Derek had woken up on a stretcher in a noisy ambulance as it
twisted its way through the traffic and on to Runcorn General
Hospital; through a half opened eyelid he could see a female
paramedic tending to his cuts and bruises but he was surprised at
her initial reaction. It was nothing like the interest he had
witnessed before during the day and he felt quite relieved, this
particular girl was grimacing more than grinning at him as she
dabbed a sterilized pad onto his cheek and held her breath from the faint pongy residue.
“You have a distinctive odour Mr. Hill, I can’t quite put my
finger on it but please stay still and I’ll have you patched up in no time, the nurses will perform a brain scan on you at the hospital to assess the damage.”
He tried to smile back but his split lips were on strike, “Where
is Honey?”
“Honey, Sir? What do you mean?”
“My wife Honey, where is she?”
The medic blew her cheeks out, “If that was your wife who
was standing there when we tended to you, I remember hearing her
say she was going home, I don’t think she was best pleased with
you.”
Derek painfully raised an eyebrow, he knew it didn’t look
good, how could it? He had witnessed two liaisons in the space of
half an hour at the restaurant, normally people did these kinds of things in secret but it seemed he didn’t care who sniffed his
backside in a park, according to Honey.
A beaten and crumpled man had finally arrived at Runcorn
A&E with the face of a turnip that didn’t stand a chance of
winning the county fair vegetable contest.
The whole place was pandemonium and full of drunks, failed
DIY experts and even people who came in for tea and a chat,
probably a good place to meet people as they weren’t about to run
away anytime soon.
He noticed here too, as he was ferried in, that no female within
fifty yards had batted an eyelid, maybe the musky allure had worn
off during the time he was unconscious, whatever the cause he was
glad to be rid of it.
It was a couple of hours before he was let out and didn’t dare
phone for a lift but called a Taxi instead. It was a 20 minute trip back to his home and to his annoyance as he called the driver to
pull up he noticed the same Black Sedan sitting there like before, this was getting ridiculous.
Derek was fired up, it had been years since he had been in a
fight, he lost that time too but the adrenalin was coursing through his veins, he had to know what they were up to. He stormed off in
their direction with his best aggressive looking face; he had made about 30 yards on the two occupants before their car roared into
life and pulled quickly away from the kerb.
He had obviously forgotten the Green Cross Code as he was
standing right in the middle of the road, the sedan picked up speed and raced directly for him, it was at this point that he knew he
wasn’t a security barrier and dived for his life out of the way of the two loyal Specsaver customers as they drove on right past him and
screeched around the bend.
Derek was furious, “Who the hell are you? Leave me alone, I
have enough on my plate already!” he shouted as he pulled his face out of the grass verge, he was hurting all over by now from the
attack and the sunburn.
In a perfect slice of God’s irony he noticed that a dog had left
its calling card in the exact same spot he had landed, he bet it was the same horny poodle he had eyed earlier in the park, he didn’t
know which was worse, his aftershave or the dog’s doo.
A dejected and disillusioned Derek made his way back to the
house, it was quiet like before on the outside, at least they had
colds, they wouldn’t be repulsed but as soon as he stepped inside
he noticed something was not quite right. He called out to no one
in particular and received no answer; just for once it would have
been nice to see his mother in law for a payback brush by with the canine’s leftovers.
He walked into his kitchen and noticed a handwritten letter
propped up on the dresser; he reached out for it and started to take in its contents.
“Gone to mother’s, you horrible vile beast, I have taken your
precious kids with me too. I never believed for one minute that you were a player, how wrong can someone be? Don’t ring unless you
want to speak to Gloria, Honey”
Derek walked dumbfounded into the living room and crumpled
into a heap onto the sofa; he let out a huge sob and cursed his God for making sure his life COULD get any worse.
A hushed silence was in place around the revolving universe as
the Visioneer was casting his final marks. It appeared that Derek
had scored quite a few points for managing to stay alive
throughout the second experiment but his nemesis, who was
grinning a little too widely, had the feeling he was holding all of the cards.
