Antimatter Teilifís Éireann

I went into the RTE canteen the other day. All the celebs were there: Katherine Lynch, Tubbs, Daithi O’Shea, Derek Mooney and the gang from The Republic of Telly (the ones who eat up all the Rubberbandits time making their own jokes, which, y’know, is fine).

Anyway, there they all were, sat at their tables like you’d expect but the odd thing was that none of them moved. Not a muscle. They were completely still. Catatonic I suppose you’d call it. Their mouths were open and so were their eyes. Wide open. Their faces frozen in expressions of astonishment. Perpetual astonishment. Perpetual horrified astonishment. It was creepy. Creepy in a different way than you’d expect out in Montrose.

There was total silence as I walked around the celebs in their seats. I was the only thing making any noise, or so I thought until strange sounds became faintly audible. It was like the crying of little children but very quite and distant. It took me a while to realise where the noises were coming from. They were coming from the open gobs of the celebs.

No lips were moving. The sounds of the despairing youngsters seemed to be issuing from somewhere deep inside the celebs, as if they were the echoing cries of infants trapped down wells. Cautiously, I put an ear to Katherine Lynch’s mouth. I listened and heard a little voice issuing from below. ‘Please kill me’ it was saying, over and over. I had no time to be scared by this as I heard someone coming and so hid behind a counter.

Men donned in what looked like anti-radiation suits entered the canteen and made their way toward Tubbs. ‘Oh no, not Tubbs, leave him alone’ I almost said aloud as they picked him up out of his seat and flung him into a sound booth that had a microphone in it. One of the men clouted Tubbs hard across the head. Very hard. Harder than even Tubbs might deserve. This clout seemed to awaken Tubbs. Actually, ‘awaken’ might be the wrong word. ‘Activate’ might be more precise. Anyway, Tubbs sprang to life and started yakking into the mic like he does every morning on the radio. You know the type of thing, entertaining insights, witty observations, all that fucking shit.

The men watched Tubbs for a short time before one nodded to the others and they departed. I crept after them, to see where they were headed. I followed them across the car park and down a hatch. The hatch led to a tunnel that went underneath RTE’s massive transmitter. What I saw down there was so utterly awful I will never forget it.

There was a huge industrial control room with dials, steel pipes and plumes of smoke. In the centre of this room stood a massive glass tank and in that tank there was a monster. It was like a cross between a hideously deformed baby and a squid and it was about eighty feet or so in size. It was revolving in the tank, quickly and frantically whizzing around, and emitting blood curdling high pitched screams. It was hard to tell if it was screaming in anger or agony. Its revolutions were generating some kind of energy that manifested itself as beams of electrical light. The beams shot out from the creature’s enclosure and were channelled up into the transmitter. I could have sworn I heard someone mention antimatter and someone else salute and cry out the words ‘All Hail the Void!’.

‘So, this is where telly comes from’, I thought to myself before deciding to retrace my steps and get out of there in case I was detected. I put my pen and little book back into my satchel and snuck off up the tunnel and out the hatch. ‘I won’t be getting any autographs today’ I sadly muttered to myself as I made my escape.

They Are Outside the Door

It’s Halloween so I think I’ll tell you a story. The scariest story I ever heard. I remember it exactly as it was told to me. Carved into my memory as it was that dark stormy night, word by word. Prepare to be scared and don’t say I didn’t warn you. This tale is called They Are Outside the Door and it goes something like this. . .

This man was in a lorry and it broke so he got out and there was a monster and it bit him and he went home because the lorry got fixed and he met his wife and turned into a monster and killed her and ripped her head off and the police came and he ripped their heads off and then he ate all the heads like they were massive lovely oranges. Then the man that was a monster got really big because he got strength from the oranges, I mean heads, and he attacked the whole world so they sent all the armies out but he bit all them and they turned into monsters and so did everyone else and did you hear that? That noise? I think the monsters are here. I think the monsters are outside the door. They are. They are. THEY ARE OUTSIDE THE DOOR!!!
The End.

Chilling isn’t it? A tale to freeze the blood. It kind of creeps up on you and then pounces on you at the end. If you ever tell this story to anyone, it’s best if you act terrified, grab them, and scream the last sentence. They’ll be scared out of their wits. I was when my friend John told me the story a while back. That Halloween was the scariest ever because of that story. I’ll never forget it. I was seven. Some say the story has dated but to me it has aged like a fine wine. A blood red vintage.

There’s more Halloween scares over at Crap Man. Click the link: CRAP MAN VERSES GOSTS!

THE WORD MONSTER

Sit up. Sit up STRAIGHT! And close your mouth. It’s a bit open so close it. Good. I know you. I remember your face, every detail. I’ve seen it so many times. I see it every time you read a book, a comic, a magazine or a blog post like this. Every time you read, I’m looking at you. I’m spying on you from amongst the letters. I’m the Word Monster you see. Maybe you’ve glimpsed me, darting between sentences, peeping out from between the dot and the ‘i’, popping my head over the u-bend of the ‘u’ or from the hole in the ‘o’. I’m the Word Monster and I’m watching you.

I remember you as a child, laughing at Winnie the Pooh. I remember you as a teen, speed reading Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, looking for the sexy bits, biting your bottom lip in lusty anticipation. I remember you weeping at the end of Jude the Obscure. I remember the blood draining from your face as you turned the pages of American Psycho. I remember the dumbfounded look of disbelief when you tried that one by Cecelia Ahern. I remember all those times and more because I was there, hiding behind the text, peeping out at you, me, the Word Monster.

Sometimes I like to play tricks on you. I rearrange words and letters and completely transform the content of a page or a chapter or a whole book. Ha! Remember the time you went around telling everyone you thought Animal Farm was a powerful indictment of communist Russia? Well, it wasn’t. It’s actually about a young girl who nurses a wounded ewe back to health. Everyone you spoke to about that book thinks you’re a nutter now. And this blog? You think it’s the ravings of an Internet loonie, but you’re wrong. Fugtheworld.blogspot.com is a blog that dispenses lawn-mower repair tips. It is! I swear! I just change it all around before you log on. I do this because I am the Word Monster. I control all you read and therefore much of what you think and understand . . .and much of what you think you understand.

I have tremendous influence for someone so little. I’ve started wars simply by changing the words on a politician’s auto-cue. I’ve ended relationships and lost people jobs by altering the content of their emails. I once changed an email title from ‘Won’t be able to make it to the golf on Saturday’ to ‘I’m f***ing your Wife. LOL!’. I’m the Word Monster and I’m watching you. Watching you consume my words, the big thick head on you. You’ve entrusted so much of your insight, frame of reference and belief to literature only to have it screwed around with by me, the Word Monster!

Oh, and just in case you’re thinking of telling other people about this post and how it reveals my existence, don’t bother. This isn’t the blog post anyone else will read here. This post is actually about how to safely prevent blade clogging in the Bob Cat Predator Pro model.

So, now you alone know. I’m watching you. I’m manipulating you. I’m the Word Monster!

Happy reading!