Substitute

He kept his brisk pace all the way from the Big Oak until the next dusty intersection and then allowed himself another discreet glance backwards. When again he saw no one he wondered whether he was actually being followed or simply losing his mind. A desperate desire to search more was met and overpowered by a realisation of the time. In the near distance he saw the rusted post box, a sign he was within a kilometre of the homestead that today would double as a church. His body followed orders without question; the box drew closer.

“I won’t do it Sir. I’m sorry but I just won’t.”

“You’ve been paid a lot of money. You will.”

“I’m sorry Sir, I can’t leave it alone for fear it may get vandalised.”

“There’s no one around to do that.”

“Animals.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. No cow’s going to piss on your car.”

‘I’m sorry Sir. I can’t.’

The exchange repeated over and over. It filled the time between periodic glances back in search of an untraceable and possibly non-existent companion.
Reaching the post box brought little relief. On inspection the quiet road behind was still unmanned. He leant his hand against the large tree to which the post box was attached and inadvertently its sap weeping from a fresh wound.

The birds sang merrily to him as he passed through the property gate. In his mind they were unsettled. A warning. The owner had shown he and his fiancée two days earlier how prone this gate was to breaking, he’d been very strict with instructions on how to open and close it.

He was twenty metres up the drive when that same metallic gate crashed down on dry earth. Wheeling around he saw for the first time who’d been following him before collapsing into unconsciousness.

Adrian stood on the steps of the homestead waiting ever so impatiently. He searched his mobile phone needlessly for missed calls. There were none. His frustration ebbed and flowed in sync with the phone’s patchy reception. Another five minutes passed and Adrian slumped onto the steps, defeated. It would now be his responsibility to explain to all assembled that the wedding would have to be postponed. He was rehearsing lines of explanation in a low mumble as he attempted to summon any courage he had spare.

“Adrian” came a familiar voice.

“What are you doing here?” followed Adrian’s slightly muddled response.

“I’m getting married.”

“Yeah but where have you been? I was calling.”

Adrian didn’t hear the excuse, momentarily distracted by the unusual fact that his best friend was checking his phone for missed calls right-handed, something odd for a ‘leftie’.

In a parallel reality an Angel sat casually back in his chair mindlessly plucking at a harp left for his enjoyment. It was the only thing in the room apart from an unconscious body lying calmly on a bed just centimetres from his feet. While his fingers strummed his mind contemplated the man dressed in a white suit and the small puddle of sap directly below where his hand hung over the edge.

Some of the bridesmaids were unnerved. The bride now represented something of a minefield. Any false verbal step could result in an explosion. It was for this reason that they remained very quiet and very still as they waited for the one man that could dismantle the danger.

‘He’s here,’ braved one of them reading the text Adrian had just sent her.

The music began and provided the cue for the women to leave their chamber and begin chirping in excitement once more.

As the vows were being taken the body on the bed stirred, sat up and searched around for something familiar before settling on what he would all but call a man wearing a welcoming expression next to a harp.

“Who are you?”

“Welcome.”

“To where?”

“It’s hard to say really. What I can tell you is that you’ve been subbed, that I’m an Angel and that you’re going to love this place.”

“Angel?”

“More of a job title really. But that’s not the point. As I said you’re subbed. Someone who died unfairly early in life was offered a second chance and yours was the life chosen. He’s grown up with you, following your every move as you lived it. He knows you, or rather himself now, inside and out.”

“On my wedding day?!”

“Big events make the transition smoother. Any initial errors or jitters they have as you have a better chance of going unnoticed.”

“That’s ridiculously unfair.”

“I’ve been in this room for forty-eight hours with a harp and an unconscious guy for company. That’s unfair. Would you like to see them?”

The first thing he saw was the same clone that had been following him just hours earlier now with his fiancée. They were leaving the makeshift church in a haze of excitement. Kisses and congratulations carried them down the steps towards an empty drive.

“Honey, where’s the car?” She asked her recently crowned husband.

“It broke down. That’s why I was late.”

“So how do we get to our honeymoon?”

Proving to be an ever-reliable best man Adrian stepped in offering the keys to his pride and joy.

“Take mine.”

Initially it seemed a great idea. It was only as he opened the door and took his place in the driver’s seat that a great wave of uncertainty took hold. At the time of his passing he’d never even sat in the front seat let alone drive. Watching from afar is no substitute for hands on experience. Automatic he noticed, a small stroke of luck.

As they cruised off down the drive and through the now defunct gate his confidence grew. The country roads offered a stress free crash-course in handling. Once they left the property boundaries however, the gravel grew looser, the tree line thicker, closer and this mixed with his inexperience was enough to tempt fate once more. It was quick like the first time, unexpected. And just like the first time he awoke to that welcoming face sitting next to a harp.

