RAVONSKI

“I’ve done it! I’ve only gone and bloody done it love!”

“Done what dear?”

“Charles, I’ve… I’ve invented the computer!”

“Oh really?”

“Yes! Years of toil and planning and algebra have finally paid off!”

“Oh… you mean the big thing with the cogs and the steam?”

“Yes! The computer! It bloody works!”

“What are you calling it?”

“It’s called the Mrs Babbage Personal Computing Machine.”

“That’s nice dear.”

“Aren’t you impressed?”

“Well, I’m sure it is most wonderful my peach, but what does it do?”

“Charles. I’ve told you a thousand times, if not a million. It does calculations based on a complex set of cogs, wheels and pistons. It’s revolutionary.”

“And you say it can add up?”

“To the nearest ten. But it could be used for so much more I am sure!”

“Like internet porn?”

“What’s an internet?”

“Exactly.”

And with that Charles Babbage opened his newspaper, puffed on his pipe, and continued to ignore his wife for years to come.

“Jaffa Cakes are legally defined as cakes for tax reasons,” I insisted, encouraging her to blow out the candles through the tears. ”You see, VAT is only payable on…” But she’d already turned to leave. ”You forgot your tiny set of screwdrivers!” I shouted after her. No answer.

It was at this moment I knew that nothing would save our wedding day. Not even the Lynx Africa gift pack she’d yet to open. 

I let the witnesses leave the registry office early as they looked uncomfortable.

(Source: ravonski.co.uk)

Not even the smell of the piss-stained stairs could detract from her beauty. Emerald eyes, check. Flaxen hair, check. She had everything I hated in a woman. But together, somehow, it worked.

I strode further into the underpass, eyes locked on her form. Her top said ‘Street Stylez’ or some such across the chest. “A sure sign of a moron,” I used to say, but not now. In the flickering gloom of the underpass it all made so much sense. She lit a cigarette with the grace of a dolphin riding a swan on a lake of caramel. I was lost in her magnificence.

Her every step created a bright spark of brilliant colour like an angel walking on white-hot coals. Yes, her trainers had lights in the heel, but the effect was nonetheless captivating. I followed my eye up the lines on her tracksuit leg until I reached the slither of cream flesh peaking out at the hip. A dash of colour marked the area and my mind raced with possibilities. A rainbow? A unicorn? Both? My mind melted with the thought of one day seeing it in its full and glorious state.

Graffiti adorned the walls. Scrawled epithets that will one day form all thinking on our fallen society. I knew not what they meant. Who is ‘Baz’? Or ‘Faze’? Where are they now? What is there message? All of these questions and more were eclipsed by her radiance. 

And then, as she came close enough to touch, she spoke.

“Give us ya wallet”.

The heavens themselves could not have conjured such a pure and mellifluous tone.

“Oi, prick! You wanna get cut?” she sang.

I could not believe my luck at having met such a divine creature, let alone being privileged enough to communicate. In the absence of any words worthy of her presence I smiled and held out my hand in a universal gesture of good will.

And then I transcended.

Time, space, colour, sound, smell, and touch intertwined, swirling around me in a vortex of ecstasy and delightful pain. I could only just make out her parting words as they played out like the final notes of an unfinished symphony.

“I fuckin’ told you! I fuckin’ warned you, yeah?”

The underpass fell dark. My soul escaped. And she was gone. 

Goodbye my sweet. Goodbye.

Everyone wasn’t always dead. In fact, at one point up to 50% of the world’s population was almost alive. One month before that point, everyone that should have been alive was alive. And a day after that a puppet went missing from a toy shop in Cardiff.

Nobody knew where it had gone. That was because the owner of the shop, a burly woman called Janet, was the only person that had noticed it was missing. And even she wasn’t that bothered.

As Janet shrugged and went to make another cup of weak tea, the puppet was already in space. Far-fetched I know, but the puppet was in space. It was perhaps not the first puppet in space, but it was in space nonetheless. More specifically, it was in a spaceship (for want of a better word), surrounded by big glowing buttons (for want of a better description), and tied down to a table (actually, that’s fairly accurate).

There was no need for it to be tied down as it was a puppet. A puppet made of Earth wood and Earth string and painted with Earth paint. It posed no threat (unless you tripped over it) and it definitely could not talk. Well, that is, until it did. 

“HELPTH!” 

The puppet screamed in the raspy wheeze of a toy that had never spoken but now sensed that its recently-instated sentience was in danger of being prematurely extinguished. 

“HELPTH!” 

It wriggled around pathetically a little before going limp when it realised that no one, not even Janet, was coming to save it. Then a voice happened. 

“You were wood,” it boomed. 

The puppet looked nervous (if a block of wood with a painted-on mouth could look nervous).

“Now you are not wood,” it added, somewhat prosaically. 

The puppet looked confused (again, its wooden block of a head remained unchanged but you could just tell it was confused). 

“But I am woodth,” the puppet spluttered, “Look!”

It motioned towards its wooden arm with the painted-on watch that said it was quarter past four when it wasn’t. A long, loud sigh emanated from the ship and the voice spoke. 

“Then I have made a mistake.” 

The puppet was about to agree but the voice returned, interrupting it.

“You are free.”

The puppet’s shackles fell from the table as if by magic (but it was merely alien technology), and the voice continued, slowly and thoughtfully.

“You see, I am from a distant land and my mission is to-“

But before it could finish its speech the puppet had flopped off the table, flailed across the room, pressed all the buttons on the console, and destroyed the Earth in a mind-shattering explosion of men, women, mud, bricks, sea, and sheep.

The puppet, now a destroyer of worlds, turned around.

“My name’s Bobbin,” it blurted cheerfully.

But its cheeriness was short-lived as within miliseconds it had been vaporised into a tiny pile of ash and googly plastic eyes by a laser to the face.

The spaceship, in no mind to stick around and take responsibility, sped away at three times the speed of light, leaving only me, your omnipotent narrator, to rue not taking the chance to intervene.

Sorry Earth. My bad.