“I’m here,” says Albert. “Here I am.”

Albert looks old. His grey skin sags off his bones like old dishcloths off a drying rack. You can see a lot of his skin, because he is naked. The fact he is naked is probably the third thing you noticed about him, after you registered that he is glowing and acknowleged that he is floating in the corner of this darkened living room.

“Here I am,” he says, impatiently, but nobody seems to hear.

In the middle of the room an old lady and a younger woman sit on either side of a small table which has three candles, two bone china cups and a lot of Rich Tea crumbs on it.

“Are you there?” asks the old lady in a booming voice.

“Yes,” says Albert.

“Can you hear me, O spirits from beyond the veil?” asks the old lady.

“Yes,” says Albert.

“Please answer me,” says the old lady, “One knock for yes, two for no.”

“What? What do you want?” says Albert. “Carrie, Carrie, is that you?” he says, looking at the younger of the two women.

“One knock for yes, two for no,” the old lady repeats, and she reaches out to squeeze Carrie’s hand in a gesture of reassurance.

“I’m here. Carrie, I’m here,” says Albert. “Who is this dopey bint and why does she want me to knock?”

“Are you there, Albert?” the old lady intones.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” says Albert, and he balls his fist and tries rapping his knuckles against the wall. His hand passes noiselessly through flock wallpaper, damp plaster and brick.

There is a knocking sound in the room.

“It’s him. Is it him? Are you there, Dad?” says Carrie. The old lady nods, with a gently triumphant look on her face.

“Yes, yes, Carrie, it’s me,” he says, “But I didn’t-“

There are two knocks.

“Do you have a question for the dear departed my love?” asks the old lady.

“Is… is he happy?” asks Carrie.

“Happy?” Albert practically shrieks. “Happy? I’m not fucking happy! Do you know what I was saying just this morning, do you? Aaaaaagh! Aaaaagh, I was saying, aaaaagh get your hands out of there, it hurts, I was saying. Does that sound like something a happy man would say?”

Two knocks.

“He’s happy,” confirms the old lady.

“Stop that!” cries Albert, “Stop it you cheating cow! Every morning a burly, red man-beast with antlers pushes a big stick up my jacksie.”

“That’s… a relief,” says Carrie. “He was a complicated man, our relationship was, um, you know, and I’m just glad he’s at peace.”

“I’ve got a bumhole the size of a dinner plate,” says Albert.

“He wants you to know he is happy, and with all his friends now,” says the old lady.

“Friends?” says Carrie, looking surprised.

“He’s made lots of new friends,” says the old lady hurriedly. “Dead friends” she adds, lamely.

“I had friends, you stuck-up bitch,” says Albert. “Look at you, still judging me even after I’m dead. I was right about you, wasn’t I, you starchy twat.”

“He says he still loves you, and is watching over you.”

“You dessicated, hairy-faced charlatan!” Albert shouts, “You fraudulent, brittle-boned walnut! Watching over her? I’m in hell! How can I watch over anyone? All I can watch over is my own fucking ankles as Satan himself rummages around elbow deep in my chutney locker. He’s got big hands! Biiiiig hands!”

“It’s a comfort to know he’s found some kind of peace in death,” says Carrie.

“His hands really are huge,” says Albert.

The old lady pats Carrie’s hand. “Did you bring your credit card? I don’t take cheques,” she says, soothingly.

The grey, glowing form of Albert begins to grow transparent. “No!” he cries, “I don’t want to go back! Sweet Jesus, I’m sorry for everything, whatever it was, whatever I did, I’m sorry!”

The old lady munches thoughtfully on a Rich Tea as Carrie reaches into her handbag.

“It was such a shock to us, we thought the belligerent old bastard was going to live forever,” says Carrie.

“Was it sudden?” asks the old lady.

“It was. He was run over just outside his house. Joyriders. He was living in Middlesbrough.”

“Ah,” says the old lady. “Middlesbrough. Well, he’s in a better place now.”

They share a smile.

