Hole Punch

Hole Punch
Garth Simmons


Copyright © 2020 by Garth Simmons
All rights reserved.
Published in 2020 by:
Britain’s Next Bestseller
An imprint of Live It Ventures LTD
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Cleveland. TS10 5DD
The moral right of Garth Simmons to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Cover design by Garth Simmons
Printed in the U.K


To my mum, friends, brothers and the dead


ZERO
Mum sways me in her arms and sings:
“Hushy-bye-hushy-bye-hushy-bye-boo.”
I close my eyes and dribble a bit.
Dad comes in through the back door.
Mum ignores him.
I open my eyes and dribble a bit.
Mum sways me in her arms and sings:
“Hushy-bye-hushy-bye-hushy-bye-boo.”
I close my eyes and dribble a bit.
Dad throws down his flat cap and shouts:
“Not going to say hello to me then?”
Mum ignores him.
I open my eyes and dribble a bit.
Mum sways me in her arms and sings:
“Hushy-bye-hushy-bye-hushy-bye-boo.”
I close my eyes and dribble a bit.
Dad pulls off his boots and shouts:
“You're going to turn him into a bloody puff!”
Mum ignores him.
I open my eyes and dribble a bit.
Mum sways me in her arms and sings.
“Hushy-bye-hushy-bye-hushy-bye-boo.”
I close my eyes and dribble a bit.
Dad leans over mum's shoulder.
“You've got to man up lad!”
I open my eyes and shit myself.


EMPTY
The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.
Vast, empty and full of nothing.
The Mistake feels rubbish and small.
“You are rubbish and small!” said the voice inside the Mistake's head. “Except for your big, stupid head!
The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.
One of the Mistake's brothers throws a rock at the Mistake's head. Synchronised laughter all around from the Mistake’s normal-headed and able-bodied brothers.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
They laugh, they point, they laugh again.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
The Mistake ignores the impact, the pain and the laughter.
“You are nothing!” said the voice.
The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.
“No one likes you!” said the voice. “Your own family hate you! Your Mother doesn't even want to see you!”
Another stone is thrown.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
They laugh, they point, they laugh again.
The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.
The Mistake's brothers turn away and shove their shovel hands into the ground.
“Yes, Mother!” said the Mistake's brothers.
The Mistake had never heard mother's voice.
“Your head is too big,” said the voice. “Too big and stupid.”
It is true.
“Yes! It is true! Staring into nothing! That’s all your big, STUPID head is good for!”
The Mistake stares up at the nothing sky.
Nothing is the same colour as empty.


PIGEON
Look at him! Emmett Corcoran! Watch him stand up from his chair and walk out of his little, self-important room. See how proud he is! How very proud of the sign on his office door:
“FINANCE MANAGER.”
Look at him! Emmett Corcoran! Podgy and pointless! In his suit of grey details. He is forty-three years old, but he looks older.
See him there! Standing at his office door, smiling at all his workers, all of his workers except for me. He avoids looking at me, he knows I'm here. He can feel my judgement. He can feel my truth.
I'm not scared of you Emmett.
I'm a temp!
“How's it going Emmett?” asks Julie with her fake, finance smile.
“I'm a bit tired,” says Emmett. “I had a bit of an argument with the wife last night.”
I push my paperwork to the floor.
“So,” I said. “You're a dickhead at home as well as in the office?!”
I throw my mocha at them.
I light up a cigarette.
* * *
Ten minutes later and I’m escorted outside by security. I walk up Nell Lane by the Southern Cemetery. I rattle the tip of my umbrella against the railings.
Look! There on the pavement; a dead bird with its insides torn out.
“Someone is having pigeon gut pie tonight.”
I kick the bird.
The surface soft.
My impact bloody.


UKATRAX
The Human Empire slave masters stand black-suited and big gunned behind the Ukatraxi in the underground mines of their native world of Ukatrax.
The slave masters can't help but laugh at the whinnying yelps and grunts of the Ukatraxi.
“Dig faster! That's right! Dig harder!”
In an alcove, a young Ukatraxi kneels and cries over her father's dead bulk.
“I swear, on the green blood of my father! I will kill every last human on Ukatrax!”
A slave master's head pops into the alcove.
“Shut up and get back to work! We want your precious minerals!”
* * *
The Arch-Slime Drylicktius, puppet king of the Ukatraxi, sits on his cushioned throne, under his open robe of tightly-woven massage slugs.
Around him are the hairiest maidens on all of Ukatrax.
His body bristles with USB implants plugged into all the latest sensations. All the latest news and blood sports. A hairy maiden feeds a large, peeled plum into his toothless mouth.


WHORL
We sat at the long desks and our tall teacher watched us drawing our drawings. Gaped mouthed in our undecided worlds, we scratched our crayons across our papers, our eyes met our own mess.
I liked to try to imagine myself through a camera lens. Transplant my eyes from my head and view myself like how I viewed people on television. It was years before I learnt that what I was yearning for was called “third person perspective.”
Nothing I did with my eyes achieved third person perspective. No matter how much I closed my eyes or pressed them in. My body was just another parameter. I could only go deeper into myself.
I didn’t use the word parameter, I hadn't learnt it yet.
At night, I could see traces of lights under my eyelids. The whorl to somewhere I could never reach.
I didn't use the word “whorl”. I hadn't learnt it yet.