M BIRD WORKS

Cliff’s Big Day

Sir Cliff Richard was watching TV, American shopping ads. Predictable stuff; a toothy XL pink man enjoying a multi-cutting omnitool, a brushed, purple-jacketed woman standing next to him in a buzzing yellow studio kitchen. A C-list Sky channel teleshopping ad. It was the afternoon. The hot energy of the man had latched into Cliff’s mood as he brazenly channel surfed in his £3 million home.

Sir Cliff had been staring at the TV for a long time, and had barely moved. His face was lit but dull. Like a fading nightlight in the shape of a face that thought aging was for just other less good faces. That’s basically what his face was like. His favourite Doctor Who mug was precariously sitting half full of red wine on the Times. His dressing gown was slightly open, and he was mindlessly pulling at his dick. Thoughts of his multi-million selling records and national tours were dull noise behind him. He hadn’t opened the lovely cream curtains since getting up.

The TV man scraped his fingertips along the exposed MDF on the backside of the kitchen counter, chewed his lip, and smiled out of the TV with every large tooth in his large head.

‘This fucking thing changed my life. It’s incredible. I used to be a schlub, a mook, a barely-sentient mannequin. I was dead by all accounts, a waif of piss, decomposed, childless, cretinous. I wandered through life with shit both on my face and hanging out of my ass. I was an American Indian, bent over a wagon, waiting for colonial Death to fuck my place out of history. That was, until I found this beautiful machine. I love it. Give me a fucking tomato.’

The purple woman handed him a tomato, perplexed but visibly excited by the possibilities of what would come.

TV Man: ‘Now look at this. Just look. I’m serious. Are you all looking out there? If not, so be it. I don’t own you, you owe me nothing. Just know that pisant cowards look away when the Truth is shown to them. Fucking watch.’

The girthy tooth man skilfully held up the tomato to his audience. The studio was silent. Cliff watched, mouth agape. Across the nation, undoubtedly, living rooms were locked in anticipatory arrest.

He deftly lifted the clear lid of the complex plastic machine, swiping aside two flat moving parts, which he had explained the use of earlier. Winking at the camera, at Cliff, the man softly placed the tomato onto the machine. Every movement was cast with complete authority. This was a performance, pre-recorded but somehow live, the screen turgid with emotion, pulsing.

He pressed the lid back down.

In a second, the whole fat ripe tomato had been turned into tomato slices of restaurant-quality uniform thickness.

TV Man: ‘How about that shit?’

Sir Cliff picked up the remote and rewound. No way could the transition be so fast. He’d been using a knife like a twat for years, it took him at least 30 seconds to do a tomato like that. He was notoriously slow, but still. No way. This was mental. Alright, let’s see it again. Lid opens, plastic wings flippantly cast asunder, tomato on, lid down. Beautiful tomato slices. Christ. It really was that simple.

A quiet rage started to build in Sir Cliff’s jaw as the TV woman collapsed in ecstatic tears. He watched in impotent envy as the powerhouse took another tomato and did it again, throwing the new slices at the camera and laughing. Sir Cliff thought of the hours he spent cutting tomatoes for the huge salad bowls at the ‘I’m Nearly Famous’ party. Elton John smacking his lips and dipping his fat gay hands straight into the biggest bowl. ‘These tomato slices are a bit uneven, Cliffy’, he had said as Elizabeth Taylor stifled laughter and fed tomato bits to her rat dog.

Sir Cliff’s focus came back into the room to see the woman begin to play with herself as the man decimated a waiting throng of carrots. He had to admit, this thing was remarkable. He eyed up the cornucopia of vegetables next to be sliced and felt hungry for those old salad times.

Out of nowhere, three slams on the front door, shaking his red wine.

Sir Cliff jerked upright in cold panic and grasped for the remote.

Bam bam bam again. ‘POLICE’, went the door.

Doing his best to hide his half-erect penis under the belt of his dressing gown, Sir Cliff frenetically ran to the fireplace jammed on the DESTROY ALL EVIDENCE button hidden behind his dead mum’s porcelain duck. Holding his breath, his heart sighed at the growl of the furnace below. He edged to the door.

He interrupted a third triplet of thuds by sheepishly opening it. His voice was like tissue opposite the glare of the uniforms.

‘Um…good afternoon?’, he squinted from the dark.

‘Afternoon sir. We’re here with a warrant to search the premises in relation to a number of sexual abuse allegations against yourself. Please step aside, I would encourage you not to interfere.’

