Apathy UK

I got some rather bad news today. Apparently my lower colon is rife with cancer. The doctor who told me was Dr. Rasheed and I find it nigh on impossible to understand anything he says. The fault is most certainly on my side as Dr. Rasheed is, after all, a doctor. I am only a struggling misanthropist with a shadowy background and suspected links to the IRA who has about two weeks to live. So anyway, Dr Rasheed spoke to me for about half an hour and I imagine he was very tactful and sensitive. It was nurse Sally Baker, an ex girlfriend of mine, who cleared up the matter in about thirty seconds after I left the doctor’s office. Considering the whole incident with me and her sister, I think she quite enjoyed it. “Hello Bruce. You’ve got cancer of the lower colon. It’s terminal. You’ve got about two weeks to live. Did you hear that my sister is a lesbian now? See you.” I had been pretty much floored as soon as I saw Sally so she managed to escape down the corridor without any smart a...

I’ve just got home from the airfield in Newquay. The trip, as a whole, was rather eventful. As I mentioned yesterday, I was popping over to Sofia to pick up an assignment of Kalashnikovs that Vlad had secured for me. Despite having had my pilots license revoked for party crashing a Mig 31 air show display in my Cessna sometime last year, I have yet to be checked flying in and out of Newquay airfield. Newquay, for those who have never experienced the best surfing beaches in Europe, is perhaps the jewel in the holiday crown of Cornwall, or Kernow for the locals. Anyway, I left there last night in my Stealth Cessna (a Cessna covered in reduced treacle which deflects all known radar) and flew at three hundred feet to Eastern Europe and the cabbage field just outside Sofia where I hooked up with Vlad, my Bulgarian comrade with arms. I met Vlad about ten years ago in some shell hole feet deep in mud, blood and crud, situated somewhere near Ruslintingazzak in former Yugoslavia. We were bo...

Anyway, having landed amidst the Bulgarian cabbages, Vlad drove me to his bunker and stood back as I excitedly began to jimmy the lid off one of the two boxes containing those wonderfully effective and reliable Russian automatic rifles. As the lid fell to the floor and I perused the wares within, it became abundantly clear to me that this was going to be one of the numerous occasions when I would regret that I spoke not a word of Bulgarian and Vlad not a syllable of English. I had flown 400 miles at 300 feet at night and spent over 200 pounds on treacle to come and pick up two crates of Kalamares. That’s squid in tins for anyone who doesn’t know. Incidentally, if you have never tried the delicacy that is tinned Kalamares and would like to (believe me, you won’t regret it) contact me at my email address and I’ll sort you right out with some and at a crackerjack price too. Vlad could tell I was disappointed as I got him in a headlock and ran his head against the concrete struts of the bu...

At this point I would like to make an observation. I frequently find when looking at a fellow human being that I get a sudden flash of an image of how these people will look when they are much elder. The young features of a bus driver will suddenly distort into the grizzled lines of an aging alcoholic. That fine young girl I pass every morning on the way to the Post Office suddenly looks like she’s carrying the sagging facial flesh of a fourty year old with seventeen kids. What I am trying to say is that often I can’t help but imagine everyone I see as they will look in twenty, thirty, forty years. It is never a pretty sight and puts me right off any further commitment to them. I know this is foolish as I too will end up wrinkly, saggy, incontinent and dribbling (Yes, it is true. Those who know me by sight will find this very hard to believe but I insist it will happen. Probably.) but I cannot help myself. I have too much empathy of the crumbly nature of mankind. Anyway, all of wh...

Did I mention that the US Airforce has an airfield base in Newquay? No? Well, they do and they have lots of jets and missiles and radar, hence the treacle. I normally like to land right at the end of their longest runway, out of sight and sound, especially at the moment. Listening to the vibes I am getting from my sources, the Yanks are ready to start shooting at anyone and, judging by past history, that includes themselves. When they are riled up like this I find the best way to deal with them is to duck and cover quite close to whatever object they are at that time attempting to destroy. Give it a moment or two and they will have blown so much dust to shit that they won’t be able to see the target and, confident in the lethal combination of their technology and talent, will move onto the next labeled threat. Anyway, that’s not a rant, fair play to them and all that. In this business morality is for the underachiever. So, having clipped one of the radar masts on the control tower with...

