Erections - because we are getting flooded with Elections...

I must say that I am justifiably proud of my erections.  Not every man can say that but I can.

I started them when I was about 15.  Of course it was late in life - most begin much earlier even as young as twelve - but in all fairness I really didn't have much interest until them.  Ah, but when I got interested, I really got interested.  Most of my family were unimpressed.  My brothers were both priests so naturally they figured I'd follow suit.  Priests!  There's no enjoyment in being a priest.  Not much opportunity for erections if you are a priest!

So I told my parents simply but firmly, the big things in my life are going to be my erections.  It was non-negotiable.  Upset my mother a bit I think, but I reckon my father actually looked a bit proud when I told him.  Maybe he didn't have much time for priests either.

When I met my first wife, the first thing she said was how big my erections were.  I don't think I'd be stretching the point to say that her eyes fair bulged.  Then I met my second wife and she admitted that my erections were the things that drew her to me.  She wanted someone who was destined for big things, she said, and from what she saw of me, I was that man.

So now, after many erections, I have a family of two wives and between them seven children.  I could never have done it without my erections.  I owe all my happiness to them. 

And just to top it all off, like icing on a cake, I am actually getting a medal for my erections.  Now hows that?  Even my mother looked pleased when I told her.  Her son, getting a medal - at a big ceremony too - for his amazing erections.  I guess I'm kind of the King of Erections! 

Anyway, the ceremony is tomorrow at the Sphinx which is, of course, my biggest erection to date. 

Who'd be a priest when you could be a builder huh?

A Funny Story

Jiggles Jiggler didn’t think his name was at all funny.  Nor did he consider his multi-coloured frizz of hair particularly jocular.  His big red tomato nose was, if anything, unremarkable.  And he would have been surprised if anyone had even noticed his rainbow suit with the giant shoes.

You see, Jiggles Jiggler lived in clown city.

Every morning, he climbed aboard his Model-T special with three small wheels and one large one, gave a squeeze of the  oversized rubber bulb – honk, honk honey, I’m leaving for work now – and drove the hundred yards or so to the train station with the usual bangs and orange smoke.

The Purple Puff-Puff was standing in the station and he climbed aboard the pink and white striped carriage with a hundred other clowns and settled back in the seat for the forty minute journey to the office downtown.

Every day he did it and every day it was the same: carriage full of clowns, all with big red noses and over-sized shoes.  Now and then, another clown would enter the carriage, sit down – usually on a honking horn – and they’d all gaze mindlessly out of the window until they arrived at their respective offices.

It was always like that – had always been like that – would always be like that - if it hadn’t been for Bert Smith.

On that fateful day, Jiggles Jiggler had only traveled two or three stations when someone entered the carriage.

It was the funniest thing they had ever seen.  He was dressed in a grey suit – absolutely no colours in it at all and it looked as though someone had actually made it ‘to fit’.  You couldn’t help but smile.  And his hair was black!  Black!  And … you’d hardly believe it – he had a normal nose.  That was a killer.  A normal nose.

The man sat down and then Jiggles Jiggler saw something that nearly sent him into hysterics.  The man’s shoes!  He had never, ever, seen anything like them before.  Ever.  They were tiny, so tiny, in fact, that they were only slightly larger than his feet!

Jiggles Jiggler just couldn’t stop himself – he had to laugh – big guffaws.   Tears ran down his face, carving little channels through the grease paint and dripping multi-coloured rainbow kaplonks on his giant bright yellow bow tie.  He felt a little ashamed of himself but he just couldn’t help it, he just had to laugh.  Everything about this man was so darn funny.   Hilarious.  Uproarious.

Pretty soon the others were laughing too.  The mundane world of clowns had suddenly been transformed by this funny little man in a grey suit and small shoes. 

He introduced himself as ‘Bert Smith’ and the whole carriage broke up in helpless abandon to good, old-fashioned belly-laughs and curious clowns with painted smiles from the surrounding carriages looked in to see what the fuss was about.  Pretty soon it seemed as though the whole clown express was laughing fit to bust.

It turned out that his real name was Cocoa Snuggles and he’d done it for a laugh - to give everyone else a laugh in fact.  And it had.  In a world full of red noses and big shoes, frizzy coloured hair and rainbow suits, Bert Smith had brought a touch of hilarity into the drab world of clowns.

The vultures fight over their pickings while the world suffers on to die...

I trot this one out around election times... it never grows inappropriate.  Not to me.  Not when the world remains in the mess it is in...

Hark! The birds of prey assemble,
and blood dripps from their sharpened beaks,
So our leaders do resemble,
Hear their pre-election shrieks,

Clouds of doom are fast approaching,
Despair : the mood of every man,
Greed and hate are thus encroaching,
on each and every life they can.

Portents of an evil morrow,
Mongers of a violent age,
Spreaders of the world's sad sorrow,
Breeders of the world's new rage.