He may have failed the first experiment but he had managed to
pick a replacement Drakapod that seemed to all intents and
purposes, to be stronger than the first, the rules stated that a chosen specimen had to be picked from the same species as before to keep
the challenge competitive.
They couldn’t pick a specimen suited to a particular task
either, besides they didn’t know what each test was until it was
revealed to them and at the very least it made the game interesting.
It looked to all in the room that this boy was going to be the
clear winner, his Drakapod had morphed into the biggest lothario
the planet had ever seen and had mated with a hundred females, if
only Rudolph Valentino had been alive to see this, thought God
Boy.
It was all going rather swimmingly, as at the same time when
Derek was seen to be entering his habitat, the multi tentacled
drakapod was just about to notch up his 101st conquest but fate had dealt a cruel blow when suddenly, without warning, the huge and
ugly beast keeled over and died from the sheer exhaustion of it all.
The irony of it was that the Visioneer was about to call a halt
at that very moment but his scribe turned a tick into a cross and
possibly destroyed any hope that the Boy was ever going to be
champion.
He turned to the class to address them once more, “Well done
to all of you for your attempts at solving experiment number 2…”
God Boy stared down at his parchment to read again the
puzzling challenge…
“2. If your specimen survived the first
experiment then it must be used for experiment
number 2 otherwise pick another. Release a great
quantity of pheromones within this individual,
marks will be awarded for successful attraction if
it survives to the end. Marks will be lost for a
specimen that perishes”
The Grand Visioneer continued, “The moral of this higher
understanding exercise is that a species must select with care his suitors or face the eventual consequence of annihilation from
envious brethren or from excess effort.”
He peered at them all and let it be known they were still
lacking in understanding, “it is not simply a case that each creature must attempt to populate, they must understand their social and
physical boundaries and exercise great care amongst their own
kind. I can see that a great number of you failed to grasp this
principle but for others I was most impressed, it could be a matter of luck or creative nurturing, I expect a mixture of both, my marks are cast, class is dismissed, I will see you back here for the next lesson tomorrow.”
A few of the God Boys were excited as they knew they had
done well, they patted Derek’s God Boy on the shoulder in a
friendly brotherhood gesture but as for God Boy’s enemy, he sat
all alone brooding and boiling over. It seemed that every time the special boy was doomed to fail he came up smelling of roses and
he flashed his anger at him as God Boy passed to leave for the day.
The Visioneer stood by the door and wished everyone a good
playtime and hadn’t noticed a lone boy sitting there willing a small rock the size of a bus out of its orbit within the Asteroid Belt. To any untrained observer it simply looked to all intents and purposes some creational overtime but they weren’t to know that this belt
orbited close to Mars and the single hard object was heading on its way on a direct collision course with Earth.
The nasty hateful boy smirked to himself and nodded to the
Visioneer as he walked out the door, it would only be a matter of
time, he couldn’t wait till the next lesson.
Derek had woken early, not that he had managed much sleep
in the first place but he couldn’t get the number of surreal events he’d suffered out of his mind. He was sure that Honey would see
sense eventually; she must see he hadn’t instigated any of it to start with but he knew that the wicked witch would be working flat out
on her daughter against him.
He got ready for work and gave himself a quick sniff just to be
sure, he wouldn’t have smelt it anyway but it helped somehow. It
was funny that for the last 15 years he had performed the same
routine day in day out, shaving seconds off ironing his shirt,
brushing his teeth and picking fluff out between his toes the night before just to get the few extra minutes sleep in bed.
As was always the case in life, the more efficient you were, the
more tasks you were given and having kids didn’t help for they
woke up whenever they felt like it, like they had already retired.
He questioned his insane rush to get into work a few minutes
early as he battled with other drivers who were in direct
competition to do the same thing. He knew that when he did arrive
it was only a matter of time before he was humiliated by his boss
once more. It seemed that all bullies graduated from school into
managerial positions, control freaks, each and every one of them.
