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Great Writing - Home > Stories > Martin Alice
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Shorts
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| Martin Alice | |
| By BrianRobertNeal | ||||||||||||||||
| 08 August 2006 | ||||||||||||||||
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Every writers' group has one, don't they? Does your's? MARTIN ALICE. Despite being sat to the immediate left of the person who had just read and knowing that progress was clockwise it still came as I surprise to Martin that it was his turn to read. “Well Martin” asked the groups’ dominatrix, “what have you got for us tonight?” Martin cooed, “er, ehm, ah, well”, and this continued in roundel form whilst he finally opened his little blue shoulder bag from which he withdrew a sheaf of dog-eared cheap lined paper. It’s lucky for us that Martin was Martin and not Wednesday as you got the feeling that he would always have been caught out when Tuesday came to an end. However tonight he added a new trick to his repertoire. This time he managed to drop the papers and the bag onto the floor. He bent forward and for a moment the world blanked out. Martin collected the lost items and sat upright in his chair. He had a niggling feeling that all was not right. Still in his hand was a sheet of paper covered in his grammatically correct if illegible English. Martin must be one of the last people on god’s earth that use a fountain pen. Had he scripted on clay tablets using a stick, his scrawl could have been mistaken for a development of Linear B. It would have been called Neo-Curvilinear A. These tablets without their author as a guide would have been as indecipherable as the Rosetta stone had once been. The sheet was headed “Olympian Writers Group”. It contained a list of notes. Note one said “Welcome Group Members”. Martin looked up and saw that 5 complete strangers now faced him. He beamed and said, “Welcome to the Olympian Writer’s Group.” He looked down at his list. Note two said, “Ask group members to give their first name and an indication of what they wrote or would like to write”. Martin told the group “My name is Martin, I’m the Group Leader, could each of you tell me their name and then give an indication of what they write or would like to write. We’ll start, if you don’t mind the unintentional pun, with the gentleman to my right. The man responded, “My name is George and I am a Polemicist”. Smiling Martin suggested to the group, “It seems that George is some sort of Organic Chemist”. “No” barked George “and I am not an expert on parrots either. I write novels, short stories, articles, pamphlets,” Martin interrupted “And school dinner menus perhaps? Could you give us an example of your work? George assented “ I have written a biting allegorical political satire entitled “Animal Farm””. Martin chirped in “well if it’s all that you’ve said, then its title is misleading. For it sounds as though it ought to be of the “Tales of the Riverbank” genre. Thank you George and now the lady to George’s right.” The woman stated, “My name is George.” Martin asked, “Is that short for Georgina” The woman repeated “My name is George.” “Oh dear it is always a nuisance when you have two people sharing a name.” Martin asked, “Do have any other name we could call you”. George the 1st butted in “If it makes things easier call me Eric, it is my actual name.” Ungraciously Martin suggested “We could have saved a lot of time Eric if you had used your proper name. I don’t know why writers have to invent silly names. Anyway George what do you write. A thoughtful George the second responded, “ I write earthy emotional novels. My best is undoubtedly “The Mill on the Floss”. “Sorry” said Martin “that title wont do, it sounds too much like a treatise on dental hygiene! Right the gentleman with the beard.” The Beard affably replied, “To avoid problems you can call me GBS” “Oh no we wont it sounds like a criminal offence. Have you no second name?” enquired Martin. “Oh for goodness sake, call me Bernard” was the Beard’s irritated reply. Martin beamed “Well Bernie” “No Marty the names Bernard” roared the Beard, “I am similar to Eric however, I in addition write plays and my work is better loved! The best piece is undoubtedly “Man and Superman.”” Martin jumped in “Oh you write about super heroes like Captain America or Charisma the Chemistry Master. That’s my favourite, timid supply teacher by day, fearsome terror of the writer’s groups by night! The Beard was now framing a very red and furious face but before it could utter a sound Martin added, “Unless I am wrong you should change the title, you don’t want to end up being sued by Marvel Comics do you? The lady to Bernard’s right and I hope that you’re not a George”. “My name is Virginia and I weave dreamy flows of consciousness” was the woman’s almost other worldly reply. “Are you sure you should be here” asked Martin “It sounds as though you should be in the Cottage Crafts Group. I take it you are or want to be a writer?” “Well if we must be pedantic,” the woman tetchily retorted, “ I am a major novelist and my best work is “To the Lighthouse.” “I’m not into the Hornblower stuff myself, but is has got a market” was Martin’s unintentionally amusing response, “and now we come to our final member.” The man said “You wont like this but my name is also George”. Martin was stopped in his tracks, he thought what were the odds against 4 out of 5 persons having the same forename particularly when it was a man’s name and there were only 3 men. The miscreant smiled well actually he leered when he admitted, “Sorry, it was just a little joke, my name is not George it is Brian.” Martin recovered his composure “Tell me Brian, What do you write?” The miscreant’s leer became a vicious sneer that radiated pure contempt, “I write Vindictive Diatribe!” For the second time that day Martin’s world blanked out. Unbeknown to Martin, a high power meeting was in progress in the Admin Block that formed part of Purgatory’s Admissions Centre. Archangel seven double 0 who was licensed to bring persons back from the dead represented God. We’ll call them Archie. The Devil’s Advocate represented Satan. To avoid questions being asked, that is not the Roman Catholic Church’s DA but purely a Devil’s Representative. We’ll call them Devrep. Archie opened the discussion, “Well, we can’t have him, because he is not on our list” Devrep replied “Though he is on our list we are rejecting him on a technicality” “Which is precisely what?” enquired Archie. Devrep’s reply was short and sweet,“The man has no soul!” Archie exclaimed “Oh goodness me, that means that we can’t have him in purgatory either.” Devrep agreed, “No I think 7 double 0 you’re going to have to use your special powers. I believe that it is time for one of your miracles.” With that he disappeared in the traditional puff of smoke, leaving behind just the slightest whiff of burnt sulphur. Try as hard as he may Archie could not fashion anything vaguely resembling a soul from Martin’s collection of reflexes and autonomic responses. Archie thought, “Oh well, the big guy won’t like this but what else can I do?” He transformed into an intensely bright burst of light, and then was gone. For the second time that day Martin found himself in an alien environment. But this time he was in a strange bed. He was wearing a nightgown and had all sorts of pipes and tubes stuck in or on to his body. The world was a blur, as he seemed to have lost his glasses. There was a bank of monitors that were bleeping out cheerful rhythmic sounds; it was like an electronic dawn chorus, which in Martin’s case it metaphorically was. A Doctor burst into the Intensive Care Unit and said to the startled Nurse, “I’m sorry I took so long but when the Bleeper went off, I was having a crap. The system does not allow for that sort of thing, I suppose he’s dead.” The Nurse said, “I’m in a bit of a state at the moment. You see he was clinically dead. The monitors showed no sign of life and there were neither pulses nor any indication of breath. I tried a “kick-start” but it was hopeless. I’d just closed his eyelids and was pulling the sheet over his head when his eye’s opened and he started to mumble it sounded like “ehm err well”. Then you came in.” The Doctor asked for the case notes. The Nurse gave him the clipboard that had hung on the bed. The Doctor angrily shouted, “When are they going to fill these forms in correctly. The whole name is typed in lower case, and the initials have not been indicated.” Then all of a sudden his demeanour changed and he started laughing, “This is just too precious, too wonderful to believe: Nurse do you know who or what is in that bed? The Nurse replied “No but I’m sure you are going to tell me.” The Doctor beamed, “Malice Personified!”
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