Friday 22 July 2011

The Truth about Matt

18 - The Truth about Matt

It was nice being with Professor Humperdink again as I felt he was my only real friend in this new world I was living in. Every other friend I had was corrupted some way.
Now I was in The Gray Republic, under the "protection" of Emperor Elliot, who was literally a baby in emperor's clothes. My good friend (albeit loopy) Hagley had been disgusted by the fact we had just eaten her sister and had been taken away, where to? I had no idea.

So I found myself in the Emperor's mother's house, which had fallen into disrepair and looked like a house you expected to be haunted.

The inside looked as bad as the outside, there was a large hall with two sets of wooden stairs leading up, one of the set of stairs had collapsed and the other looked like it would go any moment. Cowebs were everywhere and even the dust had dust. JoJo bid us goodnight and went to her chambers upstairs. Luckily, I was situated on the ground floor. For some reason my spidey sense didn't like to be near JoJo.

Matt Warb, a pre-end 28 year old artist who post-end seemed to be pushing two thousand years old, showed me to my room, which had a four poster bed and various portraits of the Gray family.
"I hope this is to your liking Adamicus?" Matt croaked.

"Yeah, it's fine. But look, what the hell happened to you Matt? I mean, you're younger than me and now you're... well, a lot older."

Matt sighed, and leaned on his zimmerframe before telling me his story.

Matt had been celebrating the night before The End, as he had just sold a piece of artwork for a couple of hundred pounds. His comics were starting to pick up in popularity and he had finally met a girl who wasn't crazy, who he had fallen for. Things really couldn't have been better for Matt at this particular moment.
At least he had one last good night before The End. Which is more than can be said for a lot of other people.

The night before The End for me had involved me cleaning up after my wife and...


something is missing.


Where was I? Oh yes, Matt and the morning after the night before.

Well, Matt woke up after The End had happened, so was blissfully unaware of any change happening.
For all of five seconds.

He awoke with a headache but a smile on his face, he'd used the best moves that I'd taught him and pulled the girl he liked. She was in bed with him now. So he turned round and went to say good morning.

However when he turned round, it was no longer the girl, but his mother! I'm actually joking there, it wasn't really, but I still amuse myself with "your mum" jokes when it comes to Matt.
The woman in bed with him was indeed the girl from the night before, but she had inexplicably died when The End happened. Her face was inside out.

Matt rushed out of his room screaming, not minding that he was dangling all over the place as he ran naked from room to room, discovering the other party goers also inside out.
Matt told me he thinks he survived due to all the lead pencils he'd worked with over the years. I told him I thought that was a shit theory, but who knows, maybe he was right?

He went on to tell me that he had gone out looking for other survivors but instead was found by Ray on one of his food hunting missions. Ray and Matt exchanged stories and Matt told Ray about all the dead bodies in his house that could easily be served up to his ever-hungry wife as long as she didn't mind cannibalism. Ray told him that that wasn't a problem.
Matt left Ray and Shav's when he noticed Shav eyeing him up for an entree, and on his journey he bumped into my brother. Matt wouldn't say what happened, no matter how hard I pressed him on it, but just told me that I need to stay away from him at all costs as he'd gone bat shit crazy. I'd find this out for myself in person a little later on.

Shortly after he escaped from my brothers evil clutches he was set upon by rabid badgers. Matt should have died but was saved by Jayme Gray who was out testing his latest contraption (an anti-badger device) They were both overjoyed to see each other and Matt was welcomed to come back with Jayme to their home and he'd been here ever since.

It seemed that something was missing from his story... like where the hell Jayme was? What had aged him prematurely? How had Elliot gotten in charge of this "empire" they've created? But Matt was in no mood for answering questions as a clock struck the hour (which was odd as time isn't working anymore) Matt sighed and went out.

I looked down to Professor Humperdink and told him I had to know what was going on, so we both snuck out of our room and followed Matt. He took his sweet time to get to where he was going, what with moving at speeds a snail would consider to be slow, but in the end he climbed the one good stair case and went into a room where a familiar voice called out "Matt, you took your time!"

It was JoJo in there.

My stomach sank, what the hell was going on!? Was he... you know? I had to find out. So I slowly opened the door, and there they were. I was relieved to find out that it wasn't what I had thought initially thought it was, she was only draining his life force not... well anything else.

JoJo, it seemed, was some kind of Vampire now!

