This time last year I started to write a book. Next week I'm submitting it for the first time to some people who might do something with it. I've to give them a couple of chapters and a synopsis. Below is that synopsis (give or take 16 words). If anyone has any comments or feedback I'd love it the next few days.
Dominic ‘Bucky’ Buckingham has a headache. He’s had it for a few months now. The doctors say he is ‘stressed.’ And who can blame him; he is stuck in a job he hates at a time when he is ‘lucky to have a job,’ saddled with a mortgage for an apartment he never really wanted and is a constant source of disappointment to women in his life. This is not where he imagined he would be at 33 years of age.
Constantly being told what to do by domineering women, his mother, girlfriend, boss, even his therapist, Bucky wonders if he’ll ever have control of his balls long enough to stand up for himself.
When Re-port International announces widespread redundancies his colleagues are justifiably panicking but Bucky can’t help but wonder if it’s a good thing. He hates his job, the boss, the customers, even the cleaning lady. But can he convince his girlfriend Hannah that it’s for the best.
Hannah is the woman who he is prepared to spend the rest of his life with but sometimes he is not sure what kind of life that will be. On a holiday with Hannah in Gran Canaria he starts to believe he is finally getting to grips with his relationship and it starts to make more sense to him.
It’s only following his trip to mainland Spain where he spends time with a group of open minded Spaniards and a free spirited American call Mirabelle that he starts to see the power of positive people and question if the path he’s expected to take is the right one for him.
A humorous character piece, Status Update focuses on Bucky’s journey from pod employee of Re-Port International to proprietor of a market stall selling bespoke crockery. Along the way we get insights into the relationships that have formed and, for the time being at least, frustrate him.
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
A Hundred Hundreds Bonus Blog
Well would you look at that. My blog has been viewed over 1000 times. Thats pretty cool. I don't know what i was expecting out of it but it has been very enjoyable doing it and I have to say its been great for my ego getting some lovely feedback and whatnot.
The whole writing experience has been a huge positive for me. It has helped me have some direction in this my year of 'bo-ho, slacker utopia' as Steve likes to call it and it has also been therapeutic when a professional therapist is beyond my price range.
And they say you can't put a price on mental health. You can you know. €60 a week.
But I digress.
Like all the greats, Kanye, Paula Abdul, Ashton Kutcher, I'd be nothing without you the reader. You make me want to be a better man. If I could i'd stand outside all your houses with a boombox blasting Peter Gabriel held aloft.
So as a 'reward' for allowing me to feed my self indulgence, I'm going to post the first thing I committed to paper.
Its really just an idea. Its not something I would consider a finished work and I have since taken the beginning and used it another, very different story. I look at it now as stepping stone.
I guess some of it is partially biographical, but its the biography of a different me at a different time in my life.
Anyway....normal blog service will resume this week, in the meantime thanks to anyone who has read anything i've written here.
Oh and I'm aware 100 100's isn't One thousand....well I am now.
The Most Disapproving Man in the World
As I turned into the drive he was standing there in the doorway. Waiting. Judging. With the exception of a few more wrinkles the grimace on his face was the same as the one he had fifteen years ago the time I told him about my decision about College. My Dad. The most disapproving man in the world.
Deep Breaths. Count to then. I opened the door to my latest purchase. A green, second hand Fiat Punto automobile. Twelve years old. Two previous owners.
“Hi”, I said as I stepped out. “What do you think of her?”
“How’s it going” he muttered as he approached the car. “What sort of color is that supposed to be?”
He walked around the car. Taking in every detail. Looking her up and down. My Dad knows very little about auto mechanics. But he knows I know even less. As he circled the Punto he kicked each tyre. Three times he tapped it wheel with his size 11 moccossins. Ha. I had done that when I bought it. Everyone knows to kick the tyres. It makes you look in the know. He grimaced and scratched the back of his head as he ran his fingers along the paintjob.
