Metal Reviews

PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR SANDWICH
‘BOLLOCKS!’ bellowed Hurangatangapukatukaherki as he kicked another sandcastle that had once provided its maker with so much happiness. The name Hurangatangapukatukaherki is Maori for “Big Krill”, so for convenience we shall henceforth use the Chinese translation: Pi. Pi stormed about on the sand for a bit, waving his megaplankton claws in anger and frustration. He turned to the sea to make sure the huge copper towers gleamed in the afternoon light just the way he had planned, which they were. By gum they were.
‘Cheer up Guv’nah,’ said one of his crew in thick Cockney, ‘who needs them shchoopid ‘uman gits anyhaah.’
‘He’s right Cap’n,’ said another, ‘bleeding sods don’t know what’s good forum.’

Pi sighed; his eyestalks drooped a bit in sadness and defeat. It finally had sunk in that he and his kind will never get the attention and awe that they deserve, forever doomed to the fate of obscurity. He began to climb back into the wooden boat when one of his crew noticed something very tall heading toward them along the beach.
‘Oi! Cop a Bo Peep at that geezer; he looks like he wants a touch of what for. Blimey, his hair ain’t half ‘uge, innit?’
Sure enough there was Zenthoc, franticly racing across the sand trying to catch the Beasts of the Sea before they left, the tall beehive balancing precariously atop its host Parrot.
‘WAIT!’ boomed Zenthoc. ‘WAIT, I NEED TO SPEAK TO YOUR LEADER!’
Pi turned and regarded the glistening hairstyle.
‘As you may have noticed,’ he said flatly, ‘I have no desire to converse with…hair…whatever you are. Good day.’
‘NO, HANG ON! I SUMMONED YOU HERE, YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!’ bellowed the mighty hair.
One of Pi’s crewmen stepped in front of Zenthoc and produced a knife.
‘Sod off hair boy, ‘fore I gut you from knob to neck like a kipper.’
‘Just a minute, Ben.’ said Pi, stepping between them. ‘We came all this way with nothing to show for it so we may as well hear what this tit has to say. Who are you?’
Zenthoc puffed out his chesty proudly and took a deep breath.
‘I AM ZENTHOC! BORN OF CELESTIAL GREATNESS FROM THE POND SCUM OF A CLOWN. I AM THE POWER OF FRUSTRATION, THE CATALYST OF EVIL, THE SCOURGE OF HUMANITY, A BEACON OF POWER, A CHANNEL OF FEAR, THE STOMPER OF KITTENS, AND THE SEER OF TRUTHS. I AM SENTIENT HAIR! I KNOW ALL THAT IS, AND ALL THAT WAS. SMITER OF PUPPIES AND SPOILER OF CHRISTMAS! I WIELD A PSYCHIC POWER TO TERRIBLE TO MENTION! I AM EVIL! BWAR HAR HAR HAR HAR!’
‘Oh,’ said Pi, ‘goody for you.’

The leader of Beasts of the Sea climbed into the boat as his crew pushed it into the water, then jumped in themselves. Zenthoc watched from the shore as the small craft made its way across the calm ocean toward the golden dome from whence it came. After several minutes the mighty towers began to vibrate, churning the water into foam, then slowly sank below the waves.

When the great city of the Beasts of the Sea had disappeared forever beneath the ocean, to the relief of the fishermen who were trapped in their boats at the tops of the towers, Zenthoc sat for a long while on the shore. Things had not gone to plan. If he didn’t pull off something really evil he would most bear the brunt of the now legendary “Old Side Splitter”. He was given this power for a reason, and by golly if he didn’t fulfil his task the Beasts of the Stars had set for him he may as well start lubing up right now.

Eventually as the setting sun buggered off (I mean the thing had been hanging around all day – ahahahaah *sigh*) Zenthoc stood and brushed the sand from his pants. It had begun to get dark and a slightly chilly sea breeze wasn’t being too shy about whistling about the place. The only choice Zenthoc had was to go back to see that fool Tryclopedia who had told him of some stupid plan about going into space to take revenge on the Beasts of the Stars. There he might at least be able to kill him and his companions. Yes, that seemed well evil.

