Nick Bryan

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Friday short story time: "Backgammon: The Movie"

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Backgammon boardToday’s Friday story is about, well, backgammon. Basically, I’ve been bemused for a while by the need for a movie about the old board game Battleships. (Or “Battleship” if you’re American, and yes, they’re really doing that. It has Rihanna in it.)

So I thought, this must be suitable for some cheap satire. What’s another game that features almost no actual plot whatsoever that I can nail a story on to?

Well, I may not have quite found a part for Rihanna, but I think backgammon is the one nonetheless. For those unfamiliar, a backgammon board looks like the nearby picture. It features two sets of counters trying to move past each other on the big triangles.

I know what you’re thinking, sounds ripe for big screen adaptation, doesn’t it? Hollywood agents, form an orderly queue.

Backgammon: The Movie

By Nick Bryan

Taking a deep breath, Wilf stepped out from the tunnel entrance to grip tightly onto a huge stalactite hanging in front of him. He and his friends were trapped by a cave-in, the rocks were falling behind them, and they’d agreed, this was the only way out.

Not that he’d been looking forward to it. They had to clamber all the way across the cavern swinging between rock-spikes, make their way down some stone handholds at the other side, then climb between upwards-pointing stalagmites on the ground level, murky darkness below them. Then, once they’d crossed the damn cave twice, they’d finally be close to home.

He had his best gripping gloves on, not to mention tiny picks at the tips of his boots. They’d agreed to bash hooks into the spikes for attaching ropes, which reduced the risk from instant death to a few broken bones.

Nonetheless, this was among the most unsafe things he’d ever attempted, and Wilf had climbed Everest.

He breathed a little easier when, held only by scissored legs, he managed to draw back his hammer and put a hook in. The stactite was huge, but there was still worry in his gut that, when he struck the point, it would crack all the way across, the bottom would fall off, and he would tumble, tightly clutching the falling tip with his thighs.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen. With a sigh of relief, hoping the other guys couldn’t hear, Wilf threaded the rope quickly through and pulled tight. There was no guarantee this would hold, but it was better than nothing. They’d managed to secure the other end pretty hard on another hook back at the start.

But now, of course, it was time to repeat the process. Each spike meant another hook, another chance to fall. The only up-side was the tiny winch on his waist. If he fell, theoretically he could pull himself back up to the last hook he’d used. If the hook held.

The next two spikes passed without incident. He dropped one hook, but let it go. Meanwhile, behind him, his first teammate leapt out to join him. Sam, less experienced but curiously athletic, wrapped himself around that rock like a mouse trap closing, before quickly threading his safety line through the hook.

Christ, Wilf thought, best get a move on, otherwise there’d be a traffic jam. Maybe he should’ve let Sam go first, rather than trying to lead from the front

Still three spikes until they hit the back wall and the bottom level, which would surely be easier. Ella, the final member of their team, was just swinging out now. She was nervous, less seasoned than Wilf and not as naturally cat-like as Sam, but she’d insisted she could do this. And with the constant tumbling rocks behind them, it wasn’t as if she had much choice.

Wilf smashed a hook into the last hanging stalactite and looked to the ladder. This was it, he thought. All he had to do was unclip his safety line for the descent, because it was nowhere near long enough to go all the way down.

He took a look behind him and saw Sam just behind. Ella, meanwhile, was making her way much more slowly. There wasn’t much to do from here; hopefully seeing them succeed would encourage her.

So he let his safety line come away and leapt for the wall. It was as if someone had carved a ladder into the wall, and he loved them for it. Barely halfway down, he felt chips of stone fall onto his head as Sam joined him.

Determined not to hold anyone up, Wilf reached the bottom and leapt onto the first upwards stalagmite quickly, before beginning to shuffle around it, the picks on his boots doing a lot of work. Sam was there waiting for him to go.

But no sooner did he jump for the second spike, there was a rumble from the other side of the cavern. Worse still, a sqawk. Wilf looked up, expecting a cave-in, but no such luck. It was a swarm.

A gaggle of furious, black-furred monkeys emerged from the opposite side, the cave they’d been aiming for.

The little bastards were crawling all over the rocks, needing no safety equipment, covering the distance at a speed even Sam could only dream of.

Just what he needed, Wilf thought. A rival team. And although he’d dug in hard with the boots, he doubted it would withstand full-on impact with a monkey.

They were getting closer. And suddenly there was a squeal from above as Ella, apparently put off by the simian swarm, finally fell. To Wilf’s relief, the hooks held, and, only two spikes from the end, she started her winch and slowly hummed back up.

Nonetheless, taking in her plight left him unprepared for the ape assault. They were almost on him now, still wailing.