He questioned me as he opened the bonnet and looked at the engine. What he thought he would get from looking at it is another thing.
“ Is it a diesel engine, yea? You know that means you can’t but petrol in it? What kind of mileage is on it? Was the sales guy foreign?”
Each answer I gave him was met with a look of unbelieving. When I responded to his enquiry about the price he scoffed.
“They must have had really big windows.”
I don’t know why I put myself through it. I’m a grown man. I have a nice little business. I have friends who are actual mechanics. But I still decided to give my dad a call when I bought the car. Its good for us. He gets to think he still knows best. And besides. If he wasn’t giving out, he’d probably just sit around missing mum.
I noticed the complaining started getting worse since the funeral. He complained about the egg sandwiches at the wake. He complained about the state of the bathrooms in the funeral home. He complained about the size of the knot in my tie. He complained. He liked it.
My Dad. The worlds greatest complainer.
As he slammed the bonnet shut he asked me if I wanted a cup of tea.
“Sure” I said, walking up the steps of the porch entering through the hall door.
“ And will you take a look at the computer, I can’t get on to my online bingo”
I hated when he asks me to look at the computer.
“I’ll take a look but I can’t promise you anything” I felt like I was pleading for leniency.
“Sure didn’t you go to college” was the answer he like to trot out on these occassions
“Yea, I studied art appreciation” I tried to defend myself.
“I know”he said. And I saw that old familiar grimace one more time.
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Bigger Than Jesus Bonus Blog
I said last week that if I got past a certain amount of followers I would post a bonus short story that I've done. Well the figure I had in mind was 13...because essentially Jesus had 12 apostles (in this situation apostles= followers) and I really wanted to use the John Lennon line in relation to me. Oh and I know it says I have 14 followers but one of them is me...so...
If you like this short story and you want to read more tell your friends about my work, get them to follow me. I'm trying to get this stuff out there. So spread the word people, and I will reward you with my Sermon on the Mount.
Am I starting to sound like a cult leader?
Anyway. Here it is.
The Customer
One by one he rooted through the large selection of pens. The shop carried 54 different varieties of writing utensils. Pens. Pencils. Different sizes. Different styles. This guy was picking up each one and examining it as though it were alien to him. Like he’d never seen a biro in his life before.
In fairness, the layout and positioning of the pens was designed, with its many colours and shapes, to draw the attention of passers by. This customer however was entranced.
Carefully his eyes scanned the point of sale. Along each row until he settled on his next selection. Then with the care of someone afraid of picking the short straw in a who goes into the haunted cave first contest he plucked his next victim. His fingers danced with excitement as he clasped a .5 liquid roller pen in light blue. His stubby fore finger and thumb, caked in a grimy black substance, gripping firmly around the pens lid.
He raised the pen to eye level. Turning it slowly, he drank in every molecule of it with his eyes. He pushed his metallic rimmed spectacles further up his nose and coughed. Spluttering all over the pen.
The Cashier behind the counter winced. “That is just vile” he thought. And this wasn’t the first piece of stationary in the shop that he had expunged his germs over.
He had been in the shop for just under an hour. The cashier knew this because he had come in to start his shift at just the same time the customer had entered the store. Stepping in out of the icy rain and skin blasting wind, The Customer had announced his presence with the most disgusting hocking and cacking sounds ever heard by human ears. He then pulled a tatty handkerchief out his pocket and shook it. Various debris fell from the once white hanky including a cigarette butt and enough loose tobacco to buy a conjugal visit in Mountjoy Prison.
He drew the handkerchief to his face. Clasping it around his nose with a two handed grip, one on each side of his proboscis, he blew violently. Satchmo himself would have been proud of the sound. A sonic boom that would almost be musical if it wasn’t so disgusting. He switched the surely now contaminated cloth to his left hand and swiped it across his face and back again, wiping clean away any mucel residue that might have been left behind on his nasal hair or moustache…it was had to discern where one started and the other began.
