My entry for this crazy short story thing. Word limit is 500 so I use 499, you can check if you want!

[Editor's note: this story is for grown-up readers only.]

Roy was born under a cloud of bad feeling, a heroin addicted mother and no home, each factor making the other one seem worse. His Mum, Janet, loved her child very much and although she could not offer him a permanent home or future, she gave him all the love she could.
It was a Sunday when things got really bad, Roy wouldn’t sleep and Janet needed to get him down for the night so she could go into town and make some money. With the scraps of her last hit still lingering, Janet gave Roy some sleeping pills and ran out into the cold rain. The water fell onto her body and cascaded down her, she was hardly wearing any clothes and she was freezing, the umbrella she had was broken and tattered, a mirror image of her life. She stumbled onto her usual ‘spot’ where she waited and waited, a car pulled up.
Several hours later, Janet was dropped off on the same street corner, chucked out like rubbish, no love, no care, no feeling. Janet felt sick, she bent down to vomit in the drain but then the thought of Roy entered her mind and there was a moment where she felt at peace… Swallowing the sick that sat at the deep crevasse at the back of her throat, she collected herself and ran to see her son.
It wasn’t long before she was home and although the urge for a fix was too much to bear, she had to make sure her son was well. The thought that she may have made a massive mistake consumed her, but so did the thought of heroin.
Her worst fears were realised, as much as she shook, shouted or screamed she could not wake Roy up. She thought he was dead. The one thing in her life that was pure and innocent had gone. She had killed her son; killed the one thing that she would kill others to protect. Going to sell her body to get heroin tokens had sold her son to the afterlife.
Janet grabbed a knife, she would not let herself be treated like rubbish by this life, man after man had raped her of her dignity; now she would find dignity in death. She cut into her wrist and severed the veins, the meat clinging to her bone split open with ease and the blood started to pour out. As her life faded away, she heard a cry and a scream, it was Roy. He was not dead.
It was too late, Janet’s life started to fade away, the pain of her wrists was matched only by that of the fact that she knew her beloved Roy’s life would be a waste. She bit her thumb.
Two weeks past until anyone noticed anything was wrong. The police crashed through the door, only to see two rotting corpses. Arranged like meat in an abattoir, like meat on a counter, like rubbish in a bin.

My own company was beginning to dwell on me as I sat in solitude amidst the general clutter of my room. Time to make a move in order to lose, if only for a while, my troglodyte status. So in to the daylight I ventured…

I enjoyed the Sun’s beautiful rays as I head out towards the railway line. It made a change from the usual rain and wind that harrows old people as they use all their strength to fight with gales going about their usual business. This generally involves wandering aimlessly and moaning about things that I find very trivial. But then the weather is trivial I suppose. It’s when you think about it and embrace it that it becomes more than a neglected detail of every day life.

Railway Maintenance had repaired the barbed wire fence that helped fend off individuals who intended to cause a variety of careless vandalism. I, on the other hand, am not one of these yobs and I only choose to go down onto the railway line to reflect on my feelings and take pleasure in the seclusion that it offers. It isn’t very often that you get a chance to sit down in the gleaming sunlight without a soul in sight.

I kept walking along all the while finding excellent angles to capture the odd snap; some of nature, some of obscure things that bequeathed meaning.

After a while the obligatory train came by and I stopped to feel the cannonade of fresh air explode onto my face. In fact it wasn’t really all that fresh, I mean it was full of petrol fumes, but if I held my breathe it felt fresh and pleasingly cool.

As I progressed along the track something rare occurred: I saw a man who was, like me, alone. I always thought that this track was mine. I was like its ruler. If I saw some litter I would pick it up and take it away with me; if I came across weeds nestling amongst the poppies and foxgloves I would tear them out. This man had violated my kingdom.

I held up my camera and zoomed in on the lonely character. He was old and appeared disturbed. He was talking to himself and moving his arms frantically about his body scratching his greying hair violently. He then stopped, removed a concealed Bible from his jacket and clutched it, still muttering uncontrollably. I was confused by the spectacle; if I’d have seen him in town I wouldn’t have given him a second glance but here, alone, he became an exhibition.