Derek’s head ached from the despairing monotony of it all and
it only added to the pain he suffered from the two incidents, he
would be unrecognizable today, they might think they had a new
supervisor, maybe even Joe Bugner himself.
He had noticed the black car was missing this morning which
was a good sign and he made haste to avoid Mr. Driver’s wrath,
the jumped up Napoleon was always banging on about military
strategies to him but he never once found out whether he had
actually been in the army to start with.
As he pulled up he gave a sigh of relief at seeing Mavis Cutter
standing there once more, enjoying a crafty fag outside before the shift started, at least she hadn’t been sacked. He got out and
walked over to her.
“Excuse me Mister, you can’t go in there, that’s off limits, the
reception is around the corner”
“Hello Mavis, it’s Derek,” he called back.
Her look of shock was expected, he didn’t think he looked that
bad anyway.
“Bloody hell Derek you look a mess, what has happened to
you?”
Derek couldn’t say much, he hadn’t understood it in the first
place, “The waiter at the restaurant was expecting a bigger tip.”
He stepped inside to see a parade of crisp uniforms sitting at
the chairs around the conveyor belt, Mr. Driver must have really
stamped his authority on them yesterday. He could see the
frightened looks upon all of their faces mixed with some relief that he had arrived to take most of the flak away from them and onto
himself.
“Morning, Ladies, I hope you’re feeling well today, bit of a
strange day yesterday.”
Of course, like most females, they couldn’t remember the night
before and nodded odd looks towards Derek as he took his position
at the head of the belt with his trusty clipboard.
Derek was relieved to see that the jumped up dictator was
nowhere to be seen and called for the belt to start it’s relentless rumblings.
He was about 15 minutes into his shift, trying his best to stay
focused despite everything, when he felt a hand tap him on the
back. Derek turned around and to his dismay saw Mr. Driver
standing there with a stern look upon his face, he wasn’t alone
today as one of the secretary’s from the office had joined him,
armed with a fancy notepad and pen.
“Derek, could you accompany me into the office please.” said
General Franco who began to march off back to his glass
enclosure.
This didn’t look good at all, he couldn’t receive a telling off
for being one of the elephant man’s closest friends could he?
He begrudgingly followed, he couldn’t feel any lower than he
felt anyway so what did it matter? The secretary sat on a plastic
seat and didn’t look up but trained her eyes on the notepad. Mr.
Driver sat behind his desk to deliver his speech.
“Mr. Hill, you have been summoned here in the presence of
Miss Miteter, the group secretary to answer charges relating to a
serious breach of quality control issues.”
A pathetic magician struck again as he produced out of nothing
a sorry looking washing up liquid bottle, bent double at the midriff looking like an old hag.
“This, Mr. Hill, should have been a perfectly upright, pristine
example of the craftsmanship that exists in this establishment but as you can see it has been handed a sick chit.”
Derek interrupted the man’s interminable speech, “What’s a
chit Sir?”
Mr. Driver laughed at the man’s ignorance of basic military
terminology.
“Mr. Hill, this bottle is on sick leave; it has been branded in all the wrong places with the Supersuds logo and cannot stand on its
own two feet to proudly show off our prime detergent!”
His boss sat there for a few moments tapping and inspecting
the pathetic looking bottle, the secretary continued to look down at her jottings to stop herself from laughing.
“Sir, what has this bottle, I mean soldier got to do with me?”
“Derek, when will you ever learn? It is because of you that
this bottle nearly left the factory, because of you this deformed
waste of plastic could have actually…”
Mr. Driver was quite emotional by this point as he pulled a
folded handkerchief from his polyester shirt pocket and began to
wipe little dribbles of sweat off his brow.
“It’s unimaginable, Derek, but this could have made it’s way
to the shelves of a pristine supermarket chain, alongside countless varieties of our competitors’ products, which may I add would
have been inspected properly beforehand, and Bloody Well Ripe
for Purchase!”
