CONTINUED:
IN THE THUNDERDOME
the great beast Yaxley-Lennon is charging straight for Miffed Matt.
MATT'S P.O.V. - YAXLEY-LENNON
roaring in, the creature's fists going up high, higher, coming down with the force of a crashing asteroid.
CLOSE ON MATT
not moving. Waiting. Surely too long. Finally, right as the fists smash down, Matt leaps away. The fists slam into the earth, throwing up sand, and Yaxley-Lennon is temporarily staggered --
-- which opportunity Matt takes to unleash a flurry of punches into the beast's legs, thighs, torso.
It's the tickling of a gnat. Yaxley-Lennon barely notices. Looks down at Matt, twists --
-- and backhands the smaller man, hurling him clean across the arena.
Matt smashes into the cage's metal bars. Falls, winded.
Yaxley-Lennon springs, surprisingly agile, up into the air, coming down directly at his wounded prey.
Matt shakes the tweety-pies off just in time, rolls, and Yaxley-Lennon's knee comes down right where Matt's head was a moment before.
Matt tries to run, but Yaxley-Lennon grabs his leg, flings him as if he were a child's doll at the roof of the cage.
Matt thuds into the bars, cries in pain, but grasps on. He's clutching to the roof, looking down as Yaxley-Lennon gets a run up. Matt scrambles to hook his legs up and round the bars.
YAXLEY-LENNON
leaps, powerfully, as --
MATT
gets his legs through, lets go his arms, hangs down --
-- and grabs onto the speeding meat-bullet that is Yaxley Lennon, twists with the creatures momentum, lets go.
Yaxley-Lennon is fired, spinning, into the bars, which groan and buckle as they are struck by the force of the behemoth.
The impact would kill a lesser man. But Yaxley-Lennon shrugs it off. Gets back on his feet, rips off a buckled length of cage -- makes for a perfect lance -- and roars at the sky.
Yaxley-Lennon takes the lance and starts jabbing it at Matt, who's still up there clinging to the bars at the top of the cage.
Matt dodges the jabs, swings across the cage like monkey bars, arm over arm across the arena and down, dropping on the other side, pirouetting, coming to rest breathing heavily facing his opponent.
Yaxley-Lennon bellows mightily.
The creature claws the ground like a bull. Lowers its helmeted head. Raises the lance. Charges.
Matt yells and runs to meet the juggernaut.
FROM HIGH
as the two enemies close the space.
MATT
at the last moment feints, dives under the lance and right between the giant's legs --
-- but not fast enough. Yaxley-Lennon, dropping the lance, brings a brutish foot down as Matt passes, right into the smaller man's ankle.
A sickening crunch. Matt howls in anguish.
Yaxley-Lennon is relentless. That one second is all he needs. A huge fist thumps into Matt's chest, knocking half the life out of him. Another fist into his skull. One more, an uppercut, pushing out teeth and saliva and blood, the force arcing Matt upwards and backwards and over on himself.
Matt crashes to the ground, broken, destroyed.
Yaxley-Lennon stoops to pick up his lance, turns back to Matt, raises the lance to the heavens, ready to bring it down right through Matt's limp frame.
The Crowd, who have been going ballistic this whole time, pause in a pregnant silence.
MATT'S P.O.V. - YAXLEY-LENNON'S HELMET
and the noise coming from within. Now Matt is close to the beast, and there are no other sounds, he can hear a continuous buzzing, like that of a hornets' nest, emanating from the helmet.
What the hell? Matt's curiosity gives him the strength to rouse himself from the depths for one final gambit.
He dodges the downward thrust, grabs the lance in both hands, and with all the strength left in his body he jabs it back upwards, angling it under Yaxley-Lennon's helmet, prising the metal headpiece free and popping it off like a Pringle top.
Yaxley-Lennon goes flying backwards, but we follow --
THE HELMET
rolling, rolling across the sand. It comes to a halt facing up, a small electronic device visible in the lining inside the helmet, playing the National Anthem over and over on a loop.
MATT
takes the lance, leaning on it for support, and, dragging his injured foot, hobbles over to the downed Yaxley-Lennon. Raises the lance above his head, preparing for a finishing blow --
-- as Yaxley-Lennon rolls over onto his front.
CLOSE ON YAXLEY-LENNON'S FACE
grinning simply. It is the face of a child, naive, confused, blinking in the harsh lights of the arena.
YAXLEY-LENNON
Where da buzzy-buzzy go?
MATT'S FACE
utterly shocked.
YAXLEY-LENNON (CONT'D)
Buzzy-buzzy make me anggy. All da time buzzy-buzzy, no fink of other stuff.
UP IN THE V.I.P. BOX
Grand Humungous Timmartin is on his feet. He bellows down at the combatants.
TIMMARTIN
Yaxley-Lennon, our brave warrior, you almost have him. Just a little more!
YAXLEY-LENNON
Me no wanna. Me wanna sun lounge, play fly-planes, no do smashy-smash.
The Crowd is agast. But the day demands a victor.
ANNOUNCER
Well, Miffed Matt. It appears the final move must go to you. The Numberdome will have its five pounds of flesh. Strike, now.
CROWD
Finish him! Finish him!
Matt looks up at the Announcer, the crowd, at Timmartin and Farazze leering down from their pod. Looks at all of them, at the makeshift lance in his hand, slick with his own blood. Finally at Yaxley-Lennon. And --
-- he drops the lance in disgust. It rattles to the ground.
