. Everyone knows all about it.
Nerv-ous Break-down.
Or two. Or three.
Deep breath.
Never been any good at coping, see? Old story: ugly mug, bad luck, lack of self esteem, you name it. Retreated into fantasy. (Don't we all?) Grew up, got girl, fell in love, lost girl, lost money, lost job, dog died, brain went.
Deep breath.
What would you do?
I dug a big hole in the middle of Eastrop roundabout and sat in it while the world folded itself up and vanished right before my very eyes.
They found me and showed me to Dr Frankenstein who rebuilt me in his own image. It really is a pity that his image was uglier than mine.
Dr Frankenstein was an impressionable fellow.
And when I walked into that pub, so was I.
I was in there for the same reason that any unattached male inhabits pubs. Two reasons in fact: Firstly I was going to drink until nothing hurt anymore. And secondly, I was waiting for my angel to come. You know the one. You've probably waited for her too. The gorgeous one that's going to come in and whisk you away from all this mundane bullshit. The magic fairy who will take you to the land of your dreams. Or something like that. Trouble is, she never does come.
Deep breath.
They put a monkey on me, those bastards. I can feel it now. It's reminding me about my unfinished business. They didn't need to do that. I would have cleaned it up anyway.
Deep breath.
Anyway, I was in this pub in Weild, or somewhere with a similar name. I was there because my angel hadn't appeared in any other pub that night and I was cutting down the chances. You've done it too, haven't you? This one's no good, let's go somewhere else!
Trouble was, this one wasn't going to be the one either. They were all old folk in this one. Some of those country pubs are like that. They'd all looked at me when I came in through the door and I checked my flies. The pub had fallen silent as they turned to watch me. Dr Frankenstein told me that things like that were largely in my imagination and held no significance. Earlier in my life I would have turned and left, but since I was re-built and a better person, I didn't. I ignored the locals, strode to the bar and ordered a Stella.
There may or may not have been a beetle in the bottom of my glass. I attached no significance to it. I took the drink to the only empty table in the small bar and sat down.
No one spoke. Not to me, not to one another. But they didn't look at me anymore either. I sipped my drink. The (imaginary?) skin-diving beetle walked around on the bottom of my glass. I have interesting fingernails. Some of them have heavy ridges, some have white spots, but all of them have well-developed half-moons. I used to know what this meant, but it had gone by that time. While I waited for my angel to come, I studied my fingernails.
Deep breath.
There was only one person standing at the bar. She was an elderly woman. Looked like a t.v. advert granny, she did. She was dressed in a mac and a scarf and was drinking scotch or something from a wine glass. She looked at me.
I looked at my fingernails until I lost interest, then I watched my beer beetle. It seemed quite happy down there and I wondered if it was drunk.
I looked at the granny. Our eyes clashed. That's the only way I can describe it. I looked away, wondering if I knew her. I don't know a lot of people I used to know. This is an effect of the collapsing. Each time I looked at her, something passed between us. I began to feel exulted.
Like I said, Dr Frankenstein was impressionable.
There was no good reason for me to feel that way, but then again there's no good reason to feel most ways, is there? It's entirely chemical. And my chemicals started to produce electrical impulses in places I'd never had them before. Things began to expand.
I drank my Stella -I don't know where the beetle went, I probably drank that too- and went to the bar to get a refill.
The woman looked at me, but said nothing. I was too confused to speak to her. I could smell her from here; powdery and scented.
I once had a granny.
My second drink was beetle free. I sipped it, wondering if the silence might be a sign. I'm not supposed to do that, but I couldn't help myself. Perhaps my angel was coming and everyone here but me knew it. Maybe that's where the exultation was coming from. Something was about to happen, anyhow. The message was big and hard and shiny. Even Dr Frankenstein would have had to have admitted it.
Deep breath.
Like I said, what happened was a strange and wonderful thing to behold. The pub door opened. Everyone in the bar turned their head to see who was coming in. I did this too - I thought it was going to be my angel coming to get me.