I think after reading this story I can safely say I'll never read about at a bicycle in the same light again

IF IT MOVES…EAT IT
The suburban park was dark. A darkness that even owls shied away from. A darkness that the mean and slimy things of the world enjoy in their mean and slimy burrows. A darkness that dare not speak its name. A darkness that is the exact opposite to when it’s daytime when the park is rather charming and sunny.
Through this darkness crept three figures in burglar costumes, each carrying a large backpack. The air was cool and a slight breeze slightly rustled the trees as the figures stalked across the cropped grass and took up a nice hiding position along the bank of a gurgling creek. There they waited for several minutes to make sure that they weren’t noticed, slapping mosquitoes as quietly as they could. Evil night crickets chirped away in the blackness.
Eventually Smeg took off his balaclava and unclasped his backpack, enjoying the cool breeze on his sweaty face.
‘O.K Tryclopedia this is it, time to set the bait.’ he whispered.
Tryclopedia removed his pack as well and took from it a large fishing net and a spade.
‘Get ready Papa Tex,’ he said quietly as he unravelled the net, ‘just like we planned.’
Removing his balaclava, Papa Tex looked somewhat shy. ‘What, here?’
‘Yes here.’ hissed Tryclopedia, ‘hurry it along while we set everything up.’
Papa Tex was hesitant. ‘I can’t get into costume with you lot looking, it’s poor drama to change into character in front of the audience.’
‘Just put the fucking thing on!’ said Smeg in a tricky kind of shouting whisper as he assembled some kind of electrical appliance he had taken out of his pack. Papa Tex made vicious fairy gestures at him before stalking off among the trees in a huff.
Smeg turned to Tryclopedia. ‘I’m sure if we did an autopsy on that boy’s head we’d find it contains nothing but a few simple wooden gears powered by rope pulleys.’ he said.
‘You do realise he is the one responsible for lowering the temperature of train station drinking fountain water to liquid nitrogen levels. That was when he wanted his Orthodontist practice to get a little head start, what with all those commuters with shattered teeth in need fixing. Just a little trivia for you.’ replied Tryclopedia.

‘Okie dokie.’ Smeg finished constructing his little electrical device and crept out from his hiding spot to place the thing out in the open. When he returned he found that Papa Tex was back as well, and curiously enough, wearing a fairy outfit. Smeg had chosen the costume especially for Papa Tex. It was his way of saying I came up with this whole plan and I’m the boss no matter how creepy you may be so there in his own passive/aggressive manner. The expression on Papa Tex’s face was an interesting combination of I’m thinking of eating your skull with I’m terribly embarrassed, I want to go away.

And so it was time to begin. Tryclopedia made his way quietly around to a small shrubbery and hid behind it with his net and spade ready. Smeg adjusted some wires connected to a car battery from down by the creek, Papa Tex skipped out into the open and, very gingerly removing his pants, gave Tryclopedia the thumbs up. Tryclopedia relayed the signal to Smeg who connected one last wire to the battery. Immediately a neon sign shaped like an arrow buzzed to life pointing at Papa Tex’s spotty backside, the winking words on the sign spelling out the intergalactic invitation: PROBE ME.

The explanation they gave to the police when they arrived a short while later was that they were Christian university students staging a peaceful protest against scientific progress in general. “If it weren’t for the Middle Ages we’d be colonising Venus by now. Lucky for us the Church kept common sense at bay long enough for us to kill lots of witches, vampires, and Moors.” reasoned Smeg.

PC Vlikenheik returned to the patrol car and continued on his way. With twelve years experience in the force behind him he had seen his fair share of student street theatre but this latest one had left him thinking. All street theatre was supposed to be representative but this one he just couldn’t work out and he knew it would be bugging him for the rest of the night. It would probably make sense later when he wasn’t thinking about it. Apart from that it had been a fairly routine night, a little quiet even. As the darkened streets passed by in the night PC Vlikenheik’s thoughts turned to some of the funnier things he had experienced among the usual rounds he made in this area. There were the times he saw hotted up Datsuns wrapped around telephone poles, their drivers believing they were piloting a Lamborghini Diablo but whose unemployment benefits could only pay for the clapped-out bogan icon. He savoured the look on their faces when (providing they survived) they realised that real cars crash dramatically different to Playstation ones. Then there are the times he disperses teenagers who flock to service stations at night for reasons unknown to anyone but themselves. He especially liked slapping the official police issue “Wanker” sticker on the windshield of Subaru Xtreme Z28 FX Lowered Special Greek Edition Twin Cam Finback’s while they do their techno rounds of city blocks. He chuckled to himself at the memory of the time he arrested an elderly woman who went into a convenience store to get some change. But the favourite of PC Vlikenheik was the time he saw a video where over one hundred people plummet to their deaths. Normally this isn’t very funny but when the song It’s Raining Men accompanies it, it’s bloody well hilarious.