MATT
Get someone else to do your butchering for you.
ANNOUNCER
uncertain. Looking to Timmartin.
TIMMARTIN
pauses for a long beat. Sighs.
TIMMARTIN
So be it.
He nods, and a brawny LIEUTENANT steps forwards, raises a scavenged rifle, squeezes the trigger.
ON YAXLEY-LENNON
as the bullet pierces his heart. The huge man slumps, dead.
No one moves.
Then the crowd erupts. Screams, howls, commotion everywhere.
A second bullet thuds into the ground where Matt was standing --
-- but he's already on the move, running towards the gap in the cage where the metal bar that became the lance was torn off. As a third bullet ricochets off the cage beside him he ducks, pushes himself through the hole, and is away, into the chaos of the Spoon Town night.
CONTINUED ONE MORE TIME...
Showing posts with label fives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fives. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 June 2018
Monday, 18 June 2018
Day 50: Miffed Matt and the Game of Fives # 4
(Part One)
(Part Two)
INT. EYRIE - DAY
Miffed Matt, bruised and bound, is shoved roughly into the chamber high above Spoon Town. DOOTY MANAGERS #1 AND #2 follow after him. They bow to Grand Humungous Timmartin, a towering behemoth in arcane breathing apparatus and gimp suit with uncovered nipples, then turn and bow a little less enthusiastically to Timmartin’s second-in-command, a wretched and stunted creature, salmon-eyed and piranha-toothed, a limp little potato-faced wart known as NIGE FARAZZE.
MIFFED MATT
I see you’re looking as hale as ever, Farazze.
Farazze wimpers and crawls to Timmartin, starts suckling at the larger man’s teat.
TIMMARTIN
Nige Farazze is Prince of the Tender Boyz, Leader of the Yewkippers, Supreme Jussaruggular of the Blokes, and I will not have him disrespected by you, worm.
Nige Farazze purrs and laps his moist tongue around his master’s exposed nipple.
Timmartin removes a spiked glove and with a great veiny hand slaps Farazze so hard that the runty man goes skidding across the floor.
TIMMARTIN
He is, however, utterly repugnant.
MIFFED MATT
Why am I not surprised to find you sitting at the corner of this web, Timmartin?
TIMMARTIN
And why am I not surprised to find you at my mercy shackled before me, Miffed Matt?
MIFFED MATT
You know you won’t get away with this.
TIMMARTIN
But, Matt -- I already have. Just this week a mounted column of my fiercest Tender Boyz dissolved the last of the senate in Brussels -- dissolved them in vats of acid, specifically -- and set a torch to their holy books of Ee-Yew legislation. The last remnants of your old world have been swept away. You are a man out of time, Matt. With your German efficiency and your Latino hips and your mullet adored by men of the Netherlands, you stand for an integrated world that no longer exists. I have seen to that. From Pole to Pole now there is only the wasteland, a new order based upon each man standing by himself, for himself, and garroting any who get in his way. Strong and stable castles in the dark, each of us, unassailable, impenetrable, protected from the horrors outside our walls.
Timmartin leads the way out onto a balcony overlooking the town.
TIMMARTIN (CONT’D)
Look, Matt. Look at the beauty we have created.
MIFFED MATT’S POV - SCAVENGERS
A group of brutish scavengers are kicking a pig to death.
BACK TO SCENE
TIMMARTIN (CONT’D)
We were tired of those out-of-touch banana-straighteners in Brussels telling us what to do, so we wrenched back control. We were tired of our jobs going to foreigners, so now there are no jobs. We were tired of being sold funny European food that made our tummies yucky, so now there is only good old-fashioned British cuisine, like roasted rat and irradiated trout. Where once there were poncy feathered clothes from Paris, now there is only real English garb, hessian sack tunics and leather jerkins and rusted iron chain mail. Where once the ruling from distant shores regulated every aspect of our lives, now we are free to beat our neighbours over the heads with metal pipes and steal their possessions and leave them bleeding to death by the side of the road.
Timmartin pauses.
TIMMARTIN (CONT’D)
You are uncharacteristically quiet, my pathetic adversary. Is it taking time for the reality of your situation to sink in?
MIFFED MATT
No, I had no problem with that. The only thing that was taking time was cutting through these bindings.
Miffed Matt brings his hands, now decidedly free, round to his front.
MIFFED MATT
But that’s done now.
Miffed Matt jerks to the side and grabs the container holding the burning torch, flings molten tar at the approaching frames of Dooty Managers #1 and #2, who drop their weapons and scream, blinded by the boiling pitch. But these guys, like all duty managers, are used to suffering at work. A bit of molten tar in the eyes is pretty much a better-than-average shift. So they regain their composure and, though blinded, begin fumbling for their weapons.
Miffed Matt leaps into the air and swings from a chandelier.
TIMMARTIN
Get him, you fools! He’s swinging from the ... from the light fixture. You know. The ornate circular light fixture. Oh I can’t bring myself to say it. It’s far too French.
Dooty Managers #1 and #2 are bumbling around the room.
Miffed Matt swings, somersaults in the air, lands on a chaise longue.
TIMMARTIN
He’s on the ... oh you know, the long chair, the one with the varnished wooden legs and the opulent plush red cushion covers.
Miffed Matt dives from the chaise longue and scrambles to the corner of the room, up onto an antique bureau.