Again I heard a train rumbling along the tracks. It got closer and as it did the man became more hysterical. Then at once he ran out onto the railway line and cast his Bible into the sky. I screamed, the train screamed to a halt and the man was knocked off the track… The man did not scream, alone in the ditch…

I am currently listening to ‘Time as Commodity’ by Buried Inside. It’s not the best song on the album but then again the album is made up of one song segmented into 11 different tracks, (Introduction, Time as Ideology, Time as Methodology, Time as Surrogate Religion, Time as Imperialism, Reintroduction, Time as Abjection, Time as Automation, Time as Commodity and Time as Resistance). Needless to say the album is about ‘Time’ and whether it exists or not and how it does and doesn’t exist in different walks of life. But the point I am trying to make is that Buried Inside have created this album (Chronoclast) with the view of making a point, teaching the world something, expressing themselves; but most of all not being sucked into the trap of being a mainstream bag of dog turd that produces reconstituted, low level crap that, quite frankly, could have created by a monkey with learning disabilities. The song has now changed and it’s a short one so I must therefore make this paragraph snappy! The song that has come on is one by a band called ‘Unearth’ and it’s called FALSE IDOLS. The name was not in capitals on the album sleeve and nor was it on my tunes, I just decided to put them in capitals as that is was a lot of the musical ‘idols’ of today are; false. Look at Robbie Williams for example, how many songs do you reckon he as actually written himself? (Reflexive Pronoun according to Spell Check) How many songs has he grafted over, sweated over, cried over? My estimate would be around a nice big 0. Next song: System of a Down, ‘Chop Suey’, a strange band but a very popular song that made it quite successfully into the mainstream. Now don’t get me wrong the mainstream isn’t all bad; some of my favourite bands are pretty mass market; the likes of Slipknot, Killswitch Engage and The Arctic Monkeys can hardly say they are underground any more, but the difference is they have musical credibility. This song currently has a strings part going on which is a nice contrast to that of the rock background; this texture clash is something that I feel that the likes of ‘Girls Aloud’ or ‘Avenged Sevenfold’ would struggle to understand: can’t be seen as different now can we? ‘Metallica’! Sell outs? Yes! Do I care? NO. They have done enough in the many years of being a band so to be quite honest I don’t care about the fact that they have now become a product, a business, a company, a multinational, a ‘whatever else you want to call them’. They created half the bands I listen to, half the bands you listen to and half the bands that everyone listens to so I couldn’t care if they came round my house and ate all the food, they gave me enjoyment, I should give them some. Ahhh, ‘Blur’ part of the Britpop era; a period that produced some brilliant songs, some average ones and some songs that are best of being buried when Phil Collins decides to die. Without doubt, Blur are one of Britain’s most iconic bands and personally I can say I prefer them to Oasis. I believe that Noel Gallagher is one of the greatest song writers ever, but being a fan of the world of ‘interesting’ music I prefer Blur as they are by far and away more ‘interesting’. Killswitch Engage: ‘Brilliant’. One of the few bands that continuously grab me by the balls. Their albums are solid, they have epicity (to be epic) of the highest degree and their live show is fantastically funny. I haven’t to this day heard a KsE song that makes me want to leave the room. KsE are a band that all should be able to ‘Inhale’ from the moment that Darkness falls to the moment Daylight days, they are for you, for me for everyone. They are mainstream, but they haven’t sold out before their time, they haven’t started playing Metallica rips offs and they most certainly haven’t written songs that have the lyrics ‘Wooaooahaoo’. (Trivium) Codeseven are a band that I know very little about. After hearing the two songs ‘Lights’ and ‘How many miles to Babylon’ I was very impressed, then I heard ‘The Rescue’ which was less brutal, frantic or loud but was still technically quite good and was very catchy. But then I heard the song I have on now which I like very much (the song in