Ne'er-Do-Wells

It’s not just the housework: scrubbing scum from the bath and scraping food from the sink so the mice don’t get fat, but the whole task of living that makes her irate. The repetitive letters spewed out by government computers threatening her with a court case, a fine, imprisonment, transportation to Tasmania (mmm...maybe not a bad thing) for missing a payment.

Indeed until not that long ago she'd read they transported folk to Van Diemen’s Land for poaching a rabbit, cutting down a tree without permission or spending a month in the company of travellers. Beware those of no fixed abode!

Mind you, thought she, the past was a bloodthirsty place with twenty thousand day-trippers flocking to public hangings to view in the flesh (no internet back then) those unfortunate enough to be tagged deviant and hung from the scaffold. 

Picture the crowd scoffing their picnics dressed in their best for this much discussed social event hyped up by cheap pamphlets detailing the ‘final words’ and grimaces of those lawfully murdered.

And if the powers that be today had their way she’s sure they’d reintroduce such measures of population control to keep at bay all those benefit fraudsters and ne’er-do-wells. And media entrepreneurs would publish blogs detailing the last gurgles of the publically murdered, share pictures and tags. Oh how the ‘likes’ would multiply and all that revenue from ads!

Thus is the turn of her mind whilst doing the washing up. Makes her go Ggggrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!

Fairy Music

There was once, quite recently in fact, a bloke walking to work. He was feeling quite perky even though it was early as he’d already had three cups of coffee. 

On turning a corner he heard some angelic music wafting over a concrete wall inscribed with some lovely graffiti telling bankers exactly where to go. He had never heard such music in all his life, it was that unearthly and very different to the drum’n’bass that was his usual preference. 

He scaled the wall in one leap and somersaulted over to the other side landing before a very short man with a pointy chin and bad breath. It was Piskey himself surrounded by a gaggle of elves all dancing merrily. 

There was also a wizened fiddler and a young woman with long floaty hair playing a harp. She looked a bit dazed and in a melancholic state of mind which he could relate to as that was how he often felt himself.

  

As this thought surfed his brain Piskey leapt forward with a raucous cackle and the vision was gone in a shudder. All that he was left with was a feeling like a hangover as he stood in front of the shops at the start of the pedestrianised area of town near a bus stop. 

And, though a hardened cynic, his heart did skip a beat when he thought of that mystic girl who seemed trapped in a world to which she didn’t belong. 

Mmm...though maybe he was simply going mad, had too much caffeine in his bloodstream and should get an early night.

Psycho Dog

"Had a dog I couldn’t get rid of, a psycho terrier who barked incessantly at any provocation whatsoever. 

And in an irritating high pitched yap at that like chalk on blackboard or a bus screeching to a halt.

Tried to palm him off on my boyfriend, my mum, my mum’s boyfriend, the bloke down the pub.

No takers.

They all knew his nature.

DAMN!"