Tag: #Amwriting
-
‘I don’t know what I want with you yet,’ says Jodocus Meaddowcraft to the General Assembly of the United Nations. ‘You brought me here and I haven’t had time to formulate a plan.’
All languages at once are heard true in his ear. Only the world cannot hear each other.
‘You gathered people are right to be afraid because it was a terrible idea to wake me up and get me here from there. A terrible idea.’
The Assembly have no words.
‘I will take petitions like a king from old. You may visit me in my court. I will accept tributes of all and every kind. I will read four letters a day but only if they are handwritten. Be there in person and be prepared to wait for a long time.’
Jodocus Meaddowcraft turns to leave.
‘I warn you though,’ he says over his shoulder. ‘I cannot ever be fair.’
Share this:
-
Sea levels start to rise. Waves lap. Buildings now bob. Submerged where once they stood tall and proud. Clouds boil black and fearful. Deserts grow tall green grass springing from the dirty sand.
‘Simple tricks,’ says Jodocus Meaddowcraft. ‘Pointless entertainments designed not to prove worth but to simply demonstrate. D-E-M-O-N-STRATE.’
Mere feints and darts. Patients are miraculously healed and tumours disappear. But churches collapse. Ocean liners sink without trace. Airplanes vanish. Technologies begin their fail. Countries start to starve.
‘This is what I mean by disorder,’ smirks Jodocus Meaddowcraft. ‘In the time we have already spent together I have brought seventy six species of plants and animals back from extinction whilst also removing 0.000002% of the world’s population.’
Jodocus Meaddowcraft looks through the camera into the eyes of the world.
‘The question is what next?’
Share this:
-
‘We are here,’ says Jodocus Meaddowcraft. Not tall or small or large. Just him. Her. Both. Neither. All. Bleary-eyed. Centuries-old and the same tired. Crumpled after arriving. Constipated. Wearing a plain linen suit with a sweat ring beneath each arm. Polyester shirt. Slip-on shoes. Migraine.
‘I suppose you could call us cosmic spam if you felt so inclined but it matters not a jot. Most things matter the small sameness to us. We are endlessly without endless priorities.’
Jodocus does the chat-show circuit all at once, simultaneously appearing on every chair and sofa around the world. Beamed live on every screen.
‘It was you who spelt the Entry Word so don’t blame us for what happens next. With your too-big fingers and too-hasty thumbs all tapping and typing in terrible error. How could you have ever known?’
Jodocus lifts a single finger for emphasis.
‘History is jumble anyway so what’s more confusion.’
Jodocus smiles for the cameras.
‘Only disorder is truly understood and therefore ever-engendered. None look like you have the capacity for real stillness with your fussing and itching and barking like annoying small dogs all less important than they believe.’
Jodocus shakes his head.
‘No interruptions. None. Simple listening will always suffice.’
And though the whole world has a hundred thousand million objections all based on size and creed and history and logic and faith and superstition and other such informations none of these hundred thousand million objections actually formulate properly in the presence of someone so far removed from understanding as to render each and every thought and belief and hope held dear now redundant. Replaced. Deep dark dense dangerous delicate. Unfathomable.
Wonder.
Share this:
-
PART I ‘MENAGERIUM JODOCUS’
1.1 It is the global television coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics that brings about the end of the world. No virus. Outbreak. Meteor hurtling earthward. Planet warming. Planet cooling. Rising tides. Tidal waves. Instead, viewers around the globe are endlessly encouraged to email and text and tweet and share their views on the Games and the athletes and the achievements and as always happens too many people get too much wrong too many times simultaneously and so they mistype and misspell and send messages that don’t arrive and texts that aren’t delivered and tweets that never do and shares that never are but instead of these messages and texts and tweets and shares just vanishing forever they all align instead into one single endless string and spell out in their global accident the Entry Word.
And that is that.
Share this:
-
Small lithe limbs passing smoothly over the balustrade as Crowjar slips unseen onto the sloping roof>upwards in the shadow as the city lays deep in a midnight dream>each window Crowjar passes is an invitation into the lives of the people sleeping but she has no time now>no time at all>if she had the time Crowjar would like to watch and wonder what it was that people worried about in their sleep>but she is late and has to hurry>Share this:
-
The Entry Word (Barnaby Taylor, 2016)
Starting tomorrow …
Share this:
-
Morning Everyone
I thought I would post a brief update on where we are and where we are going. A brand-new serial adventure called The Entry Word begins on this blog on Wednesday 31st August and just to keep things varied and lively episodes will be published weekly instead of daily.The Entry Word tells the story of what happens when the world makes a single catastrophic error. I don’t have too much more to say about the project other than to suggest that the work is in its early stages and I look forward to seeing how it develops over the coming weeks.
Thanks for listening,
Barnaby
Share this:
-
By way of further news on progress so far with The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests (Volume II of the Falcon Boy series) I thought I would give you an update on the future of Pearly Stockwell.
As many of you will know Pearly Stockwell is a child detective who makes her debut appearance in Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets (Volume I). Together with the Interesting Twins, Pearly manages to solve every case she applies her big city ways to. If you want to catch up with her adventures to date then please feel free to follow the links HERE (US) and HERE (UK).
