KEEP OUT OF THE PARK

Everybody vanishes in the park. People still go into the park but these people know that they will never return. The people who still go into the park have lost all interest in life but they are still curious about what happens when you enter the park, so they go into the park. What becomes of them, no one knows. They are never heard from again.

The park can be seen beyond its perimeter railings and through the gate at its entrance. It is tended to, but by who? No one knows that either. Some believe the park is maintained by the people it retains. Their souls are trapped in the confines of the park and they are forever its slaves, mowing its grass and pruning its hedges. That's one of the legends anyway, but that's all it is, a story. No one knows the truth. All anyone knows is that if you go into the park you don't come out of the park. 'Gone to the park', is even a euphemistic term for death for those who live near the park, like me and you and everyone else.

The government sent the army out to see what was going on in the park. This was a few years ago. Tethered troops entered the park, communicating by radio with other troops who were stationed outside the park. They went in, walked up the lane, turned the corner and then the transmission crackled, hissed and went dead and the cable the troops were attached to slackened. Seven soldiers were sent in but they left it at that. Then they sent a robot in, a kind of little remote control thing on wheels with a camera attached. There are stories about the footage it sent back. Again, these are only stories. No one knows what it broadcast before it disappeared. Those who saw what the camera picked up were left without reason and babbling word salad. They then attempted to bomb the park from above but when they sent the planes up the pilots forgot what they were supposed to be doing and returned to base with their missiles still loaded.

The park is a quiet place. It has a strange draw to it. It seems so tranquil in there. Not remotely foreboding. You'd have to remind yourself not to go in if it wasn't cordoned off with police ribbon and signs that say 'keep out of the park'. When you see the signs that say 'keep out of the park', you say to yourself, 'oh yes, I really must keep out of the park' and you keep out of the park, but a part of you wonders what it would be like to go into the park.

Another odd thing about the park is that no one knows who put it there or when. No municipal records refer to it and there are no accounts of what was there before it. Some think that it has always been there. Others think that it only seems to be there but isn't there at all. I don't know what to think so I don't think about it that much. Most of us don't like to think about the park. We all know its there and sometimes, as I've said already, a lonely or desperate soul will discretely duck under the police cordon and wander off into it, but no one dwells on the park. No one discusses the park at any length and those that bring it up quickly find the subject changed. No one ever says, 'don't talk about the park,' they just start talking about things other than the park. The park is taboo.

No one speaks of the park. No one understands the park. No one knows what to do about the park. The park is rarely at the forefront of anyone's thoughts but we all know it's there, at the back of our minds. Just outside of our doors. The warm gentle wind of a permanent early autumn. The honey glow of an everlasting twilight, spreading through its branches. Beckoning.

THICK CRIMINAL

Do you remember the time we kidnapped that millionaire's kid and it took you ages to write the ransom note because you thought it had to rhyme? You're some thick. And you kept calling it a ramson note too didn't you? You did. You thick.

And then you kidnapped yourself, remember that? You kidnapped yourself and sent a 'ramson' note to yourself demanding that you send all the cash you have to yourself to get yourself back. You thought that if you paid yourself all the cash you had to get yourself back you'd double your money. Jesus God in Heaven, you're an unbelievable simpleton.

And do you remember that time we were planning to burgle a house and you said we should burgle my house because I had loads of nice stuff? Unbelievable. You even told me when not to be in to make sure we didn't get caught. You complete dope.

And then there was the time we robbed that bank and after they handed over the money you immediately tried to open an account with the bank to put the money in. Remember that? You said it wouldn't be safe walking home with that amount on us. 'What if we're mugged?' you asked. 'There's loads of criminals around these days,' you said. 'Even we're criminals,' you pointed out. Jesus Lord MacFuck.

Then there was your counterfeit money scam but instead of using forgeries you used real money because, as you actually said yourself, 'it's more realistic'. Remember that? Remember how pleased you were with yourself for coming up with that one? And you said your favourite part of the plan was that you couldn't get caught because you weren't doing anything wrong. I was lost for words that time, absolutely lost for words. It reminded me of the pyramid scheme you set up with you as the only member. Remember that one? You said you couldn't lose.

Honest to God, how you ever got to hold a ministerial position I'll never know.

THE MAN IN TATAOUINE

Schloop schlop, off to the shop. Sausages, eggs and milk. Flip flap, back to the flat. Put them in the fridge.

I was very far from anywhere once and he was even further. Standing in a long stretch of nowhere near the Tunisian Libyan border. What was he doing there? He was just standing. He certainly wasn't going to find any figs or anything. Maybe he was a North African Harry Dean Stanton, walking off the memory of a woman. Or maybe some Crowleite who got into a spot of occult bother or maybe a Saharan demon some Crowleite summoned. Maybe just some Berber up to something but what that something could've been must've been almost nothing. All you can find is scorpions and sand until the cold night falls and the snakes move around.

Maybe he was an off-roader whose vehicle took a tumble or a refugee escaping national turmoil. To my mind at least, from a distance, out there, he momentarily became Frankenstein's monster. An existential anomaly. A slip in cosmic continuity. I once heard a baby crying far out in the ocean. It might have been some gull but I didn't see one. Maybe sometimes the Universe puts things where it shouldn't and you see or hear something in a place where you couldn't.

I'm grilling my sausages and putting milk in my coffee and thinking of him and feeling glad that I'm me. At least I'm just bored whereas maybe he's scared. I'll never forget how he just stared and stared. Maybe he was wondering what I was doing out there. Maybe he thought of calling out but just didn't dare. Maybe he thought that he was looking at Set. Maybe what I saw was an angel of death.