It wasn't for me though. It was a man. An ordinary looking man in his forties. He was wearing a camel hair coat. He didn't have much hair.
I got a blip off him as he came in. Have you ever had a blip off someone? A little tickle of feeling in your brain or guts or somewhere that sets off alarm bells? I think everyone has them.
The man walked to the bar and stood alongside my granny.
And waited.
He didn't get served because the bar staff had vanished somewhere.
The old woman turned away from the man and unbuttoned her coat.
The whole room watched her.
I think I gasped. My mouth dropped open anyway. The cuddly granny withdrew a long thin knife from inside her coat, spun back to face the man and poked him in the shoulder with her free hand. He turned to face her. "Yes?" he asked.
"Monster!" the granny shouted. Her voice was high, but terribly powerful, righteous somehow.
The man tried to run, but the old woman was fast. Faster than anything I've ever seen, anyhow. The blade flashed out in a long, sweeping arc. It hit the man hard in the left side of his neck.
Deep breath.
Have you ever halved a cabbage with a kitchen knife? That's how it sounded.
Deep breath.
The knife didn't just lick the man's neck, like you'd have expected; the woman struck with much more force than that. The blade crossed right through and then flashed as it came out the right side of his neck.
The man's head fell off. It bounced when it hit the floor.
His body collapsed. For some reason, I felt relief.
Like I said, it was a strange and wonderful thing to see.
The pub broke into spontaneous applause which turned to a standing ovation.
I got up too. I was clapping and wondering where all the blood was.
3
Deep breath.
What can I tell you? That's what happened. That's how I got introduced and tested at the same time. There was no blood they explained, because the man wasn't human. Human form, but like the lady said, a monster. How do I know they weren't bullshitting? Because I stood there and watched the monster disappear. He shrank. Simply reduced in size until he was no bigger than a jelly baby then went off pop and vanished back into whatever hell he'd come from.
So there it was. I was a Spotter, just like all those folks in that pub in Weild or wherever it was. I had a responsibility, they told me. There were lots of monsters and few Spotters, so I owed it to the world to do the work God had chosen me for. I had finally found my niche.
Like I keep saying, Dr Frankenstein was impressionable.
Don't think I didn't try to tell them I wouldn't be any good at it, because I did. And I asked them how I was to train for it. There was no training, they said. You just knew where and when you had to be somewhere and then you did the business. You didn't have to plan or plot, or even think about it. Things would turn out okay.
I nodded and smiled and went away and forgot about it. I've got Frankie baby's grasshopper mind, too; and a long history of my own of forgetting about things. It's my chemicals, you see. I forgot.
Until last night...
Deep breath.
...when I got called. I think the Spotter's network has some kind of a telepathic link. This figures - it explains how I got the call and also how they put the monkey on me. Anyway, I got called and I knew what I had to dress in and where I had to go. I knew what the business was already.
I went to the alley at midnight, hid in a doorway, the knife in my hand. I don't know where it came from - suddenly it was just there. Perhaps I picked it up or was handed it - I don't recall.
It took a long time to happen. I was counting the bricks in the wall opposite when the blip came. My total so far was three thousand and twenty three, but there were more. Lots more.
The blip came. Footsteps followed. I stepped out of my hiding place, drew the knife, pushed the monster, shouted "MONSTER!" then swung, wide and hard. Everything felt good. My arms were strong, my voice rattled out of me with that righteous timbre and the knife blade hit flesh.
Deep breath.
But it didn't pass through. I grabbed the monster and hacked and sawed at its neck while it struggled and squeaked. It wasn't until I'd beheaded the thing that I realised I'd f*cked up.
It was the blood, I suppose, that first alerted me. Monsters weren't supposed to bleed and I was soaked in it. The personality Dr Frankenstein had so carefully built into me dissolved. My vision cleared. I looked down.