Suddenly he was snapped out of his pleasant thoughts by the indecipherable crackling of the police radio. With his special training PC Vlikenheik translated the noise, which told him that the sentient hair that completely destroyed the Clownskull hunting reserve and summoned giant plankton from the sea was heading for the neighbourhood he was just in, and could any units in the area please go and put a stop to it in case it tried something like that again. The veteran police officer did that thing with his car where they skid instantly 180 degrees while simultaneously flicking on the lights and sirens, and sped back towards the park.

STARVE THE NEEDY
Smeg looked up at the clear night sky. There was still no extraterrestrial activity and the blinking neon sign had started to attract an unnecessary number of moths and mosquitoes, which in turn was causing Papa Tex to slap his illuminated bare bottom a lot. You don’t need me to tell you that this was indeed an unwelcome sight.
As Smeg waited impatiently in the creek bed, and Tryclopedia sat dejectedly behind a bush with his net and spade, there came a faint sound over the drone of crickets. It was a faint whisper at first, borne on the soft breeze, until it could quite clearly be heard as a police siren.
‘Oh arseholes!’ whispered Tryclopedia. ‘The coppers are coming back!’
Indeed they were, for the sound had risen to a piercing wail followed by the black and white vehicle lurching across the grass toward them, its lights and siren going absolute nuts. It would almost have run them over if it hadn’t suddenly risen up into the sky on a thin beam of blue light.
‘Shit!’ yelled Smeg as he bolted out of hiding into the beam. ‘Hurry up you two, let’s go!’
Smeg began to rise up with the police car, and far below he could see Tryclopedia gathering up his things and Papa Tex busy pulling up his pants.
‘Come on!’ shouted Smeg to the figures far below. ‘Hurry, you’re going to miss it!’
Yet to his horror the second last thing Smeg saw was a huge hairstyle striding across the park and fire a bolt of energy, throwing Tryclopedia from his feet.
The last thing he saw was a rusted metal hatch grind to a close below his feet before he was enveloped in darkness.

‘MWAH HA HA HA!’ said Zenthoc, toying with Tryclopedia with electric charges emitted from his shimmering surface. The big man was thrown to the ground and then cast across the park into the trunk of a tree. When he tried to make a run for it he was dragged backward by an unseen force, only to be zapped to the ground again.
‘FOOL!’ bellowed the mighty hair. ‘IT IS SILLY TO RESIST ME! YOU SHALL KNOW A PAIN WORSE THAN THE STING OF A THOUSAND ICE CREAMS…I MEAN…BEES STINGS!’
Tryclopedia, his skin and clothes scorched black, attempted to stand and face his attacker but was immediately blasted off his feet and into the very bush he had been hiding behind earlier. Writhing in agony among the broken branches and thorns, Tryclopedia tried to get up, only to be unwelcomely hoisted into the air buy Zenthoc’s powers then thrown into the mud with terrible force.
‘BWAR HAR HAR!’ laughed Zenthoc maliciously, turning the battered man over with his boot. ‘NOW IT IS TIME TO DIE, MORTAL!’
The air was filled with a stifling charge of static as the terrible hair drew upon all of its power for the kill, the shimmering black surface of the beehive crackling with electricity. The ground began to shake and grass stood to attention, trees swayed and Papa Tex ran away. Tryclopedia steeled himself for the inevitable…

A voice, soft and menacing, entered the mind of Zenthoc. You have failed your task Zenthoc, it whispered, you were given absolute power to unite the Beasts of the Sea with those of the stars. Together they were to wipe out the human race and restore natural balance to the planet. You have failed every organism in the world, and with the passing of each species at the hands of humans, I hold you personally responsible. I therefore strip you of your gift and return you to your original form.

‘NO!’ screamed Zenthoc. ‘PLEASE ZARTOR DON’T DO THIS TO ME! I CAN MAKE IT RIGHT! AAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!’
Right before Tryclopedia’s unbelieving eyes the terrible entity that was Zenthoc began to smoke and crumble like a four-week-old carrot cake. The host Parrot fell and melted into the soil while the outer shell of the beehive broke apart and fell to the ground, releasing a quivering form that had been encased inside.
‘Seppo.’ spat Tryclopedia, his voice saturated in hate and malice.
‘Don’t harm me,’ pleaded the clown as he cowered on the ground in the foetal position, ‘I was only doing what I was told, I…you!’
With horror Seppo realised who he was grovelling to, that young rich kid whose birthday party he had performed at many years ago. He wept and sobbed and clambered at Tryclopedia’s trouser leg.
‘Forgive me!’ the clown screamed. ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t make a balloon animal! Please let me go!’
‘Next time,’ said Tryclopedia coolly as he picked up his spade, ‘you will remember to bring a roller skating monkey.’
‘Yes, yes.’ sobbed Seppo. ‘A monkey! I’ll get one as soon as you let me go, please let me go. I’ll get you the happiest, most gangly monkey ever! A monkey that wont fling its faeces into your face while you’re yawning! A monkey that doesn’t masturbate in public! This monkey will be the complete opposite of me!’
The first sound that the spade produced when it was swung at Seppo’s skull was a loud clang, followed then by a thwack, then thwatch, then splatch, splitch, splotch. Only when it made a truly wet sounding blop did Tryclopedia relent, and by then the filthy clown was very dead.
Wiping the spray of greasepaint and blood from his face, Tryclopedia glanced skyward and wished Smeg luck, then went home to catch the season premier of Who Wants the Bends.