TIMMARTIN
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Dooty Managers #1 and #2 take a guess at the sound of Miffed Matt’s footsteps and charge in his direction. Miffed Matt backflips from the ... erm ... the writing desk as the guards approach, slicing at both their necks with fountain pens from the desk as he flips. The guards crumple to the floor, gurgling and dying noisily.
DOOTY MANAGER #1
(last words)
Still not the worst shift I’ve done...
DOOTY MANAGER #2
(last words)
About par for the course, actually...
Miffed Matt, turning, picking up Dooty Manager #2’s halberd in one smooth motion, starts towards Timmartin, who panics, tries to flee.
But they’ve all forgotten Nige Farazze. The little goblin, who had scuttled away from harm as soon as the situation got dangerous, as always, now comes flying towards Miffed Matt.
Matt slices the halberd directly at Nige Farazze’s chin -- but Nige Farazze doesn’t have a chin, just a flaccid face that dribbles away weakly into a gummy neck, and so the halberd misses by inches, slams into a wall.
These are the only seconds Timmartin needs to pull a long blade from his own substantial chin folds, to manoeuvre -- ahem, manipulate -- the edge of the blade into place against Miffed Matt’s neck.
TIMMARTIN
Enough.
Timmartin is sweating heavily, his breathing apparatus hanging loose, his moulding fetid body visible below his torn gimp suit.
TIMMARTIN
Farazze, well done.
He flings Farazze a scrap of sausage -- Wall’s, not one of those Polish or Spanish ones or anything like that -- which Farazze catches in his nasty little teeth and devours hungrily, before slurping a pint of ale and muttering something incomprehensible about immigrants.
TIMMARTIN
As for you, Miffed Matt. I was fond of those guards. Good help is surprisingly hard to find in today’s economic climate. To think, I was just going to gut you and feast upon your entrails. But now I see that is far too gentle a death for the likes of you. What to do, what to do?
FARAZZE
I knows, master. I knows what to do with the nasty man.
TIMMARTIN
Pray tell, my unctuous one.
FARAZZE
How about we get him to do a little bit of counting?
A rare smile plays across Grand Humungous Timmartin’s toad-like face.
TIMMARTIN
You think so, do you?
Farazze nods eagerly.
TIMMARTIN
Well, Miffed Matt, looks like you’re going to be playing a game of fives.
Farazze throws back his head and cackles.
FARAZZE
Fives! Fives! Fives!
Timmartin stands, beams.
ANGLE ON MIFFED MATT
Caught, defeated, confused.
TIMMARTIN
What fun.
CONTINUED...
Saturday, 16 June 2018
Day 49: Miffed Matt and the Game of Fives #3
(Part One)
(Part Two)
INT. ENTRANCE TUNNEL - DAY - SUBJECTIVE CAMERA
Miffed Matt's P.O.V. We're in a dark tunnel with light at the end. We're pushing forwards, grunts and groans all around. We hear cacophonous noise, commotion from outside the tunnel. An enormous archway, the noise swells, and then we're through--
EXT. SPOON TOWN - DAY
--And into the (comparatively) open air of Spoon Town.
It's bedlam. EXOTIC VENDORS hawk their grotty wares.
Booted feet stomp through mud and slush.
Warped and disfigured CHILDREN run cackling through the crowds.
Bands of SHIRTLESS MEN, adorned in crude tattoos, swilling hooch, belch and roam and fight.
Under a wooden sign reading "Booty Salon" a parade of OLDER WOMEN have thick paint slopped onto their faces and gaudy inks brushed over their nails.
Food stalls sell meat-like sticks of gristle and sinew, at-best from roadkill, fried in rancid grease.
The air is thick with shrill cries, piercing laughter, guttural chanting.
It's the centre of Worksop in a post-apocalyptic future, and literally nothing has changed.
MIFFED MATT'S P.O.V. - STORYTELLER
A squat and ugly STORYTELLER, who'd be here at any time, really, and totally doesn't exist for purely expositional reasons, on a grubby stage regaling his audience.
STORYTELLER
...Love him. For he delivered us from darkness. After the Great Undoing, while all around us crumbled, the temple that was the heart of this town thrived. The weary and the sick came from miles around to patronise the site, to give up what few coins they had to the gods of this temple, and they were rewarded with glorious Stellar Juice to ease their pains and to soften their aching minds. The temple became more than a temple: an arbiter of politics, a trade giant, the only employer in town. All roads led to the Spoon.
Our procession of Driver and Prisoners and Miffed Matt has paused to let a wagon pass. Miffed Matt watches the Storyteller.
STORYTELLER (CONT'D)
And the Spoon was held in the hand of one man. One beautiful, sacred man. After the needs of our town clashed with the aims of regional government, this man did not sit idly by. He watched what was good and holy in our ground be shipped to the devils overseas, and he said No more. He crowned himself Grand Humungous of the Wastes, declared the old men in corrupted Laandan, and their antiquated ways, a blight upon the land, and with his legions of loyal Tender Boys he swept away the last vestiges of a broken regime and ushered in this era of enlightenment. So remember, tonight, as you're sleeping safe, as you're enjoying the spoils of this realm of Eden, who to thank for these riches. Love him, love your saviour, the Remainer-Smasher, the Curry-Wednesday Warrior -- Boss of the Burger, Beermat Poet, founder and Man-in-the-Chair of Spoon Town, the one, the only -- Grand Humungous Timmartin!
