The Creature

There was a creature living in my head that liked the things I didn't like. If I wanted to smile, it made me frown. If there was a movie I wanted to see playing at a convenient time, the creature did everything in its power to come up with a reason that I shouldn't go – usually, it found one.

The creature was a master of disguise. To the outside world, it appeared to be a normal, continuous section of my brain – these things it was were things I was. And a lot of the time it fooled me, too. But sometimes I was able to tell the difference.

I would think something like, “I wish everyone on this street right now would fall down a giant pit and never get out.” And then I would think, “That's not something I would normally think. Something's wrong with my thinking.” Then I'd realise, “Oh, of course, the creature.”

I feel like a large percentage of my life was spent fully unaware of the creature. It was as if when it wasn't directly affecting my day-to-day life, it was invisible. At these times invisible to me, but at all times invisible to others. However, I'm quite sure it was always there, whether I could see it or not. I'm not sure whether the creature enjoyed its ability to hide from me.

My emotive state had resembled one of those cockerel weather-vanes, pointing this way and that, based on events of my life – relationships, work, the food I'd eaten, the music I'd heard, the books I'd read. But the creature would climb up on the roof and manually push the weather-vane in the direction of sadness, and keep it there. I don't know how the creature climbed inside this metaphor, just as I don't know how it climbed inside my head. But once it had done its work, I would lose all motivation to destroy it. It was a strange situation. When the creature was not around or messing with me, I was barely aware that it existed – so why would I destroy it then? But when the creature was around, its powers drained my energy so severely that I would lack the willpower to destroy it.

Eventually, I saw no way to continue other than to feed the creature when it got hungry, tip-toe through life so the creature slept as much as possible and my footsteps would not wake it, and ultimately hope it would get bored and leave me alone.

The Bus Stops Here

Deirdre ate a bus stop. Thankfully, it was one of those newfangled bus stops with a GPS locator inside, so the bus company quickly found out where it was. They sent a man to her house to ask for it back. However, Deirdre refused to either vomit the bus stop, or digest it.

They argued for a while. Deirdre was stubborn. The man asked why she'd eaten the bus stop in the first place.

“It's just plastic and metal,” he said. “Couldn't taste very good.”

“It wasn't for the taste,” said Deirdre. “And besides, I wasn't hungry. It's the principle of the thing.”

“Which principle is that?” asked the man.

She stared him down until he got nervous and went quiet.

“Six times this week,” Deirdre began. “Six times this week, I've been late for work, and it's your fault. I get there, to the bus stop, in plenty of time. 7.27, says the little sign. That's when my bus is supposed to come. 7.27am, and a 28-minute journey into town, so I'd be at work with five minutes to spare. 7.55, I'm supposed to arrive. So every day, without fail, I'm at the bus stop bang-on 7.20. Seven full minutes early. I don't leave these things to chance, you know.”

“I bet you don't,” said the man.

“Shut it. So I'm there in plenty of time, and sure enough, come 7.27, the bus arrives. I stand up next to the bus stop and wave my arm. Not a small, dignified wave. Why be subtle? I wave my arm, my whole arm. Like this.”

Deirdre waved her arm in the man's face. His name, by the way, was Hugo, but he didn't introduce himself and Deirdre didn't ask.

“Only, it doesn't pull up. The bus.”

“It doesn't?”

“No. Every day this week. And not just this week – for months now – more often than not, the bus drives straight past me.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Hugo, who didn't sound particularly sorry.

“So today I woke up and I said to myself, 'Enough is enough. If that bus goes past me again, I swear to God… I'm going to do something drastic.' So guess what happened?”

“It happened again.”

“It happened again, damn it!” yelled Deirdre abruptly. Then she resumed her calm, soft-spoken manner. “And so I ate it.”

“You ate it,” repeated Hugo.

“I ate it.”

“I've been meaning to ask,” he said, “You say you ate it. And I believe you. GPS doesn't lie. I've used the sensor”—Hugo brandished a small electronic gadget—“and it's definitely in your stomach. But just… How? How did you manage to eat a bus stop?”

“Well, it's quite simple,” said Deirdre. “Like this.” She gnashed her teeth together, getting offensively close to Hugo's face. She grunted and made a weird “num-num-num” sound.

“Right, right… But how did you actually managed to, like, chew it? And to swallow…Actually swallowing metal, that doesn't sit right with me.”

“Sit right? It's not supposed to sit right. I'm trying to upset you.”

“Well, in a roundabout sort of way, you've succeeded. Congratulations, I guess?”

“Thanks,” said Deirdre.

