Story Time

I’d walk many a thousand miles
To see one of my daughters smiles
And in the day when I’m away
It’s hard to be apart

I think about her button nose
And each of her perfect little toes
And now I know she’s here to stay
It warms my weary heart

She would have fit inside my shoe
But even then deep down i knew
That little mite had all the fight
To make it through the fire

And now it’s clear this much is true
That after all she has been through
When mountains seem a dizzy height
You have to just aim higher

On my way to the car I saw a naked man. He was standing on the path near a bench and a bin. The sight offended me. I don’t want to see some naked old dude, and he was old, anywhere let alone in the sanctity of a public space. I asked him where his clothes were and he simply told me that he felt no need for clothes. He stated that he was born naked and why should he cover himself unless it is to keep warm in the winter and today was clearly a beautifully warm summer day.

“Why should I conform to the restrictive rules put in place by a fashion-obsessed society when I myself feel my most natural and free when clothed as I was when I entered this world?” he explained. “All I’m doing is setting a new fashion. A trend for freedom.” As he spoke, a police car pulled up and two heavily padded young officers handcuffed the elderly nude dude, covered him in a blanket and bundled him into their car, with a little more than what I would call reasonable force under the circumstances.

“What’s in the bag?” one of the officers enquired in a brutish tone. “My swimming stuff.” I answered respectfully as if it was any of his business. Ignorant fuck. Damned bully. Is there any need for such aggression and lack of common decency?

As I walked to my car with my plan still set in stone in my mind, I couldn’t help but think that the old man had a point. I drove to the top of the concrete helter-skelter car park entrance and mounted the contents of my rucksack on the ledge of the top floor, facing east and towards the centre of the town. Thinking about what the old man had said, I stripped naked as the day I was born and set fire to my clothes where they lay. Triggering the timer, I casually headed back to the car, safe in the knowledge that the CCTV systems were all playing a loop recorded earlier in the day, and that I had at least 10 minutes to escape to a safe distance.

Ten minutes later and I found myself  on the top of a nearby hill overlooking the town. The detonator triggered and sure enough, as expected, a large grenade was launched with a trajectory perfectly calculated for the town hall. It was about to hit the building when my heart began to sink. Had I miscalculated? Of course not! Just before hitting the building, the missile exploded mid-air, launching its contents into the air surrounding the area. We didn’t want to kill anyone did we?! And what wonderful contents these were. Millions of little colour paper shapes, flowers, hearts, smiley faces, stars and the like. And every one of them contained a message, written in plain English on the reverse:

“Enough Is Enough”.

The sun had started to set. It was starting to feel a little chilly on top of that hill with my bits flapping in the wind. I wished I hadn’t burned my jeans and jumper.

OK, not all the time. But sometimes. Sometimes things in your life change that are out of your control, but force you to act. These events sometimes come with an intense sadness or depression, or a complete lack of any sense of control over the situation.

All you can do at times like this is ride out the wave. Endure the sadness knowing that it will get better over time. Life has many things in store and great possibilities. Sometimes things happen for a reason. Equally things happen for no reason at all, but sometimes are accompanied or followed by sublime or profound serendipity. This is what you must hope for, or seek out.

Our Mother Nature, which art in everything
Hallowed be thy way
Thy kindom is here
Thy way is clear
Distant galaxies and near
We take from you our daily feed
Forgive us our greed when we take more than we need
As it will surely be our downfall
For thine is the universe
The patterns in this chaos
for ever and ever

Amen

In the name of the sun
moon
the ocean
and leaves rustling in the wind

Amen

I almost don’t mind being awake at 03:45 when you get to hear this. I love summer:

Clothes Man is a superhero. He’s a superhero with a difference.

Clothes Man was just an ordinary dude, called Charlie Marley. He grew up in the south of England, leading a fairly ordinary life, even with a name like that. He got average grades in his GCSEs, and he flunked his A levels. He bummed around for a couple of years before going to university as a mature student to study fabric technology.

Charlie’s final year dissertation was on the production of high technology organic materials that can be manipulated with small electronic currents. These currents would be controlled and diverted according to brain activity, for instance separating two or more layers slightly in order to trap layers of air if the brain starts to think that the wearer is cold. The extra layers of air help to insulate the body and raise core temperature. Genius, eh?