THE CONTRARY MAN

I have tirelessly trained and run in the most competitive of races with the greatest of athletes and, on the cusp of victory, I have slowed my pace to ensure I finish last. I have prepared the sweetest tasting meals in all of culinary history and put them straight in the bin. I composed the most stirring musical composition that ever would've been heard had I not performed it on only one occasion, in a remote and unpopulated vicinity, with my ears plugged so even I would not hear it. Every single time someone wins a lottery and does not claim the winnings, it is me. I painted the greatest painting ever painted and then I painted over it. I wrote the greatest work of literature anyone would've ever read had I not rewritten it so that every word was 'shiteballs'. I then retitled the piece 'Shiteballs'. I have invented things that would have changed humanity's course for the better had I not placed them in a locked safe and hurled that safe into the core of a nuclear reactor. I have also learned the ultimate truth and when people ask me to share it with them I tell them a lie.

I have done all these things because I am The Contrary Man. I have devoted my life to mastering the art of living and then denied myself and the rest of you the fruits of my talents and knowledge. This is my ultimate revenge on the existence that has been foisted upon me and upon us all. An existence that, for many, consists largely of suffering without explanation. This compulsory existence is the ultimate injustice and my greatest achievement is to deny the challenges set before us by learning to overcome them and then not overcoming them. I have even discovered the secret of immortality only to cremate it and when I breathe my last I want to go to the afterlife and I want God to look at me and I want God to ask me 'why?' and I want to relish the look of incomprehension on God's face.

This will be my victory but the effort has not been an easy one. In the struggle there is a small amount of satisfaction. I have learned to love the meaninglessness of it all and I have learned that the most tragic failure, when executed correctly, is the greatest triumph. I have come to understand that the only finishing line that matters is death and even that doesn't matter very much in the dribbling staccato overwhelming context of this, ...whatever this is.

AN EMBARRASSING COMPLAINT

After six years of blogging here on Fugger, I think it's time I told you about my uncle Dan and his embarrassing complaint. He fell over when he was doing a bit of gardening and landed arse first on a garden gnome. The thing split through his pants and went right up his arse crack. Pointy hat first. It really must have hurt. It got lodged there.

A proud man, Dan decided never to speak of the gnome or its whereabouts. The complaint was too embarrassing to address. He didn't fancy a humiliating trip to a health professional. A doctor might presume the ornament had arrived at its location via some bizarre act of gratification. The truth would never be believed. Dan barely believed it himself so he thought he'd just keep it to himself. He was a bachelor so he had no wife to shock when he took off his britches at night. 'No one will notice', he said to himself. 'What difference will it make?' he fooled himself.

Dan accepted the compromises his predicament brought him. Going to the toilet was complicated. Cycling was a no no. The very act of sitting down was, forevermore, out of the question. People would insist that Dan take a seat but he'd say that he preferred to remain standing. This made people feel uneasy at dinner parties and so on but they weren't as uneasy as Dan, living his life with a ceramic interloper nestled in his rear.

Although permanently on his feet, Dan could no longer stand quite straight. His posture was at a slight angle to the world. This made him feel as if he was at an existential angle to the world also. He saw other people, everyone else, go about their garden gnomeless lives, working and loving and fulfilling goals. And there he was, unable to even go swimming lest someone spot the wee man's boots protruding from his posterior. Dan felt as if he had been cast into the lowest of castes. He was an untouchable. No one could ever truly know him because they did not know the truth of his situation. Despite it all, Dan remained unprepared to risk revealing his plight in case it brought derision. Better to silently suffer with some dignity than be the subject of mockery. Concealing his degradation, Dan walked the streets with his head held high ...and with a bowlegged gait.

After a few years, Dan could no longer bear to attend social gatherings. The fact that he had a garden gnome up his arse increasingly weighed upon him. The thought of it was always there, gnawing, mocking, eroding his peace of mind. Dan started to suspect that others had noticed the gnome and were making snide remarks and innuendos at his expense. He would mishear things. Words like 'home' or 'roam' or 'comb' would be misinterpreted by his paranoid ears and he would hear the word 'gnome'. Then he would explode. 'What did you just say?' he would furiously demand of confused friends and acquaintances. Dan realised that his situation was having a knock on effect. It was spreading out from himself and hurting those around him.

Dan became a recluse. He had no choice. His became the most solitary of stations. Dan attempted to take some solace in the supposedly 'small' things in life. He tended his garden, even though it had betrayed him. He fed birds. He stared at clouds. He kept the company of animals and plants and things that could not judge him. He attempted to cultivate a kind of Zen philosophy but it didn't work out. 'How many covertly carry crosses as large as mine?' he often wondered as he saw the people of his town happily interacting. It was such a fool's bargain, the suffering of isolation Dan had chosen to endure was worse than any suffering public embarrassment could cause.

The decades passed and Dan never took a wife or pursued a career. His only achievement was keeping his stigma a secret. It was on his death bed that Dan confessed all this to me. I did not snigger as I lent my ear, although I'm sure I looked pretty shocked. After Dan said what he had to say he closed his eyes and went. He seemed more at peace than I had ever seen him. They took him from the hospital bed and no one mentioned the gnome up his arse. It wasn't out of respect that no one mentioned the gnome. No one mentioned it because it wasn't there. It must have fallen out some time previously, perhaps years before and Dan never noticed. Who knows how long there wasn't a garden gnome stuck up Dan's arse? Who knows how long Dan had laboured under his misapprehension? Turns out that the only place the gnome was stuck was in Dan's imagination.