The Broken Novel /fragment   Ian Miller © 2008 alll rights reserved

ARE YOU SICK OF LIFE MR THOMAS?

Brown Snout, Foxwelp, Sheeps Nose, Black and Balls Bitter Sweet.

Cider fair.

TA RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

OR is it Conium Maculatum?

A tincture of Hemlock and oblivion that you require.

OR! OR! just, maybe, perhaps, an edifying cup of Hypericum Foratum

A gobbit of St John, sanity, wort and all?

IS IT! ’ MR THOMAS! or is there something MORE ?”

The two sisters pirouetted and flapped their arms as if trying to fly and I knocked over the coal bucket in my ungainly haste to stand.

I turned to confront the unknown speaker but there was nobody there, and Look as I might I could not locate

him anywhere in the gloom and congestion of the large room. Grabbing up one of the candles I moved towards a large oak cupboard

and congestion of furniture to my right, thinking this is where the speaker might be hiding

but before I had taken more  than a couple of steps I was bought up short by the restraining hand of Clara

tightly gripping my arm, shaking her head and mouthing a silent no.

I was really surprised that such a small and slightly built person as she could exert so much pressure

and stop me in my tracks so easily. If I thought to argue the grip of Amy on my other arm settled it.

1:30 Tuesday 002-

It was raining again. Five o’clock in the morning and raining again.
Storm driven, rat black rodent water, rushing in off the sea with a wild colliding hiss, tearing at old mortar and slates, looking for a way in to winkies room. It was five o’clock in the morning and getting personal.
Everything bad that had ever happened to Winkie had happened at five o’clock in the morning, and that was a fact. This rodent rain was the prelude to something bad, absolutely no question of it. He could already hear it fidgeting at the cracked glass in the sash window.

Sleep was his only aegis but now he was awake and waiting. It was personal. The distressed image of Squallthought running up his garden path, trailing coloured wires and hugging what looked like a car batttery the previous evening suddenly sprung to mind. Yes it was personal now, in more ways than one but for now he had to just keep still and hope for the best.
It had been raining and gusting for five days and the flooding was extensive. The Pig Iron Bridge was closed and he could not reach the stake out at Mr Brown’s house. He’d phoned Mr James to apologise and they had agreed that the Dwarve would have to rough it on his own until the bridge was reopened. Winkie wondered whether the dog suit the dwarf was wearing was waterproof.

He pulled at a lump of congealed amber sap which had stuck to one of his wing feathers whilst perched in the cedar tree overlooking Mr Brown’s front lawn. The Dwarf had said Mr Brown was real dangerous and Winkie had laughed sick to choking at the absurdity of tthe Dwarf’s statement . When it came to dangerous the Dwarf was A1 rat arsed crazy and but for the patronage and protection of Mr James, the powers that be, would have locked him up years ago. That said, The Dwarf had always been a good friend to Winkie and that counted for a lot in his book.

The rain was getting in. It spread in a dark swollen stain across the ceiling then crept down the wall behind his bed.
Winkie groaned and looked at the clock. It was five fifteen .
“ Holy Shit!”
Ever so slowly, his eyes fixed warily on the movng stain, he reached behind him with his right hand to the nearby coffee table, and deftly sorted through the heaped and festering tinfoil of a long abandoned take-away. Gobbits of congealed food and cardboard slipped from the table as his soiled hand re-emerged gripping a large grease stained economy sized orange aerosol of Blightright oven cleaner
It was an rogue brand long ago banned from sale but Winkie was lucky. He had six cases of the fearsome stuff under his bed.

When you aimed and pressed the nozzle a thin jet of piss yellow liquid shot out in a twelve foot arch, searig most everything it touched upon. With practise Winkie had learnt to control the emiissions from the cans and could range his squirts from six to fifteen feet. He estimated he was about eight feet from the wall.

Winkie waited. The head of the iron bedstead started to flickerer with a pale ghostly light. He remembered something the Dwarf had told him about a thing called St Elmo’s Fire and the picture he’d shown him in a book of an old sailing ships storm tossed, with its masts all a flicker and glowing with white fire but this was a second floor bedsit .

The stain rippled and vibrated violently, the light crackled, hissed, then ballooned out into the room pushing the bedstead before it. Winkie jumped back instinctively, over the back of the old padded chair near the window but not before pressing the nozzle of the can hard down and bathing the bulge in caustic fluid. Nothing happened.The bulge kept expanding, pushing the bed before it. The bed collided with the heavy old chair and pushed it back towards the wall trapping the crouching Winkie behind it . Push as he might, the pressure was irresistable. No question about it, the game was up, he was one flat seriously fucked up dead crow but then it happened. The bulge burst with a ferile screach, gagging stench and clamour of what Winkie could only describe later as the myriad beat of hooves .
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