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    Grasslands
    Grasslands
    Grasslands
    Ebook135 pages1 hour

    Grasslands

    By Andrew McEwan

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Do cockroaches have lungs and believe in God? Such questions occupy Vern, whose manic instability is only surpassed by his friend Almeric who is building a hydrogen bomb. If only it would go off.

    Then there's Ed. Or is there? Ed isn't sure and nobody seems to want to listen.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAndrew McEwan
    Release dateApr 26, 2012
    ISBN9781476203522
    Grasslands
    Author

    Andrew McEwan

    Van driver from Newcastle. My work divides opinion. Look me up on Goodreads and Twitter. I welcome all reviews.

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      Book preview

      Grasslands - Andrew McEwan

      Grasslands: through H-shaped windows

      by Andrew McEwan

      *

      Copyright 2012 Andrew McEwan

      Smashwords Edition

      *

      Cover design by Andrew McEwan

      *

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ***

      One

      1 - BROKEN

      My name is Broken. I fix things. It's what I do.

      The sky is blue and the grass green. I can see white clouds, brown ponies, silver eagles, the yellow sun. Sitting next to me on the sofa are Vern and Edgar, between them holding a large colour photograph. On a nearby table Almeric toys with a short red-handled screwdriver and a hydrogen bomb.

      All three are unaware of my presence. One day soon they will discover I'm here, but until then...

      ‘See anything unusual?’

      ‘Yes,’ Vern said. ‘Right in the centre, a kind of smudge.’

      ‘A face?’ prompted Edgar, whose photo it was, taken a week ago in a field behind his father's house. ‘Grinning?’

      Vern rubbed his eyes. ‘Nah -I can't say for sure. Looks...’ His glasses had fogged.

      ‘Looks?’ echoed Edgar, desperate to prove to someone that he existed, that the world had indeed conjured him up.

      Almeric downed tools and stepped over. ‘Let me see.’ He grabbed the glossy paper and reversed it. ‘The sky is blue and the grass green,’ he said, face twisting. ‘It's too dark.’

      ‘What?’ said Edgar. ‘In here?’

      ‘He means the photo,’ Vern explained.

      Almeric shook his head. ‘No I don't.’

      ‘Then what?’ insisted Edgar. ‘What's too dark?’

      ‘The ponies,’ Almeric told him, ‘and the eagles.’

      Edgar snatched back his picture. ‘But I'm there, bang in the middle!’ he shouted. ‘There are no ponies or eagles.’

      Almeric picked his nose. ‘If you say so...’

      ‘I do. ‘

      ‘Okay, okay - don't let your face slide.’ Almeric spun on his heel and loped back to the table.

      ‘And that'll never go off,’ Edgar said. ‘You're wasting your time.’

      ‘Ten says I'm not,’ offered Almeric.

      ‘Make it fifty.’

      ‘You're on.’ He tapped the screwdriver on the bomb's metal casing. ‘What about you, Vern, you want in?’

      ‘I'm dead,’ said Vern. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and put out his tongue. ‘Leave me out of this.’

      ‘Ich-nng-ach-gorb-moop?’ said Edgar.

      ‘Chicken,’ said Almeric.

      Their names are Planes, Ritsky and Jones. They are friends. This is Ritsky's and Jones's fourth-floor flat. Planes lives with his mouse and cockroaches several streets away...

      ‘What's the time?’ Vern asked. ‘I have to go.’

      ‘A woman?’ Almeric guessed shrewdly. ‘Nice smile? Wide hips? Small nipples?’

      ‘A coffee-machine,’ said Vern.

      ‘This time of night?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Nine thirty.’

      ‘Thanks. And yes; it's a favour.’

      ‘Ah, you're all heart,’ said Edgar, wiping his mouth. ‘How much does she pay you?’

      ‘Nothing. ‘

      ‘Nothing?’

      ‘It's a favour - I said so.’

      ‘The woman?’

      ‘The coffee-machine.’

      ‘There's two of them?’ Edgar sat up, loosening his tie.

      ‘Three, if you must know.’

      ‘Three?’

      Vern stood. ‘A coffee-machine and two toasters,’ he said.

      Almeric dropped his screwdriver. It rolled off the table and hit the floor with a bump. ‘Need a hand?’

      ‘No, Al, I've got all the hands I want.’

      ‘Nine thirty-six,’ declared Edgar, not looking at his watch, having no watch to look at.

      ‘A hundred,’ raised Almeric. ‘But I want thirteen days.’

      ‘Two hundred:’ Edgar responded. ‘A baker's dozen.’

      ‘You haven't got that much money.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘So how are you going to pay?’

      ‘He won't have to,’ said Vern, leaving; ‘if he loses.’