The crowds cheer. Streamers fill the air. The wagon lurches on, and the procession continues. Miffed Matt, from under his hood, spits on the ground.
INT. THE EYRIE - DAY
A rounded room perched high above Spoon Town. Dark. Shadowy. Malicious.
GRAND HUMUNGOUS TIMMARTIN'S P.O.V. - MIFFED MATT
We're looking down a dirty telescopic lens at Miffed Matt, spitting on the ground and moving off.
We hear a low growl from O.S.
BACK TO SCENE
A clawed hand grips the seeing glass and thrusts it away.
A body in the blackness. Wisps of grey hair. A shining eye. The Grand Humungous is at home.
Turns to an UNSEEN CREATURE making suckling noises below him.
GRAND HUMUNGOUS TIMMARTIN
Look
The Unseen Creature takes the seeing glass.
UNSEEN CREATURE'S P.O.V. - SCANNING CROWD
GRAND HUMUNGOUS TIMMARTIN (O.S.)
Our new guests.
The lens sweeps the crowd, pinpoints the procession, the Prisoners, and, finally, Miffed Matt.
BACK TO SCENE
GRAND HUMUNGOUS TIMMARTIN
Bring me that man.
CONTINUED...
(Part Two)
INT. ENTRANCE TUNNEL - DAY - SUBJECTIVE CAMERA
Miffed Matt's P.O.V. We're in a dark tunnel with light at the end. We're pushing forwards, grunts and groans all around. We hear cacophonous noise, commotion from outside the tunnel. An enormous archway, the noise swells, and then we're through--
CUT TO:
EXT. SPOON TOWN - DAY
--And into the (comparatively) open air of Spoon Town.
It's bedlam. EXOTIC VENDORS hawk their grotty wares.
Booted feet stomp through mud and slush.
Warped and disfigured CHILDREN run cackling through the crowds.
Bands of SHIRTLESS MEN, adorned in crude tattoos, swilling hooch, belch and roam and fight.
Under a wooden sign reading "Booty Salon" a parade of OLDER WOMEN have thick paint slopped onto their faces and gaudy inks brushed over their nails.
Food stalls sell meat-like sticks of gristle and sinew, at-best from roadkill, fried in rancid grease.
The air is thick with shrill cries, piercing laughter, guttural chanting.
It's the centre of Worksop in a post-apocalyptic future, and literally nothing has changed.
MIFFED MATT'S P.O.V. - STORYTELLER
A squat and ugly STORYTELLER, who'd be here at any time, really, and totally doesn't exist for purely expositional reasons, on a grubby stage regaling his audience.
STORYTELLER
...Love him. For he delivered us from darkness. After the Great Undoing, while all around us crumbled, the temple that was the heart of this town thrived. The weary and the sick came from miles around to patronise the site, to give up what few coins they had to the gods of this temple, and they were rewarded with glorious Stellar Juice to ease their pains and to soften their aching minds. The temple became more than a temple: an arbiter of politics, a trade giant, the only employer in town. All roads led to the Spoon.
Our procession of Driver and Prisoners and Miffed Matt has paused to let a wagon pass. Miffed Matt watches the Storyteller.
STORYTELLER (CONT'D)
And the Spoon was held in the hand of one man. One beautiful, sacred man. After the needs of our town clashed with the aims of regional government, this man did not sit idly by. He watched what was good and holy in our ground be shipped to the devils overseas, and he said No more. He crowned himself Grand Humungous of the Wastes, declared the old men in corrupted Laandan, and their antiquated ways, a blight upon the land, and with his legions of loyal Tender Boys he swept away the last vestiges of a broken regime and ushered in this era of enlightenment. So remember, tonight, as you're sleeping safe, as you're enjoying the spoils of this realm of Eden, who to thank for these riches. Love him, love your saviour, the Remainer-Smasher, the Curry-Wednesday Warrior -- Boss of the Burger, Beermat Poet, founder and Man-in-the-Chair of Spoon Town, the one, the only -- Grand Humungous Timmartin!
The crowds cheer. Streamers fill the air. The wagon lurches on, and the procession continues. Miffed Matt, from under his hood, spits on the ground.
CUT TO:
INT. THE EYRIE - DAY
A rounded room perched high above Spoon Town. Dark. Shadowy. Malicious.
GRAND HUMUNGOUS TIMMARTIN'S P.O.V. - MIFFED MATT
We're looking down a dirty telescopic lens at Miffed Matt, spitting on the ground and moving off.
We hear a low growl from O.S.
BACK TO SCENE
A clawed hand grips the seeing glass and thrusts it away.
A body in the blackness. Wisps of grey hair. A shining eye. The Grand Humungous is at home.
Turns to an UNSEEN CREATURE making suckling noises below him.
GRAND HUMUNGOUS TIMMARTIN
Look
The Unseen Creature takes the seeing glass.
UNSEEN CREATURE'S P.O.V. - SCANNING CROWD
GRAND HUMUNGOUS TIMMARTIN (O.S.)
Our new guests.
The lens sweeps the crowd, pinpoints the procession, the Prisoners, and, finally, Miffed Matt.
BACK TO SCENE
GRAND HUMUNGOUS TIMMARTIN
Bring me that man.
CONTINUED...
Day 48: Miffed Matt and the Game of Fives #2
EXT. SPOON TOWN GATES - DAY
Dawn breaks hard over the ragged mountains. The wan sunlight illuminates a towering collection of metal, a jutting perimeter wall of ragtag corrugated sheets and vehicle shells and scavenged detritus, looming fifty-metres high and three miles round like a giant hobo’s smashed teeth rising from the desert.