The Cashier, held his breath. He knew in the most clichéd retelling of a tale such as this, what the customer would do next. Surely he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He did. The Customer held the hand with the handkerchief in front of him. A little jiggle of the wrist. The handkerchief spread open so that its owner could investigate its contents. With a look which was somewhere between surprise and pride, he balled the handkerchief and stuffed it back into the pocket from whence it came.
He turned and looked at The Cashier. With the bunged up tones of someone who might have accidentally snored up their pillow he proclaimed “Mawning”. And with a heavy sniff, the Customer made his way to the back of the shop.
The Cashier observed The Customer carefully. He was a stub of a man. No more 5ft 4. He was round but not in the way you might think. He wasn’t fat as such. His shoulders seemed to naturally curve into the top of his head. Not actually. But The Cashier imagined an imaginary dotted line and that is what he got. Added to the fact that The Customer had a round bottom that stuck out at the side , The Cashier was now picturing Humpty Dumpty in a fleece.
The fleece was black with grey sleeves. It was zipped all the way up to The Customers Adams apple. The small elastic hoop that was tied to the hole on the zip convulsed every time The Customer spluttered another of his infested coughs. The fleece smelt damp. Not just the damp of someone who had just escaped the inclement conditions. This was the damp of someone who slept in a cave. In a pool of water. With a thousand mushrooms in each pocket. And hugging a mackerel instead of a teddy bear.
The shoulders of the fleece (at least where the shoulders would be if you discounted the oeuf-ness of his torso) were flecked with dandruff. His hair was short around the side with a little length on top that was brushed from the front to the back. It had an almost wave like pattern in it. It contained some product that not only held it in place but gave it an almost rigid quality. The color of his hair was mostly grey. It was obviously originally a dark colour. Traces of dandruff were visible from the 10 feet away that The Cashier was standing.
The Cashier started to picture what The Customers comb would be like. Black probably, greasy definitely. Large pieces of dry scalp trapped between the teeth. The image was too strong for The Cashier. He shuddered to snap himself out of it. He wiped his hands in his jeans. Up and down the lap of his trousers, trying to wipe away the imaginary sticky feeling from his fingers
He wore silver colour bifocals on his round podgy little face. The frames must have been too big because the kept sliding down his nose. When he would push them back up he would never use his fingers. Always the balls of the palm of his had. He would raise his arms to the side of his face. Hands under the spectacle rims. And, then with a second for consideration he would push. It was as if the glasses were too heavy to move any other way. It required a lot of effort to get them back into their appropriate position.
From the moment he had come in, The Customer had handled almost the entire range of the stores merchandise. Starting from the back of the shop and working his way forward. Picking it up. Examining it. Tilting it. Examining it some more. At one stage he sat down on the floor. Cross-legged. Like the American Indians sometimes do in the movies. Come to think of it, thought The Cashier, so do the Indian Indians.
The Customer was sitting, legs tucked beneath him, scrutinising a set of envelopes and letter writing paper with picture of the Snoopy characters on it. The Cashier decided to approach him. “Is there anything I can do for you , Sir?” he enquired. The Customer looked up at him. “No Danks, I’m Fin-de” was the smothered response. The customer then turned back to the stationery and promptly sneezed something green all over Charlie Brown.
The Cashier retreated back to the safety of his till. He tried to put The Customer from his mind. Dealing with the other members of the public gave him some respite. This was usually fleeting before The Customer would crash back into his consciousness with a splutter or a wheeze or a disgusting sniffle. And so it was for the last 53 minutes.
Now here he was. Back at the top end of the shop. Perusing pens. Plying each one with so much attention that it almost felt perverse for The Cashier to be watching. He picked up the dark wood clutch pencil. His face lit up. He gave it the same detailed treatment that he had given the others. But his face began to smile. Not just his mouth. His whole face began to curl up and beam happiness from every pore.