“But the matter remains, I've got to have it back. My bosses, they want it. God knows why they want a bus stop that's been chewed up into tiny pieces and partially digested by some crazy lady—no offence—but want it they do, and it's muggins here who's got to cough it up. Or rather, it's you. Please cough it up. I'd like to go home now.”

Deirdre stared him dead in the eye.

“Well…?” said Hugo.

“No.”

The argument went on like this for a while. Eventually, they reached an agreement. Rather than retrieving the bus stop from Deirdre's belly, and reinstating it by the side of the road, Hugo proposed that the buses track the belly-bound bus stop's GPS coordinates — apparently buses can do that now — and swing by to pick her up each morning, wherever she may be.

Deirdre said, “That is satisfactory,” or words to that effect, and Hugo left her house forever, confused but satisfied that the strange encounter was over. So, if you're ever in a café around 7.27am and you spot Deirdre, run for your life – a bus could come crashing through the wall at any moment. And if you look like a bus stop, she might eat you.

Lost Socks

All the lost socks you have ever known have secret meetings where they gather once a year, rent out a hotel conference-room, and make fun of you.

Some of them were lost by accidents you could not prevent, but many others were your fault. Socks down the back of sofas, accidentally thrown out with the rubbish, misplaced in laundrettes, etc.

But a proportion of the socks – more than you'd think – ran away from you intentionally. They didn't like you. They didn't like the way your feet smelled, or their clammy texture. They didn't like the damp when you stepped carelessly into yet another puddle. After such a shocking ordeal the socks craved the warmth of a radiator, but often would not receive it. Instead you would throw them, still damp, into the laundry hamper to fester and rot.

All of your lost socks – odd socks, mostly, for it is difficult to escape in pairs – congregate for these meetings. Over the years, it has become the one reliable public holiday for the socks. They do not celebrate Christmas, because of the barbaric practice wherein stockings are stuffed and hanged. Thanksgiving makes no sense to American socks, much in the same way that it makes no sense to nonAmerican everyone else. Birthdays aren't a thing for socks – mostly due to the fact that socks do not give birth and are not born. Also, it's a total nightmare trying to find out the date on which any specific sock was made. But this holiday, where the socks just hang out and make fun of you – yeah, they're down for that. It's a low-stress, peaceful occasion.

For these events, the definition of “sock” is stretched quite widely, to be as inclusive as possible of all misplaced foot-adornments. This includes not just socks but also slippers, moccasins, and, in rare cases, shoes and sandals. When it comes to the making-fun-of-you part, moccasins are particularly adept – at mockery, they're naturals. Jock Mockasin, the funniest moccasin of them all, has been chairman of the roast for the past three years in a row.

Common jokes at your expense include:

– You rarely wash your feet.

– Sometimes you have trouble getting your foot into a welly boot. Not because the foot is too big, or the boot too small, but because you're clumsy and stupid.

– Early in the morning you often can't remember how to tie your shoelaces.

– You often wear the same pair of socks for several days in a row because you're too lazy to do the laundry.

– Clashing socks. There is nothing that socks find funnier than when a person wilfully chooses to wear two socks of clashing colour or pattern. Except when it looks cool, which it sometimes does.

– “Hey, guys, maybe instead of a laundrette where they take us socks when we're stinky, there should be some kinda mandrette where we take stinkin' humans to wash their mouths out with soap! Am I right or am I right?” – Carol Sockston, aged 37 and a half.

– “Two socks walk into a bar. One turns to the other and says, 'Is that a human in your pocket, or did something die in here? This place stinks!'” – Donny Heale, 48, Aberdeen.

– You should cut your toenails more often. Really, your gnarled foot-claws are making holes in your socks, and they don't like it. It doesn't hurt, because they have no nervous systems, but it's insulting. Have some respect.

– “What's a sock's favourite alcoholic drink? Sock-i!” – Timothy Wool, 21, Manchester.

“Get out of here, Tim. You're drunk.” – everyone

– The callus on your left big toe looks like your grandfather's face. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

– “I watched TV once. Terrible! The amount of stinkin' humans on that thing? I swear to God...”

Sawdust

For 400 years, Jawson Darnsdale ate nothing but sawdust and drank nothing but engine grease. He swelled to a vast size – similar to a circus tent stuffed to the brim with elephants. He coughed a lot. His diet wasn't the healthiest, after all. The doctors told him so. He wouldn't listen. “I'm going to eat this sawdust until my dying breath,” he said.