However, as the following excerpt indicates, the future for Pearly Stockwell is as insecure as it is for the rest of us.
The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests (excerpt)
IT Publishing, the company behind the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Wonder Detective Comic Book Super Series which begat the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Detective Comic Audiobook Series ceased trading a while ago and everything related to the series is now little more than the occasional question at a very dull public quiz for people who are very dull.
The final ever episode in the series, Pearly Stockwell Finally Realizes How Cruel the World of Contemporary Publishing Really Can Be opens with our eponymous heroine bemoaning the state of contemporary publishing, a subject which, and even despite her big city ways, Pearly had never shown any interest in up until this final episode.
‘Our time has come, boys,’ says Pearly to the Interesting Twins. ‘Even before our time has really come.’
Pearly plants her feet and stares defiantly into space reads the caption.
‘I should think that the people making these short-sighted decisions really don’t know us at all!’ she snorts. ‘In fact, what do they know about anything anyway?’
Wes is really angry.
‘I’m gonna grab them and box them and fight them until they beg me to stop,’ he exclaims forcefully. ‘And even when they do beg me to stop I ain’t gonna stop for nothing or no-one not never!’
Pearly smiles at her loyal friend.
‘You’ve been a loyal friend for all of these adventures,’ she says kindly, ‘and we are all really going to miss your overly aggressive, small-minded and yet sometimes effective ways.’
‘Say the word, Pearly,’ says little Windy with a big tear in his small eye. ‘Say the word and I will run for you like I always do.’
‘But where will you run?’ replies Pearly. ‘The people making these decisions have made it very plain that there is nowhere left for you to run to and no-one would be there even if you ever arrived.’
‘But there must be something we can do,’ says the eviction notice Pearly had thrown angrily onto the desk. ‘We can’t just let them shut us down.’
‘You are right, as always, my fine, wise Wanderley,’ says Pearly sadly, ‘but not even your alarmingly outrageous propensity for disguising yourself in the most unlikely but nevertheless convenient disguises is going to make any difference here.’
Pearly looks directly out the frame.
‘The only thing that can save us all is if someone decided to continue our adventures as a small, independent online venture, perhaps using a free online publishing platform.’
Pearly shakes her head ruefully.
‘But that will take an awful lot of effort to keep writing our adventures, publishing our adventures, promoting our adventures and trying to get people to read our adventures knowing full well that a thankless venture like this will only ever be a tiny digital drop in the vast and thankless virtual ocean.’
Again, Pearly looks straight out of the frame of the comic.
‘Does anyone know how hard it is nowadays to even get someone to visit your site let alone stay long enough to read something?’
THE END FOREVER MORE? reads the final caption.
Share this:
-
As everyone knows, the Pearly Stockwell adventure series was published by IT Comics and in their early days the company really struggled. Pearly and the Missing Magic Ring was a desperately misguided attempt to reach a wider audience with the Pearly Stockwell series.
Without even the slightest hint of professional shame, Pearly is ‘allowed’ to discover a magical kingdom while clearing out one of her wardrobes. Never one to refuse a challenge, Pearly sets off to see what she can find.
Unsurprisingly, Pearly finds a world gripped by a struggle between the forces of good and evil. Grimdulf Gloompants leads the good guys. He is a long-bearded wizard who rides a giant talking lion. A one-eyed witch called Sharon is in charge of the bad guys.
As the plot thickens, Pearly and the Interesting Twins are asked to deliver an important message to someone important quite far away. On the way, they are captured by a gang of nasty Noblins and imprisoned.
Everyone manages to escape but Pearly gets separated and begins to wander lost in an underground network of caves.
Even loyal readers of the comic book series found it hard not to consider cancelling their subscription at the moment that Pearly stumbles upon a ring and, without thinking, puts it in her pocket.
Unbeknown to her, the ring is the property of a pathetic-looking creature called Gallop who manages to trap Pearly in his dank, dismal, fish-stinking lair.
‘You have something that is very precious to me,’ says the pathetic-looking Gallop to Pearly, without even a faint glimmer of irony. ‘It is mine, it is.’
‘Is it?’ replies Pearly quick-wittedly, stunning the pathetic creature with the authority in her voice. ‘How precious exactly?’
Gallop isn’t sure what to say.
‘Very precious,’ he ventures, ‘very precious, indeed.’
But Pearly has the upper hand now and probes the pathetic creature further with her penetrating questions.
‘Just how precious?’
‘Very!’
‘How precious is very precious?’
‘Very, very!’
‘But is that precious enough?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why don’t you know? I thought you said it was precious?’
‘I did!’
‘Then why don’t you know?’
‘I do! I do! I do!’
Gallop gets very angry and it is at this point that Pearly knows she has him.
‘You don’t know, do you?’ she says.
‘No,’ says the pathetic-looking creature pathetically.
‘I’m going now,’ says Pearly firmly. ‘Don’t try and follow me.’
Gallop says nothing. He sits snivelling on a slimy rock. Pearly leaves to find her friends and continue the great adventure.
It was only by sacking the writing team, promising faithfully to never ever do anything like this again (and also offering a year’s free subscription to every reader) that IT Comics survived the fallout from Pearly and the Missing Magic Ring.
Share this:
BARNABY TAYLOR 