GUARD
Welcome to Spoon Town. Witness our might and cower, unholy worm. Password please.
The Driver steps forward.
DRIVER
Right, I know this. The blood of the sewer rat flows uphill.
GUARD
Incorrect password.
DRIVER
Oh, dammit, yeah. I think that’s the password to one of the other barbaric trade hubs I frequent.
GUARD
Don’t worry, that happens.
DRIVER
It’d be handier if they were all the same, wouldn’t it?
GUARD
Oh, no, they should never be the same. What if someone hacked into your brain, with say a serrated cleaver, and found the password. Then they’d have access to all your personal barbaric trade hubs.
DRIVER
Right, yeah, of course. I’ve seen the educational semaphore. OK. Well I’m pretty sure this one has something to do with forsaken. The forsaken shall inherit the Earth?
GUARD
Is that all lowercase?
DRIVER
No. Capital E on Earth. Because otherwise the forsaken are just inheriting earth, common or garden - ha - clod, ground, dirt; rather than the world, our kingdom, the planet that we call Earth.
GUARD
Incorrect password.
DRIVER
The forsaken shall inherit the earth all lowercase.
GUARD
Incorrect.
DRIVER
The forsaken shall inherit the earth each word capitalised.
GUARD
Incorrect. Would you like to reset your password, perhaps?
DRIVER
Yes! I didn’t know that was an option.
GUARD
Of course. Just answer your secret question first. What is your favourite torture implement?
DRIVER
Well that’s easy, the good old cat o’ nine tails. That’s oh-apostrophe tails. Although, hang about, when would I have set up this question? Because I was big into the flaying knife for a time last year. Ahh. I have no memory of this. Let’s go with cat o’ nine tails...
GUARD
Incorrect. You have now exceeded your total number of allowed guesses and for your own safety will be locked out of Spoon Town for ten minutes. Please try again later.
The Guard’s head disappears back into the wall and the hatch is slammed shut.
The Driver looks back at his prisoners and grins sheepishly.
DRIVER
Pain in the irradiated tumour, these things.
The Prisoners mutter their noncommittal assent.
DRIVER
I’m sure I know the blasted thing.
PRISONERS
(in general agreement)
Mmhmm, of course, yep.
No one says anything. The Driver scratches himself, whistles a little. The Prisoners shift their weight, gaze around. The Driver coughs, stares up at the sky.
DRIVER
Looks like more acid rain.
PRISONER #1
Could be.
The Driver scratches himself again.
PRISONER #1 (CONT’D)
Did you see those mutilations out near Futility Ravine last week?
DRIVER
No, I must have missed those.
PRISONER #1
Bad mutilations, they were. Sloppy.
DRIVER
They’ve got no class, the bandits these days.
PRISONER #1
Oh, you’re telling me. Time was, a bandit would tear down your yurt with his modified ramrod, take all your possessions, carry off your daughters, skin you alive -- but he’d do it with a certain élan. It was all part of the game. These kids today, it’s like no one taught them the rules. They don’t announce their approach with heavy metal guitar solos. They don’t arrive for a warm-up round of murder and then leave again, promising to return, giving you enough time to hire a wandering hero to protect your family. They just show up, lop off a few body parts, and drive away again. Where’s the flair? Where’s the pageantry?
DRIVER
Take old Guzzlicker the Gluttonous, now there was a bandit with style.
PRISONER #1
Killed my great uncle, did Guzzlicker. Hell of a bandit.
DRIVER
They don’t make them like that anymore.
PRISONER #1
No they do not.
Both men fall to silence. A wistfulness fills the air. No one says anything. A two-headed lizard scuttles past.
DRIVER PRISONER #1
I was-- It’s funny--
DRIVER
Sorry.
PRISONER #1
You go.
DRIVER
No, sorry, after you.
PRISONER #1
No, it’s just, I was just going to say it’s funny, underneath the leather harnesses, the chainmail, the rat-skull belts, the pierced nipples, the daubed blood of your vanquished foes, take all that away, and underneath we’re not so--
--The hatch snaps open. The Guard pops his head back out.
GUARD
Welcome to Spoon Town. Witness our might and cower, unholy worm. Password please.
DRIVER
Ahh, there we go. Sorry for the delay everyone, I’ll get you chaps moving onwards to your certain deaths in a jiffy. Right. Password. The forsaken shall inherit the Earth one two three. T and E capitalised. Numbers as numerals.
GUARD
Incorrect
DRIVER
Poisoned warts! OK. The forsaken shall inherit the Earth one two three exclamation mark.
GUARD
Incorrect
DRIVER
One the forsaken shall inherit the Earth one two three exclamation mark.
GUARD
Incorrect
The Driver looks about to burst into tears. The Guard, in a tiny moment of humanity winning out against the inexorably churning machine of bureaucratic obstinacy, takes pity on him.
GUARD
You know you have to explicitly state the spaces between words, right?
DRIVER
Of course! One capital-T-the space forsaken space shall space inherit space the space capital-E-Earth one two three exclamation mark.
GUARD
Password accepted. Step forward for your visitor’s band. Relinquish all weapons at the booth. Failure to comply will be met with swift retribution. Please enter Spoon Town, and have a nice day.