And, as the lead monkey tensed its legs and made the leap, so did Sam. Jumping across from the previous spike, as Wilf shielded his body with the one arm he could spare, Sam managed to get in the way of the monkeys, grabbing a couple round the throat.

Finally, he caught one by the arm, but, with no space on the spike left to grip, that was all he had time to do.

Because, at last, with a resigned smile, Sam lost his uncanny balance and fell off into the darkness, taking a few monkeys with him. Clearly Wilf had inspired more loyalty in the team than he’d realised.

Somehow, this loss seemed to deter the remaining monkeys. With yelps, they retreated. Into the same exit Wilf was heading for, but he had little choice.

With a glance upwards, he saw that Ella finally starting on the ladder, unaware of Sam’s sacrifice. Well, Wilf thought grimly to himself, they mustn’t let it be in vain. With a grim mutter, he struck out for the next stalagmite.

Some of you might think that movie heroes are rarely called Wilf. I’m pretty that’s prejudice, guys. Much like my inability to write a positive portrayal of monkeys.

Anyway, copyright me 2012, please ask before stealing, I’m certainly willing to negotiate for the rights. Email me at nick@nickbryan.com and let’s chat.

Friday short story time: "Astronauts Beyond Space!"

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Finally had time to do another Friday story, and thought I’d try for something a bit cheerier, since the last three included a story about internet misery, a sequel to that one and another called “Ready Salted Failure”.

So it’s time for a jolly adventure involving astronauts and a few off-colour jokes. And maybe a slight sense of end-of-an-era poignancy, but I can’t be serious all the time.

Time for lift-off!

Astronauts Beyond Space!

By Nick Bryan

‘It’s tragic, y’know. Fuckin’ tragic. The artform’s dying.’

‘Hodgson, you’re an astronaut, not a beat poet, and you’ve been on about this for about a month.’

‘What’s your point, junior?’

Cook tossed down his copy of Aeronautics Monthly with a sigh. ‘It’s not an artform, it’s working as a specialised pilot. Stop romanticising.’

But Hodgson, rocketing into his thirties, uniform scuffed, nearly bald bar a few grizzled patches where he’d messed up shaving, would not be deterred. ‘Piss off, it’s the end of an era. Now the shuttle program’s fucked, NASA’s basically a stuffed corpse propped up with a stick.’

‘Is it? So where are we sitting right now, exactly?’

‘Don’t fuckin’ ask me, Cook. Looks like a dentist’s waiting room from here.’

Cook had to admit, that was fair. He was the younger man in this conversation, the junior co-pilot, but he couldn’t talk up this particular NASA project. It had only a few chairs and low wooden table, laden down with six month old magazines and a broken snowglobe. Couldn’t they at least have stolen a poster of a spaceship from a teenage boy’s bedroom wall?

‘And,’ Hodgson ranted on, ‘what are we meant to do now?’

‘Well, if the big cheese does pension us off in ten minutes,’ Cook rattled out the speech he’d given his girlfriend that morning, ‘dunno about you, but I’m off to audition for Virgin Galactic.’

‘Oh, you fuckin’ sellout…’

‘Shut up.’ And he stood tall in his casually askew uniform, posing like a campaign poster. ‘They want young chaps who look good in a spacesuit and resemble Buck Rodgers, I reckon I can pull it off, maybe with a neater haircut and…’

‘Oh, don’t fob me off with the girlfriend speech, Cook,’ Hodgson literally growled as he said this, ‘you don’t want to end any more than I do.’

‘They’ve already discontinued the shuttle, you idiot,’ Cook sat forward in his seat, ‘what are we meant to do? Sit around and gaze, dreamy-eyed into the distance?’

‘At least have some respect for the…’

‘For what?’ And, even though they’d had this argument a dozen times, sometimes whilst flying a spacecraft at the same time, Cook still let it get to him. ‘Some wispy dream of spaceflight that never really existed? For Christ’s sake, Hodgson, you’re 38, you’re not fucking Gandalf, you can still retrain or whatever and…’

‘Kid, I spent hours of my life training for this gig, and…’

‘You think I didn’t?’

‘I think you wandered over from the Air Force and now you’ll either wander back or fuck off to some cushy corporate gig.’ He sneered. ‘I trained for years for this, all kinds of horribleness, you have any idea what zero gravity toilet training was like in the old days?’

‘Yes, I do Hodgson, because you’ve told me a dozen times…’

‘Kid,’ he got to his feet and Cook leapt up to meet him, ‘I had to headbutt my own shit for this job, and now you’re telling me to just forget about it because things have moved on?’