      Almeric frowned. ‘I never thought of that,’ he said.

      ‘Bet off?’ challenged Edgar, grinning like in the photograph - the supposed photograph, of himself.

      Almeric spat in his palms. ‘No way!’

      The door slammed.

      ‘Gone so soon,’ said Edgar.

      In the street kids throw soggy clumps of toilet-paper at car windscreens. They trail Vernon Planes down the road, daring each other to launch a sticky missile.

      At his shoulder, my smile goes unnoticed by all...

      2 - MEAN TIME

      Vern has unhinged the cover and fiddled around inside. He pulls springs, adjusts levers, removes bent coins and flattened bottle tops, scratches his head. Lights flash. The machine gurgles. I can't tell him the problem; even if I knew it, he doesn't yet know how to listen. My own fingers itch to be at the machine...

      ‘It was nice of you to come over, Vern,’ said Joyce.

      ‘That's okay,’ Vern answered. ‘I wasn't doing anything.’

      Joyce folded her arms. ‘The boys'll be pleased, they say my coffee tastes like old paint.’

      ‘Yeah?’ He tinkered, loosening and tightening. ‘Got it!’

      ‘Fixed?’

      He nodded.

      ‘That was quick. No time to waste, ay?’ The phone rang and she plucked the receiver from its cradle. ‘Tom's Taxis.’

      Vern clipped the panel back on the coffee-machine and pushed it against the stained office wall.

      ‘Yes,’ Joyce was saying. ‘Yes, aha, yes, let's see ... six? No, that'll be fine. Bye.’

      ‘All done,’ said Vern. He inserted a coin and watched as the plastic cup rattled, filled and steamed. ‘See?’

      Joyce folded her arms again, lifting her breasts and wrinkling the skin of her upper arms. ‘You want paying?’ she asked. ‘Only Tom's not in.’

      ‘No, no,’ he said; ‘no charge, I told Tom I'd do it.’ He buffed his glasses and headed for the reinforced door, the rain and orange lights beyond.

      ‘What about your coffee?’

      But he didn't hear. He'd lied about the toasters. The falling water urged him to run, but he sauntered instead, hair wet and shoes squeaking as he made for home.

      My feet descend after his. This world is new to me, vague at the edges, insubstantial. In time I will grow more solid and my footsteps will slap like Vern's, reassuring thwacks on the uneven pavement. But for now I must be satisfied with the sound of his rubber soles.

      On first arriving, drawn by the possibilities of Almeric's hydrogen bomb, I was surprised to learn that the materials required in its manufacture were so readily available. In my world science is the province of the city dwellers, the faceless antagonists whose tyranny we fight, and therefore shunned. Also, such things as heavy water, battery-acid, copper-sulphate, zinc-oxide, aspic and strontium are, I believe, unknown...

      ‘Hugget,’ Vern sang. ‘Where are yooou?’ He dragged a pencil across the bars of the cage. ‘Here, mooose - tck, tck.’

      Getting no response from the white rodent, Vern proceeded to the kitchen. His roach trap was a cardboard tube four inches long and two wide, paper doors at either end, a half-sucked boiled sweet within. Blackcurrant, he'd quickly discovered, was the most effective flavour; only he was out of blackcurrant having scoffed the last on his way to work that morning and so was relying on lemon.

      Vern hated lemon. The cockroaches hated lemon. The trap, which he placed behind the beaten oven, was empty.

      ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘What's to eat?’ He pulled open a cupboard and found a tin of spaghetti. ‘Yuk!’

      Vern hated spaghetti. He went and sat on his bed. The mouse appeared, gnawing a huge almond, pink eyes shining, teeth and claws busy with the nutty flesh.

      ‘Nice?’ inquired Vern.

      The rodent ignored him.

      ‘You're lucky,’ he moaned, standing, undressing. He peered at his zits in the bathroom mirror three long strides away and then pissed in the sink as the toilet wouldn't flush. ‘Real lucky. I should buy a cat...’ A cat that eats cockroaches, he thought, climbing into bed, closing his weakened eyes. What time is it? When did I last eat? It can't be much after ten. Six hours ago!

      The alarm shrilled and hammered.

      ‘Morning already?’ He got up. ‘It's too dark. I don't remember turning the light off. I don't have an alarm:’

      There was a mousy laugh.

      ‘You look terrible,’ commented Stan as they drove to work in Stan's car, a gold Honda. ‘Late night?'

      Vern yawned. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I don't know.’ He watched the people in other cars and on foot, their sureness irritating.

      Stan switched on the radio.

      ‘You oughtn't to work Sundays, Vern.’ Then, ‘Traffic at this hour. Traffic at any hour: Did you see that?’

      ‘No.’

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