ART

He looked back and the paper he’d so recently placed on the table. To him it was art. ‘Of course anything could be considered art but this was really art. Good shit. Art that'd make waves in countries where it was really appreciated. Not here. People overseas understood that stuff like this was worth a lot more than something to look at. It changed life.’

Having processed this thought he gently lay down the yellow crayon. It’d done it’s job, having successfully created the sun over the beach. He felt like saying ‘that’ll do pig, that’ll do’ to the crayon. It would have made him laugh out loud, but on account of it being a strange thing to do when one was alone he chose not to.

His fingers stretched colourfully around the self-decorated paper cup. The effect was one of transparency showing a coffee based contents to the world. He’d used black instead of brown for that. ‘Artistic choice.’ Placing the cup back he paid extra care not to spill on what must surely be his finest piece yet. He left his chair contentedly, moved to the yard taking in sunlight and inspiration. All the while his lizard sat calmly in a cabinet across the room, watching, sensing.

A magpie that until that moment hadn’t offered any evidence of it’s existence decided the timing was right to relieve it’s bowels of all unwanted. One moments relief was all there was, broken by a sharp cry that rose from below causing the bird to fright and seek safer branches.

‘If only I could fly’, he mumbled to himself. ‘Then I’d drop my guts on every bastard crow there was.’

‘Humans, wings, crows’, he thought (mistaking the bird for something it wasn’t). The image formed instantly in his ambitious mind. It took only a few paces back inside before he’d started. To the lizard it seemed longer.

The falu red, black and flesh coloured crayons answered every demand, inspiration was drawn from the slightest thing. A blade of dewy grass still stained his heel. Inspiration drawn.

On turning he now saw the lizard on the right side of the cabinet. It had been longer than he thought.

Exercising the full capabilities of his swivel chair he returned to the desk taking in an horrific sight. Laying on his crowning glory, the one with the sun and the beach, in certain provocation, was a streak of Magpie shit.

“Bastard Crow”, he cursed, again incorrect.

A clock rested patiently at the bottom of the wall. To pass the time it told it. Had it had eyes it would have seen the whole drama unfold, right from the beginning, when the poo was carelessly flung from hair to desk.

The lizard lounged his tail in a small bowl of water. 

“Do you see this?”

The lizard chose not to respond.

“Bloody Crow.”

The fan rotated in time with the clock and sent down sweet nothings in an attempt to cool the heated atmosphere. It held a bird’s eye position during the challenging clean up. A precise process that required expert patience.

The fan turned.

The lizard moved from side to side.

Time ticked by.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the artistic merit returned. What had previously scarred now lay in a bin.

But the former glory was not yet restored. This was becoming a dangerous position to be in, one of nothing to lose.

The now falu red and yellow fingers stretched once more for his cup, they tested the water. Now moist, they took to the page and the remaining stain.

‘Fuck.’

It was that moment you know you’ve gone one step to far and made something infinitely worse.

The clock continued to break the now tense silence.

A great disaster had struck and all that was left was to sit and ruminate on what the world would say. Major galleries were out. A viral sensation was still a possibility but the probable outcome would be t-shirts.

T-shirt designs were always a last resort.

The page was torn in immediate unforseen rage. A ruined piece was a worthless piece, an embarrassment. Then it was torn again. A satisfying chill ran up and down his spine.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, aresholy Crow”, he cried.

Then he cried.

Slowly the resentment of all that had happened gently subsided. He felt the fans whispers on his head and was grateful of them. He thought about it’s ability to settle any drama over time. Time, the time that his clock so religiously counted for him and his lizard. His lizard.

‘The fan, the clock and the lizard.’ This was an artistic gun loaded with genius.

It should have started immediately had the stomach not disagreed.

Lunch was needed.

Having watched him leave the room now sat peacefully.

And somewhere far off was one just finishing lunch. Settling in a tree the digestive process took charge and ensured that a magpie took his second shit of the day.