Did you see that coming? I mean, I kinda sign posted it for you with her floating and the way she looked at me like a piece of meat. I actually figured it out when I first saw her at the dinner table and can remember thinking "yup, vampire." If you thought that JoJo was a vampire, then you get ten points. If you get a hundred points you get a prize (I'll tell you where I hid the thingy)

I thought that I'd let them get on with the feeding, so closed the door and turned round to go, but someone was already behind me.

He was skinnier than me, tall and gaunt. His hair was overgrown and grey, and he had a beard that made the dwarves from Lord of The Rings look clean shaven. Behind the beard he had a manic smile and his eyes were wider than a kids on christmas day.

"Adamicus buddy! Elliot told me you were here! Now we can sort this whole mess out!"

and with that, Jayme Gray gave me a large hug and lead me down to his workshop...

Friday 15 July 2011

Dinner with Shmucks

17 - Dinner with Shmucks

Another thing to add to the list of things that I took for granted before The End, was depth perception. I used to be able to tell how close stuff was by just looking at it, now that I only have one eye however, it's a combination of guess work and luck.
The Emperor sent me away to get changed into something a little less "pantomime" as I had still been wearing the costume from the show I'd been in. I was taken to a "wing" of the Emperor's Palace which used to be a GAP. I got changed into my "Gap Apparel" and Humperdink lead me back to the table.

Emperor Elliot was strapped into his highchair and cooing to no one in particular. Not having had food with an emperor before I wasn't sure on the correct etiquette so just sat in the nearest mismatched chair.

There was silence for a while as my mind raced to think of something to say to a baby, some kind of common ground we'd have. My childhood came rushing back to me as I thought about what I had done when I was his age. I remembered my mother and father and my big brother and I realised how much I missed them all. I hoped they weren't here, in the post-end world I was living in.

Elliot broke the silence "So... you like sports?"

I didn't. There wasn't any kind of sport I enjoyed that wasn't a computer game version of the real sport. But to avoid the silence that would no doubt happen after I said that I didn't like sports, I decided to lie and told Elliot that indeed I did enjoy sports.

"Who do you support?" he asked, sitting up on his high chair a little and for the first time since I met him, I noticed he had a strange look in his eye. A look that seemed to be daring me to put a foot wrong, I shrugged off my interpretation of Elliot's stare as after all he was just a baby. But... he DID order Myke to kill all the "mutants", so this baby was far from innocent.

So who did I support? I tried to think what teams he would want me to support. I didn't want to say one team, only to find out that he hated that team and would have me killed for supporting them, then again I had no evidence that this was any kind of test where if I said the wrong answer I'd die.

I thought about what team his father supported, The Air Cyans. Maybe Elliot was raised to support them? Or maybe he rebelled against his father, as there was no sign to where the elder Gray was.

"Well?" he asked, sitting further forward in his high chair, raising one eyebrow at me in the process.

"The... Air Cyans." I replied in haste.

Elliot didn't look convinced and was about to say something when a sudden chill fell on the room and seemingly out of nowhere his mother JoJo appeared. She looked very pale, and had died her hair jet black. She looked not unlike Morticia Addams and when she moved, she seemed to float.

"Adamicus, I was so pleased when Ellibear told me you that were still alive" she said in a cool calm voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. I looked down at my cat Humperdink and all of his fur was on end, so at least it wasn't just me.

"Mother, please do not refer to me as "Ellibear" in front of... guests." Elliot replied in an angry tone.

His mother looked at him and laughed a sweet shallow laugh, then sat herself down at the table.

Next to arrive was a friendlier face, it was Hagley, who I'd not seen since I got her. She was on the arm of the disfigured Wolverhamptonite Myke and she couldn't take her eyes of him. She was so in love. Myke nodded at me, bowed before the emperor and then sat down with Hagley opposite me.

"Will father be joining us?" Elliot asked his mother. JoJo, was staring at me at this point, like a dog stares at unguarded food on a table. I had the distinct feeling she wanted to kill and or eat me.

"No, your father is in his workshop..."

"And what of the Godfather?" he replied, going a little red in the face.

"I'm here" said a croaky voice in the corner.

Matt Warb, a very talented artist before The End, walked into the room. He had aged significantly as he was about a hundred years older than the last time I'd seen him and now had a zimmerframe for support. Poor ol' bastard. My hopes of doing a "your mum" joke were dashed straight away as I felt too sorry for him in that moment.

"Well then, we're all here" Elliot surmised.

"Not quite all of us! Or are you forgetting me?" a female voice called out. I looked around and there was no one else in the room with us, well, no humans anyway. Looking down I noticed the Gray's cat Pom sauntering towards us.