The Driver whips his prisoners and the whole sorry procession limps forward, the Driver pausing only briefly as he passes the Guard to raise his eyebrows in a small gesture of thanks that, though small, still to the Driver means everything.
Miffed Matt trudges with the Prisoners, his head down, through the gates and into the waiting maw of Spoon Town. He says nothing.
CONTINUED...
Dawn breaks hard over the ragged mountains. The wan sunlight illuminates a towering collection of metal, a jutting perimeter wall of ragtag corrugated sheets and vehicle shells and scavenged detritus, looming fifty-metres high and three miles round like a giant hobo’s smashed teeth rising from the desert.
Jutting from one section of the wall is an abscess, the Guard Tower, housing the Spoon Town Gates -- and bleeding out from the abscess onto the sand is a smudged dirty fleck, the Driver, with his line of Prisoners (and Miffed Matt) in tow.
A small hatch slides open in the side of the Guard Tower, and the face of a GUARD, twisted and scarred, pierced with many rings and chains, pokes out from the hole.
GUARD
Welcome to Spoon Town. Witness our might and cower, unholy worm. Password please.
The Driver steps forward.
DRIVER
Right, I know this. The blood of the sewer rat flows uphill.
GUARD
Incorrect password.
DRIVER
Oh, dammit, yeah. I think that’s the password to one of the other barbaric trade hubs I frequent.
GUARD
Don’t worry, that happens.
DRIVER
It’d be handier if they were all the same, wouldn’t it?
GUARD
Oh, no, they should never be the same. What if someone hacked into your brain, with say a serrated cleaver, and found the password. Then they’d have access to all your personal barbaric trade hubs.
DRIVER
Right, yeah, of course. I’ve seen the educational semaphore. OK. Well I’m pretty sure this one has something to do with forsaken. The forsaken shall inherit the Earth?
GUARD
Is that all lowercase?
DRIVER
No. Capital E on Earth. Because otherwise the forsaken are just inheriting earth, common or garden - ha - clod, ground, dirt; rather than the world, our kingdom, the planet that we call Earth.
GUARD
Incorrect password.
DRIVER
The forsaken shall inherit the earth all lowercase.
GUARD
Incorrect.
DRIVER
The forsaken shall inherit the earth each word capitalised.
GUARD
Incorrect. Would you like to reset your password, perhaps?
DRIVER
Yes! I didn’t know that was an option.
GUARD
Of course. Just answer your secret question first. What is your favourite torture implement?
DRIVER
Well that’s easy, the good old cat o’ nine tails. That’s oh-apostrophe tails. Although, hang about, when would I have set up this question? Because I was big into the flaying knife for a time last year. Ahh. I have no memory of this. Let’s go with cat o’ nine tails...
GUARD
Incorrect. You have now exceeded your total number of allowed guesses and for your own safety will be locked out of Spoon Town for ten minutes. Please try again later.
The Guard’s head disappears back into the wall and the hatch is slammed shut.
The Driver looks back at his prisoners and grins sheepishly.
DRIVER
Pain in the irradiated tumour, these things.
The Prisoners mutter their noncommittal assent.
DRIVER
I’m sure I know the blasted thing.
PRISONERS
(in general agreement)
Mmhmm, of course, yep.
No one says anything. The Driver scratches himself, whistles a little. The Prisoners shift their weight, gaze around. The Driver coughs, stares up at the sky.
DRIVER
Looks like more acid rain.
PRISONER #1
Could be.
The Driver scratches himself again.
PRISONER #1 (CONT’D)
Did you see those mutilations out near Futility Ravine last week?
DRIVER
No, I must have missed those.
PRISONER #1
Bad mutilations, they were. Sloppy.
DRIVER
They’ve got no class, the bandits these days.
PRISONER #1
Oh, you’re telling me. Time was, a bandit would tear down your yurt with his modified ramrod, take all your possessions, carry off your daughters, skin you alive -- but he’d do it with a certain élan. It was all part of the game. These kids today, it’s like no one taught them the rules. They don’t announce their approach with heavy metal guitar solos. They don’t arrive for a warm-up round of murder and then leave again, promising to return, giving you enough time to hire a wandering hero to protect your family. They just show up, lop off a few body parts, and drive away again. Where’s the flair? Where’s the pageantry?
DRIVER
Take old Guzzlicker the Gluttonous, now there was a bandit with style.
PRISONER #1
Killed my great uncle, did Guzzlicker. Hell of a bandit.
DRIVER
They don’t make them like that anymore.
PRISONER #1
No they do not.
Both men fall to silence. A wistfulness fills the air. No one says anything. A two-headed lizard scuttles past.
DRIVER PRISONER #1
I was-- It’s funny--
DRIVER
Sorry.
PRISONER #1
You go.
DRIVER
No, sorry, after you.
PRISONER #1
No, it’s just, I was just going to say it’s funny, underneath the leather harnesses, the chainmail, the rat-skull belts, the pierced nipples, the daubed blood of your vanquished foes, take all that away, and underneath we’re not so--
--The hatch snaps open. The Guard pops his head back out.
GUARD
Welcome to Spoon Town. Witness our might and cower, unholy worm. Password please.
DRIVER
Ahh, there we go. Sorry for the delay everyone, I’ll get you chaps moving onwards to your certain deaths in a jiffy. Right. Password. The forsaken shall inherit the Earth one two three. T and E capitalised. Numbers as numerals.
GUARD
Incorrect
DRIVER
Poisoned warts! OK. The forsaken shall inherit the Earth one two three exclamation mark.