And, as Albert is dragged through limbo and purgatory, back to the fiery charnel pit of degradation and violation that will be his home until the end of forever, he thinks: Can’t argue with that, like. You’ve got to count your blessings.

******
A Better Place by Harris
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Thank you to everybody who took the time to write ickle stories. They were all excellent, and some of them made me lol or rofl or pmsl or whatever it is you kids do instead of laughing these days. Anyway, here’s a selection:

Aliens. Choose Brian Blessed as disguise.
– Rofl Lundgren (perpetrator of Kriss Akabusi Sex Stories)

It looked dead, then spoke loudly.
– Gus Hughes (illustrator extraordinaire)

So, the anal probes were unnecessary?
– Kevin Murphy (comedy writer, journalist, brown food obsessive)

Daleks land, feeling randy. Dustbins violated.
– Bob Fischer (Britain’s randiest hairiest DJ since DLT’s head imploded like a furry black hole. Ew, bad image, sorry.)

2165AD recession: International Rescue submit invoices.
Aliens vs Predator: late kick off.
Asteroid misses. Humans exhale, tilt axis.
Creature from Black Lagoon dredges pond.
Hiding police phone boxes, Brigadier laughs.
– Kevin Jon Davies (animator on the Hitchhiker’s TV series. Honestly. Swear down! Legend.)

We died. Then things got interesting.

(note: yeah, that’s really it. Inspired by Wired Magazine‘s 6 word sci-fi story challenge. And Thursday night laziness.)

A1 super-special bonus tiny sci-fi tales:

When worlds collide, alien continents kiss.

Jesus returned, forgot why, left again.

Theory my story chaos affected short.

Richard Dawkins awoke in heaven. “Oopsie.”

The aliens were impressed: Ferrero Rocher!

It’s fun! Why not try it yourself – write me one in the comments section…

******
Six Word Sci Fi by Harris
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He patched up the dam with his hands and his heat vision, posed for photographs, signed some autographs, rose into the air, hovered long enough to salute the cheering, grateful crowds then returned to his kitchen in a blur of red and blue.

He opened the packet of bread and reached past the crust to select the third and fourth slices and heard the sound of a flare gun going off in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

After setting the oil tanker down in a Honolulu dry dock he hovered long enough to salute the cheering, grateful crowds then whoosh, and he placed the bread under a medium grill, started to grate the mature cheddar into a bowl and he felt the faint yet distinctive vibrations of an attack by a giant radioactive monster off the coast of Kamakura.

The creature safely shrunk and placed in an empty screw-top beer bottle, he paused briefly to give two thumbs up for the assembled news teams then up, up and away and turning the bread and chopping some olives and gunfire in downtown Metropolis and he tied the Octomaster and his henchmen up using tentacles torn from the large, and largely unnecessary, robot octopus they had been travelling in and gave a wave to the chief of the MCPD and leapt a tall building in a single bound and pulled the grill pan out and carefully spread the cheese and olives evenly over the bread.

The evil genius had barely opened his mouth to gloatingly exposit his plan to decimate the eastern seaboard using the giant atomic gorilla he had grown in a big vat under his volcano lair before he was slammed through a wall by what appeared to be an angry red and blue streak of impatient energy.

He knelt at the grill: not quite done. The timing was crucial.

He gently set the stricken Jumbo Jet down onto the runway, and, leaving the passengers and crew none the wiser as to how they had pulled out of the nosedive at the last minute, he checked the grill again. Brown. Bubbling. Perfect.

The perfect cheese on toast. He got a plate from the draining board and, with thumb and forefinger made heatproof by exposure to yellow sun radiation, delicately lifted the toast from the grill. He smiled. He heard the sound of tyres screeching, and a child crying and shouting for a lost cat. He looked at the toast. He wasn’t a cat person.

Johnny happily reunited with Tintin, and aware of the dangers of leaving the front door open when you own a cat and live on a main road, he flew through his kitchen window and tipped the cold toast into the pedalbin.