He approached the counter with the chosen implement gripped close to his chest. He smiled at The Cashier as handed it over. The Cashier smiled uncomfortably back. He scanned the barcode that was stuck on the pen.
“That’ll be €6.95 please”
“Dorry, Dhow Much?” was the bunged response.
“6.95 please”
“For a Pen-d? Dats re dic les” The Customer was trying to speak loudly but it just made him sound more muffled. “I dond wan it”
He looked as though he was about to walk out of the shop, but not before he drew back. He seized his shoulders up to his head. He Gasped. And then he sneezed all over The Cashiers hand which was still holding the clutch pencil. He then turned. And left.
The Cashier, in what seemed like an eternity, dropped the pencil and went over to his supervisor.
“ I need to go home” he said, holding his soiled hand as far away from his body as he possibly could.
“What’s wrong?” asked the supervisor.
“I need a shower…and I think I’m coming down with something.”
If you like this short story and you want to read more tell your friends about my work, get them to follow me. I'm trying to get this stuff out there. So spread the word people, and I will reward you with my Sermon on the Mount.
Am I starting to sound like a cult leader?
Anyway. Here it is.
The Customer
One by one he rooted through the large selection of pens. The shop carried 54 different varieties of writing utensils. Pens. Pencils. Different sizes. Different styles. This guy was picking up each one and examining it as though it were alien to him. Like he’d never seen a biro in his life before.
In fairness, the layout and positioning of the pens was designed, with its many colours and shapes, to draw the attention of passers by. This customer however was entranced.
Carefully his eyes scanned the point of sale. Along each row until he settled on his next selection. Then with the care of someone afraid of picking the short straw in a who goes into the haunted cave first contest he plucked his next victim. His fingers danced with excitement as he clasped a .5 liquid roller pen in light blue. His stubby fore finger and thumb, caked in a grimy black substance, gripping firmly around the pens lid.
He raised the pen to eye level. Turning it slowly, he drank in every molecule of it with his eyes. He pushed his metallic rimmed spectacles further up his nose and coughed. Spluttering all over the pen.
The Cashier behind the counter winced. “That is just vile” he thought. And this wasn’t the first piece of stationary in the shop that he had expunged his germs over.
He had been in the shop for just under an hour. The cashier knew this because he had come in to start his shift at just the same time the customer had entered the store. Stepping in out of the icy rain and skin blasting wind, The Customer had announced his presence with the most disgusting hocking and cacking sounds ever heard by human ears. He then pulled a tatty handkerchief out his pocket and shook it. Various debris fell from the once white hanky including a cigarette butt and enough loose tobacco to buy a conjugal visit in Mountjoy Prison.
He drew the handkerchief to his face. Clasping it around his nose with a two handed grip, one on each side of his proboscis, he blew violently. Satchmo himself would have been proud of the sound. A sonic boom that would almost be musical if it wasn’t so disgusting. He switched the surely now contaminated cloth to his left hand and swiped it across his face and back again, wiping clean away any mucel residue that might have been left behind on his nasal hair or moustache…it was had to discern where one started and the other began.
The Cashier, held his breath. He knew in the most clichéd retelling of a tale such as this, what the customer would do next. Surely he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He did. The Customer held the hand with the handkerchief in front of him. A little jiggle of the wrist. The handkerchief spread open so that its owner could investigate its contents. With a look which was somewhere between surprise and pride, he balled the handkerchief and stuffed it back into the pocket from whence it came.
He turned and looked at The Cashier. With the bunged up tones of someone who might have accidentally snored up their pillow he proclaimed “Mawning”. And with a heavy sniff, the Customer made his way to the back of the shop.
The Cashier observed The Customer carefully. He was a stub of a man. No more 5ft 4. He was round but not in the way you might think. He wasn’t fat as such. His shoulders seemed to naturally curve into the top of his head. Not actually. But The Cashier imagined an imaginary dotted line and that is what he got. Added to the fact that The Customer had a round bottom that stuck out at the side , The Cashier was now picturing Humpty Dumpty in a fleece.