question is ‘Alt. Wave’), a quiet, Indyesque, quite ambient song that is miles away from the thrash style of the earlier songs. However, although I liked the song, I was not impressed that ‘Codeseven’ had ditched their Hardcore roots and had made a drastic transition to the more mainstream Indy style. Why? I don’t know but I have a feeling that it may have something to with either money or record deal. But still if they are producing good music then who cares. Trivium produced some good stuff on ‘Ascendancy’, ‘Lostprophets’ produced some amazing music on ‘The fake sounds of progress’ but then they turned into, well, bollocks really. Give me the option of listening to the ‘Wooaooahaoo’ song by Trivium (namely the anthem) or pull each of my teeth out with a kipper and I know what I would prefer to do. Mastodon are a strange band, on strange label; Relapse Records, are famous for signing bands that are weird, wacky and wonderful. Some of my favourite bands come from Relapse; ‘The Dillinger Escape Plan’ is just on of them, an extremely violent mix of hardcore, thrash, ambience and jazz. Without doubt the two aforementioned bands are the most mainstream on Relapse. (Bands such as ‘RUMPELSTILTSKIN GRINDER’ and ‘Agoraphobic Nosebleed’) Mastodon is definitely part of the musical genre ‘interesting’ but they most certainly are not alone. The song has now changed to another Relapse records band called ‘Dysrhythmia’ who (if you didn’t know) are a ‘progressive, instrumental, jazz, funk metal band’. Again they are without doubt one of my favourite bands. Another great sign that the underground produces some amazing, if strange music that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. For the first time in this music-influenced article I have selected the song. This song (Elegy) and this band is one of my favourite pieces of art and one of my favourite groups of artists, ever. It really does ‘grab me by the balls’, it sounds like Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu and Leonardo Da Vinci have got together, had sex and nine months later out popped ‘Becoming the Archetype’. Managing to merge, classical, guitar, black metal, thrash metal, piano, church organs and a ridiculous amount of blast beats, they have created something that sounds likegod. The song is still going, but has now gone from the ferocious blast beats and roaring of ‘War is the path that leads to destruction’ to the quite celestial piano. I struggle to type this as I am so overwhelmed by what I am hearing. Becoming the Archetype is a band that very few people have heard of. They are underground; a Christian Metalcore band that shouldn’t be underground. This is one band that I don’t want to be left downstairs, I don’t want them to be heard only be the weirdoes like myself who traipse around the internet and shops to find good music that no one has ever heard of before. It is for the good of the world that Becoming the Archetype are heard by all so that everyone can have the opportunity to experience the godliness of this great band. ‘Elegy’ has just finished, it was eleven minutes and 14 seconds of pure brilliancein a bag. The album ‘Terminate Damnation’ is also of this fantastical calibre. Varying from classical guitar to pure thrash, this album has something for everyone who has half a brain. Becoming the Archetype are without doubt, the Archetypical band that really could shape the music of the future just like Led Zeppelin, Muddy Waters, The Beatles, Johnny Cash, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Radiohead, Nirvana, Slipknot, and One True Voice did before them. (Ha! One True Voice, showing that manufactured bands DO work). I feel now that I can no longer put another song on that will match the brilliance of ‘Elegy’. There are very few songs in my opinion that can match the ferocity, the subtlety, the kind evilness, the quiet loudness and the progressive simplicity of ‘Elegy’ so for this ‘creative session’ I will cease. Unless a new song comes on that is everything that ‘Elegy’ is and more. Let’s see [He clicks on iTunes, he presses next (current song is '4th Grade Dropout' by 'The Dillinger Escape Plan'] the next song is Enya, ‘The Celts’). It’s not an incredible song, but I like it and will listen to it. You see? I may like my death metal and all that, but I can still listen to some great cheese when I’m in the mood, just don’t show me Phil Collins, or I may commit murder and that’s just not good.

