Beak instead of Teeth

Well, today's the day; you kinky bucket of clownfish, you. I must once again thank the good people of Raise The Bar for providing me with a suitable barricade from which to fire the lysergic confetti cannon that is Beak instead of Teeth: 

They were even kind enough to place a microphone centre-stage, thus clearly marking out where a performer might stand if they wished to be well-framed and not to challenge their camera's focusing capabilities too steeply. A lot of performers would have heeded this tacit advice. A lot of performers are not Tom Hunt.

Slugs - Live at To Be Frank

Good evening. It's been a while, hasn't it, my oily little whelks? Thought ol' Tom had forgotten you, eh? No such luck, I'm afraid. Just last night I had the distinct pleasure of performing at To Be Frank, a poetry event held in Bath, Somerset. There, I was able to film this eight-minute video of me faffing with my hair. Those of you watching with the sound on will notice I am also reciting my poem, Slugs, to a surprisingly appreciative audience. Enjoy.

My sincere thanks go to all the organisers at To Be Frank Poetry, especially Rhys for his to-camera, documentary-style introduction. The whole team put on a genuinely lovely night in Bath, and all of you should go. I certainly will, assuming they let me back in.

Chapter Six

There could be no hiding it; this much he knew. No more than one could hide blood on one's hands, or hate in one's eyes, or an entire unconscious human body in an otherwise empty walk-in freezer. It was a travesty, plain and simple; beyond all salvage and completely indefensible. He could only keep his head down while the shame sluiced over him in rivulets, counting himself lucky he had not been quite justifiably called out for his behaviour by one of the many innocent bystanders.

"I've gone too far." He muttered grimly to himself. And he was right. The shopping basket in his hand was an absolute train-wreck.

"Cat food, a ham and pineapple frozen pizza, personal lubricant reduced due to the packaging having been tampered with, and... crème de menthe?" He grimaced at the floor as the cashier listed his crimes aloud. They had never done this before.

"I didn't realise there was pineapple. Just the booze, the lube and the cat food, then." He continued to study the scuffed linoleum. "Please."

He leaned against the side of the conveyor and watched the pair of hands in his peripheral vision relieve his basket of its contents. Two electronic bleeps sounded, followed by the sounds of a glass bottle and a plastic tube rolling lazily down the sloped metal sheeting, toward the bags. Nothing followed.

"Funny," came the apparently overly judgemental cashier's voice again; "I wouldn't have pegged you for a... cat person."

Who was this prying muckraker? This minimum-wage inquisitor, as brazen as they were unwelcome? Bristling at the floor, and also at the tremendous indignity of the situation, he arranged his face into its most scathing configuration before bringing it to bear against his interrogator; a curiously familiar man, wearing an eye-patch, a clearly fake moustache, and nothing from the waist down.

"Hello there, sir. Long time no see. Perhaps it's time you and I had a little chat about Lewis."

Chapter Five

23/08/2015 - Brighton, UK

Not a solitary soul graces the beach. A biblical deluge drums upon the steaming roof of the Oldies Wood-Fired Pizza van, inside which Angie rests her cheek on her hand and succumbs to a quiet hopelessness. From within her vibrantly painted fortress she has a commanding view of the seafront, the pier, and all the potential customers there aren't. Her eyes draw slowly closed, and she mutters in a tight little voice, barely above a whisper:

"Fucking British summer."

She knows the colder months will be a struggle. Already the leaves have begun to fall, and what little business there is will soon dry up and wither alongside them.

"Alright Angie! Gorgeous day for it, eh?"

In an instant, her troubles slip and trickle away like a fistful of fine, sun-warmed sand.

"Reuben! What are you doing out? It's vile!"

The young man shakes like a wet dog beneath the canopy of the van. Angie grimaces as flecks of drizzle spray the counter, the cash till, and her face.

"Thank you for that."

Reuben pushes his hair back from his eyes and grins.

"You are welcome. And to answer your question, I am working." He gestures to the camera case around his neck. "You get this certain kind of light during a storm. I wanted some portfolio shots of the beach huts." Angie smiles.

"You are so fucking Brighton it makes me sick."

"Is that right?" Reuben smirks; "And what if I told you that wasn't the only reason I was out here, on this particular beach, on this particular day?" He reaches into his backpack and retrieves a small plastic takeaway container, peeling back the lid to reveal a single, elegantly iced cupcake. Silently, he picks up a tiny candle from beside it and stands it upright in the cake's centre. Then, he fishes in his pocket for a moment before producing a cigarette lighter, with which he carefully lights the wick. Apparently pleased with his efforts, he leans back and slowly pushes the cupcake across the counter toward Angie, who tries and fails to maintain a stony demeanour.