Sophia arrived this morning looking as glorious as ever. I’ve known her for over a decade and have never felt anything towards her but desire. I desire her, I desire her to desire me. We’ve always been friends since we met in Seattle all those years ago. She was the public defendant for holidaying immigrants who had run afoul of the US legal system. Purely by accident I had attempted to defraud the Treasury out of about 20 million dollars but the hooker I had been with during the night ratted me out to her favourite client during the day, who turned out to be a FBI agent. So there I was with no fiscal resource and relying on Sophia, this dark skinned Mexican fresh out of some dubious Law School south of the border. She looked the part all right, curvaceous legs and hips, a dark tangle of black hair, brown eyes that raised your heartbeat as they swept across you and a wit and intelligence that could draw blood. However, despite how much I wanted to leave myself in her handsome hands, I ...

As we walked towards the pub she slipped her hand into mine. She didn’t say anything so neither did I but I felt like singing. She had just made me happier than I had been for a long time and I knew then that even when I had analysed her action and possible motives to death, her simple act would still remain clear, distinct and irrefutable. Perhaps she held my hand as great and platonic friends often do. Maybe, just maybe (but God I hoped so) she had started to feel even a glimmer of what I feel for her. But then I consider that it might just be because her hand is cold. Then I realise she has pockets to protect her svelte fingers from the driving coastal winds and I curse myself for my unstoppable analysis. My unending search for the truth of every situation demands such introspection, to give me the security of indubitable knowledge. But how can I know that I am right. Surely the more I search for the truth the further I take myself from it. Perhaps a subjective approach can only eve...

A small and dark village street was no place to fight someone learned in the ways of Ninjitsu. Fuji might move from shadow to shadow with no noise until she could whisper in my ear that the needle she had just stuck into me was coated in some unpleasant poison. I was also worried about Sophie becoming involved so I stood up, moved to the centre of the road where the little moonlight that there was fell, slipped my coat from my shoulders and onto the ground and spoke: ME: “Fuji, get out here and suffer my wrath. See if you can take me. I’m going to fuck you terminally up this time.” Fuji and I had tussled before, once on an oilrig, twice on a narrow suspension bridge and frequently in bed. She was a master assassin who had never been able to terminate me in years of trying and had eventually decided to bed me instead. Which she did with far more success. Since those few sweaty months in Hiroshima she has viewed me as hers, as Bruce-Who-Shall-Not-Poke-Any-Other-Then-Me-Fuji, or ‘Br...

erm..

And then the shadow I was watching gave birth to the diminutive form of Fuji. I cleared my mind of distractions and found my Happy Place. I smiled to myself. I am going to hurt someone now. Fuji is approaching, flexing her legs and arms for the workout she knows she’s about to get. Our eyes meet for the first time in years and hers are green, like creamy jade. I see her coiling her left arm ready to strike and I tense in preparation of evading her attack and breaking her neck in one clean move just at the same time that Sophia falls out of the doorway: SOPHIA: “Eeeeee. Fuck! Bruce!” (She is just so succinct.) Sophia falls towards me and I turn to catch her and throw her back from whence she came. Couldn’t see she I was involved in mortal combat? Then Fuji spat:

FUJI: “Listen bitch, you stay away from him. He’s mine.” ME: “Er, no I’m not.” FUJI: “O yeah, well you will be.” ME: “I don’t think so.” FUJI: “I’m pregnant.” ME: “O congratulations!” FUJI: “You’re the father.” ME: “I don’t see how that’s possible.” FUJI: “You remember that night? The one when you told me you loved me and then we screwed.” ME: “Not clearly. It was ten years ago. Do you remember?” FUJI: “Hai! You took my cherry.” ME: “Right. I think this is all a dream you’ve had. Perhaps you ate too much cheese one night before you slept. Anyway, I don’t love you, I love her.” SOPHIA: “And I love him.” We take time for an ‘Aside’ during which we look deep into each other’s eyes. FUJI: “NO you don’t. I love him and he loves me. Here look, look at this tattoo.” SOPHIA: “Darran hearts Sharon forever.” FUJI: “See!” ME: “But my name’s Bruce.” FUJI: “So?” ME: “And isn’t your name Fuji?” FUJI: “What? NO! I mean, yes. But I love you B...

And she did with nothing so much as a disdainful look backwards. Sophia and I never did make it to “Three in a Bush” although we both spent much of yesterday night in each other’s. That is all there is to be said on the matter, as a gentleman never speaks of such things. Especially not when the lady concerned is waiting in the bath upstairs. And I respect her completely as well. Let’s not forget that.