Derek watched as the man’s fists came slamming down onto
the desk in a great whip of fury. The secretary gave a little yelp and almost fell off her seat in surprise at the sudden outburst.
“You are an incompetent moron, Derek! Your slapdash
attitude yesterday led to not 1, but 3 of these useless bottles bern packed within a Supersuds box ready for delivery, I cannot
imagine the chain reaction that would have ensued after that
happened, for Gods Sake Derek, it had our name on it!”
There was no arguing with the feverous man; it seemed that
Mr. Driver had been here since day one, even before the factory
was built in 1865.
He rattled on without mercy, “I can’t even begin to
comprehend the seriousness of this situation, I was due to play golf yesterday evening but, after taking over your shift and being
alerted to the grave error, I found I would not have given the sport my full attention. For this, Derek, I am giving you a second written warning, hence the need for Miss Miteter to witness the
punishment.”
Mr. Driver sat there waiting for an overreaction from Derek
like most bosses did, they all loved to see their poor victims squirm their way out of it or beg for forgiveness to no avail.
If it had happened any other day, maybe when things had been
going ok for Derek, he may well have been satisfied with his
response but to his amazement, Derek just sat there and looked like he was waiting for a bus. Any bus would have sufficed if it got him the hell away from his current predicament, no wife or kids, beaten up face, stalkers and a rotten old bag for a mother in law.
Derek decided enough was enough, “I have to go now, Mr.
Driver, back to my line, make sure everyone is ok.”
“As you please, Mr. Hill, but it has been recorded, mark my
words, three strikes and you’re out. Now go and do your duty!”
It was a plain fact of life that if you appeared not to have a
single care in the world then trouble would simply slide away like water off a duck’s back.
He returned to his line, what difference did it make if things
were recorded anyway? It was simply pen and paper, stored away
somewhere musty that no one would ever read and eventually end
up being burnt or shredded.
What he really craved was normality again, the constant
complaints from his wife, his noisy excitable kids and the pleasure of just sitting in front of his telescope and staring up at the silent, forgiving sky.
Creation wasn’t like that however; it wasn’t designed to allow
utopia, at least not in his particular world.
The factory clock whizzed by at an alarming rate, if his
workers were slowly counting the minutes from sheer boredom of
staring at the same plastic bottles for the last 10 years, it was not so for Derek. He was contemplating his attempt at winning Honey
back and had formulated a plan.
He would get back to the house, have a bath, scrub himself of
any remaining odours which may have hidden behind his ears for
safety; pop himself into his best outfit and head over to Gloria’s with a huge bunch of flowers and a sorry note.
He was sure she didn’t fancy living in the Dragon’s lair for the
foreseeable future, the kids wouldn’t be able to run riot either,
there was a slim chance he may even be able to win her round, he
thought; bugger to the reject counts, he wasn’t about to become a
reject himself.
When it really mattered in life, there were far more important
things to do than worry about the mundane.
The classroom burst into life once more and each Boy took his
seat, it had been a fun packed playtime, they had all taken part in a game of Hoverwill, the aim of which was to will your thoughts
onto your chosen brother and make him fly around in spirals and
dives until he could create enough mind control to counteract your thoughts to land back down.
It was hard to put into terms the surroundings they played in
for it had none, it was just that, a void. There weren’t even colours to describe, everything was created with thought alone,
consciousness had no shape, it couldn’t be detected by the senses.
The closest anyone on Earth could describe it, if they even tried, was as an astral plane, a place to conjure anything you wished or
desired.
Of course everyone knew that Mother Nature was the creator
and this union between will and action was the prime relationship
between the two.
The Visioneer called order as a floating Boy came whizzing
through the door making somersaults to everyone’s enjoyment
until he was willed down by the teacher himself, he, of course,
couldn’t be controlled even though every boy there had obviously
tried.
