Old Habits

I sprinkled some flour on his back
and told him to thank me later.

He looked at me with the sort of
bemused and slightly fear-struck
expression that you'd expect upon
hearing such an utterance
from a complete stranger.

Later that day once he'd returned home
and swore at the flour patch
I'd left at the tip of his suit blazer,
he made to pat it away,
but it soon became clear that this pat
unearthed something long-lost within him,
and such was the infectiousness
of this particular beat that
he spread his rhythmic patting motion
to other parts of the room.

His wife, upon hearing him
really getting into a good pat
on the drawer, ran down the stairs
screaming, and in recognising
his focused patting efforts
and the swaying motion of his head
went to go find the children.

one more time she'd said
one more time
and they were gone.

And so they clambered
into the car and sped away
much his blissful ignorance
who in the meantime had
worked his way into the kitchen
and was now having a go on the toaster.

Thump'd

I was knocked to the ground,
but when I found my feet again
I slipped on the ice almost instantly
and fell for the second time.

That was it. I didn't get up again.
It would've been too many times.

It was sad but you must move on.
these days I spend all my time
horizontal and slide around on
this luge I found in a skip.

But it's not easy all the time.

See, this one time i almost gave in,
but in the corner of my eye just in time
I saw Chumbawumba pile onto a motorised
parade float and ready their instruments
with all eyes on my movements.
I quickly fell flat on the floor,
and they walked off all disappointed.

Close one that was.

Losers

Once I swallowed my foot
and it came out the other side
so I swallowed my other foot
and it also came other side.
Then I set off to the local
community hall for the
annual popcorn lookalike
competition. I was devastated
when I spotted my friend Dylan
who'd also managed to swallow
his hands and head.

I cried all the way home.

Visitors

Yesterday an alien visited from the federal
space committee tasked with preserving
life throughout the universe.
It arrived bearing a list of solutions
that would aid some of the most troublesome
problems facing the human race today,
but as it descended the ramp of its spaceship
to cameras and all the world leaders and crowds
it slipped and fell into a puddle.
It was unfortunate because such a fatal combination
of mud, a deep sense of embarrassment and the collective
laughter and pointing of those party to a fall
would trigger a chemical reaction in the alien's body,
and create an explosion enough to almost
obliterate Jupiter let alone the tiny human planet.
In fact the alien very much warned
the board of this possibility,
but the board were adamant
that humans would never
laugh at the misfortunes of others.
What made their response even more puzzling
was the fact that very recently
the crowning achievement of the human race,
according to the wisest academics
at the university of the universe,
had been Lisa Riley's vision of
the 'You've Been Framed' franchise.

Self-respect

Russell Howard was sad.
He was sad because his mates
at the pub told him to go away
after he repeatedly tried to show them
that video of a penguin slapping
another penguin.
He decided that his mates
were just not that into penguins.

On his walk home, and in between
sharing youtube videos to passers-by
that he was sure would crack a smile
like that video with charlie and the finger
and that video with the sneezing panda,
he would show the penguin video to them
and stare longingly into their eyes.

He eventually arrived and opened the door
to his youtube house with youtube walls
and youtube furniture and youtube rugs,
and his youtube wife ran up to him
and youtubed him on the mouth.
He'd known from the first time he'd
youtubed her that she'd be the perfect youtube.

However, this would be the fateful day that
all of this would come to an end.
word had spread of his youtubing behaviours
and google were not happy.
On this day they'd hired a truck,
and without warning his house was lifted up
by forklift and carried away to some
secret googley place google things live.

Nobody ever heard from him again.
some say he became one of those
little spots in the buffering status.
Others say he was smooshed into the
red box bit of the logo. whichever
bit of youtube he was smooshed into
we should treat this as a lesson to us all.

in order to save our children
we must not encourage Howardian
voice-overs of videos nobody wants to see.

Kicks

My parents literally kicked me out of the house.
I asked them why they had to be wearing kicks
and they told me that it was part of a new
thing that was sweeping the country.
If it wasn't for my quick thinking
I'd have been in trouble, but I ran next door
and swiftly booted the family of four out
with my pair of doc martens.

The next few weeks would turn
out to be chaos as everyone
was out on the streets frantically
trying to deck, boot or kick they way into
any household they could find.
It all settled pretty quickly in the end.
We were in the wrong houses,
but we soon adapted to our new lives.
Being an accountant, a chef, a baby brother
and a teenage sister all at the same time
was never going to be easy, but you soon
caught on to the swing of things. 

Then there were those who were less
fortunate. It was no coincidence
that it was around that time that
the homeless were replaced with
those who'd only had a pair of loafers.
Some managed to argue their way
into bread factories, but found themselves
ill-equipped to cope with the pressures of loafing
at high demand and to the satisfaction
of impatient factory managers.
Others tried to argue that their footwear
were actually a form of boot,
but these arguments were shoddy
as hell and were quickly dropped.

We could do nothing but watch as the
loafer wearers dropped one by one
from the comfort of our homes.
When the last one passed away,
we mourned for days on end and swore
that we would do everything we could
to prevent people to ever be in a situation
where they would happen to wear
loafers ever again.

When the eventual ban on loafers
came into effect, we all breathed a sigh
of relief for our own safety.
It would also ensure that we would
live free from what was,
to some, quite frankly,
a hideous pair of shoes.

Pride

I poured some maple syrup
over a maple tree
and waited
patiently
...
hours went by
...
...
hours
...
...
eventually I went home disappointed.
Canadian Roy is full of shit.