Suffer all the little children,
Victims of a world insane,
Of war, of sickness, and of famine,
Losers in a world of gain

Star-crossed lovers.

He thought about her, about the shape of her face, about the beauty at her legs .... and sighed.

She thought of the proud way he had held his head, silhouetted against a full moon, a lovers moon, and cried.

He recalled the vision which was her entire being that had slipped into view like the blooming of an orchid.

She played over and over the warmth of his gaze and the promise of futures that would never be.

He dreamt with open eyes of a life together.

She looked into the oblivion of loneliness to see his face everywhere.

He was an old ram but made young through her beauty.

She was mutton dressed as lamb but made new through the love in his heart.

A broken heart, a pitiful bleat, the loss of hope.

Lambs to the slaughter of an uncaring and unkind fate.

The flocks moved on, hers one way, his the other.
Ram and Ewe, promised in a glance, separated in an instant,
Love grown in a single view, divided by a farmers fence.

They were but sheep that passed in the night.

The Space Adventures of Starship Toothgroper in the 76th Galaxy

The story that inspired the humorous sci-fi novel that I am currently pitching to publishers...

Captain Titanius Catknobbler (known as Tobyjug to his friends) sat at the controls of the Starship Toothgroper and contemplated his future. It was a very short contemplation mainly, if not wholly, because his was a very short future.

Things HAD been going brilliantly. They had stretched the lightspeed continuum really well, knocked out a couple of extra parsecs on the dimensional rebound, and even juggled the caterering figures to the extent that they would be the only ship to have made a profit in on-ship waste recycling.

In fact, he had been well positioned to win the coveted Space Captain of the year award. Had been. And then this had to happen. Goodbye to the 20,000 dinion prize money; goodbye to the complimentary six week holiday on the planet of Gurgley Wormsuckers; and definitely goodbye to the much sought-after sex voucher entitling the bearer to one overnight encounter with Gladys McNude and her dancing nobb-danglers.

The problem that faced him was a simple one. Nothing to do with quantum cross-pollination of universes - that he could handle. Nothing to do with temporal facsimile overflows (or the tens of thousands of mutant air traffic controllers that usually resulted) - that was a piece of cake. Not even a hyper deplosion of the meganoid ultrascollops as experienced by the most ill-fated and much pitied starship the Mandrigal-Hyperbonker - Captain Titanius would give his right tentacle (if he had one) for such a problem.

No. The problem he faced was simpler than all these yet far, far more problematic. And, worst still, embarrassing. He, captain of the year (probably), with a record ten years unblemished service (if you ignore that incident with the nudists and the spiny wagglethorn on chundertruss 6), all-round-good-guy and fun-chappie-with-the-captains-hatty, had just discovered that the presidential galactic transport vessel, containing every single member of the galactic government assembly had been accidentally sucked up into the faeces reprocessing tubes of the Starship Toothgroper, and transformed into (edible) yellow slime.

Captain Titanius Catknobbler wondered what the punishment was for total annihilation of the Galactic government - and whether or not he'd like it.

Probably not, he thought.  Probably not.

On My Way.

Dedicated to the Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, Prime Minister of Australia.  Another in my 'PM' series...

On my way now.  The future, yes, the future!  It’s nearly here.  I am certain about that as I have never been certain about anything before.  My time is coming.  I work hard, I study hard, I live hard.  Hell, I even drive hard.  I have driven myself  on, certainly, and the end of the journey is now in sight.  Except that it isn’t the end, really.  No, not the end – rather the start.  My life is the journey and I have started it at full speed. 

For most people, the future rushes towards them and they are like seaweed in the surf.  That’s not me.  No way - I’m no budgie smuggler.  I don’t ride the waves, I make the waves.   And I am making waves.   I am rushing towards my future, meeting it not in retreat, not even half way – I am meeting it on my terms.  Yes, on my terms.

I only know one speed and that’s fast, and I only know one direction and that’s forward.  I’ve passed, I know that - passed my HSC.  Just like I passed that old Holden a few moments ago.   Just like that new Ford a couple of streets back.  Passed them in Dad’s old jalopy like they wasn’t moving.  I’ve passed my HSC just like I passed those cars.  Just as easy.  Got my big ticks, as they say.   HSC?  No problem.  No worries mate.  There’s no doubt.  It’s in the bag.  It’s a done deal.  I drove myself to get the grades and now I’m driving myself down to the post office to get the official results.  ‘Official results’ that will only echo what I already know.  I have done well.  No, not well.  I have done brilliantly.

When I get there, I’m going to ring the old man and tell him.  He’s always been there for me, supported me.  When I read what I already know - that I’m up there in the high 90s, about as high as you can get I think - well then I’m going to call him from the post office phone itself and tell him the good news. 

And, as the future usually does for me, it all went according to plan.  Mostly. 

I called him with the good news.   “Dad” I said, “I’ve got good news.”  But before he could speak I added “And some bad news.”

“What’s the good news?” he asked.