He opened the packet of bread, and reached past the crust.

******
The Perfect Cheese on Toast by Harris
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– Oh will you look at… They’re bloody doing it again!

Who are dear?

– Them bloody kids, who do you think? They’re out there again.

Can’t you just ignore them, dear?

– Oh they’d like that, wouldn’t they?

I really don’t know dear, would they?

– What? I’m telling you. It’s getting beyond a joke. The spitting and swearing, well, kids will be kids, won’t they? And the drinking, who didn’t at their age? And the knives and the ketamine and the crumping. All part of growing up. But this is beyond the bloody pale. Beyond. The. Bloody. Pale. I mean, look at them.

What are they doing dear?

– They’re floating, that’s what they’re doing. Floating there by the bus stop like… like big… look at me! I’m stuck for a simile, that’s how bloody angry I am!

Calm down dear.

– You calm down.

I am calm, dear.

– Well fine. Stay that way. I just don’t know how you can be with those bloody teenagers bobbing up and down in the breeze like… like… God damn it I’m angry! Floating kids. What next?

I wouldn’t know, dear.

– I’ve got a good mind to go out there and glue their feet to the floor. There, try floating now you buggers. If I were ten years younger I would have, just see if I wouldn’t.

They’re not hurting anybody, are they?

– Not hurting? Not..? What’s that got to do with… they are blatantly breaking the laws of bloody physics out there, right in front of my bloody house, and I don’t see why I should have to sit here and watch them drifting through the, the area like… like bloody… God damn it!

Dear? Dear, are you ok?

–

Dear?

–

Dear, are you crying?

– I wish I was young. I want to be young. I wish I was young.

******
Them Bloody Kids by Harris
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Will and George stood at the doorway, peering in to Brian’s bedroom.

“Brian! We’re off out. Sure you don’t want to come?” asked Will.

Brian just lay on his bed. The curtains were drawn. Something sad by Sigur Ros burbled away on the stereo.

“Pathetic,” said Will.

“Oh come on. It hit him hard,” said George. “She stole his heart.”

“And that’s why he’s not coming out? The big puff.” said Will.

“Look at him. He can’t come out like that, can he?” said George.

Will shrugged, unimpressed.

“She really took his heart.” said George.

“So now’s the time he should be out and about. Meeting new people. Having a flirt.” said Will. “He’s a lovely feller when he’s not moping around with a big cavity above his left nipple.”

“Yeah, but a gaping chest wound like that, it’s going to distract from his personality, no matter how winning.” said George.

Brian just lay there, immobile, with a big hole where he used to have ventricles and an aorta and all that useful stuff. Sigur Ros got incomprehensibly yet stirringly anthemic in the background.

“It is a massive wound, yeah, but… you know, this music won’t be helping. What is this shit?” said Will. “He should put some Newton Faulkner on. I wonder what she did with it. His heart, I mean.”

“Ate it, probably.” said George. “What? How do I know what she did with it? Wrapped it in foil and put it in her box of memories? Threw it out? Filled it with helium and carried it bobbing behind her like some grisly wet party balloon? Who knows?”

“So. He’s not coming out then.” said Will. “The big puff.” he reiterated.

“Not tonight,” said George. “Still, time heals all wounds. Give him a couple of days, he’ll be fine.” he added, philosophically.

They looked at the exit wound once more. It was crusted with dried blood and black cakey bits.

“Maybe a week.”

They left him to it.

******
Brian Isn’t Coming Out by Harris
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“We could go you know? Come with me,” he said. “Hawaii. We never could before, but now… honestly, it wouldn’t be easy, but we could do it.”

“No… I don’t know… no. It’s impossible,” she said.

“Impossible? I mean… well, it just isn’t. It’s not Narnia. It’s not even slightly allegorical, it’s totally real. They have flights there and everything.” he said.

She looked at him, eyes glistening with tears.

“It’s impossible,” she said, “because I’m in this hole”

“It’s… yes, you are in a hole,” he said, “But it’s quite a shallow hole.”