It was a girl. Young and once beautiful. Someone's angel. Maybe mine. What if those blips don't just tell you about bad things?
The angel didn't shrink and vanish, just lay there, beheaded and very dead.
Was she my angel? Probably.
You can't say I didn't tell them I'd be no good at it.
I fled.
Deep breath.
And now I'm sitting here with all these blood stained clothes to cut up and there's a squirming monkey on me and an unfinished monster to be taken care of tonight.
And there's probably no angel waiting for me now.
But I'll have to go out again if I want this damn primate out of my brain. Maybe afterwards they'll leave me alone. They might demote me to reserve if I'm lucky. What good is a Spotter who mis-reads his blips?
The world is getting crowded with stuff again now. I've seen this before. It gets packed up so tight, so jammed, that it just folds itself up to nothing.
I can probably make it though. After tonight, I'll take a spade and go down to Eastrop roundabout again. I know exactly where I have to dig the hole.
Maybe this time they'll let me sit in for ever.
1
Deep breath.
They never told me it could go wrong.
They never told me what to do if there was blood and now here I am, back in my flat, covered in it from head to toe and they've cut themselves off from me.
I dumped the knife of course. I don't know where it came from and can't remember getting rid of it - I was in a black panic afterwards - but it's gone, and good riddance. It was a big knife; long and slender and very sharp. The cutting edge was concave with use and the wooden handle was black with age, so I suppose it was the Spotter Knife.
They didn't tell me about the Spotter Knife either.
Or what do if the blip came early. There was no plan B.
The bastards didn't tell me very much at all.
Deep breath.
I would burn the clothes - the ones they said I should wear on my mission - but my flat is fully central heated and there is no fireplace. I tried to burn the raincoat in the bath. Have you ever tried to burn clothes in your bath? Of course you haven't, you've got a sight more sense than I have. But I was desperate then, not thinking straight. I must get rid of them somehow though; they're all blood stained. The blood is everywhere. I've seen people get killed in news reel footage, and none of them seemed to bleed much - even that Viet Cong that got shot through the temple by the Yank only gave off a small squirt as he went over. Small in terms of what happened to me, anyway.
Deep breath.
I'm getting calmer now, starting to think straight again. Oxygen is a wonderful thing, isn't it?
I know; I'll cut up my clothes and flush them. A raincoat, track suit bottoms and a pair of espedrilliolas - or whatever you call 'em - that's all I was wearing. If I cut them small enough, they probably won't block the toilet and afterwards everything will be tickety-boo again.
Well, it won't because my life is ruined. Again. This is not so important; I have had my life re-built before and I can get it done again. But only if I am not suspected of murder.
The important problem is that there's some unfinished business to attend to.
2
It was a strange and darkly wonderful thing that I saw. I won't bore you with the details about how I came to be in that pub. It was in Weild. Or a small Hampshire village with a name like that, anyhow.
Okay, I will bore you with the details: I had the collapsing. Black walls folding in. Chemo-electrical problems. S'old hat. Everyone knows all about it.
Nerv-ous Break-down.
Or two. Or three.
Deep breath.
Never been any good at coping, see? Old story: ugly mug, bad luck, lack of self esteem, you name it. Retreated into fantasy. (Don't we all?) Grew up, got girl, fell in love, lost girl, lost money, lost job, dog died, brain went.
Deep breath.
What would you do?
I dug a big hole in the middle of Eastrop roundabout and sat in it while the world folded itself up and vanished right before my very eyes.
They found me and showed me to Dr Frankenstein who rebuilt me in his own image. It really is a pity that his image was uglier than mine.
Dr Frankenstein was an impressionable fellow.
And when I walked into that pub, so was I.
I was in there for the same reason that any unattached male inhabits pubs. Two reasons in fact: Firstly I was going to drink until nothing hurt anymore. And secondly, I was waiting for my angel to come. You know the one. You've probably waited for her too. The gorgeous one that's going to come in and whisk you away from all this mundane bullshit. The magic fairy who will take you to the land of your dreams. Or something like that. Trouble is, she never does come.