She was a beautiful looking cat before The End, and looked even more appealing now. I noticed Professor Humperdink lost his cool and went over to sniff her, she swiped at him and he came running back to me.

"I think she likes me" Humperdink whispered.

Elliot asked me of my adventures so far, what had happened, so I filled him in on my plight. He assured me that I was safe now I was in his domain and that they'd send soldiers to try and find my long suffering lady wife Louise.

Things were perfect... until I complemented Elliot on the pork, to which he told me it wasn't pork, it was the remains of Hagley's half-arachnid sister who Myke had murdered in cold blood.

Nothing is ever what it should be after The End. You have a lovely meal and it's always spoilt with finding out that you're eating a loved one or worse.

Hagley, although happy to finally be reunited with her long lost love Myke, lost all her composure and began shouting at the infant. Elliot was not happy, not happy at all and rang a little bell.

Soldiers appeared from nowhere and dragged Hagley off into another room, I looked to Myke who simply stared at his empty plate. I couldn't believe he let them take her away, and so I demanded to know what was to happen to Hagley!

"She'll be sent to the Tower, and if you have a problem with that, you'll go there too. Now, I want to go in my jump-a-roo for a few hours, Mother see that our guest is properly housed." and with that the little emperor was lifted from his high chair by his mother and put in a bouncy play seat thing which played music and made him giggle.

JoJo floated over to me and told me that I'd be staying with her till my quarters were ready, Professor Humperdink gave me a glance that told me that I'd either wake up dead or not at all if I stayed with JoJo, but I had no other choice, she "insisted".

With that debaucle over, I left with JoJo, Professor Humperdink and the ancient Matt Warb, whilst Myke sat there staring into his plate... planning his next move...

Thursday 14 July 2011

What's App Doc? : Quiz Climber


I'm not a fan of games on facebook since my notifications tend to be full of invites to random games that are the equivalent of licking the pavement and paying someone every now and again to put some sherbet on the spot you're licking to add a bit of something to the "game" you're playing.

I had a go of Frontier Ville and realised that it was trying to suck my soul through my arse like an Egyptian mummy in an old peoples home. (Where's Elvis and a black JFK when you need them!?)
However there's a game on the iphone that you can play with people on your facebook list. It's called Quiz Climber and it's a general knowledge quiz that has you (a squirrel) answering question after question to get as high up the (presumably) never ending tree as possible. To spur you on, it shows you were your friends are in relation to you, playing to the competitive persona inside of us all.

It's a nice looking game that reminds me of the cutesy graphics in a Happy Tree Friend cartoon minus the gory gory bloodshed.

The questions start off pretty simple, but get tricky the further you go up. There's no Phone a friend or ask the audience options on this, you have one life.... unless... unless you spend some money and buy yourself extra lives.
So, that kind of goes against the whole point of it surely? I mean, a smart person with no extra lives could get high, but potentially a dumb person with lots of lives could get even higher? Well, they've got to pay for their work somehow. Fret not however as each time you finish a game of this, your correct answers add to a bar that when completed give you a gift of a free life to use whenever you so wish.
You can pick up Quiz Climber for free (with adds) or for £1.49 without. It's a pretty good quiz game and the added competitive scores of friends will add some extra life to it. If you're on my facebook, expect an invite to this coming your way.

Friday 8 July 2011

Emperor Gray

16 - Emperor Gray

I'd been knocked out (yet again) by someone I used to consider as a "nice person". Myke, the Wolverhampton partner of my crazed companion Hagley, was no longer a "nice person" as he had killed Hagley's arachnoid sister and the other mutants that I'd been "performing" with in pantomime.

So what happened to him?

He, Hagley, Molly and Irish, had all been together when The End happened. For those who can't remember, didn't read, or can't be arsed to go back and read, when The End happened everything went dark and the four of them had stuck together to try and get out of town as everything had gone bat shit crazy.
On their way out of town they encountered gigantic insects that carried Irish off and stung Molly, making her head swell, her neck elongate and her skin to turn purplish. Also it made her really docile and odd looking. Myke, thinking he could use the years of survivalist skills he'd picked up over the years, decided to go after Irish whilst Hagley looked after Molly in a school they had found shelter in.

Myke didn't find Irish, but instead got caught in a "rain storm" and rain these days is made from fire. He lost half of his face (the good half) and now didn't looked more like Jeff Goldbloom from The Fly, then he did Ryan Reynolds from... any movie with Ryan Reynolds in.