"You are a muppet." She blows out the candle, still trying her best not to smile. "Thank you."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Meh." She shrugs, "I don't really have enough money to do anything anyway. And I'm supposed to be saving for the thing with mum next year."

"How is she?"

"You know. Ups and downs." Reuben nods.

"It's good you're taking her to see the family."

"Yeah, if I can afford it. At this rate I'll be lucky if I even still have a business by then."

"That bad, is it?"

"It's not great."

"You know," Reuben hesitates, "I could... help, if you like." Angie glances up, mortified.

"God, no. No, don't be silly. I can't have you bailing me out."

"Well then, don't think of it as a bailout;" Reuben quickly responds, "Think of it as an investment. In your business." In the absence of an interruption, he goes on: "Look, I worked a bunch of weddings this summer. I can afford to help out. And I know you're good for the money. You're really good at this. And you work fucking hard. And you should go on the trip. It's important. I want you to be able to go."

The rain hammers down on the canopy. Angie doesn't say anything for a while. She stares at the smoking candle wick on the counter between them, and tries to breathe slowly. She's finally on the cusp of opening her mouth to speak when the silence is interrupted by a high-pitched chirruping sound. Reuben jumps, looking down at his feet.

"Oh, hello! Who's this?"

Angie dabs at her eye with her sleeve and peers over the counter.

"Oh, that's just Kurt. Well, I've been calling him Kurt. He's been hanging out here for days. I reckon he's a stray."

"Kurt? Fucking hell, Ange." Reuben's smirk creeps back across his face. "The nineties are over. You have to let him go."

"Don't ever say that to me. Hey, he likes you," Angie watches the small black cat purr and rub himself against Reuben's legs. He's never even let me touch him." She reaches down, bringing up a pizza box. "Here, give him some of this."

Reuben takes a slice from the box, pulls off a piece from the tip, and bends down to feed it to the cat, who laps hungrily at the slick of grease on the surface.

"And... the rest is for me, right?"

"Yeah. Sure." Angie fixes her eyes on the candle again. "Hey, thanks for coming today, man. Sometimes I'm in this box for so long I forget there's other people out there. You know?" She waits for him to answer. The silence stretches on. "Reuben?"

She looks up to see Reuben leaning against the counter; his face red, his eyes bulging. He drops what's left of the pizza slice to the floor and moves his hand to his throat.

"Reuben!" Angie screams, kicking open the side door of the van. She rounds the corner in time to see him slowly tilt over backwards into the rain. She hauls him from the ground so she can wrap her arms around him, squeezing him from behind with all her strength. She feels him spasm and wretch, but hears no splutter or cough; just the pounding of the rain against the canopy. Even as she squeezes him again and again, his convulsions fade and weaken until finally he softens and lies still.

"No Reuben! Fuck! No, no, come on! Come on! Please, Reuben!" Angie shakes, and squeezes, and cries, but her friend is gone. She pulls him close, in the rain, and lays her head back against the flagstone. Behind her, some twenty feet away, she sees a small black cat stand perfectly still in the pouring rain. The creature watches her for a few moments, and then turns and pads away, into the dark.

Chapter Four

No wild beasts roared or pounced. No fireballs bloomed against the sky. A choir of daemons did strike up a hellish, lurching shanty, but that was to be expected. It was a rough neighbourhood. No, much to his embarrassment, the direst peril to darken his doorstep that night was a small black cat.

Surprisingly undaunted by the sight of a frightened man in a flannel gown wielding a potato masher, the cat padded languorously into the house, snaked around his ankles and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving him to throw a furtive glance over his shoulder at the empty doorstep before shivering and following suit.

Inside the house, he was marginally more comfortable; at least physically. The cat had helped itself to a seat at the table, and was eyeing him expectantly.

"Lewis." he read aloud, fingering the engraved pendant attached to its collar. "Who are you, Lewis?" Lewis made no attempt to respond. Turning the pendant over simply revealed the number sixty-three. Sighing, he pulled up a chair and sat beside the creature, which promptly leapt onto his lap and curled up.

The implications of this were diabolical and profound, of that there was no question. Thoughts churned about his head like a sour, anxious butter, while the tiny beast in his lap stretched and began to purr. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, Lewis belonged to someone, and to that someone he must be returned. However, it had to be said that considering the legion unearthly horrors he had been prepared to confront some five minutes ago, he had been immensely relieved to find a small cat waiting on the other side of his front door. Also, the social media response to the last couple of chapters had been frankly a little lacklustre, and writing a cat into the story could only help matters. Particularly if the cat in question could be persuaded to pose for a photograph.