Like Father Love Son

My wife is like the Spring. Spring to me is a time of rebirth and each day spent with her is a day I’m reborn. She’s a gust of warm wind washing over me, the only time I comfortably close my eyes and walk on without worry in the dark. She guides the best things about me to the surface and encourages them to interact with all they can. Without her I am nothing. Less than nothing. I’m negative and lost. We met as young adults in what we often describe ‘fortunate’ circumstances for want of a better word. My father, a keen hunter, would often demand my presence as he sought out the unfair contest. He never killed more than one animal on a hunt, often none, not from a lack of intent but a lack of ability. If trees were considered adequate trophies then my father would have been a fine marksman and one requiring a bigger shed. I have to thank the hunt daily however because it was this painfully bad aim that granted me my wife. Having spotted a ‘kill’ running through the distance he lifted his weapon, planted it squarely in his shoulder and unleashed a weapon of mortal destruction that elicited no wound, merely a scream of human fear. Standing catatonic next to my father’s latest arboreal victim was a girl no older than my self, no older due to the fact she was weeks younger. That near death experience that we shared somehow proved to be an incredibly potent aphrodisiac and ensured I never wanted to spend a day away from her again. She was a girl of nature. She respected and appreciated everything that lived and endured torrid arguments with my father throughout our courting. It was only when I finally convinced her to join my father and I on a hunt that she acknowledged natures relative safety in the hands of this grim reaper wielding his blunt scythe.

Together we had a boy that grew to be a fine young man. The last I heard of him he had found his own wife and was enjoying life as the father to a young girl. He doesn’t visit now, he’s gone without word and taken his family with him. I sleep badly wondering if I’d done it wrong, driven him away, I feel responsible and dream bad dreams but each morning as I wake and roll over in bed I see my wife and am reborn.

I never thought it would end up like this, in a lot of ways it’s comfortable. My parent’s bed, mum’s clothes, which are a surprisingly good fit, dad sleeping peacefully on his side of the bed. I don’t go so far as to spoon with him though.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to spoon, it’s just that I prefer to do it with my wife.

Though she’s not reciprocating my affections at the moment. It’s not my fault, it just all came to a head and I had to act decisively or let dad go, and who’s gonna do that? He’d been calling me ‘Sweetheart, Toots, Honey’ for months anyway, putting on her clothes and moving in wasn’t that big of a deal in the end. Had I not, who knows what would’ve happened? He threatened to kill himself for Christ’s sake, because he thought his wife, now me, was leaving him in a lesbian affair with a younger woman, Janet, my actual wife. He doesn’t even know mum’s dead. If I’m honest he hasn’t got long left either so what’s wrong with a bit of role-play in the interim? I do understand why Janet’s upset. She doesn’t come round anymore, I wouldn’t either if an eighty-eight year old man screamed ‘Homewrecker’ until I left. Her beds lonely, her daughter never stops asking ‘when daddy’s back and why is he a girl now?’ But how do you explain this to a seven year old? She’d think it crazy. Her class is doing presentations about what their dad’s do for a job, I wonder what she’s come up with. I’m sick of answering the same question, about the -, our -, his sex -, their sex life. Suffice to say I now know how effective headaches can be. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to admit there are oddities but when I strip it all back it’s helped me a lot too. On site I find I’m managing the construction lads much better. They never used to respect my authority but now when I’m around they stop chatting and get straight back to work. It’s like they’re scared of me, which is great for efficiency. I’m more relaxed without having to do the school runs every day and prepare dinner every night. Dinner these days is sixty seconds in the microwave. I love it. But the main thing I always tell people is ‘it’s a question of family.’ I want to support my dad who gave me everything and I’ll expect my daughter to do the same if it comes to it. If I go bonkers then yeah, I’d expect her to pretend to be my wife and get me through to the end if it stops me killing myself. Who wouldn’t? It’s easier for her anyway, she’s already a girl.

Sex help...I can do that.

Paul and Yvonne sat idly by and watched without alarm as their sex life drifted down the river of time. They were positioned on a comfortable log by the riverbank quite unaware of one another’s presence.

Paul took the time rather well. He thought of his son’s first school camp. Dropping him off, seeing him onto the bus as other parents did the same but with alternate children. His son sat at the back where he could be seen through the window, he was one of the cooler kids, a fact Paul secretly enjoyed (having been picked on all through his own education), it saved him a lot of time parenting and money counselling. He watched his son disappear into the distance which the bus took him. It turned a corner with a lovely big oak tree standing firm in the wind. He never remembers where camp was but always remembers the oak with its slightly decayed branches.

Yvonne was less content. She struggled to deconstruct her latest recurring dream. As a fish she can see the fisherman’s bait floating deliciously just inches of hydrating H²O from her face. She knows it for what it is. She’s seen fish fall prey before. She doesn’t want it to happen, she does not want to eat this amazingly tantalising piece of worm squirming just for her as if to say ‘hey baby, come check out the taste sensation.’ There’s plenty more worms in the sea she thinks as she bites down, considers the fact that she’ll need a coral pick to get this hook from her mouth, realises she’s made the mistake signing her off to fate.

‘Yvonne’.

She’s ripped from her thoughts (and the safety of the water) by a voice her husband acquired some time after birth.