GUARD
Incorrect
DRIVER
One the forsaken shall inherit the Earth one two three exclamation mark.
GUARD
Incorrect
The Driver looks about to burst into tears. The Guard, in a tiny moment of humanity winning out against the inexorably churning machine of bureaucratic obstinacy, takes pity on him.
GUARD
You know you have to explicitly state the spaces between words, right?
DRIVER
Of course! One capital-T-the space forsaken space shall space inherit space the space capital-E-Earth one two three exclamation mark.
GUARD
Password accepted. Step forward for your visitor’s band. Relinquish all weapons at the booth. Failure to comply will be met with swift retribution. Please enter Spoon Town, and have a nice day.
The Driver whips his prisoners and the whole sorry procession limps forward, the Driver pausing only briefly as he passes the Guard to raise his eyebrows in a small gesture of thanks that, though small, still to the Driver means everything.
Miffed Matt trudges with the Prisoners, his head down, through the gates and into the waiting maw of Spoon Town. He says nothing.
CONTINUED...
Friday, 15 June 2018
Day 47: Miffed Matt and the Game of Fives
FADE IN:
EXT. WASTELAND - NIGHT
A foul and corrupted hellscape. Pools of noxious liquid gurgle and plop. Twisted creatures skitter across the rocks. Jets of ignited gases burn and flicker upwards into the black sky.
SUPERIMPOSE: "Worksop. 2076."
To be honest, the wasteland we're seeing isn't much different from present day Worksop. Maybe the lifeforms are a little more abnormal, the food less edible, the sense of lingering hopelessness perhaps a touch more palpable. But in every other regard this future Worksop is worse.
A ramshackle car comes hurtling over the dunes. It looks like the LEGO concoction of a drunk three-year-old, pieced together from all the chewed-up blocks left in the bottom of the box. There's a rudimentary cage welded onto the vehicle's rusted back. Inside, A NUMBER OF PRISONERS rattle the bars and moan. THE DRIVER slams his fist down onto the wheel and yells.
DRIVER
Quiet, dogs!
PRISONER #1
Please, just tell us where you're taking us.
The driver hawks up a wad of phlegm and grebs it behind him into the cage. The prisoners recoil. The loogie lands with a splat by the boot of the one captive who has remained silent -- a jaded, resolute STRANGER rocking only slightly with the bounce of the truck. The Stranger stares straight ahead; what he's thinking, we couldn't guess.
PRISONER #2
(to Stranger)
I know you.
No response.
PRISONER #2 (CONT'D)
Don't worry. I won't tell no one. But I know you. You're the one what walked out of the Kerfon Whorehouse Massacre with not a scratch on you.
Nothing.
PRISONER #2 (CONT'D)
You entered the Land of Ice, and walked back out again, with frozen nuggetz to feed a starving village.
Nada.
PRISONER #2 (CONT'D)
You're
(whispering)
Miffed Matt.
The other prisoners, overhearing this, gasp and cry out.
DRIVER
I told you vermin to STAY QUIET!
The Driver jams the wheel hard to the left and the prisoners roll on the floor, crash into the bars of the cage. All but the Stranger, Miffed Matt, who remains somehow motionless.
The car rattles along, and Prisoner #1 approaches the cab.
PRISONER #1
(to driver)
Maybe there's something you want? We've got some small keepsakes between us. Or information? We could tell you where to find a map to the Tomb of the Last Greggs. I've seen it, the map, with my own eyes.
DRIVER
You want to know where we're going?
PRISONER #1
That's all we want.
DRIVER
I'm not a cruel man. I'm only doing my job. I tell you what, you want to know where we're going? I can let you in on that, little one, I can do that for you. We're going... to Spoon Town.
The Prisoners howl in anguish.
DRIVER (CONT'D)
I thought you'd like that. Heh heh. We're off to Spoon Town, to see my mistress, my pretty mistress, and then, well, you merry bunch are going to get to play yourselves a nice game of FIVES.
The prisoners react. Oh shit. All but Miffed Matt. He simply raises one eyebrow and, imperceptible to all but us, lets the corner of his mouth twist into what might just be the beginnings of a smile.
CONTINUED...
EXT. WASTELAND - NIGHT
A foul and corrupted hellscape. Pools of noxious liquid gurgle and plop. Twisted creatures skitter across the rocks. Jets of ignited gases burn and flicker upwards into the black sky.
SUPERIMPOSE: "Worksop. 2076."
To be honest, the wasteland we're seeing isn't much different from present day Worksop. Maybe the lifeforms are a little more abnormal, the food less edible, the sense of lingering hopelessness perhaps a touch more palpable. But in every other regard this future Worksop is worse.
A ramshackle car comes hurtling over the dunes. It looks like the LEGO concoction of a drunk three-year-old, pieced together from all the chewed-up blocks left in the bottom of the box. There's a rudimentary cage welded onto the vehicle's rusted back. Inside, A NUMBER OF PRISONERS rattle the bars and moan. THE DRIVER slams his fist down onto the wheel and yells.
DRIVER
Quiet, dogs!
PRISONER #1
Please, just tell us where you're taking us.
The driver hawks up a wad of phlegm and grebs it behind him into the cage. The prisoners recoil. The loogie lands with a splat by the boot of the one captive who has remained silent -- a jaded, resolute STRANGER rocking only slightly with the bounce of the truck. The Stranger stares straight ahead; what he's thinking, we couldn't guess.