“I did really well in the HSC,” I said.  And I had.  I really had.

“And the bad news?” he asked.

“I pranged your car on the way here,” I said.  And I had.  I really had.

Sometimes the future still manages to meet you on its own terms, it seems.

Letter to the Agony Aunt

Dear Ask-Aunty,

I am experiencing an overwhelming sense of self doubt.  I honestly don’t know what to do or what to think.  I am hoping you might be able to help.

I feel as though I am locked in some sealed box – as though my life has contained and restrained me, unable to break free, unable to escape, unable even to perceive of a life outside my own limited confinement.

It is as though all communication with the world has been cut off.  I feel alone.  I feel isolated.  I feel as if there is nothing but me. 

Or, perhaps, not even that.

I am beginning to doubt my own existence.  Do I actually exist?  Did I ever exist?  Is this life or is this death?  I don’t know and I think – I fear – that I might never come to know the truth.

Can one be no-one?  Can I think of my non-existence if I indeed do not exist?  Isolated and cut off from the rest of the world, how can I even begin to know anything, let alone anything of my self?

I doubt that I even exist.  There is nothing and I am nothing – that’s how I feel.  Now, though, I even begin to wonder if I feel anything at all.  How much that we ‘feel’ is real and how much is, in fact, our imagination?  How much ‘being’ is life and how much ‘life’ is actually a useless faith in some kind of existential delusion?

Do I exist?  Am I alive?  Am I dead?

I do not know and my life – if I am alive at all – is filled only with doubt and darkness.

Please, please, please help me.

Yours sincerely,

Pussy Softcusion,

(care of my owner, Erwin Schrödinger who is apparently quite famous.)

And the band played on

It started as a story but became a 'poem'.  As today is ANZAC day, I thought I'd post it here.  It is not a story of daring bravado - but rather a sad indictment of a world that still thinks violence is a solution.  And it is testimony to the fact that, while I disagree with war, I can only admire and thank those who risked or gave their lives for others.

The God that looked upon us with love just laughed,

The blood that coursed now ebbed,

Noises that first were fearful, now were unformed,

Everything now was unformed.

The flag had fluttered in the breeze,

As the band played its serenade to bravery and duty,

While the fools marched back and forth,

basking in their youth.

The girls had clapped and cheered,

and we’d marched past with stony disinterested faces

that secretly burned with delight,

in the glow of their worship.

Corners of eyes picked out pieces of our own hearts

girlfriends, wives, mothers,

And the band played out the glory to the beat of our hearts

as we marched.

But the jungles were hot and wet

and the leaches fat and bold.

We’d held our guns above our heads and waded and swam

through swamps and streams.

Our hearts still beat the rhythm

of 'duty' and 'freedom',

as we hid and fought and cried and died.

And the band still played on in our hearts.

The night was split with bullet and scream,

the lightening of gun and flame tore apart the night and day

And hate and fear marked the beat of despair

but still the band played on.

And I saw his eyes

and he saw mine

and for a moment

we were brothers.

In an instant we played and laughed and grew from children into men,

Until the stench of blood and guts and half digested meat dragged us back,

to Now,

and I knew that we were enemies again and he had become man before I.

The God that looked upon us with love just laughed.

The blood that coursed now ebbed.

Noises that first were fearful, now were unformed.

Everything now was unformed.

And the band played on.

In memory of the tiny

Today in 1949 : Nuremberg Trials ended with 19 top aids to Adolf Hitler receiving up to 25 years for their part in war crimes.

The following is a short that may have happened.  Certainly worse did.  We need to change our world.  In memory of the tiny.

There was not much blood. Small bodies have little blood anyway, but small, starved bodies have less. Or perhaps it just clots quicker.

The tiny lifeless corpse hung on the barbed wire and fried in the sun, with the tiny pool of blood under it congealing like soup. Human soup. And it smelt. And that was perhaps the worst part of it. Because the body, almost inhuman in its tortured form, could be glossed over by the heart but the smell invaded the heart and tore it into a thousand pieces. The smell of death. Young death.

In general, the children were taken and destroyed first, but somehow this one had survived. Perhaps it had been hidden well. Perhaps some incredulous pity had turned the eye of the butchers. It was hard to tell. But it had escaped the furnaces, with its parent. Parent, because gender had died along with compassion when they had entered the camp. The dead have no gender.

But then the mother was taken and the child had tried to follow, tangling itself on the barbed wire. The wire cut and through blood and tears the child had fought, not to free itself, but simply to be with its mother.

And the guards had laughed. Then shot it.

And then they ate their lunch.

And the tiny body hung. And stank. And all those who waited for their own death knew that the end of the world was come. And they named it Auschwitz.

Amazing developments ...

I am planning a book launch for Quickety Snippets - tiny tales for those on the go.  MORE on this later but stay tuned via my twitter account Jaja Toff On Twitter.

There is also a new website for Arables.   Please stop by and check it out.

 

www.arables.net

(note: .NET not .COM)