Well, Cliff thought, they’ve finally twigged. Good job I made that button. No commission for you, chaps. There’s no need for them to be quite so cold towards me though. I’m an officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. I’m a Knight Bachelor. How dare they. How …fucking dare they. ‘Well, that’s quite an accusation, I have no idea why…’

As they stepped into the gloom of the hallway and began to fill the house, Sir Cliff noticed how much one of the officers resembled the big man from the television. The same pink skin too. For a moment he saw again that tomato lovingly divided, beads of cool water dotting their taut flesh. He heard in memory the sound of glasses clinking, felt his running his fingers down his face one smooth constant instead of this scarred plastic, remembered making love to beautiful young girls and not worrying about them touching his hair in case it fell out, when he didn’t have to go over to Paul’s and approve each of the photos for these godforsaken calendars. For goodness sake, I looked like someone took my skin and filled it with offal in the new one. A 74 year old streak of viscous orange piss climbing out of a pool. My wet skin looks like a leather sofa in an old dear’s house covered in plastic. Oh, and here I am now, casually enjoying a cocktail on the tennis court with my shirt open. I barely even swim or play tennis any more. I never actually played tennis. I still have the court out there though, I can start playing whenever I want! Maybe when I turn 80. Christ. 80. What a joke I’ve become in the modern climate. A man trapped in an aging mass of memories as he clutches onto and mimics a false idea of American glamour. That’s quite good actually. Maybe I should write a book. Fuck, why do I keep trying? I mean, who’s out there actually buying calendars full of my wilting torso? There was that one woman at the charity concert. She was disgusting though.

He heard the furnace room door squeal open and listened. The large pink policeman rifled through his piles of Gardener’s World magazines. Another one was clumsily working through the kitchen cupboards. All you’re going to find in there is muesli and pinot noir, you bellend. The men came back upstairs, singed and defeated. Cliff knew they were too late to find anything sexy.

The afternoon breeze graced his neck and feet. For now, he was still free.

cliff richard

Pork

I pulled it, like you said, but it just fell apart. It’s just there, on the side. I don’t think we can put this in a burger, Spiderman.

A Short Story Concerning Sad Dad

Turquoise room. There were dark dots of spit underneath the mirror, and a plastic clock squatted in its reflection. He held the slice of pork directly at eye level, eclipsing his reflection. He was hungry and sad. If I eat this pork, he thought, that’s it. No more pork. The floor clicked beneath him and he heard old memory music in its noise. Sunday night baths, Antiques Roadshow, stuff like that.

He ate the pork. It was rubbery but parts of it were delicious, about 40/60. He licked the pork-grease off his pork-greased fingers and faced himself. Hot orange light turned the skin pale and pink, shit hairs pocking out at their own terrible will on his lovely cheeks and chin. I don’t look good, he thought, not good at all.

After standing there for 5 more minutes, he had finalised the analysis. Cut rings under eyes, shit flat hair, one bastard wonky tooth. The more he looked, the more it had all come together as a shoddy map of a life unlived, Weak Nose Mountain crack in the middle.

This was too much. Enough of this. He threw water at his face and left the room with the light still on, a bold token of apathy. A car pulled up outside and a neighbour closed their window. Four birds flew out of a tree nearby. Throwing on a jacket, cheap, brown, he looked in the mirror again and saw the same image as earlier, only this time wearing a cheap brown jacket. A flash of a thigh cut through, soft, softer than the pork, sweeter too, a calf muscle bloating under a squeeze. The birds kept flying as the door opened up to a sharp morning. The air was fat, wet, but ultimately harmless. Out stepped our man, cold air on his ankles, another day on Rigel 6.

As the passenger door slid to a good solid close, the car entered hover mode and the man greeted his driver. ‘Morning, Son’ he said. ‘Morning Dad’, said Son.

They both knew nothing new or interesting had happened since the night before, so looked forward to the road, without flair or ceremony. Cold air streamed in through four plastic slots on the dashboard, and Dad made an effort to convince the air to stream his way, using his thin stiff arms as negotiating tools. Son took note as the air on his left face became nil, but did not speak.