A POOR WORKMAN BLAMES HIS APPRENTICE
Smeg was totally disorientated. He stretched his hands out and tried to find a wall where a light switch might be, and upon finding a large lever the room was bathed in a flickering, harsh light. The room he was in was rather small and empty, save for a few steel crates and empty soft drink bottles, and a constant hum and metallic clanking of machinery filled the stale air. Such a sound triggered subconscious fears in Smeg’s mind and he dropped to the floor as a quivering mess in the foetal position, from which he only unfurled when he realised nothing had come to seize him.
Smeg hesitantly exited the room via a large rusted door, which screeched upwards with the press of a button, and found himself in a long corridor. A long, empty corridor. There was no one or nothing to be seen, not a single superintelligent megaplankton in sight.
After many long hours exploring the apparently empty ship, Smeg came across a door which appeared to be barricaded roughly on the outside, with only a small space left to crawl through. Inside, Smeg immediately recognised the giant prawn cowering in the corner, and the prawn recognised him.

‘Why did you do it?’ demanded Smeg sternly. ‘Was it some kind of sick game or did it actually have a purpose?’
‘Yes…both of them.’ replied Zartor flatly.
‘What purpose could sticking penny-farthings up a totally innocent person’s rectum possibly have? Was it to prove a point or something?’
‘What, like catapulting midgets? What was that all about?’ retorted the prawn.
‘Hey I’m asking all the questions here. It was to lure you lot down in front of all those people and the media to prove you existed. Besides, it was something fun to do on a weekend.’
‘Our mission was to destroy all the human prostate glands in the world as a way of making you lot sterile, see.’
‘Sterile? What for?’
‘To get rid of you all. Space is such a desperately boring place and frankly we were sick of floating about inside this rust bucket. Any other planet worth colonising is way beyond our reach so we decided the best thing to do was piss you lot off and keep the Earth.’
‘Well why didn’t you just stage an invasion like any decent alien menace would instead of defiling us with your bicycles?’ said Smeg, unconsciously clenching his cheeks.
‘Firstly we don’t even have laser guns, or any military force for that matter. Believe me, us against the world would be the shortest battle since Talacea attacked Mycenae.’

Sorry to interrupt, but this is a goody. Talacea was once a thriving bronze age city-state in what is today northern Spain. Jealous of King Dakius of Mycenae’s famed army, Lord Peequith of Talacea decided to test his own against the mighty King. Both leaders had an army of equal size and strength, the only difference being that the soldiers of Talacea were a freakish race of balloon people. It was all over in about fifteen noisy minutes.

Zartor continued, ‘Instead we decided on a non-violent and extremely effective means of eliminating your species. Once every person was left sterile, the human race would be gone in less than four generation leaving us to colonise the world in safety. I wanted to bring the Beasts of the Sea up here to join forces with us, but their dismay at being totally uninteresting led them to skulk back under the sea and the idea was abandoned.’
‘So where are the rest of you? Hardly an invasion force if there’s only one of you.’
‘There was a cataclysmic event,’ said Zartor sadly, ‘that fool Zargon brought a fiendish creature aboard which, along with the other one he had below deck which he thought I didn’t know about, consumed my entire crew. I am all that’s left.’
‘Tell me,’ said Smeg, ‘did it look like a giant lamington with teeth?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Because it’s about to eat your head!’
‘AAAARRRGGGHHH!’ Sluuuuuuuuurp!

Smeg ran from the thing from Mog like he had never run from a lamington before. His only hope was to find the ship’s bridge and try to land the thing back on Earth, no easy task since he didn’t even know how to drive a tractor. He ran along the winding corridors of the Arizona while the giant spongy thing was busy eating Zartor. Eventually he found the room he was looking for and closed the heavy iron door down behind him.

