The Man Who Could Afford to Orgy, But Didn't
Despite it being the beginning of spring, a time when a young man’s fancy was said to turn... a tad carnal, Henry Becket was quite firm when he refused his friend’s offer to attend an orgy. He was well aware that Allan had made the suggestion out of a combination of pity – Henry had been divorced and single for many years – and pride at he himself being invited to the Bacchanalian event. But Henry said no. He justified his refusal in various ways, including faux-morality and a fake pride, but the truth of the matter was that Henry Becket didn’t want anyone to gaze upon on his fading, flabby body and burst out laughing. When it eventually transpired that the orgy’s actual attendees had been pistol whipped and robbed in flagrant by the Albanian gangsters that had organised the event, Henry was a tad ashamed to say that had wallowed in a brief moment of schadenfreude. But, still, it was nice to have been asked, anyway.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence’s Mate
Oliver Peacock had often thought that there was an art to being in the right place at the right time and that life was more than simply a matter of chance, of luck. He supposed he put it down to his late father repeatedly telling him that people made their own luck in the world or perhaps he put it down to experience.
After all, Oliver was well aware that the few movers and shakers that he’d encountered over the years had been complete and utter bastards, rather than passive mellow fellows.
Robert ‘Liberty’ Valance fit into the former category of course which was one of the reasons that Oliver decided to kill him. Dark clouds spread across the granite grey sky like a cancer as Liberty Valance left The Sherlock Holmes pub, as drunk as a skunk and holding onto Big Barry – one of his regular drinking cronies – for support. Indeed, the inebriated Liberty Valance was the proverbial sitting duck and it really was unfortunate then that a loud thunder crack startled Oliver who accidently shot Big Barry in the buttocks although, as Oliver reasoned to himself later that night, the fat man was a complete and utter bastard, too.
THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPANDED AND EVENTUALLY POPPED
Lenny Cray had always thought that the quest for experience was a vital part of a man’s learning curve and so, throughout his life, whenever a window of opportunity opened up, he jumped straight through, headfirst if necessary. And at times he just kicked the bugger in.
But teetering on the precipice of middle age, Lenny was slowly overcome with doubt, a pronounced lack of self-confidence, even a fear of the consequences of his actions. Which was around the time that Lenny discovered the writings of G.I. Gurdjieff a philosopher and mystic who believed that most people lived their lives in a ‘waking sleep’ that they needed to waken from.
For Lenny it was as if the doors of perception had been opened wide for him and he devoured Gurdjieff’s works with all the enthusiasm of a Weightwatchers attendee in an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Although he was well aware that it was a radical reaction to Gurdjieff’s work, Lenny decided to break free from his own ‘waking sleep’ by sitting at the top of a tall building and shooting passers-by, an experiment that proved remarkably successful, until he was fatally shot in the head by an insomniac police marksman that was just finishing his night shift.
Snap, Crackle & Pop!
Snap went Larry’s index finger when Mo bent it back.
Crackle went the cigar that Mo slammed into Larry’s face.
Pop went the pistol that Mo shoved under Larry’s chin.
Snap went the paparazzi when Mo was led into court.
Crackle went the electric chair as Mo was sent to meet his maker.
Pop went the champagne cork in Curly and Shemp’s hotel room.
A COLD DAY IN HELSINKI
The January night had long since waned when Mika blasted Aki’s brains over the snow covered street, producing a more than passable Rorschach test. A murder of crows sliced through the whiteness as the purr of the passing motorcycle grew to a roar, masking the sound of the shotgun. When day eventually melted into night, the moon hung fat and gibbous, the bloodstains now black in the moonlight. Mika draped Aki’s cold, dead skin over his own pallid flesh as, shivering, he breathed in the scent of cheap aftershave, cigarettes and booze. Sour memories trampled over his thoughts with bloodstained feet. Together forever he rasped, as tears filled his bloodshot eyes.
(C) PAUL D. BRAZILL
Short and clever, all of them.