A Lunch To Die For

Sergeant Rory Maccallum was annoyed. Annoyed at these stupid little things which had stopped him getting the promotion he rightly deserved for years. Annoyed at how his wife was always eyeing his colleagues , especially the ones in uniform. Annoyed at his Detective inspector, who never gave him any decent cases, none of the ones which would maybe get him his promotion, up to Detective Sergeant.
Another beer or ten, and he might forget. So he got up, and went from his happy place, in a land where DI Donald aka DI Duck didn’t exist, along with his wife, and many other deeply annoying things such as taxes, his colleagues in uniform and paperwork didn’t exist, to his almost spartan living room, and started moving, towards his kitchen, where he kept the beer in a separate fridge, another 2 degrees colder than their proper one. Others may say he didn’t know much about his job, but no one could ever have said he didn’t know his beer.
One beer later, he was moving back to his favourite armchair when he dropped his unopened can. Bending to pick it up, he noticed his wife approaching, quickly, holding his uncooked and still frozen dinner. He even saw her arm descending, and even felt the first blow hit his head, but no more.

Finished, she dropped the lamb coil, now slick with her husband’s blood. No doubt people would find out, her worry wasn’t how to hide it, but how to pass the blame.
Maybe plead insanity? No, then it’d be off to the loony bin with her.
Dump his body in a ditch somewhere? Tempting, but no. The fat bastard must have weighed a tonne.
Maybe make it seem like a burglary gone wrong? Sure, she could do that. Only one problem. How to get rid of the murder weapon?

***

“Okay, people! Mrs Maccallum here has made us a wee bit o’ lunch, so ye can qui' scrapin' the puir bastard’s brains aff the walls,” started Inspector Whyte, only stopping after Vincent tapped him on the shoulder, and nodded in the direction of the late Sergeant’s wife. “Erm, wha' A meant is, erm...”
“What inspector Whyte meant is lets take a break, seeing as Doreen here has made us some lunch.” Vincent sprang in, and turned to Doreen. “so… What have you made, and where is it?”
“There’s a wee bit of lamb fer everyone, an’ some veggies tae,” she replied in broad Glaswegian, smiling in an odd way, “an’ I’ll be happy fer everone o’ yous tae eat their fair share.”
The officers filed past, chorusing their thanks with a few “ta”s and “thank ye”s.
None of them heard her muttering. None of them would have made sense of it any way.
“Almost cannibalistic, this is. Aye, almost cannibals. An’ none o’ them’ll e’er find it.”

Love

I’m bound by a feeling so deep and wide,
So huge, so delicate, so strong, so loud,
That I cannot, and will, not push aside,
Of which I’m infinitely proud,
A feeling without which, I’m lost, I’m spent,
Bound to one so short, bound to one so good,
She is one who as if by Venus sent,
She fuels the fire of passion like dry wood.
She grab’d control of mine mortal man’s heart,
With her, for all the gold of this large world,
I would not voluntarily part.
Even were my mind to become unfurl’d,
I’d still recognise and wildly love,
Someone I will never bore or tire of.

Pride

A mortal sin, a dreadful thing, this feel,
Yet so good, so unbelievably good,
It matters to some of us a good deal,
Will make us happy, incredibly rude,
And simply unbearable to others,
Yet something we all want to be quickly,
It makes some to enemies, or brothers,
A feeling so wonderful, heavenly.

Falcon

The falcon seeks and finds its prey, dead sure,
With eyes of liquid gold, nature's smart bomb,
Hunts, finds and kills its target with hunger pure,
But is hunted itself, and faces its tomb.

Glasgow - Poem 1

Renowned for its crime and grime, violence,
But ever a home to those who know it,
Would look the same after a nuke,
Grey stone, grey sky, blue lights, great folk,
Wonderful patter there,
Wee folk, big folk, all sorts,
Aye, fair times there,
Not all great fun,
But good
For me

A Rifleman

A song is playing. A song about a policeman who does drugs. I smile, and look around me, knowing that my colleagues have no idea why I’m acting like this. Oh, how awfully fitting!