“Boys, quiet now, we must continue onto experiment number
3, the race to the winning post is still far away but as each task unfolds it will become alarmingly near! This particular experiment is no easy task and I expect a lot of you will fail.”
The master took a grand pause to let the gravity of the task
sink in.
“There is still no clear leader amongst you, I cannot tell you
who but four of you are so close together and racing away from the rest but there is still time to catch up.”
The parchment lit up once more in a blaze of light as the next
experiment revealed itself.
“3. Place your specimen in a habitat that is
completely alien to his existence. Marks will be
awarded for the choice of habitat which offers the
greatest challenge and also for the individual’s
survival to experiment number 4.
Marks will be lost for calculated favouritism if
the choice of habitat does not produce higher
understanding within the individual.”
Most of the God Boys looked quite perplexed at this
conundrum, in the first instance they had to offer up a habitat that was likely to kill their specimen but at the same time allow it to survive to the next challenge.
Derek’s Boy tried hard to imagine what he could take away
from Derek what he hadn’t already lost
The Visioneer spoke once more to try and enlighten his pupils
about this particular task.
“Boys, it appears you need some guidance with this
experiment, the habitat you choose cannot favour the individual
but it must be able to replenish it’s needs, the resources it receives must not be known to it, it must find that out for itself. I hope this makes it clear what you all must do”
A number of pupils smiled back at the teacher, it had helped
them decide, but it was not so for Derek’s Boy. He was still
scouring his world for a perfect transfer, it seemed that the Earth was over populated and there weren’t many areas untouched by the
hand of this species.
He had but little to choose from but narrowed it down to the
great frozen wastes of the Antarctic, the remote jungle of the
Amazon or even the large estate within Glasgow’s notorious
Gorbals.
He decided on the leafy, wet jungle of South America, he
would have plenty of resources, tackle dangerous creatures and
maybe even appear as a pasty white god to the local tribesman to
be worshipped with offerings.
He knew he was out in front with the 3 other God Boys and if
Derek could survive this for the duration of the test he may even
pip them; it seemed, that through the sheer luck of the extinction event millions of years ago, he had inherited a species that was
quite adaptable to many challenges.
The same couldn’t be said for the other Boys’ efforts, there
were a few who stood out, the Lizard King’s domain on Yar-
Dakar, the Panovian Trillimites on Centius 5 and even the Glubs
on Terragloop, the latter being rather sticky and slow going.
God Boy was about to will his intention on the Amazon when
he was called over by his relentless tormentor. It was a strange
request, it seemed that this Boy was accepting defeat and offering a hand of friendship to him, it was most unusual but God Boy stood
there for a few moments to take in the possibility that he might not have to look over his shoulder anymore.
Derek had arrived back at his house, for the second time
running there was no sign of the sinister men from Sunglass Hut.
He raced into his hallway clutching a lovely bouquet of Lillies and Roses, expensive too and not the ones you pick up from Service
Stations in a hurry and hope that whatever you did would be
forgiven, a vain attempt.
He placed them carefully on the kitchen worktop and shot
upstairs to choose his wardrobe, it was obvious that only a suit
would do, every man had one and it was the same he used for
weddings, funerals and socials, like a pair of his favourite
underpants except this outfit wasn’t bright blue but quite a nice
black fleck, more Agadoo than James Bond but it would suffice.
He ran the bath and started to write his love note, it begged for
forgiveness and stated he would never do a thing to hurt her but
someone had sprayed musk on him at work. It sounded ridiculous
but she may just believe him as Honey couldn’t have imagined any
other female interest up to this point. His hobbies of Astronomy
and stamp collecting weren’t exactly daring or spectacular and
produced an involuntary yawn in most people except maybe traffic
wardens or driving test examiners.
The bath was ready and Derek decided to get a bit of loofah
action, he dived into the inviting yet almost overflowing water and put his head under for a few refreshing seconds.
“Class! start your experiments,” cried the Visioneer, “and
good luck to you all.”
God Boy was still accepting his newly conve