There was once a large fluffy Armadillo called Phil, he lived in the forest. He was a very sad Armadillo; he had no friends, no house and no face. Not having a face made life very hard for the Armadillo, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t see and he couldn’t eat (in the conventional sense anyway). He prayed to Allah every night that one day he may be given a face, not necessarily a nice one, he’d even settle for Carlos Tevez’s. He just wanted a face.

The sad thing is that Phil used to have a face, but when he was younger, he watched the film ‘Face/Off’ with his best mate at the time, the legendary wrestler, Stone Cold Steve Austin. The problem was that Phil was incredibly impressionable, even more so than a piece of clay or Rory Bremner. He watched ‘Face/Off’ and demanded that he and Stone Cold replicated it. Steve wasn’t entirely happy about re-inacting the surgical procedure and procrastinated in doing so for several weeks. But after he had run out of excuses and been to 8 nights of Phil Collins concerts just to hide from Phil! It was time.

Due to the Inter Armadillo-Human Censorship Act passed in 1607 I am forbidden to go into graphic detail, but basically, Steve got a piece of broken glass and lashed at Phil’s face. The face came off fine with no complications, but Phil had forgotten one thing, he didn’t know any other Armadillos and he didn’t have a face to put on! Quickly Steve tried to put Phil’s face back on, but Phil wouldn’t let him. Phil lashed out shouting, “Gnaaaraaaaaaaaaraaararaaa ho ho ho ho ho ho!” which translated into English means, “OOO isn’t the weather nice, I really fancy a Cornetto.” (By now you may well have guessed that Phil is not the ’sharpest tool in the box’ in fact he is more blunt than a piece of cheese…that’s been melted…and eaten…and excreted…in diarrhoea form.) Phil’s undying thirst for a Cornetto had jeopardised the safety of his face. Steve was getting more panicky and he soon went into catatonic shock. Phil didn’t know this as he could no longer see. So he sat there, his face becoming a huge scab and Steve lying on the floor.

Several hours, sorry days, passed before Phil realised something was wrong. He said quietly, “Steve?”, but Stone Cold gave no reply, he asked again, “Steve!?” But still no reply. He kicked Steve and still nothing happened. Phil started to panic and made strange Chewbacca like noises. “Gnaroodepooyloohoho AARGGGHHH LOLO Flange!” which translated means “Ouch my foot! That big bold bastard is made out of stone aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I have no face.” It was true, Steve was made out of stone (hence the reason he is called “Stone Cold”), he was made of a special type of stone, wood.

So as Steve lay on the floor, probably dead, Phil jumped around panicking like a pogo stick on speed, crashing and smashing everything around him. In the commotion he smashed a bottle of kerosene, and then he leant on a gas tap turning it on. Gas filled the room and Phil could hardly breathe. Without a face he couldn’t see where he was going. For some reason the gas was increasing the rate of his scabbery and soon his mouth was covered in scab. He couldn’t speak. For some reason he could still breathe, but he couldn’t speak. He ran around like a freshly decapitated chicken and in the kerfuffle, knocked over a bottle of brandy, a bucket full of oily rags and a highly flammable porcelain figurine of James Brown. The oil made the floor slippery, Phil fell over and as he stretched his arm out to stop his fall, he flicked the light switch on! BOOM! Up went the room. The spark from the switch combined with the gas caused an explosion equivalent to that of a T-Rex who has just eaten 59 Chicken Vindaloos and stuck a lighter next to his arse! Needless to say, Steve went up in flames, and being made of wood he never stood a chance. Phil was fine, his Armadillo shell and extra fluffyness made him impervious to fire. He probably could of saved Steve, but he couldn’t see and he really wanted that Cornetto.

Sad and alone, Phil wandered the streets, no direction, he just wandred. People pushed him, people laughed, people even poked him in the face with sticks. The Phil I knew and loved was dead. The sadness and depression quickly turned to anger and this started a new breed of terror.

Every night from then on, Phil would run around with a large pitchfork shouting “Eid Eid Eid Gnaar WOO Loopeydoo Hello Dave!!!” Which translated is “Kill Kill Kill GIVE ME CORNETTO, Hello Dave.” He massacred anything that came with four cubic metres of him, poking them, well more stabbing them in the face, like they had done to him. Occasionally, when he found a Cornetto he would sit down and ‘eat’ it but that would soon be followed by the mastication of Magnums; his enemy, for it was the Magnum who killed his parents. Not having a face meant that he could no longer see his enemy so he was no longer fearful of their power. Every year they would transform into some new type of Magnum, a new evil, a new way of killing what fluffy Armadillos there were left. It was Phil’s mission to kill the Magnums, but he had gone made with wretchedness and had taken out his aggression on the humans.

After weeks and months of slaughtering, people started to understandably get a bit fed up. They didn’t know what to do; fluffy Armadillos are flame retardant, nuclear bomb proof and can even withstand the evilness that is PHIL COLLINS! This was the chance for the Magnums to initiate their devious plan. They would rid the people of poor Phil. And they did. Now they are seen as heroes, the Cornettos who Phil represented don’t get a look in. They are now shoved to the back of the fridge, waiting for the chance of freedom, a chance to be taken out of their clothing and take the mythical journey down the digestive system of a human. The Magnums rule now and there is nothing Phil can do about it.

