Two Splendid Venues
Copyright 2015 Frankie Lassut
A TIP FOR SURVIVAL
I have been busy getting rich and famous living in cloud cuckoo land, and while there (you still have to pay tax) tapping out these Quick Flash stories. The rich bit is okay but the famous bit just highlights you to said tax man; it’s like having a big beacon on your head with a bright arrow pointing at you below which the tax man can see clearly from great distances.
I was starting the QFs off by telling the reader all about the financial lifestyle of a QF indie writer i.e. having fun with stacks of money that comes rolling in (I’m joking, honestly). You know, who wants a note-roll lumpy mattress, it’s no fun. Just imagine, you need a good night’s sleep, an energy top-up, because in the morning it is necessary to clear the fans from the driveway (in their sleeping bags) before riding out on the push bike; yet you can’t sleep because of your success. It isn’t a mountain bike you see, so going over the bumps is very difficult. But the good news is, after three months of pain and having to go to A&E every day to have it removed, I have now got used to the hard saddle.
People, especially the hooded younger generation who ride up the road doing wheelies and other tricks, ask me if ‘I’ can do tricks? I can boast to doing only one (two if you count getting on which almost pops my hip joints each time). The other day, I managed to scratch my ring piece using the saddle end while I was shooting along at about five miles per hour; the relief was great and I have the hot weather to thank. I might invent a front of seat app for scratching various other parts of your body while cycling.
I’m usually going to the local land fill site to prepare for my future. If blindfold, I know when I’m getting near because the place stinks and is crawling with Heart Foundation shop people collecting furniture, earth movers, property developers, paint gunners ... but I’ll tell you what, you are about to fall in love with land fill sites and instead of seeing what I just described, you will see a living Turner painting. That is because when their true purpose is revealed to you i.e. now, their beauty will escalate in your mind.
Let’s see, I go there because I’ve decided to ‘cheat’ in readiness for the world ending. No one seems to know what the world ending really means, I suppose they mean people won’t be able to sustain themselves any longer, because let’s face it, if it ends, the shops will be shut ... and then we’re stuffed, especially on Sundays and after maybe 8p.m.
So this now is one of my indie Pentertainer tips to help you out when it finally happens ...
How to spot the end of the world as there may not be an obvious ‘bang’, not with chemical weaponry and determined religious groups.
You may be watching Lorraine on TV, which suddenly cuts out to a special newsflash, ‘Important news, the world had ended, good luck.’ The station then cuts back to Lorraine, who instructs you to hide under the kitchen table if you haven’t bothered to get a decently constructed nuclear bunker from Amazon ...
Actually, if you order one from wonderful Amazon, the packaging will lend itself easily into a second one, if you can be bothered to fit windows and maybe a nice door i.e. better than the posh neighbours.
So, you’re hiding under the kitchen table prepared for the long haul, when there is a loud knock on the door. Lorraine said of this event happening ‘och doooon’t answer’, but you have to because it might be the stressed looking Amazon Prime man with your Arnie DVD about the end of the world, which he saves, fortunately. So you do, you have to or the evening is stuffed, and it is ...
a soldier in a special fallout suit shouting at you in muffled tones from behind a multi-purpose radioactive/chemical weapon attack gas mask. He gives you a leaflet which says. DON’T PANIC, IT’S OK, YOUR POLITICIANS HAVE BEEN EVACUATED TO SOMEWHERE SAFE AND YOU ... are expendable. Please keep on paying taxes as failure to do so will mean prosecution. You will be hassled by robots as all of the Inland Revenue people are in the cellars under their buildings.
It’s unfair because the net is down and your standing order can’t go out ‘on or around’ the 25th ... and the bank staff are ... ??
The soldier then goes to your neighbours and you notice the atmosphere is smoky and green with hints of red, which isn’t right ... and you’re just stood there. You suddenly realise the inevitable has happened and slam the door shut ... now what? Now what?! Erm ... Your survival instinct kicks in. You remember Lorraine’s spoken checklist ...
‘Is the air outside poisonous?’ You ask yourself. If you have some, put some sellotape over the keyholes and around the doors and remember, sellotape and similar products do dry out and come off the receiving surface, so you must change it regularly if you are to survive in your house for the next twenty years or more.
Your instructions from Lorraine are: Either open a window quickly and shove the budgie out and watch it. If it perches on something and then drops off ... it isn’t good news. If it is flying towards the perch and a peregrine from nowhere turns it into a puff of feathers, try the other recommended method (which you would do anyway if you don’t have a budgie) i.e. open the letterbox and fill your lungs through your nose or your mouth. If you have one of those letterboxes with the two sets of bristles that a sword can’t be pushed through by Dwayne Johnson, push a straw through because Dwayne was actually acting ... put it up a nostril and inhale.
Ten minutes later you aren’t showing any ill effects, so, you open the door (and the soldier shoots you ... joke). More green and red smoke seeps into your house. What terrible gas is this?! On the bright side, at least the peregrine was ok.
What was it Lorraine said about the smoke???
You remember!
It’s ok! Are you relieved? What it is, all the smoke and the colours on the horizon are religious groups having celebratory firework displays because each individual group was RIGHT! The end of the world was nigh and HERE IT IS! HALLELUIA!