The fleece was black with grey sleeves. It was zipped all the way up to The Customers Adams apple. The small elastic hoop that was tied to the hole on the zip convulsed every time The Customer spluttered another of his infested coughs. The fleece smelt damp. Not just the damp of someone who had just escaped the inclement conditions. This was the damp of someone who slept in a cave. In a pool of water. With a thousand mushrooms in each pocket. And hugging a mackerel instead of a teddy bear.
The shoulders of the fleece (at least where the shoulders would be if you discounted the oeuf-ness of his torso) were flecked with dandruff. His hair was short around the side with a little length on top that was brushed from the front to the back. It had an almost wave like pattern in it. It contained some product that not only held it in place but gave it an almost rigid quality. The color of his hair was mostly grey. It was obviously originally a dark colour. Traces of dandruff were visible from the 10 feet away that The Cashier was standing.
The Cashier started to picture what The Customers comb would be like. Black probably, greasy definitely. Large pieces of dry scalp trapped between the teeth. The image was too strong for The Cashier. He shuddered to snap himself out of it. He wiped his hands in his jeans. Up and down the lap of his trousers, trying to wipe away the imaginary sticky feeling from his fingers
He wore silver colour bifocals on his round podgy little face. The frames must have been too big because the kept sliding down his nose. When he would push them back up he would never use his fingers. Always the balls of the palm of his had. He would raise his arms to the side of his face. Hands under the spectacle rims. And, then with a second for consideration he would push. It was as if the glasses were too heavy to move any other way. It required a lot of effort to get them back into their appropriate position.
From the moment he had come in, The Customer had handled almost the entire range of the stores merchandise. Starting from the back of the shop and working his way forward. Picking it up. Examining it. Tilting it. Examining it some more. At one stage he sat down on the floor. Cross-legged. Like the American Indians sometimes do in the movies. Come to think of it, thought The Cashier, so do the Indian Indians.
The Customer was sitting, legs tucked beneath him, scrutinising a set of envelopes and letter writing paper with picture of the Snoopy characters on it. The Cashier decided to approach him. “Is there anything I can do for you , Sir?” he enquired. The Customer looked up at him. “No Danks, I’m Fin-de” was the smothered response. The customer then turned back to the stationery and promptly sneezed something green all over Charlie Brown.
The Cashier retreated back to the safety of his till. He tried to put The Customer from his mind. Dealing with the other members of the public gave him some respite. This was usually fleeting before The Customer would crash back into his consciousness with a splutter or a wheeze or a disgusting sniffle. And so it was for the last 53 minutes.
Now here he was. Back at the top end of the shop. Perusing pens. Plying each one with so much attention that it almost felt perverse for The Cashier to be watching. He picked up the dark wood clutch pencil. His face lit up. He gave it the same detailed treatment that he had given the others. But his face began to smile. Not just his mouth. His whole face began to curl up and beam happiness from every pore.
He approached the counter with the chosen implement gripped close to his chest. He smiled at The Cashier as handed it over. The Cashier smiled uncomfortably back. He scanned the barcode that was stuck on the pen.
“That’ll be €6.95 please”
“Dorry, Dhow Much?” was the bunged response.
“6.95 please”
“For a Pen-d? Dats re dic les” The Customer was trying to speak loudly but it just made him sound more muffled. “I dond wan it”
He looked as though he was about to walk out of the shop, but not before he drew back. He seized his shoulders up to his head. He Gasped. And then he sneezed all over The Cashiers hand which was still holding the clutch pencil. He then turned. And left.
The Cashier, in what seemed like an eternity, dropped the pencil and went over to his supervisor.
“ I need to go home” he said, holding his soiled hand as far away from his body as he possibly could.
“What’s wrong?” asked the supervisor.
“I need a shower…and I think I’m coming down with something.”
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