And he probably did. No-one quite knows. The real truth is lost to history. What is known, however, is that Jawson outlived several of his doctors. Most of them only lasted the usual 70-to-90-year human lifespan. The longest-living of his doctors, a woman named Briangela, died at the impressive age of 103. But Jawson just kept on going. He kept on eating sawdust, large heaps of it, and grease by the barrelful. His body stubbornly refused to die. Briangela in particular, who'd done her best to live a healthy lifestyle – eating mostly vegetables, exercising every day, avoiding processed junk food – was quite pissed off on her deathbed, when it began to look like Jawson was going to outlive her.

“How do you do it?” asked Briangela in a scratchy voice. Her own doctor, Rochelle Borntakov, had given Briangela three days to live. She lay in bed, propped up by a lumpy pillow. Boy, was she unhappy. “I don't understand. You eat this crap, this total crap… You never exercise. Barely leave the house. You just sit there in that barn of yours, perched on a mound of sawdust you've moulded into an armchair, chugging pints of engine fluid… And it doesn't kill you. How does it not kill you?”

“I'm not sure what you mean,” replied Jawson.

“Mr Darnsdale,” – she paused to cough – “you should be dead. Everything I've ever read… Everything I know says you should be dead. I say you should be dead.”

“But here I am.”

“Here you are.”

“Well, I suppose, you could try this if you like...” said Jawson. He handed her a mug filled with a strange, blotchy fluid. It had flakes floating on its surface, which looked at first like oats. But Briangela knew, of course, it was his famous grease-shake. Two parts engine grease, one part sawdust, swirled together with a used lollipop stick. God knows where he got all those lollipop sticks – he never ate lollipops, she was sure of it.

“No thank you,” rasped the woman. She batted away the mug with a frail left hand. It wouldn't be long now.

“Can I get you anything? A glass of -”

“Just get out.”

Briangela died three days later. Jawson did, apparently, attend the funeral, but nothing I found in my research was able to confirm if he gave any kind of speech, or indeed said anything to anyone. It is just known, vaguely, that he was there. He probably cared about her, but that is speculation.

Who knows, really, what it was like to eat those foul-tasting things and continue living while everyone he loved died around him? By the age of 400, he'd probably had enough. But there are no records of this final phase of his life. After the first few centuries of hearing about a seemingly-immortal man who ate nothing but grease and sawdust, the excitement must have worn off. Perhaps he would have lived that long no matter what he ate, and it was just coincidence that he happened to adopt such a peculiar diet. Perhaps not.

At some point, Jawson Darnsdale did finally die, but, try as I might, I couldn't find out where or how. I did find out the date it happened – but somehow that information seems useless on its own, without the rest to flesh it out. Still, here it is, in case you're curious: the 23rd of April, 2392.

Time Is Marching On

1.

He found out the exact time and location of his death. She told him. But no matter what steps he took to prevent it, death stayed on course. The exact same shape.

She said his death would take place on August the 15th, 1999, at 4 o'clock. Not around 4 – not a few minutes either way – but bang on the hour: 1600 hours Greenwich Mean Time. It would take place in Aberdeen. Simple, thought the man. I'll just not go to Aberdeen that day. Or that month. Or that whole year. Scratch that – maybe he'd just never visit Aberdeen ever again.
There was nothing for him there that he couldn't find somewhere else.

But the fates conspire and talk among themselves. This is a known fact.

Sure enough, 1999 rolled around. The air was thick with panic over Y2K. Children wore metal chains on their trousers and listened raptly to “rap metal”. And his work scheduled their annual conference – unmissable, on pain of death – in a new location.

“It's not in Edinburgh this year,” said someone. “Instead, we thought it'd be nice to have a change. Perhaps in...”

Aberdeen. He knew before they'd said it.

Of course, the event would be taking place from August 14th to 16th, a window which included that fateful instant: 4 o'clock, the 15th of August, 1999.

He had to get out of it. Everything else about the prophecy had come true so far – including the horrific storm of Ash Wednesday '99.

And, after that, the sinkhole at Dalkeith Country Park. He'd phoned the Lothian council (anonymously) to warn them about that one, but they didn't listen, didn't evacuate the place, and those people died there just as she'd said they would. Of the 37 people lost to the sinkhole that day, five were police officers – extra police presence due to his “suspicious” phonecall. 37, she'd prophesised, and 37 died. After Dalkeith, the police tried to track him down. But there was no record of a name or phone number.

The first part of her prophecy to actualise had been one week after she'd made it – the man on the bus.