So there he sat, sad and alone. Still praying to Allah and still trying to find a way to get rid of the curse of the Magnum. One day he would, and on that day he would be one that is seen as a hero, he would be the one who can get a face transplant and he would be the one who will eat a massive Cornetto. The Magnums may have won the battle, but they haven’t won the war!

Sunset.

Tourist Port St.Kitts.

St. Kitts.

At Sea.

Antigua.

St. Marten.

Happy Rum Seller In St. Kitts.

St. Kitts’ Greatest Cyclist.

Very Large Cruise Ship.

Sunset In Dominica

Safe.

Click the thumbnails for larger versions.

BATTLES OF MASS DESTRUCTION
I started writing a piece about a flock of ninja squid in a fight with two highly trained battle beavers (as you do) and I realised that to limit it to just these two warlords was a travesty! So I decided to open it up to you, the public; the fine people of this great land as to who would win in these two fights of epic proportions (more fights will follow). For each fight I will draw on my expertise and give information on the participants and how they came together. I will also give my prediction for I know all and can see into the future for that is my eighth sense! (My sixth sense is the ability to change traffic lights and my seventh is the ability to talk complete and utter urine for hours on end).

Fight 1
A Flock of Ninja Squid vs. Two Highly Trained Battle Beavers (Fight being held in the Fleckney Duck Pond)
On paper it’s a compelling contest. But one has to ask: Surely the numbers don’t add up? If the flock of squid is big then the Battle Beavers won’t be able to compete. That’s what one would think, but, let’s not forget that to be a ‘Battle Beaver’ means that you are equipped (not genetically enhanced like a Llama may be) with all sorts of apparatus that make the fighting of Ninja Squid easier; apparatus varying from lighters, kerosene and a big ball of really hot acidic mashed potato. Also it’s not like these Battle Beavers are new or have just started training like the masses of Kamikaze Ants that are springing up all over the middle east, they have been sweating blood and crying dirt for many years and have become the elite of the BA (that does not stand for bad attitude like B.A Baracus from the ‘A-Team’; it simply stands for Beaver Army). As far as the Ninja Squid go, they could do anything. Being so Ninja like, very little is known about them as they live in the shadows, they are ghosts…just with lots of dangly things… that don’t scare people…and aren’t called Casper (it is a clear fact that all ghosts are called Casper)…and struggle to breathe out of water. Apart from having the obvious weakness of not being able to breathe out of water, the squids have the clear advantage of their stealth abilities and the fact that they outnumber the Beavers at least two to one (so sources say) should make this a compelling contest. As long the Squids can contain this fight to the water then they can win but I struggle to see how they will cope with the skill of the Beavers. With the lack of space in the duck pond and the sheer ferocity of their rivals, the Squids may struggle to launch any meaningful attacks. However if the Squids can overwhelm the Beavers- perhaps by shock- then they are in with a chance. They must be very Ninja like and as I said before, stay in the water as breathing is a key part in any type of warfare, unless you want to lose but that’s just silly.

Prediction: In my eyes I see this as a very tight contest but with the eventual winner of the Two Battle Beavers.

Fight 2
B.A Baracus (Mr T) vs. Kriss Akabusi, David Hasselfhoff and Dave Benson Phillips in a Steel Cage Match