The bridge was no more impressive than the rest of the ship. A messy conglomeration of decrepit machinery with exposed wiring and panels hanging off broken screws. Cheap posters of the galaxy and vague maps of the solar system were plastered on the rusted walls here and there, and the buzzing neon lights flickered in a half-arsed attempt at room illumination. Smeg looked at the soiled leather chair in the centre of the room and guessed that it was the Captain’s chair, and then guessed that he’d probably get a nasty disease or two if he sat in it. Dirty and uncomfortably cracked windows looked out into the inky blackness of space; well they would have if the grime didn’t make them reflect Smeg’s nervy face back at him.

Suddenly the nasty neon lights went out to be replaced a few seconds later by a ruddy red version which brought its own alarm along with it. Smeg’s heart clambered up his oesophagus and out his mouth, plopped onto the floor than ran about screaming for a bit, then hid behind some computer equipment. Smeg dashed about trying to find some sort of thing that would tell him what was going on, and with mixed feelings he found the radar display; the cracked screen showed a very familiar looking jet propelled tractor streaking through space on an intercept course toward the Arizona. Panicking, Smeg fumbled about with the buttons and dials hoping that one of them would take the stationary ship out of the incoming tractor’s path. So far he only managed to open a hatch here and there or beam up the occasional primary school canteen, all of which totally failed to make a positive effect on the situation. A large, glowing control panel blinked invitingly and Smeg dashed over to it, pressing buttons wildly as the radar’s increased beeping made him uneasily aware that the rocket was getting closer by the second.

By sheer accident Smeg had just enough time to randomly reset the ship’s coordinates before the kamikaze tractor struck the bridge, blasting a gaping hole and sending Smeg tumbling out into the icy vacuum of space screaming ‘Rock the dance floor!’ (Smeg’s catchphrase). He watched as the Arizona became smaller and smaller and the mighty ship’s nose began to dip towards the blue/green dome of the Earth.

EARWIG BREATH FRESHENER
The Arizona’s orbit rapidly decayed, sending the shuddering craft plummeting toward the planet like an obese woman in a bi-plane. The hull of the battleship glowing bright crimson as it tore through the atmosphere with a deafening roar. Chunks of metal peeled from the outer shell of the ship as it had begun to break up under such incredible heat and pressure. The falling ship began to spin sickeningly end over end, gaining speed and heat under its own momentum until the craft resembled a massive fireball screaming down from the sky, punching through the overcast blanket of cloud like that very great ball of fire that Jerry Lee Lewis was on about before he married his underage cousin. Legend has it the Lewises moved to Kentucky and changed their name to Buckwheat, then single-handedly populated the entire State. Apparently.

Raffle night in the Chicken and Fanbelt. Gertrude McPhallus sat hunched over her pile of yellow tickets in savage anticipation. She had partaken in every raffle since the Chicken and Fanbelt was built over one hundred and sixty years ago, and this time she was going to win it. Leering greedily at the can of vegetable soup sitting on the table
Gertrude knew it was as good as hers. Her pile of tickets was higher than any other, even higher than that of that damned Agnes Incontinence who had foiled her plans and taken the glory every week. Not this time, for Gertrude had spent her last fifty-eight dollars on tickets, more than Agnes ever had. Winning that soup was going to be her crowning glory, the jewel of her life, her chance to gloat before the others like never before. But most importantly it was to finally defeat Agnes Incontinence just once. With that can of Peas and Corn in her wrinkly little hands, Gertrude would dance a dance of mockery before her peers, holding the can aloft so all can look upon it in envy and despair.

Promotions Manager Mr Treestump stepped up onto the small stage and took the microphone from this week’s Elvis wannabe #78 who had just finished singing Under the Boardwalk. To Gertrude the little can of soup seemed to glow invitingly and the Soup Roo winked at her from the label. She carefully spread her yellow ticket stubs across her table in numerical order and slyly glanced at a small scrap of paper that she had jotted her acceptance speech down on.
‘Can we have a volunteer to draw the raffle please?’ asked Mr Treestump.
Immediately Agnes leaped up and, barging other volunteers aside with her well-trained and ample derriere, waddled up to the stage. ‘Typical’ thought Gertrude. Mr Treestump held out a blue bucket at chin hight and Agnes dug deep into it, pulling out a yellow ticket then handing it back to Mr Treestump. The Promotions Manager waited until Agnes had returned to her seat under the chilling stare of Gertrude before looking at the ticket. Gertrude sat up in anticipation.
‘The winner of the Soup Roo can of Peas and Corn soup is…’

ScreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeFATOOOOM!!!!!! That was the sound the U.S.S Arizona made as it shot down from the sky above and had its fall broken by the Chicken and Fanbelt, with obvious catastrophic consequences. The mushroom cloud could be seen as far as the city’s own trendy little third world, and the shock encircled the globe about three eighths of the way round. Thankfully an accordion factory was consumed in the blast as well, and when the fires had subsided and the first rays of a spring morn’ pierced the clouds the Chicken and Fanbelt was nothing more than a smoking crater. The world was a better place.