Deep breath.
They put a monkey on me, those bastards. I can feel it now. It's reminding me about my unfinished business. They didn't need to do that. I would have cleaned it up anyway.
Deep breath.
Anyway, I was in this pub in Weild, or somewhere with a similar name. I was there because my angel hadn't appeared in any other pub that night and I was cutting down the chances. You've done it too, haven't you? This one's no good, let's go somewhere else!
Trouble was, this one wasn't going to be the one either. They were all old folk in this one. Some of those country pubs are like that. They'd all looked at me when I came in through the door and I checked my flies. The pub had fallen silent as they turned to watch me. Dr Frankenstein told me that things like that were largely in my imagination and held no significance. Earlier in my life I would have turned and left, but since I was re-built and a better person, I didn't. I ignored the locals, strode to the bar and ordered a Stella.
There may or may not have been a beetle in the bottom of my glass. I attached no significance to it. I took the drink to the only empty table in the small bar and sat down.
No one spoke. Not to me, not to one another. But they didn't look at me anymore either. I sipped my drink. The (imaginary?) skin-diving beetle walked around on the bottom of my glass. I have interesting fingernails. Some of them have heavy ridges, some have white spots, but all of them have well-developed half-moons. I used to know what this meant, but it had gone by that time. While I waited for my angel to come, I studied my fingernails.
Deep breath.
There was only one person standing at the bar. She was an elderly woman. Looked like a t.v. advert granny, she did. She was dressed in a mac and a scarf and was drinking scotch or something from a wine glass. She looked at me.
I looked at my fingernails until I lost interest, then I watched my beer beetle. It seemed quite happy down there and I wondered if it was drunk.
I looked at the granny. Our eyes clashed. That's the only way I can describe it. I looked away, wondering if I knew her. I don't know a lot of people I used to know. This is an effect of the collapsing. Each time I looked at her, something passed between us. I began to feel exulted.
Like I said, Dr Frankenstein was impressionable.
There was no good reason for me to feel that way, but then again there's no good reason to feel most ways, is there? It's entirely chemical. And my chemicals started to produce electrical impulses in places I'd never had them before. Things began to expand.
I drank my Stella -I don't know where the beetle went, I probably drank that too- and went to the bar to get a refill.
The woman looked at me, but said nothing. I was too confused to speak to her. I could smell her from here; powdery and scented.
I once had a granny.
My second drink was beetle free. I sipped it, wondering if the silence might be a sign. I'm not supposed to do that, but I couldn't help myself. Perhaps my angel was coming and everyone here but me knew it. Maybe that's where the exultation was coming from. Something was about to happen, anyhow. The message was big and hard and shiny. Even Dr Frankenstein would have had to have admitted it.
Deep breath.
Like I said, what happened was a strange and wonderful thing to behold. The pub door opened. Everyone in the bar turned their head to see who was coming in. I did this too - I thought it was going to be my angel coming to get me.
It wasn't for me though. It was a man. An ordinary looking man in his forties. He was wearing a camel hair coat. He didn't have much hair.
I got a blip off him as he came in. Have you ever had a blip off someone? A little tickle of feeling in your brain or guts or somewhere that sets off alarm bells? I think everyone has them.
The man walked to the bar and stood alongside my granny.
And waited.
He didn't get served because the bar staff had vanished somewhere.
The old woman turned away from the man and unbuttoned her coat.
The whole room watched her.
I think I gasped. My mouth dropped open anyway. The cuddly granny withdrew a long thin knife from inside her coat, spun back to face the man and poked him in the shoulder with her free hand. He turned to face her. "Yes?" he asked.
"Monster!" the granny shouted. Her voice was high, but terribly powerful, righteous somehow.
The man tried to run, but the old woman was fast. Faster than anything I've ever seen, anyhow. The blade flashed out in a long, sweeping arc. It hit the man hard in the left side of his neck.
