Wednesday 21 March 2018
Sunday 1 October 2017
Smut & Filth.
Introduction.
The following is based on true events, only the names have been changed to protect those not so innocent.
WARNING : Sexual content, 18+.
Chapter Selection.
Chapter one.
Chapter seven.
Chapter eight.
Chapter nine.
Chapter ten.
Chapter eleven.
Chapter twelve.
Chapter thirteen.
Chapter fourteen.
Chapter fifteen.
Chapter sixteen.
Chapter seventeen.
Chapter eighteen.
Chapter nineteen.
Chapter twenty.
Chapter twenty one.
Chapter twenty two.
Chapter twenty three.
Chapter twenty four.
Chapter twenty five.
ALTERNATE ENDING coming SOON...
Tuesday 7 February 2017
Be Kind...
Donate to the Trussell Trust
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Donate to Migrant Help...
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Sunday 25 September 2016
Take this kiss upon the brow.
Sometimes I lose track of time. I seem to spend much of my life daydreaming or struggling and, in both these instances, time really does fly by my eyes.
A period of time ago that, to me, feels like an age but is more likely just a couple of years, I wrote a blog piece about a dream I had as a small child. A dream that I truly believe shaped my life and my attitude. The piece was entitled “The girl next door” and is one of those few entries in what has become my journal that I’m actually proud of. I try not to read again these words once published, but I have, in that and a few others, found comfort during some of my darkest hours.
Last night I dreamed a dream just as convincing as my childhood dream about the girl next door and one that left me with a similar, yet very different, set of emotions upon awakening. I dreamt I was editing a video for my "French Letters" series on YouTube, a process that takes place weekly in the same seat at the same table as I smoke the same pipe and sip the same brand of remarkably cheap coffee from the same aging Cath Kidston mug with a chip in the rim and, just as in real life, my dream positioned me just so.
I was dreaming that I was playing the raw footage back and, as I generally do, snipping out the parts that don't show my best side.
You didn't think I was really this pretty, did you?
As many of you know, I live in a loft above a garage. The timbers of the loft are riddled with woodworm, the window is nothing more than a hole in a wall with a screen fastened across it and the roof provides me with a lovely, panoramic view of the stars above as I lie in my cot at nights. I love it.
The loft I viewed upon my dreamed screen was in no way similar to the one in which I'm currently sitting and tapping away at these keys. It was a trendy space with solid timbers, expensive rugs, an actual kitchen and a double bed. It even had a staircase that didn't sway from side to side in the wind, a veritable palace in comparison to the spider and lizard infested paradise I dwell in when my eyes are open. The sleeping me didn't question the differences, he didn't realise I was dreaming or that he was nothing more than a construct of that dream dreamed within another head, he just accepted it and moved on.
The footage on the screen was unusual in that I was naked. I'm not given to recording myself naked these days (not for YouTube, anyway), age and poverty having now decimated what was once a physique to be proud of, but again the slumbering John didn't question these anomalies. His finger hovered above the relevant key on the keyboard, ready to edit out any appearance of the aptly monickered "Little John", but no such appearances were made. The footage I surveyed through the eyes of dream John was absolutely fine and required no editing, so back we sat, puffing on our favourite pipe and relaxing, observing and sipping creamy coffee from the unchipped side of our mug, both of us oblivious to the fact that in the real world that only one of us had or would ever experience the real me was sleeping soundly beneath a rotten joist to which a photograph of people we'd once loved and felt loved by is pinned.
As we puffed and sipped and watched I became aware of further discrepancies, little clues that hinted at my real state. During one section of video I rocked a crib in which slept a dark haired infant, a baby girl, who I knew was not the fruit of my own loins but who I knew I cared deeply for. In another clip I lay in my bed, smiling and whispering to the viewer so as not to wake the dark haired woman that slept beside me, a woman I knew to be the mother of the child I loved but who I knew I cared nothing for.
Then, the proof I needed to jolt my sleeping brain from it's ignorance. A shot of me from a distance, naked as in every other shot, revealed a tattoo that I've never had set amidst the tattoos that cover much of my upper body.
I was suddenly aware that I was asleep, that this was a dream from which I was about to wake, and I panicked.
I panicked because of the child in the crib, the child that still slept soundly and whose face I hadn't seen and whose face, I now realised, I would never see. A child my sleeping brain told me I loved, who would be taken from me should my eyelids flutter open.
And even worse than losing her I further came to realise that, once I'd returned to the land of the living, she'd be left with a woman that I now knew I despised.
So I fought to remain asleep. I dashed around the beautiful apartment my subconscious had constructed for me searching for somewhere to hide from the dawning dawn, but to no avail.
I woke, made myself a coffee and sat down to write this entry. This is one of those rare occasions where, even before having taken my seat at the keyboard, I'd known the ending, known the point I was going to make.