IT’S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL
Silence and weightlessness with nothing to be seen but a soft white light which seemed to surround, bathe and penetrate Smeg’s very being. He felt warmed and comforted by the light, any fears or doubt ebbed from his mind and released him from feelings of angst and despair that the physical world places on one’s soul.

He knew he was dead, how could he not be after being blown out into the vacuum of space? But if this was death he welcomed it, for never before had he felt such peace and tranquillity. He simply floated there unaware that he was devoid of physical form, but being more of an unencumbered consciousness basking in the white light of the afterlife. Eventually Smeg noticed something. It was fleeting at first, a red light in the distance seen from the edge of his vision. There was no concept of direction here so it was a little while before he found it again, but there it was. Was it something far away, or was it simply a tiny speck of red light? Smeg willed himself closer to it, and as he approached it gradually became clear that the red light was indeed a number. Number 451 to be exact. Smeg’s mind bobbed about in front of it for a while, he had no idea what this could mean. Suddenly there was a soft chime and a brown wooden door faded into existence below the number, and having no better idea Smeg willed the golden doorknob to turn, opening to reveal a black void. Obviously he was a little hesitant to enter, going from such serenity into the unknown. Yet there seemed nowhere else to go, and reluctantly Smeg entered.

Finding himself back in his human body was a bit of a surprise, but then so was finding himself sitting in an ugly, green plastic chair in an old teacher’s office. Of course it didn’t have to be a teacher’s office but that is how it appeared. The wallpaper that peeled in places from the redbrick walls tried valiantly to look like classy cedar, and rows of outdated encyclopaedias adorned the wall behind the large peeling vinyl chair that in turn lurked behind a scratched and stained pine office desk. Sitting on it were piles of papers, several empty coffee cups, an overcrowded ashtray, and a name plaque that read Mr BOJANGLES.

Up on the wall was a faded portrait of the Queen Mother, aged 17, and a street scene painting that was in such bad condition that it could have either been Ireland or Pakistan. There were no windows, only a green door with rusty hinges behind where Smeg sat, and an old clock above its with innumerable arms ticking away quietly in different directions and speeds.

Smeg sat uncomfortably like a pupil in a Principal’s office not knowing who or what he was waiting for. Abruptly the clock stopped ticking and the rusted doorhandle turned. The door creaked open and Smeg jumped up in surprise. A foul wind preceded a mangy one-legged dog, which flopped into the doorway and coughed spasmodically. It crawled along the floor and around behind the pine desk, where it heaved itself up onto the large chair. Opening a desk draw and taking out a cigarette, the dog lit it with much difficulty then coughed and hacked some more.

Smeg could not believe what he was seeing. He was more used to seeing this very dog being run over by busses outside the Chicken and Fanbelt, not smoking a cigarette in its own office. He stood there and gaped at it.
‘Sit down number 451.’ croaked the rotten old dog as it began rummaging through some papers.
Smeg sat down and prepared to say something, but the dog wasted no time in getting to the point.
‘So you’ve died and want a refund, correct?’ it said in its sandpaper-like voice.
‘Erm, yes.’ replied Smeg.
‘Right’, rasped the dog without looking up from the papers, ‘it appears we don’t give refunds without a receipt. Good day.’
This was the moment Smeg had been waiting for. Taking the crumpled scrap of paper from his pocket he triumphantly slapped it down on the desk under the dog’s nose. With its one eye the dog looked at it for a while, then slowly, ever so slowly, up at Smeg.
‘And what is this…thing?’ it asked sternly.
‘Oh…sorry.’ said Smeg, and triumphantly slapped the life receipt down over the penis cartoon that Papa Tex had drawn and slipped in his pocket to be discovered later. ‘My receipt. One refund please!’
The dog regarded the receipt with its crusty yellow eye, the leaned back in its chair and took a deep drag of its cigarette. For a while it simply stared at the dangly things that hung from the filthy ceiling.
‘Now listen up to me number 451,’ it finally said, ‘you expect to receive a refund of your life as a human, correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘And by all intents and purposes you are deceased right now, correct?’
‘Erm, apparently yes.’
The dog leaned forward and stared hard at Smeg. ‘Refund for a life which you have already completed, however unsatisfactory.’
‘Well I wouldn’t say completed,’ replied Smeg, ‘I was killed before I could finish my quest, which was to get a refund.’
‘You were killed, then your life as a human is over, correct?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘You effectively completed your life, so you don’t get a refund. Do you go back to the Chinese shop with a full meal in your belly and ask for your money back? I think not.’
‘But…but…’ stammered Smeg.
The dog picked up a sheet of paper and tossed it across at Smeg.
‘Paragraph six, A REFUND MAY ONLY BE ACCEPTED WHEN UNDER 60% OF THE CUSTOMER’S PRESENT EXISTENCE IS RETURNED ACCOMPANIED BY A RECEIPT. It doesn’t get any clearer than that, 451, and I believe that is your signature at the bottom of the page, is it not?’
Smeg nodded in defeat and slumped back into his chair. The wretched dog hacked some more and snatched away the paper, tossing him another.
‘Which brings us to another point.’ said the old dog sternly. ‘As you can see in you hands I have issued you a list of names of all my staff that you murdered while they were on assignment on Earth.’