We’re packed into our uniforms, ready to deal with “the folk upstairs” as our Chief Officer has christened them. I’ve got my bag ready next to me, and the extra pocket in my uniform is prepared.

“Steady. We go in 5,” is whispered around. I look at my firearm, my lovely little MP5. A 9mm, fully automatic, hand-sized portion of hell for those on the business end of her, but a real darling for those handling her.

“This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine,” the words come unbidden, but ever welcome, comforting me, and reminding me of days where life was simper, and I was handing out bigger portions of hell to more people.

“My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life,” They continue, leading me on, killing the time, before the time for killing.

“My rifle, without me is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless,” these words however echo around, and I look up. My fellow ex-marines are mumbling along, our words almost in prayer, and the rest are watching warily. We jarheads continue our prayer.

Now the song switches. Hail and kill. I smile again. Ironic really. At the moment, we jarheads, who are now police, are hailing our weapons. We are preparing. Soon, we will kill.

Opening 8

The opening that I found best was the number 8, as it gives neither too much, nor too little away, but rather keeps the reader thinking “What are they talking about? Is it a murder?” for the entire start, and in this way keeps the reader interested. This is done here by allowing a partial view into the narrator’s psyche, which enables one to see that the narrator isn’t quite normal. As well as this, the narrator is implying that they do not particularly care about certain things, such as in this case, the fact that the narrator has fallen unconscious before, and has broken a tile with their head.

The Dream

The clouds hovered like evil angels, something malevolent in the red from the rising sun. I'm no sailor, but the adage holds firm: red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Admittedly I'm no sailor, nor will I be, nor have I ever been. I still use this phrase though, because to me, a red sky means that blood will be spilled on this day.

Slowly, I stand up. The world around me is broken, almost as if a bomb had fallen, which it probably has, judging by the sounds I hear. I close my eyes, the better to concentrate on the sounds. My mouth starts moving, rattling off calibres of the shots that can be heard.

A relatively deep sound, the first shot I identify, and it is followed by man more of the same sound "7.62 mil, possibly NATO, possibly Warsaw pact."

A sharper crack, relatively high "9 by 19 Parabellum, probably in use with a pistol or PDW."

I suddenly feel someone looking at me, and open my eyes to look around me. No need. In front of me stood a ragtag group of men, all dressed in ragged orange camouflage, with weapons made of wood. My comrades, my workmates.

Instinctively, I know I am to lead them through the dangers outside of this crater we're in. I look down, and suddenly my clothes, my comfortable jeans and t-shirt have been replaced with orange camouflage, and I notice I'm holding a wooden rifle.

"Right then, ladies, let’s go! Move it, move it, move IIIIT!!!" shouts a voice I vaguely recognise. I look around and notice my mouth is still moving. It’s me shouting.

We start moving up over the side, and suddenly a massive wave of rabbits attack us. They literally are a wave, falling over each other, tumbling forwards, unstoppable. We stand firm, like rocks in the path of a wave, but lose our youngest member, whom the rabbits proceed to devour on the spot. I look closer, and realise he has begun to go completely orange, apart from his hair, which turns an odd hue of green. I also notice that the rabbits all have human faces, rather like the one my boss has.

I turn around, and am suddenly standing at a cliff edge. Far, far below me, I hear music. Loud, angry music, full of guttural sounds, as if someone had decided to start singing after a century of chain-smoking and screaming. I decide I like it, and turn around to the stairs behind me, which the men I was leading must have dug. They, in the meantime, have disappeared down the stairs already.

I’m just about to go down, when the singer of this band, looking like some sort of mixture of a revived Viking and a punk, with his long, flowing beard, Doc Martens and Long, blonde hair, down at the bottom of the cliff, stops singing, looks up and talks to me.