‘You’re ten years older than me, stop calling me “kid”.’

‘I’m telling you, we just need to repurpose.’

‘That’s what I keep telling you, you moron.’

‘No, no,’ Hodgson lowered his voice, suddenly backing out of the confrontation he had created, ‘I mean, we can still be astronauts, you know, we just need something new to explore.’

Cook was shocked out of his anger too, by sheer bemusement. ‘What?’

‘We’re not just pilots, man, we’re fuckin’ explorers. We just need a new frontier to explore.’

‘So what’s after space, exactly? Time?’

‘Don’t be stupid. What about burrowing downwards? What do we really know about what’s beneath us?’

Finally, Cook gave in to a fit of laughter. ‘So you want to build that drilling mole thing from Thunderbirds and go tunnelling? Good luck pitching to the boss, buddy. If I were you, I’d open with the time machine to soften him up.’

‘Oh come on, Cook,’ and, against all expectations, Hodgson didn’t get angry, ‘don’t you want to stay in this? Or are you telling me that ferrying rich twats around the lower atmosphere is what you dreamed of as a kid?’

Cook was stuck in the middle of the room, Hodgson’s earnest gaze burrowing into him like the drilling mole from Thunderbirds, and, annoyingly, he was starting to remember how he’d felt back when he started.

‘Yeah, I mean…’ He sighed. ‘I dunno, Hodgson, there ain’t much we can do. I mean, I always wanted to repurpose the shielding, tool up a submarine and go explore one of those ocean trenches, but…’

‘Well, pitch it. This is our last shot. Why the fuck not?’

‘Hodgson…’

‘No, look, he’s going to fire us, okay? He just is. This is the end for us as a team exploring new frontiers. And then what? You’re an intergalactic rickshaw driver and I’m giving fuckin’ space museum tours, amusing myself by telling schoolkids I once used a hoe on the moon.’

‘Used a…’ Cook paused, then rolled his eyes and laughed. ‘Yeah, I remember that. Man, it was wild. I had a good time with that spade.’

‘So come on.’ Hodgson took one final step closer. ‘Maybe no-one’s ever said this shit in a meeting before, but we’re meant to be about taking on the unexplored, yeah? What do you say, Cook?’

And before Cook could reply, an immaculately turned out young man in a shiny suit stepped into the room, not making a single sound until he said: ‘Gentlemen?’

‘He’ll see you now.’

Sorry there weren’t any aliens. I did consider putting some in, but it felt a bit against the tone. Copyright Nick Bryan 2012, please don’t steal, email me if you want to steal it in an approved fashion, the usual.

Friday short story time: "Ruination"

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This week, a rare sequel or follow-up. These have gone badly for me in the past, but I had a thematic continuation in mind. And since it’s a sequel to last week’s story, I can even pretend it was planned at the time.

Well, maybe not anymore. And no, you probably don’t need to read the original. Anyway, yes, this is once again a reflection on something that really happened. Are these stories close to becoming a form of therapy for me?

Ruination

By Nick Bryan

ENGLAND – THAT EVENING

‘Andrew?’

‘Mm.’

‘What’s wrong? I found your laptop smashed downstairs.’

‘Sorry, Jenny.’

‘That’s okay, it’s not my laptop. What happened?’

‘Oh, something happened to someone. Doesn’t matter.’

‘Seems to matter a bit.’

‘This is the problem with the internet, I think. It opens you up to all these new people, and, y’know, I’ve seen the television programmes, with the hostage situations and the fighting, and the hero’s weakness is always measured by… by…’

‘Andrew, what happened to who, exactly? Have you been taking your…’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, you were saying?’

‘Doesn’t… it’s just, you know, even if you don’t have arch enemies and shit, the more people who matter to you, the more weak you are. Something might happen to one of them, and then you have to feel bad.’

‘That’s kinda bleak, isn’t it? So something bad happened to someone online?’

‘… Yeah. Car crash.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Andrew.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Never even spoken to the guy.’

‘Clearly it matters to you.’

‘Yeah. You said that already.’

AMERICA – THE DAY BEFORE

Luke was drunk. You could tell because the jokes he was posting on Twitter were getting much worse. It was embarrassingly early in the day too, he could barely claim it was evening.

“So,” he tweeted, taking a long time over the spelling of each word, “just been warming up the bar for when you 9-5ers get here. Try not to stand in it when you arrive.”

After that had sent, he gazed at it for a while. Yeah, he’d done better. He hadn’t gathered nearly two thousand eager followers with that kind of dribble. He was a funny guy, he knew he was. Must try harder.