Smeg glanced down in shock and confusion at the list on the paper. Sure enough he recognised them as being the regular old drunks that practically lived at the Chicken and Fanbelt. There was Slim Tim McGinn, Bushy Bill, Gordon Morey, Danny Dringo, and so on. How could they be anyone’s staff? They were the most useless bags of shit ever to breathe everyone else’s oxygen.
‘They were Angels.’ the dog growled. ‘My Angels.’
‘What do you mean your Angels?’ asked Smeg. ‘They were human surplus, garbage, a huge waste in resources. They were nobody’s angels, they wouldn’t even be able to staff a toaster.’
The dog’s few remaining hackles along its back stood on end.
‘They were my Angels doing my work on my Earth!’ it snarled. ‘And you killed the lot of them!’
‘Wait a minute. Your Angels?’ exclaimed Smeg. ‘They were your Angels? Therefore are you saying that you are God?’ Smeg’s face went white.
‘A god, not the God.’ said the dog. ‘There is no one god as such; the hierarchy goes way further than that. If you lick the right arses then you may get yourself a little planet to play with like I did with this little mud ball Earth, think of a child with a new train set and you get the idea what it’s like to be god.’
‘Well if they were your Angels,’ said Smeg holding up the sheet of paper and shaking it a bit, ‘then they weren’t exactly working very hard, were they. It’s no wonder the Earth is in such bad shape if those who were supposed to be looking after it were constantly on the piss and doing nothing besides. I mean they had to be real buddies of yours to get the top jobs then get away with doing nothing at all. Friends and relatives, were they?’
‘Well…yes,’ croaked the dog, ‘that’s how I designed my world to work. And if you don’t like it then you can take it up with my secretary, Merve the Perve.’
With his only paw, Mr Bojangles pressed the intercom button. There was a harsh beep followed by a crackly voice from the speaker.
‘Oh Lord,’ it grovelled, ‘how mayest I bequeath thine divine words thou hath spake?’
‘Do you have any idea what you just said?’ asked Mr Bojangles.
‘Well, no,’ came the voice from the other end, ‘my heavenly banter is a bit rusty. May I try another?’
‘No,’ said the dog impatiently, ‘I want you to organise a declaration of resurrection for number…’
‘Oh Lord thou art mighty and smitey! Fire and brimstone and that…sorry.’
‘…451 immediately for reinstatement on Earth. Spiritual level six.’
‘Hoo hoo!’ came the voice from the intercom. ‘Been a naughty one have we? Not enough Hail Mary’s eh? Too little “I’m not worthy’s” what? Been skimping on the self-flagellation I’ll wager… Uh Oh.’
‘What “uh oh”’. said Mr Bojangles.
Through the little speaker came the sound of rustling papers and desk drawers opening and closing, followed by more sorting of papers. Eventually the voice came again.
‘Spiritual level six, which is the Tickle Chin Garden Iguana.’
Yes, I know that.’ said the old dog. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘It became extinct yesterday. The last one was hunted for its tail skin, which makes a pretty good exfoliating scrub.’
Mr Bojangles thumped his paw down on the desk. ‘Bollocks!’ he yelled. ‘What about level five then?’
‘One minute.’ Answered the voice over the intercom, followed by more sorting of papers. Smeg sat nervously in his plastic chair while god and his secretary decided his fate. Soon the tinny voice from the speaker cleared its throat and Mr Bojangles glared menacingly at Smeg.
‘Spiritual level five, the Lactobacillus Horribilius disease has been…cured my Lord.’
‘Level four then!’ bellowed the wretched dog.
‘Sunbeam toaster model E109 was recalled due to a faulty spring mechanism.’ answered the secretary.
‘Level three!’ roared god.
‘The last street mime was destroyed along with the Clownskull hunting reserve.’ came the reply.
‘Level two!’ screamed our heavenly father.
‘Um, all the tent peg positions have been reserved for Andrew Lloyd Webber.’
‘What, all of them?’
‘Well yes, after all I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there who want to beat him into the ground after he deliberately and maliciously made that Masquerade song at us. And in a few months they’ll have their chance.’