After a quick photo shoot of which Lewis was at least partially aware, and a perfunctory workout in which Lewis was not involved other than perhaps in an evaluative capacity, it was time to take the lost beast home. Scooping the cat up in his arms, he left the house and turned left, heading up the street in search of number sixty-three. He was stopped dead in his shambling tracks, however, by a sight he knew would alter and entangle the twin trajectories of their lives irreversibly: a body, concealed within a body bag, being wheeled out through a neighbour's front door by ashen-faced paramedics. The front door in question swung and clattered in the chill wind, and bore two cast iron plaques in the shape of a six and a three.

Chapter Three

It had been two nights since his ordeal. Two long, dread nights of shot nerves and dark imaginings; of whisky, wonder and grimmest speculation. They were the kind of nights that seem to lengthen and loom like autumn shadows, that drag like nails on a blackboard, or that snap and backfire like a metaphor pushed too far.

Even in his addled, sleep-deprived state, his inner pedant wrestled with the shame of using the word 'metaphor' when he meant 'simile'.

"It just sounds better," he reasoned, "...and besides, as long as I don't draw unnecessary attention to it with a lengthy explanation, no-one will notice. Not knowing my readership. These are the sort of people still awake, alone, and browsing social media long past midnight, if you could even call them people. Frankly, they will get the literature they deserve." He leaned back in his chair, and almost into the arms of sleep for one delicious moment before starting at an imagined sound and throwing a paranoid glance over one shoulder, towards the door. He knew that, in truth, semantics ought to be the least of his concern right now.

Since the small hours of the morning, he had agonised over how best to describe the encounter on the doorstep. Though the notion of doing so inspired in him an almost unbearable nervous agitation, he knew it was his duty to set the events to paper; no matter how eldritch and harrowing. He had toyed with the idea of saying they were 'indescribable' and leaving it at that, but at length had decided that would make him no better than Lovecraft; a condemnation more bleak and damning than he could bear. Swallowing hard, he resolved to do what must be done, wearily flexing his brittle fingers over the keyboard.

He hadn't time to type a solitary character, though, before his breath caught in his throat, his blood began to pound in his ears, and a hollow, wooden sound echoed starkly through the hall. A tapping, rapping sound, as of some bony appendage, rang upon the front door. He froze, praying it was not real, that the tides of madness had finally swept him under; but to no avail. After a short silence, the knocking came again, as clear as the moon on the water.

He would not be caught off guard again. He slipped like drunken mercury from his chair and slinked into the kitchen, meaning to arm himself before confronting his tormentor. He swiped in a panic at the utensils, coming up first with a ladle. This, he exchanged for salad tongs, before reconsidering and returning to the ladle. In a final act of desperation, he opted for a large potato masher, the business end of which was reassuringly weighted. Deciding this would make a serviceable bludgeoning weapon, he took up the tongs in his off-hand, and crept down the hallway. Slipping the tongs into the pocket of his gown, he reached for the door handle with one trembling hand; the other raised the masher high over his head. For one deep, shuddering breath, he screwed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, they blazed with all the light and fury he could muster, and he threw the door open before him.

Chapter Two

He had made them a promise, he reminded himself as he wiped yesterday's coughed-up lager from the screen. A promise via Facebook status update. The most sacred kind of promise that there is. The people were expecting a story, and a story they would damn well get.

With no small effort, he hauled his squealing frame to its feet. His cold bones railed anew as he set them to pacing the length of the room, in what he naïvely imagined to be a straight line.

"A story," he mumbled, pausing to push the ancient, skin-bound tome of secrets back under the bed with one beslippered foot. "But where to begin?"

With the book safely back in its place, he began his pacing in earnest; casting his eye around for inspiration.

"A good story needs mystery. Intrigue." He stopped dead in his tracks by the mantelpiece; his eyes, so sharp all of a sudden, were locked upon the single framed photograph that rested there. His face a mask of sorrow tinged with guilt, he turned the offending picture to face the wall. "It needs suspense."

A sharp rapping on the door interrupted his reverie. Scowling, he negotiated the minefield of debris littering the territory that lay between the fireplace and the doorway, and threw back the handle to reveal a pizza delivery man dressed in an eye patch, a clearly fake moustache, and nothing from the waist down. Unable to remember having ordered pizza, he seized the steaming box anyway, offered a greasy handful of coins and pocket lint to the man, and shooed him off of the doorstep, impatiently spurning his proffered elaborate handshake and knowing wink. Slamming the door, he drew a slice from the box, and sighed.

"But how am I to be expected to find inspiration in these conditions? Oh, if only anything ever happened in this wretched little backwater!"

For the second time that evening, he found his efforts interrupted by a tapping on the door. In a raging fit of despair, he charged, pizza in hand, to confront the culprit.

"If it's more money you're after, then tough luck! I'm stony broke 'til the premium lager sponsorship funding comes thr..." He trailed off as the door swung open and he gazed out, into the night.

A hot slick of molten cheese slid from the surface of the pizza, onto his foot. He did not move.