‘Yo, Luke, stop fucking around on your phone,’ his friend heckled from the bar, ‘we still got time for one more before the normals turn up.’

They had met doing the 7-3:30 shift on checkout, and evolved a strange kind of superiority. They were earning the same as everyone else, but doing it at a slightly different time, which meant they got the best seats in the pubs and, as long as they were willing to swallow a lack of sleep, had just as much fun.

‘Nah, s’all good, think I’m gonna head home,’ Luke jerked his thumb towards a nearby door, which was actually the men’s room, ‘pretty trashed for this early, I might sleep it off. Dinner with my folks later, they don’t like it when I’m asleep in the food.’

‘Don’t be such a fuckin’ pussy.’

‘Sorry, dude,’ Luke shrugged, ‘I gotta do what I gotta do.’

‘Yeah, and you gotta get another beer.’

‘Ain’t happening.’

With a slightly bitter farewell, the two of them went their seperate ways. Apparently someone else they kinda knew was in the bar somewhere, so there might still be a chance to keep drinking. Which had tempted Luke for a second, but in the end he’d stuck to his guns and left his friend to searching.

Because, after all, he really was a bit smashed, and hadn’t been lying about that meal with his parents. If he hurried home, he might have time to lie down. Not to mention, although he wasn’t going to say it out loud, the quality of that last joke on Twitter had pissed him off. Who knows what incoherent pigshit he’d end up posting after even more drinks?

He was approaching the road crossing outside the bar now, which was busy as hell. Hundreds of cars powering through, trying to get home from work as fast as possible to snatch a few hours with their families.

It was one hell of a crossing, but he’d done this a million times. First, though, he reached into his pocket for his phone. An idea had slipped into his head, a chance for Twitter redemption.

“At a busy intersection. Wow, if the caveman who invented the wheel had negotiated royalties, his family would own all our asses.”

And, satisfied, he flung himself into that junction.

ENGLAND – MINUTES LATER

Andrew didn’t think of himself as worthless, but he knew he wasn’t funny.

So he was always in awe of people on Twitter who could rattle that stuff out, seemingly without effort. Take that joke about wheels, just posted by “LukeAtMe”. Obviously, his real name was Luke, but Andrew didn’t know him. Until they were met in real life, he naturally thought of these internet folk by their online usernames.

It wasn’t even that they had fascinating jobs; he knew from long-term reading of his stuff that LukeAtMe worked in an American supermarket. So he could hardly claim his office management role was holding him back.

He tapped his laptop and tried to think of something funny to tweet about the cup of tea he’d just made, but it wasn’t coming. He… hoped he didn’t leave the teabag in too long, flip out and spit it up over his walls?

No. That’s not funny, just unpleasant. These people made it look so easy, and he never gave them the credit they deserved. Sometimes passed on their jokes for others to enjoy, but never told them how much he enjoyed their work.

Mostly, if he was being honest, because he didn’t want to sound like a gushing teenager writing to a pop star. However, he decided, maybe it was time. He gritted his teeth and wrote a message to LukeAtMe, thanking him for “all the laughs”. After the final keystroke, he stared at it a while, before shaking his head and deleting the whole thing.

Fuck it, he was tired. Maybe tomorrow.

Copyright me 2012, don’t steal, email me if you like, blah blah. And no, Luke doesn’t really exist. All is fiction. However, Mike Pandel, comic podcaster and entertaining chap, really did tragically pass away earlier this week. For a more direct (and musical and funnier) tribute, click here. That story really was just me reflecting on the occasional sadness of the internet.

I’ll do some jokes next week, I promise.

Friday short story time: "Ruiners"

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Another Friday story this week. Last week’s effort, by the way, was read out to my creative writing MA class on Wednesday and went over pretty well, which was nice.

And today’s is possibly the closest I come to “proper” blogging at the moment, too. This is basically a heavily fictionalised version of something that happened to me on Monday, in that one of the things here really took place.

The rest of it didn’t, admittedly. It also has a back-and-forth-in-time structure, because I like those.

Ruiners

By Nick Bryan

THAT MORNING

Everyone likes to think there was no better feeling than a job well done, but it still feels even better when you both do a good job and get it acknowledged by your damn superiors.

So when Andrew had gotten an email from his boss saying “Good work, Andrew – you’ve really done a job here”, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t love it. After skipping around the office for a while, trying not to boast to his co-workers or knock anything off their desks, he’d settled back down and announced it to his few hundred followers on Twitter.

He’d made a cup of coffee and it had worked out beautifully. Aromatic, flavoursome, left his throat feeling like it had been gently stimulated with velvet. This could, he thought, be his best day in years, and he’d had some bad ones in the past.