As a child, on the morning after my dream of a life with the girl next door, I'd cried. I'd longed to return to the dream I'd just had, for that adventure to continue and to never end.
As an adult, I fought to keep the adventure alive as long as I was able even though the panic I felt as I searched for a cupboard to hide in spoiled the ending of what, until then, had been a wonderful time. I'd focused on the dream's approaching culmination and I'd mourned its loss before its loss had arrived. Now, as I sip and puff and sit and think, I know that tonight will bring with it another dream, and that that next dream is only possible because the last one ended.
Each adventure we undertake has both a beginning and an end but, to paraphrase the great Eric Morecambe, not necessarily in the right order. A new adventure can only begin after an end, so was the end really the end or was it really the beginning?
A child will live the dream right up until morning comes, enjoying every moment of it and only allowing the sadness of loss once that loss it found. An adult will see the loss looming and fight against it, prematurely mourning a passing that may never come to pass and, in doing so, wasting precious time that could have been better spent by stroking the soft, dark hair of the child in the crib as he at last looked upon her face. A child enjoys his dreams, an adult fears the end.
The child in you is the optimism you feel when embarking on your next adventure. He is the one for whom the Cath Kiston cup is half filled, probably with Vimto, and who doesn't give a toss that he might get a cold sore from the chip. The adult, he's the pessimist. He looks forward to the adventure, so eager to taste it that he'll blow on the hot coffee to be able to take his first sip then, once embarked upon, dreads the other end as it approaches. His Cath Kidston cup is aging, half empty and he can only drink from one side for fear of the hypothetical scabby lip that may or may not arise at some point in a future he may or may not have.
If your cup is half empty then it's still half full, enjoy what's left. If it has a chip in it, finish your brew, smash the cup against the wall and go find the next adventure. You never know, you might be just the dream-you dreamt by the real-you and your real chipped cup is still sitting, safe and dirty, by the sink where you left if last night.
Don't dread the morn, live the dream.
J2H.
Thursday 1 September 2016
Now available on Amazon...
OUT NOW, in paperback and on Kindle, my new short story compilation...
The Short Tall Tales.
A collection of four very different and disturbing stories of twisted realities.
"Where do they all belong?" documents the terror of the tormented
and the torment their torment creates. "Ghost whispering" will
have you scared to check under your bed. "Revenant" brings
us a masterclass in karma and in the folly of wickedness and, finally,
"Passing time" takes a look at the gentler side of those gone ahead.
Four tales of terror and the unknown, of hope and retribution, plucked
from the ether and placed on the page by the author.
Who needs sleep anyway?
Click the following link to purchase the book via my own associate account, which means the pitiful amount I will receive for my share will be slightly less pitiful than if you go elsewhere.
(If you prefer to read your literature on a screen then hold on to that credit card, the eBook version will be with you very soon.)
Thanks to everyone that encouraged and supported me. It has been, and continues to be, greatly appreciated.
Enjoy the little things.
J2H.
Wednesday 31 August 2016
Wednesday 24 August 2016
The devil may care.
He perched upon his great, grand throne
Of finest tooth and whitest bone
A fork of fire by his side
His clothes cut from rich sinners’ hides
And fanned the flames in the fiery pit
That warmed his feet whilst he did sit
And think about that bygone age
When those above still feared his rage
His blood did boil, his rage did swell
As he sat on his throne in his Kingdom of Hell
Like ageing porcelain, weathered and cracked
Veins lined his face with blood that was black
Then, all at once, he shouted a curse
So wicked it made even this damned place worse
He gnashed and thrashed and screamed and did shout
Then grabbed his fork, got up and went out
Time it was to have some fun
To wreak some havoc, rain fire upon
Those weak, soft bags of flesh filled with blood
To bring forth great suffering as only he could
He stamped his cloven feet and did call
For every creature that slithered or crawled
To do his bidding, spread forth his black seed
To undertake the darkest of deeds
He stood atop a lush hill and surveyed
The land he had chosen to bring first to dark days
A land that when last he’d walked on this Earth
Had been filled with happiness, joy and great mirth
He summoned forth legions of beasts from below
And considered how best to open his show
Pestilence, plague, brimstone or famine?
He smiled and set off for a night filled with damning
But wait, what was this? This couldn’t be right
Spread all around him, a pitiful sight
Men who had once stood proud and stood strong
Men who had fought and overcome wrong
Now brought to their knees, beaten and weak
Where once had stood heroes knelt only the meek
He searched high and low throughout that dark night
But hard as he tried found no good souls to blight
Old folk now dying, alone in cold beds
Good folk now used to remaining unfed
Sickness and poverty spread far and wide
Fear and hatred where once had lived pride
Filth in the streets and fear in sad eyes
A race of proud people now beaten by lies
Nick turned to his minions and sighed in despair
“We’re out of our league, lads, let’s go back downstairs”
J2H.
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