The thigh came into focus as nothing much passed them on either side. It belonged to Mum. Soft, milky, ready to burst. It seemed like a tasty thigh; he wanted to eat it right now, cover it with jam and tear the flesh off with wet incisors and chew and break the skin until he swallowed it whole. That would be nice. He could feel the cap of her knee. He held the invisible shape in his right hand, outside of Son’s periphery. It felt sore but it felt good. Her smooth calves. Her sexy feet. Suddenly, he wanted to masturbate. Being stuck in this fucking car just became a lot harder. Like his penis.

Thoughts of the day to come and the pain attached to the woman attached to that foxy leg eroded his boner, and Dad was soon staring at the passing nothing, with respective thoughts turned to vapour or dust or something.

The shrill twinkle of her crap voice scratched at the back of his head.

As the car stopped and hovered in place, two girls were running up a road on his left, laughing and playing with a disposable camera. As the prettier girl stood against an old factory wall, a nothing old wall, just a wall, dead orange bricks and brown stains, the other, less pretty girl laughed and took a picture.

Why would you take a picture there? Dad thought. What’s the fucking point? Take a picture of me by this wall so I will always remember how empty this moment was. That wall has nothing of merit. Those girls must be stupid.

‘Why would you take a picture there?’ Dad said.

‘Where?’

‘Over there, those two girls. She just stood by a totally plain wall and the other one took a picture of her’.

‘That’s weird. Maybe it’s not about the wall’.

‘Well it’s a shit wall. What is people’s fascination with taking pictures of everything?’ he asked nobody, and continued to stare, shitly. The traffic light turned aquamarine and the car hovered on, the mystery of the two girls lost to busy pavement patterns. The birds were now flying in the opposite direction with primitive abandon.

Dad realised he’d been looking at the girls’ legs the entire time, and couldn’t remember if he’d blinked. He felt his penis surge with life again and enjoyed the feeling of it against his thigh. Two boners before lunch. Not bad.

As one bird flew into a window high above, the biggest bird, the two men continued along the road.

Selection of business.

Sweet Valley High

Tell me where to go, I said, a walkie talkie in one hand and a large cube of marble over my shoulder. Over the white valley, I saw her point just to my left. Even from over there, she looked sexy, short shorts and a belly top. I felt hungry. I turned and placed the marble down, making sure to not cry out in relief as I finally let it go.

I did that eight times over, eight pieces of marble, cut straight into cubes, arranged meticulously in a row on a long mirror platform. The manly part over, I stood back and admired the rigidity of the angles, looking across the valley for approval. Thumbs up. I hadn’t seen that bracelet before. Her life was clearly going on without me.

I wiped dust off my hands and walked over to the large tin of paint. I didn’t like the colour, but this wasn’t my project. I’d agreed to help, and I didn’t want to cause any more friction between us - just let her creativity roam free, whatever that fucking meant. She was fingering her phone. I opened the tin and looked into the dark gold. It wasn’t so bad actually.

Four white birds flew overhead and I put my finger up at them. She wasn’t looking. I thought about the time we’d been driving and I swore at that kid on the billboard, and how she laughed, and how I didn’t really get why, but it made me feel wealthy. I tripped on a rock and I heard a similar laugh.

She threw the thick paintbrush in a perfect arc, landing flat by my feet. I picked it up and felt the warmth of the handle. I’d never seen her throw so confidently before. She must have been practising. Probably with a new boyfriend.

I blew on the brush and dipped it deep into the paint, watching the fat ripple disappear into the edge. I could smell my aftershave amongst the paint and dust. The paint left a thick shining trail as it glopped out from the surface.

Old dogs worked faster than this. I looked round, licked the inside of my teeth, kneeled in front of the first cube, and began to paint. Soon, a huge gold B shone wet on the white marble, ornate religious symbols, brilliant and meaningless. Symbols I guess of safe anarchy, I don’t know.

On the next cube I painted a big A, just 3 lines, this time with dappled swastikas and a silhouetted menorah and all kinds of other bullshit. This is what she wanted, and I knew how to provide. I wanted to impress her with my callous stance on the power of religious symbology. I might as well have tattooed an upside-down cross on my wrist. What a load.

After a couple of hours, I’d painted on the rest of the marble and was finished. I flew over the valley to admire the work, stood next to her and heard her breath become fast. Across the valley the eight cubes shone – ‘BOOTY MAN’. We both looked at the tattoo she’d had done on her right bicep, the same empty words. I didn’t really get it. As we stared at the cubes, I realised the only thing I’d get out of this was an offbeat anecdote.

That was the last time I saw Sarah.