God picked up his coffee cup and threw it against the door behind Smeg in frustration, the ceramic mug shattering to pieces. Smeg flinched before god’s almighty wrath.
‘LEVEL ONE!’ he screamed. ‘Make him the lowliest form of life in the universe! I want him to suffer for what he is!’
‘But Sir!’ came the voice. ‘You can’t! That’s too horrible! Please have mercy upon the poor soul before condemning him! Don’t make him a dog poo! Hang on, that’s level twelve. Oh dear. Level one is a parking attendant. Um, Lord?’
‘Yes?’
‘Tragically the very last parking attendant died in captivity after being set upon by some wild fluorine. Sorry Lord, they’re all gone forever.’
The vile canine slumped back into its chair and lit another cigarette. There it smoked and regarded Smeg for a long time, its yellow eye staring in deep thought. Finally it stubbed the butt into the mountainous ashtray and took a deep, rasping breath.
‘Well. It seems like we may have a little problem, 451. Normally I would simply send you to Hell but in this day and age we don’t really do that anymore since you lot invented Unions. Just a thuggish bunch of power hungry, toothless truck drivers pretending to be a legitimate organisation in my opinion, but nevertheless you seem to have provided me with a bit of a predicament.’
Smeg leaned back in his chair and smugly put his hands behind his head.
‘Well’, said Smeg, ‘I guess you’re simply going to have to break me out of the reincarnation cycle and grant me god status, don’t you think?’
Something resembling a mocking grin spread itself over Mr Bojangles’ face followed by a gurgling sound, which was most probably a laugh.
‘Oh no,’ he chuckled, ‘I still have a little something I can do to you. It isn’t exactly conventional and it certainly isn’t on the reincarnation species list, but I think we can bend the rules just this once.’ Our divine maker pressed the intercom button again.
‘Yup?’ came the reply through the little speaker.
‘Merve, bring me the affidavit for unusual reincarnation punishment Omega B thank you.’
There came a snigger over the intercom. ‘Righto Lordie!’
The one legged dog looked at the intercom. ‘Getting stranger, that individual.’ he said. ‘Now, number 451, you shall soon see that even here in this office where I govern mankind’s ultimate fate I do not take your blasphemous ways on Earth lightly. You shall be returned to that wretched little planet in a new body, and this time you most certainly do not get a receipt. Have you anything you wish to say before you go?’
‘Yes. I just have one question. Who exactly will the meek be when they inherit the Earth?
‘Inuit.’
‘Oh. Okay.’

Smeg’s eyes adjusted slowly, his vision gradually becoming focused. He found that he couldn’t move no matter how hard he tried, it was as though he had no arms or legs to move in the first place, and he wasn’t standing but merely propped up against something. He saw that he was in the corner of some kind of huge temple, the white walls rising up on all four sides to the ceiling high above where a single glowing orb illuminated the cavernous room. A brown tiled floor stretched out before him and around the colossal marble throne positioned against the wall he was standing next to. Resting upon this throne was a sculptured statue so life-like that Smeg could have sworn he saw it move. Hold on, it did move! It was standing! Smeg couldn’t believe it, for he recognised the enormous figure as none other than Papa Tex Jaffar. The giant parody of his lanky former crewman turned and looked down upon his throne.
‘Whoa,’ he said to himself reaching down for Smeg, ‘that’s gonna need breaking up before it goes anywhere.’
Smeg felt the giant hand wrap around his thin plastic body, then lift him up into the air before turning his brush-like head down toward the throne. With a sickening feeling Smeg realised what he had become, and as he descended head first into the cavernous interior of the giant’s throne only one word did come to his mind to summarise his thoughts and situation. He had been reincarnated as a toilet brush.
‘Shit!’

The End

Thank fucking christ