This handicap match has the makings of a right sloberknocker, ¼ of the A-Team vs. three of the hardest men that have ever walked the planet. First the Hoff, if good looks, charm and amazing acting skills could kill then this man would have killed so many people that he would be serving 3,456,676 life imprisonments (approximately). Then we have Kriss Akabusi; a sensible phonetic spelling of his name is a far away contrast to the nasty streak that this man has; his pace and pure evil ferocity make this man one hell of a presenter and one hell of a fighter. The final member of the Trio of Impending Doom (also known as Phillip), is the almighty Dave Benson Phillips; without doubt the best gunge merchant of all time. Angry with the fact that he has had to resort to a stupid cooking programme (where he wears a recockulous costume that is apparently meant to make him look like Cysquatch but is more ‘Tom Jones’) DBP wants to get his own back any way possible; even if he has to ram someone’s head through the wire mesh of the steel cage.
B.A Baracus is up against it here, without Murdock, Face and Hannibal to back him up he could be in for trouble, but then again when did he ever need anyone else’s help. The man who can make anything from anything is surely going to find away to assist him in his battle for glory. With the strength of a genetically enhanced Llama and the ingenuity of some guy I met the other day who was really innovative, B.A has a very good chance of coming out of this on top. With a history of fighting hungry landowners, mobsters and Military Policemen, B.A definitely has the most experience to handle the Trio of Impending Doom; he also has the intensity to take them on without any fear. However he also has a big heart and if he sees the grin of the Hoff he may succumb too a crushing defeat.

Prediction: If this wasn’t in a steel cage I would say the B.A Baracus would win easily; if Hoff, DBP and Akabusi can work well together then they will have a good chance of keeping the beast in the cage and stopping him escaping to a glorious victory. (For those of you who didn’t know, the idea of a Steel Cage match is to escape either through the door or over the top, you can also win by ‘pinfall’ or ‘submission’.) But, the almighty trio will have to be on the look for the other ¾ of the A-Team as it is no disqualification and they may have a plan that may just come together in order to help their big bear of a friend. This one is too tight to call so I am going to go for a draw. (Obviously a draw in a fight is when both people are either unable to fight…or dead (although when you’re dead you aren’t normally able to fight)).

For the full-sized versions click the ‘Read article’ link below.

So the annual Rock concert took place on Thursday, featuring the awesome ‘Sleeping on the Shockwave’ (formerly No Industries), which I have to say have come a long long way from their Metallica covering days.

Next up were Round 2 (my band), and we were pretty happy with our performance.

But hey, instead of me talking about it, you can listen to it, MP3’s are at the bottom of the page.

Then Funky Monks came on, which reminded me of Silent Devices in their early PSM days (pre-Josh Coyne).

As for Silent Devices, they were absolutely awesome, the most professional unsigned band I’ve seen. If you haven’t got their EP yet then get it NOW! Their set from Thursday is also being edited, but whether it ends up on here is up to them.

But before Silent devices came Children of Bowden and Return of 72.

Bowden (also with me) got a good response, well, Chris Wells kept harping on about how much he liked us, and I guess if Chris is happy then it’s a job well done!

As for Return of 72?

Musically? absolutely outstanding….

Entertainment value? The bassist smashed up his bass wearing a VERY tight batman suit with a courgette strategically positioned in the front.

And last but not least, the evening was presented by Dan Wade and Lulu, who did a top-notch job!

So a big thanks to the whole music/music tech department for a wicked night, and hopefully it’ll be even better next year!

Downloads: Round Two

• champ.mp3
• notgoodenuff.mp3
• reachingout.mp3
• overrated.mp3
• countmeout.mp3
• gunpoint.mp3

More MP3s and possibly a couple of video clips coming soon.

Having had nothing specific to write for this here site, I thought I would just post this up, merely for the sake of it.