(Jeff Goldbloom is still alive by the way, he's now the president of what was once called America and is now called Jeff Goldbloom Land, I don't know Ryan Reynolds fate but a pretty boy like him is probably somebody's bitch)

Myke became disorientated and wandered into some woods that were full of Badgers. (Badgers being the deadliest predator in the woods) It didn't take long for them to find him and surround him. Myke would have been a dead man had it not been for an intervention by Elliot Gray, the ruler of the Gray empire, and now my host.

I awoke to the feel of sandpaper against my face. I opened my eyes to see my cat Professor Humperdink licking me awake. I'd totally forgotten about the posh cat and was so glad to see a familiar face, even though it was feline. I hugged him tightly till he wiggled free of my grip

"I'm glad to see you too old chap, did you find the other mother?"
He was of course referring the my long suffering lady wife Louise, who was lost to me after The End. I felt ashamed, as the Panto had taken over my life, I'd not even thought about her since the first night of "Robinson Crusoe 2"
I told him I'd still not had any luck and he looked a little glum at that news. He was always very fond of Louise, as was my other cat Simba. Professor Humperdink, I noticed, was wearing a little grey cape and had a little grey cap on his head. The room I was in smelt of strong spices, and was decorated in black and red striped wallpaper that made me feel a bit queasy if I looked at it too long. I asked my cat what happened, where I was and how he got here.

He told me about the Gray soldiers finding them at the school and that Molly, he and Simba had been taken to see Emperor Gray. The Emperor wasn't fond of "mutants" but Molly made him laugh so she was appointed official Jester. Elliot allowed to the cats to stay as long as they joined his growing army of soldiers. Simba had been on the front lines at the battle of Daventry and Professor Humperdink hadn't seen him since.

Humperdink then told me that we were in one of the Emperor's many "houses", which used to be a Nandos, and that Elliot had asked to see me.
"What's he like, Elliot?" I asked. I hadn't seen Elliot since he was a baby so I guessed that since The End he had suddenly grown into a man, as time does all manner of things these days.

"Well, he's... It's best if you see for yourself."

So, I was lead, by my cat, out of the Nando's house I had awoke in, and out onto the streets of Norfamtonne.

Things had changed a lot since I was last here, as all around the high street there were large grey banners with "Long Live Gray" written on them. The streets were full of market stalls and people browsing. It seemed that "society" had survived after all!

We walked for a while through the crowds and after a short time we came upon the Imperial Palace, which was a series of shops all merged into one. The golden arches of McDonalds were still visible under lots of grey paint.

In the "foyer" there was amazing pieces of artwork that I recognised straight away as my friend Matt Warb's handiwork. So this looked as though he had made it through the end too, I was looking forward to meeting him, even if it was just so I could do a joke about his mum for old times sake.

We walked up some stairs and into a large room. There was a huge dining table stretched across the width of the room and several mismatched chairs around it. The table was piled high with various foods and it all looked and smelt amazing. The seats were all empty except for a high chair in the middle, and sitting in that little chair was a baby.  A baby named Elliot, who somehow, was the ruler of all that I had walked past.

Humperdink who just shrugged at me. Cat's shrugging is pretty odd to observe by the way. I stood for some time looking at the little fellow before he decided to speak up.

"You were a friend of my fathers I seem to recall" His voice, by the way, was booming and very deep. He sounded not unlike Brian Blessed.

"I am, Elliot"

"Then you shall dine with me, me and my whole family. Please, help yourself to a change of clothes and come back after you've changed."

For a moment, I forgot that he had ordered the deaths of several "mutants" I had befriended. Anyone who is kind to me after The End, is usually wanting to kill me, enslave me, eat me or wear my skin as a suit, but I didn't fear the Baby Emperor, after all, he was just a baby.

That belief, that he couldn't harm me, or wouldn't, cost me my eye.

Wednesday 6 July 2011

The Absurd Practical Joke

My long suffering lady wife Louise and I were having a conversation the other day about baby photo books. We've got a lovely baby book off of our good friend Pope, but Louise was also wanting to get a photo album.

My brain is like god. It moves in mysterious ways. (and to an aethist, doesn't exist)

Louise had stated that she'd like to have a photo album that our child could look back at when my brain suddenly came out with an idea. I considered the idea for all of five nanoseconds before I dismissed it as ridiculous.

But I did share the thought with her however, and now, as my loyal reader(s), I shall submit the idea to you so that maybe you could use it instead or dismiss it as the lunacy that it is.