PRISONER #2
(to Stranger)
I know you.
No response.
PRISONER #2 (CONT'D)
Don't worry. I won't tell no one. But I know you. You're the one what walked out of the Kerfon Whorehouse Massacre with not a scratch on you.
Nothing.
PRISONER #2 (CONT'D)
You entered the Land of Ice, and walked back out again, with frozen nuggetz to feed a starving village.
Nada.
PRISONER #2 (CONT'D)
You're
(whispering)
Miffed Matt.
The other prisoners, overhearing this, gasp and cry out.
DRIVER
I told you vermin to STAY QUIET!
The Driver jams the wheel hard to the left and the prisoners roll on the floor, crash into the bars of the cage. All but the Stranger, Miffed Matt, who remains somehow motionless.
The car rattles along, and Prisoner #1 approaches the cab.
PRISONER #1
(to driver)
Maybe there's something you want? We've got some small keepsakes between us. Or information? We could tell you where to find a map to the Tomb of the Last Greggs. I've seen it, the map, with my own eyes.
DRIVER
You want to know where we're going?
PRISONER #1
That's all we want.
DRIVER
I'm not a cruel man. I'm only doing my job. I tell you what, you want to know where we're going? I can let you in on that, little one, I can do that for you. We're going... to Spoon Town.
The Prisoners howl in anguish.
DRIVER (CONT'D)
I thought you'd like that. Heh heh. We're off to Spoon Town, to see my mistress, my pretty mistress, and then, well, you merry bunch are going to get to play yourselves a nice game of FIVES.
The prisoners react. Oh shit. All but Miffed Matt. He simply raises one eyebrow and, imperceptible to all but us, lets the corner of his mouth twist into what might just be the beginnings of a smile.
CONTINUED...
Thursday, 14 June 2018
Day 46: FIVES!
"What I'm thinking," I say, "is is it a number that's also the name of a game?"
"Hmm," Mike says, which is what he always says when I come up with something I think is really clever, but which to Mike is completely obvious."
"You know, like 'Three', or 'Seven'."
"Yes," Mike says. "I understand."
Mike is more intelligent than me. But only, like, in IQ. It makes him laugh whenever I tell him this, and then he looks sad.
We leave the clue and try to do the others we've missed. We get one, and then cheat another, because we're never going to get it, and we've not got long left on the bus. Mike makes an attempt at one more. "What if... No. But... Could it...? Hrmm."
"Cheat it," I say.
"Cheating it," he says, and cheats it.
"That's disappointing," we both say.
We go back to the first clue, 'Figures it's a game [5].'
"What about 'Nines'? I say. Is nines a game?"
Mike looks at me, like, "Of course nines isn't a game, you utter moron." But he doesn't say it out loud, just in case nines really is a game, and he ends up looking stupid.
"What about--" I say.
"Nope," Mike says. "I'm cheating it."
"All right. Cheat it. If it's 'Three' or 'Seven' or 'Nines', though, I'm having half a point."
Mike looks on his phone. He's pretty quick at finding the answers to cryptic crossword clues on his phone, like he's got the page bookmarked on Chrome or something.
"The answer," he says, "Is 'FIVES'."
"Fuck off," I say. "That's a quarter of a point."
We trundle along a ways. The bus is pretty busy, with office workers looking weary and worn down. We're at Broomhill now, a few stops away from home.
"What's fives?" I ask. "Is it a card game?"
"I reckon," Mike says patronisingly. "It's called 'fives'. It's not going to be a bloodsport, is it?
We continue on. I'm feeling a bit put out by all this condescension, to be honest.
"It could be a bloodsport. It could be a fight to the death in a ramshackle arena. I think it probably is, in fact."
"Five must enter!" Mike intones.
"Two must enter. Then three more must also enter. Five must remain! Four of course could also have entered, but then only one would be allowed to enter. Five must remain!"
"Seven may enter. Two must leave. Five must remain!"
"Eighty-nine may enter. But look, where are you all coming from? There are far too many of you for this arena. We only built it to fit five. A lot of you are going to have to turn around and go right back out. As I said, five must remain!"
The bus rolls on.
"...Eighty-four," Mike says.
"What?"
"Eighty-four is how many would have to leave."
"I know."
"Oh. It just sounded like you were being vague because you couldn't do the arithmetic when you were on the spot."
"You better watch that tongue, boy, or I'll challenge you to a game of fives!"
- - -
So that's basically what happened. We made each other laugh, I made myself laugh, I got all giddy, then we got off the bus and went home.
I didn't really have any reason to write this -- although I've just now thought what I should have done was to begin the post explaining briefly that we came across the game of fives in a crossword and, not knowing the rules, decided to do some research, and this is what we found -- And then I could have written a little story about how fives is a post-apocalyptic bloodsport played by the slaves of scavengers , in an iron-fenced arena presided over by a mutated and fiendish leather-bound monstrosity, called Tina Turner, in an outpost town built of oil drums and barbed wire, the last vestiges of humanity eking out a harsh existence in a scarred and forsaken land.
But now it's 01:05 and I've got work in the morning and I haven't done that, so, *shrugs*. Maybe that'll happen tomorrow, if it doesn't seem like a stupid idea by then.
P.S. So I Googled fives, and it turns out it's an actual physical sport, played with balls and walls, a bit like squash, that probably everyone in the world has heard of. But Mike didn't know that, so he can suck it. Card game indeed!
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