Well, it was a great idea until things went wrong. During testing, Charlie decided to wear one of the suits himself, rather than testing on a manikin. Charlie was a bit of a martial arts expert, and had made the suit in the style of a Shaolin monk’s robes. It was February in England and some tool opened a window, making it super cold. Charlie hated the cold so much that his brain went ballistic and started sending super strong chi signals to the clothing, which was still in early stages of development. A circuit overheated and shorted, causing a huge build up of heat all over the suit. The suit melted fast to his body, making the suit become part of his skin.

And so, Clothes Man was born. That’s right, he actually isn’t even wearing any clothes. That’s his skin!

After an extended time in hiding and recovering from the burning, living off of whatever he could find on the streets, Clothes Man began work on rewiring the suit to become functional again. After some time in his new secret lab, he was soon able to control the suit.

Then he started adding new functionality to it. An invisibility cloak. Wings. Super-strong lightweight strands that can instantly wind into rope, or curl up super-tight and out of the way on his waist. Sharp pointy blades that shoot out of the sleeves. And it still looks a bit like a Shaolin Monk’s robe, which is sweet.

In short, bad guys should start mending their ways because Clothes Man is bad-ass. He’s going to make sure that people pay for what they’ve done or, even better, stop them before they do it. He particularly dislikes lazy arsed, bastard, stay at home watching Jeremy Kyle, robbing, vandalising, benefit thieving scum bags. But he’s going to begin by hunting down whoever it was that opened that fucking window.

Idiot.

I would advise that you keep a close eye on me and learn from the mistakes I demonstrate. These errors are well rehearsed and purely to benefit your learning experience.

What? You thought I was doing this by accident?

lol!

It bothers me, on occasion, how very inconvenient, and sometimes time consuming, the act of going to the toilet can be. You might be really busy trying to meet some kind of work or study based deadline, or maybe you’re just having loads of fun. But when nature calls, you have to stop what you’re doing, find the nearest dumping ground and unleash your waste into the china bowl, and watch as it is flushed away into the cleaning system.

The whole arrangement is very inconvenient, time consuming and harmful to the environment. There are 7 billion people on this planet at the time of writing. Just think about all that shit and piss. And, pooing is bad for you. I know it can feel pretty good at times, like when you get a clean break (no wiping required) and if you can avoid the klingons. But, poo causes colorectal cancer, which is a pretty nasty way to go.

I have devised a theoretical solution for this problem, based on a mixture of current technology and technology that will be with us in the not too distant future. Here it is.

1. Upon reaching adulthood, all humans get a minor operation performed on their urinary system, to divert urine to the same exit hole as poop.
2. As part of the same operation, a synthetically produced and hypoallergenic tube is inserted into the colon. This tube runs from the inside of the rectum, diverting the flow of waste to another part of the body, perhaps the upper thigh, where a connector is situated.
3. A separate device is supplied to the individual for the purpose of disposing of waste. The unit contains GPS location technology, and four fold-out limbs with propellers, similar to the flying CCTV bots already in use. The individual carries several spare of these devices.
4. When the tube reaches capacity, a small signal is sent to the individuals brain, via a number of possible routes, audible, or otherwise. This prompts the individual to plug in a device to the connector.
5. Once the device is connected, the contents of the tube are sucked up into the device until it reaches capacity or until the tube is empty.
6. Once the device contains its payload, it disconnects itself and extends its limbs. It locates itself via GPS and works out the location of the nearest processing plant. It then promptly whisks itself away to be processed. The device is solar powered.
7. Processing involves converting as much of the waste as possible into biofuel, and the remainder into fertiliser.

There are some issues here with regard to the privacy of the individual. So the choice would need to be made whether to:

1. keep donations anonymous, and have no way of tracking how much an individual feeds back into the system, or
2. track the ID of the individual and reward them for their donations by reducing their fuel bill, for instance.

The paranoid amongst us would be uncomfortable with option 2 as it would be possible for authorities, or the associated press to grab a device, identify the individual, and then process their sample to see what they had been eating, drinking, where they had been, etc.

If you’ve read this far, shame on you.

Check out this super hot picture. Oooh yeah!

Sometimes people can surprise you. They can surprise you in ways pleasant or otherwise.

I’ve decided that from now on, I’m going to expect the worst from people by default. That way I won’t ever be disappointed again, and occasionally I might be pleasantly surprised or even overwhelmed.

I would like it if people would do me the same courtesy. However, I am a realist and I know that people have high expectations of me. I also have high expectations of myself. I will therefore continue to try and meet these expectations.