I yawned as I stepped out into the vast forest of Death Woods. I’ve never actually understood the name as every afternoon you could walk out of your house and see small children playing that ring-a-ring-a-roses game where they all seem to celebrate having hay fever. Then you could waltz on down to Madame Pretzel’s bakery and pick yourself a nice plump roll that is oozing with blood red dear meat that isn’t well done but a succulent medium-rare. Then I would go and sit down on a nice park bench in a clearing somewhere to watch the butterflies drift aimlessly from flower to flower. It’s a beautiful wood really, just overshadowed somewhat by its name.
Ahhh yes, I suppose at this point it might make sense for me to say who I actually am as I seem to have delved into my memoirs without a thought as to who might be reading them. I am a bear, just a bear; the usual generic bear. One which you might find living in a hollowed out tree eating honey with it’s astronomically sized hands, clumsily wiping it all over it’s face. I am just a big unbelievably powerful cliché. Nobody understands me, I’m nice, really I am! I don’t maul people to death so that I can eat out their hearts, oh no, not me. Not since I’ve been taking medication for my ADHD.
Yes anyway, there are more important matters to attend to. I was reading Death Woods Daily this morning, (Out local newspaper to you) and after analysing the articles on page 3 in quite some depth (She was a beautiful specimen of a bear so I took a while) I turned back to the front cover and read about some unsavoury tales of old people being slashed to death with kitchen knives. I was somewhat disturbed by this, especially as I have a mother myself (sixty years ripe). As you might guess my worries were increased ten fold when I read that this case of murder was one of many, and to make matters worse the perpetrator had allegedly been stealing cookies from the victim. Now to you that might not be all that drastic, but I love cookies and my Mummy makes me lots and lots. With this in mind I quickly put on my coat and my custom made size 30 flip flops and ran out of the house without even locking it! What an idiot…
So there I was sprinting through the woods, probably hitting about 10mph or something. Yeah I was going fast. It felt good; the wind was thrashing at my big hairy frame. Then a big flash went off, it blinded me for a second so i slowed to a walk and then looked around. To my amusement up above me in the overgrown canopy I saw a speed camera. Ridiculous! So in my sudden fury I punched the entire tree down and after spending ten minutes scouring the floor for the camera I stomped on that too. I felt ever so slightly relieved afterwards.
With that minor set back dealt with I carried on walking down the track until I got in sight of my Mummy’s house. The door was ajar which was slightly disconcerting but I could hear her singing Shania Twain at the top of her voice. The lyrics “come on over, come on in” we ironically well in timing with my arrival to my hilarity. My laughter soon piped down when I saw a small red figure skipping merrily across then lawn towards the door. Oh look, I thought, it’s that little red riding person they all go on about at the bakery. It then clicked after I made that relatively stupid thought; Little Red likes cookies, she’s red and she where’s a hood. That meant one thing to me – she must be the assailant. She has to be heading towards the house because of that beautiful aromatic smell of cookies, she’s red because she’s got blood of her victims on her and she wears a hood so she’s categorically a chav (thus “blatently” beats on grannys for a laugh)! Therefore I must save Mummy from her certain fate!
With this I stampeded through Mummy’s threshold and confronted the little red villain.
“Oy you, ya li’l scruff!” I proclaimed. “Whatcha doin’ in ‘ere!”
“Eeek” she squeeled and hid under a coffee table. I don’t know why she squeeled until I looked at my legs later on and realised that I had left my pyjama bottoms on. I won’t go into description; it would disrespect many a humble folk.
I grabbed her by the hood from underneath the coffee table and waved her about as if she was a mouse trap caught on my finger. I soon put her down when my Mummy came into the room with a big basket of cookies…
“Harold what are you doing?” she said to me with those eyes that beseeched me to stop being disrespectful to guests.
I told her that it was the murderer from the news but she wasn’t interested, so she gave Little Red the basket full of cookies and asked if she wanted some tea. Earl Grey I think it was, but it tasted nice either way. She accepted and we all sat down and drank tea in front of the log fire as it crackled and hissed as the flames leapt about wildly.
After some time my bladder began to impede my thoughts so I went to the toilet quickly to relieve myself. Whilst there I saw something out in the woods from the window, I wasn’t sure what it was but it looked to be the resident woodcutter. Whoever it was ran out of view so I couldn’t continue my observations. Instead I resorted to counting the number of tiles that had mould growing on them. There was quite a few I’ll tell you!
Needless to say counting mould was a stupid thing to do in hindsight as after getting half way round the bathroom I heard a large crash, some growling and then a distressing silence. So I cut my relaxation break in half and stormed into the living room all guns blazing (though I had no guns)! My heart sank as I saw a wolf with its head buried so maliciously in the wicker basket. Crumbs flew about the place as I glanced around only to see the bitter remains of my Mummy and Little Red. I was distraught; my powers of analysis had failed me just like they had with the cheese incident involving a beaver and a member of the YMCA. So in one last attempt to resolve my idiocy I stood and stared… I really am stupid. Fortunately the woodcutter saved me a job as he leapt through the door and sprayed wolf guts up the wall.
And so you have it, one exciting day in the life of a generic bear. No more cookies for me I suppose…

P.S. I killed the woodcutter soon after he wreaked vengeance on the wolf simply because I am a bear and I had forgotten to take my medication.

Fin.