Deep breath.
Have you ever halved a cabbage with a kitchen knife? That's how it sounded.
Deep breath.
The knife didn't just lick the man's neck, like you'd have expected; the woman struck with much more force than that. The blade crossed right through and then flashed as it came out the right side of his neck.
The man's head fell off. It bounced when it hit the floor.
His body collapsed. For some reason, I felt relief.
Like I said, it was a strange and wonderful thing to see.
The pub broke into spontaneous applause which turned to a standing ovation.
I got up too. I was clapping and wondering where all the blood was.
3
Deep breath.
What can I tell you? That's what happened. That's how I got introduced and tested at the same time. There was no blood they explained, because the man wasn't human. Human form, but like the lady said, a monster. How do I know they weren't bullshitting? Because I stood there and watched the monster disappear. He shrank. Simply reduced in size until he was no bigger than a jelly baby then went off pop and vanished back into whatever hell he'd come from.
So there it was. I was a Spotter, just like all those folks in that pub in Weild or wherever it was. I had a responsibility, they told me. There were lots of monsters and few Spotters, so I owed it to the world to do the work God had chosen me for. I had finally found my niche.
Like I keep saying, Dr Frankenstein was impressionable.
Don't think I didn't try to tell them I wouldn't be any good at it, because I did. And I asked them how I was to train for it. There was no training, they said. You just knew where and when you had to be somewhere and then you did the business. You didn't have to plan or plot, or even think about it. Things would turn out okay.
I nodded and smiled and went away and forgot about it. I've got Frankie baby's grasshopper mind, too; and a long history of my own of forgetting about things. It's my chemicals, you see. I forgot.
Until last night...
Deep breath.
...when I got called. I think the Spotter's network has some kind of a telepathic link. This figures - it explains how I got the call and also how they put the monkey on me. Anyway, I got called and I knew what I had to dress in and where I had to go. I knew what the business was already.
I went to the alley at midnight, hid in a doorway, the knife in my hand. I don't know where it came from - suddenly it was just there. Perhaps I picked it up or was handed it - I don't recall.
It took a long time to happen. I was counting the bricks in the wall opposite when the blip came. My total so far was three thousand and twenty three, but there were more. Lots more.
The blip came. Footsteps followed. I stepped out of my hiding place, drew the knife, pushed the monster, shouted "MONSTER!" then swung, wide and hard. Everything felt good. My arms were strong, my voice rattled out of me with that righteous timbre and the knife blade hit flesh.
Deep breath.
But it didn't pass through. I grabbed the monster and hacked and sawed at its neck while it struggled and squeaked. It wasn't until I'd beheaded the thing that I realised I'd f*cked up.
It was the blood, I suppose, that first alerted me. Monsters weren't supposed to bleed and I was soaked in it. The personality Dr Frankenstein had so carefully built into me dissolved. My vision cleared. I looked down.
It was a girl. Young and once beautiful. Someone's angel. Maybe mine. What if those blips don't just tell you about bad things?
The angel didn't shrink and vanish, just lay there, beheaded and very dead.
Was she my angel? Probably.
You can't say I didn't tell them I'd be no good at it.
I fled.
Deep breath.
And now I'm sitting here with all these blood stained clothes to cut up and there's a squirming monkey on me and an unfinished monster to be taken care of tonight.
And there's probably no angel waiting for me now.
But I'll have to go out again if I want this damn primate out of my brain. Maybe afterwards they'll leave me alone. They might demote me to reserve if I'm lucky. What good is a Spotter who mis-reads his blips?
The world is getting crowded with stuff again now. I've seen this before. It gets packed up so tight, so jammed, that it just folds itself up to nothing.
I can probably make it though. After tonight, I'll take a spade and go down to Eastrop roundabout again. I know exactly where I have to dig the hole.
Maybe this time they'll let me sit in for ever.