Now they wait in complete servitude for the six headed beast from Revelations, the one with seven necks (one spare) to come out of the fire and the brimstone and, and? And what? It’s happened. For arguments and story’s sake The Fire and Brimstone is the Kingdom’s Hall of Jehovah’s Witlesses (you should read our ‘The Bible According to Monkey Joe’).
The beast roars and spits fiery slime and waits to battle it out with Jesus. The battle between good and evil is in jeopardy because ‘someone’ hasn’t turned up, surprise! Surprise! So NOW WHAT?! All those promises from the town centre Christians ... they let us down. Suddenly there are loads of Bibles put in boxes by disgruntled people ... to take to the car boot sale at the weekend. But there is no weekend! The world has ended! But you still have to pay taxes, or else! Then your phone rings! You answer it ... “Hello?’
“Hello. Did you know that you can claim for money owed to you through the IPP Scheme ...
You though, you though are wise ... “great! Can you send the form please!”
But, the main post office has disappeared into the hole caused by new technology ... the Silent Bang Nuclear Warhead Bomb. Ha! That fooled them. Then the TV signal goes on holiday and all you are left with is a local pirate radio station which is just static with a faint voice in the background.
Now backtrack a bit. BE PREPARED. Life after the end of the world could be tough and you could get hungry. You might have to become a killer of furry and feathered things.
A friend once was worried about that computer thing years ago when the clocks in the computers couldn’t go to a million in zeros, so the whole place was going to collapse. A friend of hers who owned lots of guns had her convinced that he, her and her whole family should move up North and live off the land (which is crap, because they usually take the piss out of Northerners i.e. moi). Before this she woul
dn’t have killed a fluffy bunny and then skin it and eat the guts raw, but, she told me of this mini exodus and said ‘ Jasper is going to teach me to shoot so I can ‘take rabbits out’. She never mentioned shinning and gutting them or making clothes from the skins. Neither did she mention anybody else with the same idea; there are always a few, so she would have to learn armed combat to the death too. She ended up shooting a few eggs in her back garden, and then when the fateful midnight came ... nothing happened. So, I went out and found an unmarked roadkill rabbit, I picked it up and took it to her ... ‘could you skin and gut this please? Practice for you in the event of a society collapse. She didn’t ... but I did, road kill is great! The teeth necklace I made for ‘End of the World Jewellery.com’ was cool. I bought it myself to make the bank think I had a cash flow and get a loan. Ha! Fooled them!
But ... when the world actually ends, one must be prepared. Here, is my ‘Wadzeon’ Pentertainer tip for you: Worry not; you will not starve for the first few days anyway.
The Council you see have given you a blue (?) recycling bin, but, what’s the bloody point? The end is nigh, so ... you’re going to need supplies to survive until society has been reformed and is once again behaving in a way which will bring forth the next apocalypse (that’s when you know everything is normal). Put into your green bin anything recyclable that might be useful in the post apocalypse world. It will be taken to a landfill site and so all you will have to do is don your rag mask and polythene Post Apocalypse Tip Search Overalls (Amazon or B&Q) and go dig through the rubbish (which isn’t rubbish anymore is it, sell by dates suddenly became defunct). You may be thinking ‘but how will I find my tin of beans and my spoon?’ Or, you may be planning to go to the seaside or a river with a bottle and send a message to any other survivors who may be out there, so a glass bottle with a top is essential ... just think, the other survivors may have matches. Anyone who watched Ray Mears or Bear Grylls in the pre end of world days will be laughing then because they will know how to make fire and dig worms, as roasted worms are much tastier than raw ones.
Old folks now who live in sheltered accommodation have a thing, an e necklace which is an alarm. They press it and someone then rings them. Well, a company in Taiwan has come up with the Can Mole. This is one of those drill snout things that you see on some of the sci-fi films where people are in a machine that tunnels underground (I can’t remember if they had such a thing on Thunderbirds?) These will be available and will clip on the ends of tins of beans, peaches and other useful stuff which you can have with your worms, or slugs. Just clip it on the can and throw it in the GREEN general waste bin. Post apocalypse, all your hard work is waiting for you. All you do is press your button on your necklace and the device will spring into life and the can will come to you.
There is one hazard, maybe (?) Because there could be radioactive clouds and all sorts of chemicals involved in the end of the world, tip seagulls may grow to an incredible size and you don’t want to be carried off by one. Even worse is the possibility that you may walk too close to a nest clue: it will be very large and made of branches, settees and other stuff.
If there are young in it you may either frighten them or make them excited at seeing dinner walk by. They will make a commotion, mummy or daddy will hear and then come and shit on you ... which is pretty awful even from a normal sized gull, never mind a thirty foot wingspan one. That’s why up North, us wiser ones call them shite hawks.
All I can say to you now is ‘happy post end of the world days’, and don’t forget … you still have to pay your tax. A new tax for after the end of the world. Landfill Tax. Yes, you will have to pay to be on the landfill site looking for your stuff. If your tin of food has the price printed on it, you will have to pay 20% LSVT (Landfill Storage Value Tax).