“Hey, darling” He says, in my girlfriend’s voice, and his voice starts off an earthquake. A massive man, who just seconds ago, was singing something about entering Valhalla in a voice that sounded about as nice as being castrated with a rusty spoon, was now calling me “darling”?

“You’re going to be late! Come on! GET UP!”

And suddenly I’m in a bed in the middle of Vienna. The singer has become my girlfriend, and the earthquake has become her shaking my shoulder. I plunge back into the real world, where I work in a store named “Penny Market,” orange camouflage is part of the employee uniform there.

And I’m meant to be there in 15 minutes. Alone getting there takes 30, never mind hunting down my socks and uniform, nor showering, nor breakfast.

I groan, and drop back into the bed, wishing this were a dream. Sadly, its not, as her slap on my shoulder proves.

“Come on! I’m going to be late too! And NO, I won’t give you my keys!” Oh. My keys are still AWOL.

I try to get up, yet the punch I receive from my hangover isn’t doing me any favours whatsoever.

“No more vodka. From today on, no more vodka.” I mumble, trying to think why I got hammered yesterday. Letting my train of thought derail, and trying to simultaneously imagine what imaginative ways my boss could say I were a waste of time and effort, and also gauge my chances of being able to sneak in, I looked out the window.

The clouds hovered like evil angels, something malevolent in the red from the rising sun. I'm no sailor, but the adage holds firm: red sky at morning…

Flight

I’m moving through a jungle. I’m moving quicker and quicker through this urban jungle. I’m running from the horde of modern “vampire-hunters” following me in this heartless, concrete jungle. Well, rather my place to exist, and not my home. My home I lost a long time ago.

It was a hot day. Hot enough for the bricks to seem to start sweating, hot enough that as I looked down the road, I saw the air shimmering above the bumpy road, and form a mirage. The day was too hot for this town, and everything was moving sluggishly, with only a few exceptions. Clouds of midges formed near the burn, and we prepared to defend ourselves, and this home we had made ours so long ago.

I wince as I remember that painfully hot afternoon. So long ago, yet the memory still hit me so hard. She had been in town that day, and one of them must have followed her. Now these same people were following me, her mate.

The people were coming for her, but I would defend her. I knew they would come as a horde, but even then, I was not prepared for the sheer number of people who came. That the townsfolk were a superstitious lot I knew, but so many? I looked at her, memorising every line and curve of her face, so that when I died, the last thing I would see would be the face of my mate.

She was the one that they took then, and today they would come for me. And, as it was last time, a sunny day this time. They knew that the light hurt me, otherwise why would they do this to themselves? And why hunt me? I only took the weak, the sick, those who couldn’t return.

If they somehow got by me, I didn’t know what I’d do. I knew that I might just let them kill me so that they wouldn’t hurt her, my wonderful being. I wanted to run with her, but I knew that if we did, we could never return.

These memories wouldn’t help me now, I need my wits around me. I look around, hearing a sharp whistle, and feel something pierce my skin. I look down, at the short, barbed bolt, blinking red at its back. And a feeling of dread and also a strange calm surrounds me. The light changes, and the arrow explodes, blowing me backwards in a trail of long-dead entrails, fresh blood and hot shrapnel. Now the crowd is bearing upon me. I hear them, and begin to stand up again, knowing that I need to rest a night for my stomach to piece itself back together. But now my assailant steps out, and I gasp as I recognise her face.

Tember

She came to me one morning. Her short, silky, black hair was wondrous to touch.

She woke me with a touch, sitting beside me. Her eyes were rivers of fluid gold, observing me, waiting for me.

I smiled. My first female companion of the day was one I adored more than any other of her kind, more than I do most people.

I greeted her sleepily, feeling her warm body relax fractionally.

She was my angel, my point of gravity, my all. She opened her mouth, obviously hungry.

“Fine, I’ll go open you a can,” I said to this wondrous cat.