In fact, he was so overjoyed, not to mentioned determined to put off returning to work for another twenty minutes, Andrew called his girlfriend Jenny, both to share the good news and say that, yes, they should have dinner with her parents this evening. Why not? Things were going so well.

Not to mention, he got on well with the not-yet-in-laws anyway. They even regularly commented on each other’s Facebook statuses – his friends thought it was sickening. So this was nothing to be scared of.

THAT EVENING

Among the orange mood lighting, at a table that appeared to have been stolen from a rustic farmhouse, an awkward silence had descended before the starter even arrived.

‘So, Andy,’ her father began, despite the fact even Jenny called him “Andrew”, ‘did you see the game last night? Pretty good, eh?’

‘Oh, yes, good. We played well.’ He trailed off.

Giving Andrew a look that suggested intense disappointment, not-Dad returned to his soup without further comment. Even Jenny, who didn’t like football and was always bored by the two of them discussing it, glared.

‘So, Victoria,’ trying to pull something back, he turned to her mother, ‘how’s the business? Sell many socks lately?’

It didn’t take him long to realise this had been an error. ‘Actually, Andrew,’ her voice was shooting up the octaves now, ‘you might remember that the business went under last month.’

‘Oh.’ He reached for the right response. ‘Sorry to hear that.’

And Jenny’s father’s face turned red. ‘You already knew that, Andy, what’s the matter with you?’

Jenny looked genuinely scared that her father was about to put his fist through Andrew’s jawbone. She stood up, rattling all the cutlery, and tugged on her boyfriend’s shoulder. ‘Andrew, do you want to come with me while we wait for the starters and look at the… wines?’

No-one bothered to point out that they had a wine list on the table, had all ordered drinks already and their starters were just coming over now.

Before he really knew what was happening, Andrew was on the other side of the room, failing to justify himself.

‘What on earth? What’s wrong? Did something happen this afternoon?’

THAT AFTERNOON

With amazing work success in the morning, and a nice dinner to look forward to that evening, Andrew was relaxing in the office. The second half of the day was slipping pleasantly away from him, on a tide of light work and occasional checking of Twitter.

He’d just made his fourth hot drink of the day, traditionally the last one, so the end was nigh. He zipped off another email, proofed his latest spreadsheet, and then took another quick social media break. “OH MY GOD,” said one internet acquaintance, “what the hell is this? Can’t believe some people.”

Andrew paused for a second before clicking on it. As Jenny kept telling him, he was a sensitive soul. Best not to look at anything too horrific, but no-one had said anything about this being really disturbing.

So he went for it, the web page opened, and the strangled gurgle that emerged from Andrew’s throat drew the attention of a few nearby colleagues. Some news story about a cat being killed and left on someone’s doorstep. He didn’t get the details, because he closed it as soon as he realised it came with a picture.

And then he just stared, before fleeing his office to pace the corridors. There was a pounding rising in his ears and a gurgling in his stomach. The day was ruined, wasn’t it?

And there we have it. It was the thing with the dead cat webpage, if you didn’t realise, and then I was slightly down for the rest of the day. Luckily, unlike poor Andrew, I had no important event that evening, but nonetheless, beware the internet. There’s some bad stuff out there, and not all of it is horse porn.

Sorry. There won’t be a moral at the end of every story now, I promise. Copyright me 2012, please don’t steal, email me if you want it for anything, have a lovely week, etc.

Friday short story time: "Panel Beating"

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NaNo is over, my essay is submitted and so, this week at least, I managed to go to my writing group on Monday and bash out a new story for this website.

Hope you like it, it guest stars Angus Deayton which is… unusual for my material. Apologies if this makes it inaccessible for our American readers.

Panel Beating

By Nick Bryan

Joel Bradley got drunk at home, one weekend after listening to his family going ten rounds with each other about nothing. Nothing was their topic, and nothing was his degree of engagement. Nothing nothing nothing.

They said horrible things about each other whilst smiling, taking the laughter of the others as permission to get even worse. Because that meant they’d scored the most points. Wittiest put-down, best effort to stay on topic despite the efforts of others to derail them, best amusing commentary on the television. All with a smile.

Joel had been watching TV a lot that day, mostly because he wanted to not be listening to those people, and always seemed to end up back on a panel game. Four to six comedians, usually white male, behind a split desk, trying to be funniest on some vague topic, until the end, when they were awarded points based on an invisible scale.

It was after his third beer that he realised the air around him was one big panel game. And the fourth or fifth before he decided that he was the host.

