Monkey's Blood

After years of futile effort and searching, Casper finally experienced his Damascus moment, forgetting all memories of those nights of searching for the light in one glorious epiphany. The helpless banging against invisible barriers vainly trying to reach lightbulbs that would only singe his legs if he ever managed to touch their glowing surfaces no longer mattered. The fruitless attempts to reach the glowing white orb of the moon that never drew any closer no matter how hard he flapped his wings were in the past.

By some freak chance Casper had mistakenly emerged from his nest at the wrong time, and found a world bathed in more luminosity than he could possibly have imagined. Liberated from the urge to search for the light, Casper wiffled his feathery antennae in exultation, and simply danced in happy circles across the glowing sky.

First up there’s the broken bones.  Three ribs, left leg (tibia and fibula), collarbone, and most of the fingers on my left hand.  Of course, my left hand did better than my right which is clean gone. I bled so much out of that stump all the other lacerations – and there were a lot of lacerations, believe you me – that the surgeons damn near ran out of their stocks of the red stuff. I haven’t got the faintest idea how many stitches and sutures it took to get everything that was meant to be on the inside back on the inside… even the doctors gave up on counting in the end.

People ask me if it was worth it, and I always reply the same.  You’re damn right it was worth it, I say. I’m not letting any damn nosy bear go rooting through my bins.

The king is dead.

His mournful retainers slowly clawed at the walls and ceiling of the chamber that would now be the King’s grave. They worked reluctantly, as if holding out a vain hope that the squat, powerful body of King Brock VIII would suddenly stir and return to life as it would after the long winter sleep.

But the king did not move. As the last few clods of wormy earth were dragged into place his family said their final goodbyes, amongst them the young cub that would henceforth be known as King Brock VIV, Lord of Sett and Cete.

The King is dead. Long live the King.

And so it came to pass that YAHWEH spake unto Adam and Eve, and said

YOU HAVE DISOBEYED MY COMMAND AND EATEN OF THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT. FOR THIS YOU MUST BE PUNISHED FOR YOU HAVE SINNED GREATLY AND DONE TERRIBLE EVIL AGAINST ME

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Adam. ‘How can we be blamed for doing something evil? We didn’t have any concept of good or evil till we ate that bloody apple. How were we meant to know it was wrong?’

‘Yeah, he’s got a point,’ agreed Eve. ‘And another thing, if you’re omniscient you would have known we were gonna eat it, so why did you put it there in the first place? And if you created all things, why did you create that sodding serpent that was all like “oooh Eve, fancy an apple?”’

YAHWEH considered their words and then spake unto them in a terrible voice, saying

THAT’S IT, YOU TWO CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF OUT OF MY GARDEN. NO-ONE LIKES A SMART ARSE

‘This is the BLU-82, a 15,000 lb mother fucker of an explosive device. If you wanna clear an area to create a helicopter landing zone, this son-of-a-bitch will remove anything from that Goddam patch of earth, whether it’s scrub, trees or an entire platoon of fucking Vietcong. We like to call it the Pizza Cutter.’

One of the assembled privates slowly raised his hand. ‘Uh… s-sarge…’ he stammered. ‘Isn’t it a Daisy Cutter?’

Gunnery Sargent Kowalski paused and allowed his mind to wander for a moment. He thought of the lying mother fuckers that ran Luigi’s Pizzeria in downtown Milwaukee. All You Can Eat Pizza, he seethed. Horseshit. Cheating bastards think they can tell me when I’ve had all I can eat?

For the umpteenth time that day Kowalski imagined a flight of C-130s delivering a piping hot serving of fresh baked BLU-82s with extra cheese right through the roof of that Goddamned restaurant.

‘Yeah, Daisy Cutter,’ he muttered. ‘Well spotted Sedgewick.’

The inside leg-kick was targeted at Connor’s inner thigh, but it did not quite find its target.  Perhaps Connor had stepped back at just the wrong moment, or maybe his opponents’ foot had slipped on the sheen of sweat that covered his leg. There could have been any number of reasons in the hurly burly of combat for the kick to drift dangerously upwards, where it thudded sickeningly into the apex of the upturned ‘V’ of Connor’s legs.

The foot of a Muay Thai master kicking with lethal intent met the plastic shell of Connor’s groin guard in a hopelessly one-sided contest that could only end one way.

The jockstrap does nothing, thought Connor as the red curtain of pain descended.