‘Yvonne I was thinking, where was his first camp?’

‘We need help’ comes her distracted reply.

‘Can’t you remember it either?’

‘I’m talking about our sex life’.

Paul realises that maybe he and his wife aren’t so distant; after all they’re thinking about sex at the same time. ‘Oh’ he says, wishing Fabio had written a ‘how to’ on women.

‘When was the last time we had sex?’

‘I gave up remembering’ comes his all too honest reply, Fabio would hang his head in shame.

‘Do you care? I care. I want sex. Come with me.’

Her commanding tone leads Paul from the house into the passenger seat and on a journey that only Yvonne knows the destination of. In Yvonne’s mind the car’s amphibious, hurtling down the river in pursuit of that sex life so nearly submerged.

The only attempt at conversation, ‘Well look at that, in our rush I forgot to change out of my pyjama pants’ is not met with response.

They arrive at Doctor Larry’s Sex Help Clinic.

Doctor Larry being a personal friend of Yvonne’s makes time to see the couple without delay.

‘I don’t care about your appointed time, I’ve just been met with a sexual emergency, now get out!’ provides the cue for Yvonne and Paul to make their way into Larry’s office, squeezing past the potent glares aimed squarely from the couple so recently ripped-off.

In the office sits a desk housing the front end of a chair, the walls adorned with what science calls ‘anatomy’ and the porn industry calls ‘soft’. Along the wall lies a bed, you can smell the clean sheets.

‘Yvonne, Darling, what’s the problem? Who’s this?’

‘This is my husband.’

‘Hi.’

‘Hello.’

‘Larry, Sweetie, we’ve come because we need help.’

‘You’re not having sex’ Larry asks expertly assessing the problem.

‘That’s exactly right’ she replies, unable to hide her marvel at his almost psychic abilities.

‘Isn’t that why everyone comes here’ Paul asks cutting a swathe through the indulgence.

‘No it’s not. But by looking at you and knowing Yvonne I managed to diagnose the problem directly. I’m going to help you love each others bits again’ Larry reassures.

The indulgence cuts back.

‘But it’s going to take a whole heap of trust. I’ll see you both individually.’

In the waiting room Paul’s focus wanders unrestrained. Easily done at a sex clinic. The décor stinks of meticulous planning. Magazines alphabetically arranged. Various colours fighting to distinguish themselves on every other surface. Mirrors emblazoned with the text, ‘WHAT IS IT YOU FORGOT TO LOVE?’

‘I’m not sure’ Paul responds in thought, ‘I used to like grapes.’

The female secretary’s bust line, teetering on the edge of inappropriateness and at times slipping over the edge before being recovered with the aid of her adjustments, screams for attention. She wears thick-rimmed jet-black spectacles that lack lenses. A bleach blonde head of hair compliments her fantastic good looks. Any man would argue that an attractive secretary is the last thing you need in a sex-clinic, it leads to impure thoughts, in Paul’s case those thoughts eventually give way to his newfound acknowledgement of the chandelier. As he begins to consider its relevance the door to Larry’s office glides open on freshly greased hinges, Yvonne’s ruffled appearance comes into view.

‘I totally trust him Honey’ she manages as she slumps in a chair attempting to corral her emotions.

Larry’s arm appears around the door loaded with a long investigative finger that points directly at Paul and begins curling in action. Once he’s bridged the door’s threshold Paul realises that his Doctor is standing stark naked, balls and all exposed without remorse. Clothes lay strewn about the office, most notably the underwear suffocating a desk lamp.

‘Now Paul, remember we talked about trust? I’ve just mated with your wife and expect to do the same with you, that way I can better understand what needs fixing.’

It felt good making an impulse decision for what seemed to be the first time in his life. It was refreshing to throw random belongings in a suitcase and that, in turn, into the back of the very same car he’d been a passenger only hours earlier. Now he sat in the drivers seat, pyjama bottoms comforting him in some unprofound way. He was unaware how his wife would get home, Larry owed her a favour he figured, maybe she could score a lift from him.

Whilst without solution to his marital problems his sexual dignity remained intact, which, in turn, uncovered a dormant libido gasping for expression. Was it because of jealously? A boiling over of repressed sexual frustration? Or possibly just because he’d had a naked doctor wanting to ‘mate’ with him. Whatever it was didn’t really matter. All that mattered now was whether the intended girl (whom he’d so recently developed a romantic interest in) might act on a similar impulse. He pulled to the side of the road and dialled.

‘Doctor Larry’s Sex Help Clinic, Lucy speaking.’

‘Hi Lucy, I’m Paul’ he began…