By the way, I tried to find the meaning of the word tax, but really, it is obvious. The Government like taking your money off you because it’s fun for them, because they made it up and didn’t think you’d fall for it. Really then it’s a word and a very sarcastic symbol i.e. Ta … and a sarky kiss x = Tax, the easiest money they can ever make.
PS I visited the site in the days approaching the end, on my bike cleverly scratching my bollocks with my app, to bury some beans and jars of pickles and marked the places with golf flags ... I therefore don’t need to buy any can tunnelling kits. Clever eh?! Up there in my head for thinking, down in the feet for dancing.
Questions about landfill end of world storage
Dear Frankie
I’ve decided that I should maybe put some money in a tin in case someone opens a shop or a super market with their food and drink stash a while after the world ends. The best way I can figure it is to get a big tin of coffee, throw the coffee away or have lots of it black with some sugar. That way I could get high and write another blockbuster series. Tell me if you can? Do that lot in Taiwan make the can drills that big? I might want wheels on mine as well because I don’t want any tip rats getting my wodge and I don’t reckon they could follow it across fields and thorny hedgerows. Hmmm? Now that I think about it, maybe wings to fly over the hedgerows and brick walls might be handy.
Don’t worry, I can afford it ... and I’m going to sue HP beans the cheeky badstars!
Yours truly,
J.K Rowling.
PS I’ll need it (the can) to be very fast, because some of those poor people, especially those who write shit E books can catch speeding ostriches on their bike if the ostriches have a tenner taped to their neck.
***
Dear Frankie
Thanks ever so for being the inspiration for my book i.e. The Shady Christian Grey. I’m asking the same question as J.K ... did you know that we’re both still on benefits, please don’t say anything.
Yours truly,
E.L James.
***
Dear Frankie
Is it possible to get a tunnelling drill for a loaf of bread?
Yours truly,
Vic and Bob
***
Dear Vic and Bob
Why not get a metal bin and fill it with loaves and get a metal bin drill app? Then you can have loads of toast or sandwiches. They did a tip rat poll on landfill toasters and found that nine out of every ten still worked ... which is crazy because all power plants which produced electricity are now like Chernobyl, but fantastic for wild life and Russian wild life photographers. By the way, if you go there to take wild life photographs, the only stuff you can eat are wrapped things from vending machines.
Yours truly,
Frankie.
***
Dear Frankie
Vic is stressing that we will still have to pay tax, is this true?
Yours truly, Bob.
***
Dear Bob.
Yep.
Yours truly,
Frankie.
***
And now, on with the Quick Flash show!
Don’t tread on an ant he’s done nothing to you
There might come a day when he’s treading on you.
‘Adam and the Ants’.
It isn’t only humans who like to bugger about doing sports having fun, animals do too. Have you ever seen gulls or pigeons doing acrobatics in the wind? What about fish? Do fish do acrobatics in fast moving water? You can’t see them in a river or a stormy sea, but how about in a tank? I saw this one playing in the bubble filled jet of water pumped into the tank from the filter ...
I tried to keep the movement ...
“Yeeehaaaaa!”
But what about insects? Ants for instance.
Warning!
Don’t tread on an ant he’s done nothing to you
There might come a day when he’s treading on you.
‘Adam and the Ants’.
THE HUMAN ARENA
Rodney Claytrap Smithers was an ant control specialist. He was the best and he did it for fun which was made even more fun because he didn’t charge by the nest, he charged by the ant (similar to charging s
omeone water rates and then fitting a meter). He would tread on the ant even though the ant had done nothing to him and then pick up the squished corpse with a pair of tweezers and place it on a large piece of card he had sprayed with a special glue. He would then count them and charge the customer accordingly at a rate of 1.2 pence per ant. He was worth a lot of money. He also catered for a very specialised market, a market place littered with very clever people who were cliff-edge loonies. They were on the market for mounted specimens i.e. taxidermied ants in great poses. These people preferred the real thing to macro photographs no matter how good the photographs.
To cater for this set of clientele, Rodney had manufactured a miniature crossbow which fired a pin which had very thin fishing line attached to it. The crossbow which was about two inches across the bow bit by about one inch in length looked a little odd because the telescopic sights were normal large powerful ones which had a high magnification close up facility; the sort of thing assassins hired by governments or members of the armed forces ‘overlooker’ force used. Rodney would hide behind the gatepost in camouflage gear and watch the ants crawling on the front door step, for instance. When a prime specimen came out for a bit of fresh air and a chat, he would aim carefully, wait his moment and then pull the very thin fishing line which operated the tiny trigger. There would be a tiny click and a vrrrzzzzzzzzzzz as the pin travelled through the air just below the speed of sound and the speared but mostly undamaged ant could then be pulled in and taken home. Rodney would then skin it using a pair of Boots the Chemist or Wilkinson’s reading glasses, preserve the skin and then stretch it over a polystyrene model of an ant in a great pose i.e. harassing a greenfly; which he also speared off his rose bushes. He then made a scene in a shoebox, placed a sheet of polycarbonate over the front and supplied the customer with that and an angle poise illuminated magnifying glass. His customers were always pleased.