After all, he was the aloof presence, trying not to get sucked into the insults. Because once the host gets involved in the abuse, the game is over – that was what happened to Angus Deayton on Have I Got News For You. His private life became the butt of all the jokes, and suddenly he wasn’t right for the job anymore.

So, for the benefit of this game, Joel was Old-School Angus. Pre-coke Angus. Aloof Angus, still at the height of his arch powers.
‘Hey, you guys got any more sausage?’

‘Don’t you have enough sausage to be getting on with, Mags?’

Joel shook his head and awarded them very few points. The sausage/penis comparison was old hat, after all. Then again, it did get a raucous laugh from the drunker members of the audience. Maybe he had misread the gig. He wanted this to be Have I Got News For You, but in reality it was Mock The Week.

And the TV said: ‘And here we can see that little Archie is one of the most intelligent robots ever created.’

And one of Joel’s cousins said: ‘Not to mention one of the most camp!’

The host wasn’t sure where to go with that. Was the robot mincing a little as it walked? Perhaps. But did that joke have slightly homophobic overtones?

Joel wasn’t sure. He gave them a few points to acknowledge the observation, but kept a few back. But was he splitting hairs too much to be an efficient host? Had Angus worried about this sort of thing?

Man. It looked way easier on TV. Then again, he’d heard those shows were heavily edited between recording and broadcast. Were there deleted sequences where the host ran off stage to consult broadcasting standards? Or was he just not decisive enough for the gig?

‘So I guess what I’m saying is that if Mags really loved the kids she keeps banging on about so damn much, she wouldn’t let herself get distracted by every passing…’

‘Okay, come on….’

‘Shut up, Anne. If Mags really meant it, she wouldn’t go chasing after every guy she meets with a working penis. And you know perfectly well that she asks about that when she meets them. “Hi there! How are you? Do you like to drink heavily in front of children? Is it at least eight inches long?” For god’s sake, it’s just…’

And, finally, Auntie Jill collapsed, overcome with emotion towards Mags, who had stepped out of the room to use the toilet. If he’d had a few more balls, Joel thought, he ought to have stepped in and busted her for repetition of the word “meets”. Or for content far too explicit for a primetime audience.

Or, if all else fails, because it really wasn’t that funny. At all.

So, did that work, or was I just steadily whipping a poor, defenseless metaphor to death over the course of 700 words? Opinions welcome in the comments below, or email me if your thoughts are shameful. Copyright Nick Bryan 2011, please do not steal, etc.

Festive Friday short story time: "Clear Present Danger"

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Hello!

I’ve been away from the Friday stories for a while, mostly due to MA deadlines, but I really wanted to do a Christmas Friday story. Especially since I wanted to do one last year, but was stopped by having to voyage pointlessly back to London to replace my smashed glasses. (Don’t ask.)

So, here it is! To make up for last year (and because I ran over quite badly), it’s longer than usual. Ta-da.

Clear Present Danger

By Nick Bryan

‘So what’s he protesting?’

‘Meaning what, Jobson?’

‘Well, Sarge, what the hell’s his point? Israel/Palestine? War in Afghanistan? Public sector cuts?’

‘Oh, right.’ Sergeant Conroy glanced at the message again, in case he’d missed some subtle meaning. ‘No, it says the over-commercialisation of Christmas.’

‘Jingle fucking bells.’

‘Very festive, Jobson. Now stop mithering and get a move on.’

Their car trickled slowly up Oxford Street, siren on loud, until Jobson and Conroy finally got out and walked. Despite their bulky police uniform and high-vis jackets, people seemed determined to keep pushing past them with full elbows.

That could’ve been because it was Christmas Eve, and last-minute panic shopping was rife, but they knew that was only half- true. It was also because a huge number of their colleagues had cordoned off a well-known department store after the terrorist threat had come through.

Conroy steered his way delicately around a group of old ladies, whilst Jobson smashed directly into a tourist, knocked her over, and only stopped to help when the higher-ranking policeman turned and gave him a look.

And, finally, they reached the police line around the store. The huge windows zoomed out of sight, climbing up the building in a range of stained colours and bright displays, making their recently refurbished police station look like a decaying shed. The Christmas display, towering out of sight, contained a hell of a lot more festive cheer than Conroy was likely to see in his house tomorrow. In short, this was how the other half lived.

Meanwhile, in the centre of the building, customers and staff were still spilling out, most of them screaming a little. Shopping bags were banging against each other and children looked scared. It was calmer than he’d imagined it, though. You always expected town centre at Christmas to be worse than it is, don’t you?

‘What’s happening?’ Conroy asked no-one in particular, and a nearby constable obliged.

‘We’ve nearly got everyone out; the bomb squad are trying to find the device.’