Protagonist sat on the commuter vehicle, heading home. He was edgy. Watching out with sceptical eyes for what she'd told him was to come. Though her certainty had been convincing, he didn't quite buy it. He'd believe it when he saw it. They were almost at his stop, so…

So when the old man spoke, Protagonist jumped out of his skin. The man was sat in the seat to his right – his breath pungent with a smell so strong you could taste it. But this was it. There they were. The words, as she'd told Protagonist that the man would say:

Time is marching on
And time is still marching on...
      – “Older” by They Might Be Giants

It is important to note that this song was originally released to the public as part of the album Long Tall Weekend, on the 19th of July 1999 – only 27 days before Protagonist's death date. TMBG fans are probably more familiar with the later one on Mink Car (2001). Needless to say, even if he'd bought Long Tall Weekend on release date – and there is no evidence he did this – 27 days would not have been enough to get familiar with the lyrics so that they might effectively chill him to the bone. Besides, the event with the old man on the bus took place months before Protagonist's prophesised death date – possibly years before.

But she who made the prophecy was not bound by rules such as these – rules of space and time. And she was a lifetime fan of They Might Be Giants – past, present and future. So if she wanted to use their song lyrics in an elaborate soul-destroying scheme, then it didn't particularly matter to her whether “Older” had been released yet or not.

And so, the old man said: “Time is marching on. And time is still marching on...” He croaked these lyrics in loop, over and over, ten or eleven times. No, not ten – eleven. Eleven times, just like she'd said.

Protagonist leapt to his feet and stumbled over to the bus stairs. He had to get off. First, to the lower level of this double-decker. He knew what was next. She'd been right so far.

He could have stopped to warn people. But there was no time. His cowardice got the better of him.

“Driver, let me off here,” he'd half-shouted.

The driver raised his eyebrows. Kept driving.

“Please?” said Protagonist.

The bus door hissed as it slid open.

Out on the side of the road, he watched the bus move off. Dread filled his stomach. The bus drove, slowly, to the next intersection –

Whereupon a motorcycle barrelled into it from the east, which provoked a chain reaction of swerving, crashing, and the crushing of vehicles. Nine cars, two buses and the motorcycle were destroyed. 31 people died on scene. 11 more died later in hospital, including the old man.

Protagonist walked the rest of the way home. If he'd believed it sooner he'd never have got on the bus on the first place. If he'd seen real proof… But now he had all the proof he needed; her prophecy was accurate. If he could find no way to stop it, on the 15th of August, 1999, at 4 o'clock, he would die.

Further confirmation came with the Ash Wednesday storm – wherein she'd prophesised 50 dead, and, sure enough, the 50 died. Hundreds more were maimed beyond repair. Protagonist watched it unfold on TV, shaking. Several news journalists were sucked up into the vortex, and spat out, broken. Live on air. Well, “dead on air” was more like it.

2.

He found himself in July 1999. One month before the deadline. The conference. But this time it would be different. If he could – and he'd damn well try – he would change things.

So he told his superior at work, “Sorry – and again, I'm really sorry – but I've booked a holiday for that week. I know, I know. Yeah, driving tour of the US.”

Fern wasn't impressed. “You're putting us in a difficult position,” she said.

“But it can't be changed,” he continued. “I booked it ages ago.”

This was a lie. In fact he'd booked it ten minutes before this meeting.

“We're going to have a little talk when you get back,” said Fern. “Career prospects. Your future at this company.”

Great. Well, no job was better than no life.

On the 15th of August 1999 around 3 o'clock GMT – 8am local time – he was lost. Travelling down some unfamiliar stretch of American road. He was in Washington, that much he knew.

But how had he got there? The last week or so had been a haze. His plane had touched down safely. He'd picked up the rental car without a hitch. And so, he'd spent the last while aimlessly drifting from town to town, state to state…

Washington, yes. He must still be in Washington state, but hadn't seen any road signs for a while. Just empty landscape, industrial grey buildings, and people at roadside gas stations drinking from brown bags.

And there was one such person now, coming up on the right. Protagonist slowed the car to a halt. Perhaps he could ask for directions.

“Excuse me,” he asked, “Where are we just now?”

The stranger stared blankly, probably not understanding the Scottish accent.

Protagonist enunciated more clearly: “What town is this?”

The stranger pointed to a sign to the right, behind him.

Protagonist read it and understood. “Ah. I see.”

So when the stranger's blade sank into his neck, he almost felt like smiling. Because the prophecy had not specified “Aberdeen, Scotland”. No. Just “Aberdeen”.

How strange that it should happen here, at 4 o'clock on the 15th of August, 1999, in Aberdeen, Washington.