I proposed that we get a photo album and take lots of pictures like my long suffering lady wife Louise had suggested, however, at the same time we get pictures of an Asian family with a Caucasian baby and fill up another baby book.

Then one day, we tell them. We're not their real parents, and out comes the baby book with the Asian family. We then get them to pack up some luggage for a fortnight and tell them we're taking them to stay with their real parents for two weeks. Then when we get to the airport we tell them that we're all going to Disney World instead!

Price of a photo-album: £15
Holiday to Disney World: £600
The Look on their face as it dawns on them that you are the worst parent ever: Priceless
For everything else there's social services.

So yeah, really not a good idea at all, and honestly I'd never do something like that to anyone, but it does make me worry that somehow my brain fired that idea off to me. I think I need to get it examined.

Friday 1 July 2011

Curtain Call

15 - Curtain Call

The feeling you get when an audience appreciates what you've done is the best drug money can't buy. It's a high you can't feel any other way and it's more addictive than a packet of your favourite biscuits.

This "high" had entranced both myself and Hagley for some time. Those "happy" days of theatre life all mingle into one when I try and think about it now, probably as a defence mechanism that my brain uses to block out painful or just plane crazy sights.

So, we'd been working in the theatre day in day out, eating the grey gloop that was provided and getting a standing ovation from a crowd of floating faces and all those thoughts we'd once had about finding loved ones had disappeared. We were "happy". Except that was an act too. When it came down to it, we were prisoners, forced to do the bidding of the floating brains in jars or be vaporised for our insubordination!

Now Panto season comes to a close, and what a bloody finale I have for you.

It was a night like any other and myself and Hagley were oblivious to what was coming our way. You see whilst we were in the bubble of the Theatre, some other developments had happened outside our four walls.

My old pal Molly, the freak with the elongated neck, purplish skin and currently guardian of my two talking cats, had been discovered and "Rescued" by a powerful force that had arisen. They'd told their "saviours" what had happened (as Simba had seen us be captured, but was too much of a pussy-cat to do anything about it) and they reported this back to their leaders.

The new force decided to stage a rescue attempt as both myself and Hagley were known to their leaders from the before The End times.

It was the first time I encountered The Gray Republic, and I should have known from their no-nonsense approach to their mission to "save" us, that things weren't as "friendly" as they appeared. My god I'm using a lot of quotation marks.

Hagley and I were halfway through our performance of our Glee style mash up of "Gold Digger" and "Purple Rain" in the panto Aladdin and The Beanstalk when suddenly the lights went out. There was silence for a few moments and the audience started getting restless.

The silence didn't last long, as the left hand side of the theatre exploded and what I can only describe as grey coloured stormtroopers from Star Wars, came crashing through opening fire on the audience. The directors fought back of course, using the lasers that had vaporised so many cast members and hopeful auditionees in their time. It was a bloody battle, but the Gray's won it.

The Audience were dead when in walked someone I'd not seen in a long time. I noticed The End had not been kind to him as his walked over to me dressed in grey armour that had seen more action than a pretty prostitute. I didn't recognise him at first as the left side of his face was badly burnt, but when he smiled I realised to my horror who it was. He spoke with his Wolverhampton accent "Alrite Hagley, did yow miss me?"

It was Hagley's boyfriend Myke. I looked at her and she fainted, an effect that I have on women, but today it was down to it being the return of her long thought dead partner. I too was happy to see him but my happiness wasn't long lived as Hagley's sister scuttled over to see him with her freakish spider legs.

"Myke, you're alive! Thank god"

In one move he pulled out a pistol and shot her through the head. "Kill all the freaks, orders are orders"

"Who's orders?" I asked in defiance.

"Under the orders of Emperor Gray!" he replied.

I knew who he was talking about, my friends Jayme and JoJo Gray. I wondered what had become of the Grays to make them so Anti-Mutant.

"I'm sure Jayme wouldn't want you to go killing people he knows, he knew Hagley's sister!"

Myke looked at me gone out and then said "I don't work for Jayme or JoJo you fool. I work for The Emperor"

My mind raced, if not Jayme or JoJo, then who? So I asked him.

"If not Jayme or Jojo, then who!?"

"Why Elliot of course... their son. Our illustrious leader!"

The last time I'd see Elliot, he was but a baby, however now he was in charge of this militia who were systematically killing off mutants! One of the soldiers went to shoot Leo, I tried to stop him and got knocked out.

When I awoke, I was a guest of Emperor Elliot and all was not well...