‘Are they looking…’

‘In the Christmas presents, just like the note said.’

‘So Santa’s Grotto, then.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Meanwhile, Jobson made his way to his friend Phil from Special Branch, who had set up an impromptu tent down the road. Everyone was giving the front of the shop a wide berth, except for the lucky policemen in charge of shepherding out the Christmas shoppers.

Phil was, as ever, wearing black suit, black tie, closely sheared haircut, the man clearly fancied himself the international super-spook, even though Jobson knew he rarely left London and spent half his time telephoning the same four informants to find out if the IRA were back yet.

No doubt due to the spy training he’d never had, Phil heard him coming. ‘Constable Jobson, how may I help you?’

‘What’s up with this shit, Phil? You got any gossip?’

‘Well, it’s too early to be certain, there are a lot of variables…’

‘Come on, Phil, don’t give me that wank, I have to go and “guard the perimeter” in a minute, and it’s freezing cold out here. I’m only wearing one pair of pants.’

‘Fine. I can report that the elves are crying.’

Jobson blinked. ‘Is that some kinda Christmas secret agent code?’

‘No, Jobson. The teenage girls who work as Santa’s elves are not holding up well under interrogation. One of them, asked if she’d seen anyone tampering with the presents next to the grotto, burst out in tears and begged us not to waterboard her.’

‘Are you gonna?’

‘Only if she acts suspiciously.’

Suddenly, another suited bozo with a chubbier face dragged Phil inside to talk to someone, leaving Jobson kicking his heels outside. Well, he thought, perhaps he ought to go and take his place on the line now, answering questions from tourists and telling shoppers that, yes, the bomb threat did mean they couldn’t pick up their caviar today.

Sergeant Conroy, unfortunately, had more responsibility than just standing around in a circle. Having gotten the lay of the land, he took up his leadership position, as close to the shop as he could, and barked queries into his radio.

‘Bomb squad? Any luck with those presents? Over.’

‘Sergeant, no, nothing, we’ve scanned them all, a couple we even shook to work out what was inside, nothing. Over.’

‘Have you searched the rest of the store? Over.’

‘We’re just starting now, sir. Over.’

‘Good. Keep me posted. Over and out.’

Conroy took his hand off the radio, and tapped his foot angrily. Was it a hoax? A childish attempt to cause maximum disruption? He sighed. The press would have their balls for this. “DUPED COPS CLOSE DOWN OXFORD STREET ON XMAS EVE – DEVASTATED SHOPPERS GO HOME TO WEEPING BABIES.” It didn’t bear thinking about.

And then his radio sparked up again. ‘Sergeant Conroy? It’s the Special Branch tent, could you come over? Um, over.’

Thank god, he thought. Maybe one of those bored teenagers had finally admitted to calling the hoax in, so he could punish someone and go home.

‘Be right there, over.’

Trying not to appear overly desperate, Conroy paced over to the tent and swept the entry panel aside. In the disappointingly pokey inner sanctum, several men in suits sat at trestle tables with clipboards, whilst a gaggle of teenagers in elf costumes were shaking and holding each other in a corner. Opposite them, on a plastic stool, was Santa, glaring defiantly from behind the beard. It felt like he’d stepped into a festive Guantanamo, drawn by some imagination-starved political cartoonist.

‘What’s happening here? Do you have news?’

One of the identical suits looked up from his paperwork. ‘It appears we have a confession, Sergeant.’

Conroy’s mood perked right up. ‘Really?’ He glared at the sobbing elves. ‘Which one was it?’

‘It… well.’ And instead he pointed at Santa. ‘It was him.’

‘Oh, seriously?’ Conroy loomed over Father Christmas, who stared him down. ‘So you called in a hoax? Why? Did you want a longer lunchbreak?’

‘No no, it’s not a hoax.’ Santa grinned through the cheap beard. ‘The bomb’s in there.’

And Conroy’s adrenaline jumped even higher. ‘Where is it?’

‘One of the presents, like I told you in my message.’

Conroy leaned in, so close to Santa that the beard tickled his chin. ‘Which. Fucking. One.’

Santa just grinned, and Conroy turned on the Special Branch clones. ‘What the fuck?’

‘Yeah,’ the lead one shook his head, weirdly calm, ‘that’s all we could get out of him.’

‘Can we,’ Conroy rolled his eyes, ‘… make him talk somehow?’

‘We’re Special Branch, not MI5. All the waterboarding gear is back in the office.’

At that, there was a strangled squeal from one of the elves.

Losing patience, Conroy dashed back into the street. All was deserted for a long way. Unless the explosion was nuclear, there shouldn’t be casualties. Finally, he looked at his watch, then back at the print-out of the note. Their two hours ended in ten minutes.