He peered down into the hole. She looked back up at him and shook her head sadly.

“I’m in this hole and so we can’t,” she said. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“I could help you out, if you’d like,” he said.

“Out?” she said, incredulous, “You?”

“Well, “ he said, “I mean, I could just sort of reach my hand out and you could hold it and I could just help you out of the hole. It might work.”

“But… What if it didn’t? Or, what if it did? Then what would happen?” she said.

“I can’t honestly say for sure,” he said. “But you’d be out of the hole, at least.”

“I might fall back in,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “You might.”

“Or a bus might drop on me.”

“I…”

“If I was with you, and out of this hole, so many bad things could happen.” she said.

“Yeah. I’ll admit the bus thing simply never crossed my mind.” he said.

“I’d probably be best just staying in the hole until you’ve gone away,” she said. “In case of buses, or whatever.”

“So you want me to…”

“Or evil squirrels, with throwing knives. They can’t get me in here. Hey! You should go to Hawaii without me,” she said, seemingly brightening a little. “You’ll love it there and you’ll meet lots of great people, and you’ll have fun and all the people you meet will be better than me, because they won’t be in a hole. And you’ll be happier.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “Do you think that’s true?”

“I love you,” she said. “Goodbye.”

He stared into her eyes, eyes which were once again filling with tears. Tears for whom, he couldn’t say. He looked away, then turned and began to slowly walk away from the hole, in the general direction he imagined might lead to Hawaii. He made it five steps away from the hole before stopping, turning and stepping back again. Now he was crying.

“I can’t leave you,” he said, “This hole, it’s not that deep. And I could get a rope. Or a ladder. I can get a block and tackle. Or balloons and helium. A big plunger. Some kind of lever, just flip you out of there like a, like a pancake, or, I… please, just take my hand.”

He reached his hand into the hole, fingers outstretched. His tears were falling, falling into the hole like rain. She raised her head, looked deep into his eyes, looked down again, looked up once more. She smiled, and he could no longer tell if the tears on her face were from her eyes or his. And…

One hundred years later, they were both dead.

******
The Hole by Harris
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Jessica’s head rested on the car window, and she watched the trees rushing by in a blur of reds and golds. Autumn was her very favourite time of year, and the forest her favourite place. But the pretty colours couldn’t console her, not today.

She sniffled, and wiped her nose on the back of her pink woollen mitten.

“Mummy,” she whined, her feet kicking the back of the driver’s seat, “I love him. I’ll look after him. It’s not fair!”

“He’s not happy with us in our house. You didn’t want to have him put down, did you? Well, did you?” said Jessica’s Mummy, looking in the rear view mirror at her daughter.

“No!” said Jessica.

“No. So… look, at least out here he’ll have a chance, living in the wild.”

“But.. in the wild? But you said he could go and live on a farm. You said…”

“I know what I said, but I just don’t think there are any farms that would take him,” said Mummy, pulling in to the side of the road. “He’ll love it out here. He can eat… I don’t know, rabbits or something.”

Handbrake on, she opened her door, got out, had a quick look round. She stared into the dense woodland for a moment.

“He’ll be happy out here, you’ll see” she said, opening the rear door for her daughter to clamber out. “Come on”

They both walked to the back of the car. Jessica’s mummy opened the boot.

“Come on then. Come on. Out you get,” she cooed.

Gerald, bloodshot eyes wide with terror, leapt out of the boot and half-ran, half-stumbled into the woods without even bothering to try and release his hands from the gaffer tape.

“There look. See how happy he is?” said Mummy. “Now come on, let’s go and find you a new Daddy!”

Jessica sniffed once, and took a final look into the forest, to see Gerald run headlong into a tree and drop like a sack of spanners. She smiled. This Daddy was funny. She sniffed again, then climbed back into the car.

“Can we have one with a moustache this time?” she asked, as the car pulled away. “I like the ones with moustaches”.

******
Every Dog by Harris
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