‘Bomb squad, come in, over,’ he sighed into his radio, ready to tell them to leg it and let events take their course. These people could afford to rebuild a couple of floors, but he couldn’t afford to sacrifice ten explosives experts.

‘Sergeant, we’ve scanned every present in here, no sign, anything else you want? Over.’

‘Yeah, if you can’t find it, better withdraw, I don’t want any…’ He stopped, his vacant stare at the building front coming into focus.

In fact, he paused for so long that the radio buzzed again before he could even say “over”. ‘Sergeant?’

Conroy was staring at the pile of presents in the window display. The only ones in the whole damn building that no-one had scanned for explosives. He looked at his watch again, before reaching back up to the radio resignedly. ‘Bomb squad, change of plan, go to the back of the store, exit via the staff door if you can find one, over.’

‘Aye-aye, sir. Over and out.’

And as Conroy waited nervously for the big festive bang, Jobson snuck behind him. He was wearing a riot mask he’d “borrowed” from a fellow officer, just to avoid being recognised. Another disciplinary for deserting his place on a perimeter would be bad news for his career, but he was just so bored.

‘Hey, Phil.’ Once he was finally inside the tent, Jobson swung the flap closed behind him and pulled the heavy plastic bucket off his head. ‘It’s me. Is it true?’

‘Is what true?’

‘That it was Santa! The bomber!’

‘Oh, indeed,’ Phil nodded, ‘that is the guy.’

In case Jobson had forgotten what Father Christmas looked like, Phil pointed across the tent at the man in the red fur-rimmed jacket and cushion belly. The beard had finally been taken off, and he was handcuffed to a tent pole, which combined into a nightmare vision. A shaven, imprisoned Santa Claus.

‘Oh, wow.’

Leaving Phil fiddling with papers at his desk, Jobson put on his best official police face, the one he used when knocking on doors or ordering donuts, and went over to the suspect.

‘Afternoon.’

Santa’s eyes, red-rimmed, turned on Jobson. Even without the beard, it was a chubby, friendly face. He didn’t look like a fundamentalist, or any other kind of mentalist.

‘Yes? What can I do for you, son?’

Jobson fought back the urge to sit on his knee. ‘I was just wondering, um, what was your point?’

‘My point?’

‘Yeah. Why did you plant the bomb? Was it really the over-commercialisation of the whatever?’

‘Oh, well,’ Santa nodded, a smile slowly emerging, ‘I was just a bit down, you know.’

‘So you decided to kill some kiddies?’

‘Oh, no,’ and he looked appalled at the suggestion, ‘I’d never want to hurt anyone. That’s why I sent a precise warning. I just wanted to give us all a Christmas happy ending.’

‘There are massage parlours in Soho who’ll do that without the jail time.’

‘But I warned you, and you got everyone out! And everything was so miserable and I wake up before going to work and read about everyone falling apart and…’ Santa was close to crying now, which made Jobson quite uncomfortable. ‘Everything’s just shit, officer. Maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s the world we live in now, but it’s Christmas and I just don’t feel it. And I’m Father Fucking Christmas.’

That, Jobson thought, was not something he’d expected to hear Santa say.

‘So,’ he continued, ‘I planted the bomb and let everyone get clear. Some good news people can get behind, isn’t it? Police save department store customers from bomb.’

‘You realise we haven’t managed to defuse it?’

‘I don’t care about broken windows, Sergeant.’

‘Right. You’re utterly nuts, aren’t you?’

Before Santa could answer that one, there was an almighty bang outside. With one last glance back at chained up Saint Nick, Jobson turned and dashed from the tent into the street. As he arrived outside, he took a quick look around to make sure he wasn’t meant to be helping anyone, but it seemed fine.

The window display had burst outwards, and tiny shards of glass were floating through the air, drifting towards earth at varying speeds. There was a massive hole at the back of the display, through which something was clearly on fire. Good job the men with the hosepipes were already on standby.

As the roar of the explosion faded away, though, Jobson heard one of the teenage elves shout ‘Wow! Awesome!’, shortly before a kid in the audience started going ‘Mummy, mummy, is it snowing?’, whilst pointing at the cascading glass and window-display glitter. Jobson sighed and shook his head. He hoped Terrorist Santa hadn’t heard that, he’d just feel vindicated.

Seconds later, Conroy realised Jobson had deserted his post and gave him a festive disciplinary.

All copyright Nick Bryan 2011, the title pun totally didn’t come before the plot, please do not steal, email me if you like, and merry Christmas, everyone! Thanks for reading.