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blueguitar · 5 months ago

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“FAME”

or DAVID BOWIE GETS A HEADACHE

He's in the penthouse suite of a fine Manhattan hotel. Is 1990 palpably different from 1989? Not at 3 AM, it isn't. David Bowie wears a deep blue paisley sari, lounges on an enormous bed canopied like a tent in the desert. He plays atonal minor key riffs on his saxophone while the film, “My Life As A Dog” plays soundlessly on the television. He has an excruciating headache.

Headaches, these days, are an unusual occurrence for David Bowie. He has long since kicked his cocaine habit and now only rarely drinks – an occasional well-chilled Stolichnaya. The last time he smoked a joint, even, was two years ago with the jazz musician, Wayne Shorter, backstage at the Blue Note. David's new regimen is Tai Chi, meditation, and a near-scrupulous vegetarian diet. (Though he finds it hard to say no to wild Alaskan salmon... )

He gets up from the bed and walks into a frankly shockingly HUGE bathroom - all mirrors and black marble. He opens the medicine cabinet and pokes around. His favorite herbal remedy – some concoction of valerian root and kava-kava is not there to be found. He returns to the bedroom and digs through a leather satchel he always keeps near-by. Inside, there are undershirts, briefs, some postcards from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his notebook, an airplane bottle of Stoli, a copy of the I Ching and a slim volume of poems by Emily Dickinson, a broken Movado watch, CD's by Mingus and Coltrane, Lou Reed's latest (“Ehh.”), letters from Iman. And at the bottom of all this, he finds it. A small blue bottle. He opens it and shakes the bottle over his open palm, leaving nothing but a fine white dust that reminds him of years ago. He licks his palm and mutters, “Damn.”

His head is pounding, pounding, though and prompts a peculiar idea – an aspirin! Why not? It's not like he'd make a habit of it. Aspirin. It's for headaches, right? He goes to the phone and presses “1” for the concierge's desk. It's answered in two rings and David Bowie asks the concierge if there might be a bottle of aspirin that could be sent to his suite? And the concierge answers, “I'm sure of it, sir. Right away!”

David flops back onto the bed and waits. Less than a minute passes and the phone rings back. He answers and the concierge is telling him that he is very sorry, but that the hotel appears to be out of aspirin and that usually, he would run to the store just halfway down the block, but at this hour, he's the only man on shift and he can't leave his desk...

David asks cautiously, “There's a chemist on this block?”

And the concierge says, “Yes, sir! There's an all-night drugstore only two doors down from the hotel.”

“Well, thank you, anyway,” Bowie replies and hangs up the phone.

Well, that's it, then. I'll just go down to the store and buy a bottle of aspirin. People do that sort of thing all the time, don't they? he muses. He takes off his sari and puts on a pair of blue jeans and an undershirt. He thinks of his leather jacket in the walk-in closet, but thinks it's a tad conspicuous. Besides, it's unusually warm in the city tonight. He grabs this non-descript windbreaker he reserves for these occasions. Heading for the door, he almost forgets his sunglasses, but he goes back for them.

In the elevator, he presses “L” and then, his slender fingers to his temples and then, leans back closing his eyes.

The walk to the store is uneventful. Even in New York City, there are times when no one else is around. As he walks into the drug store, he hears, surprisingly, his own song, “Fame” being mutilated by some orchestra on the Muzak. He chuckles at that.

He never fails to be amazed by American convenience – so completely unlike his native England. Even in London, one would be hard-pressed to find an open chemist at 3 in the morning. And here? They have everything! Food. Envelopes. Magazines. Umbrellas. Teddy bears. David wonders who might buy a Teddy bear at 3 in the morning? Or a hammer and nails? Then he wonders, where do you suppose the keep the aspirin...

He wanders up one aisle, down the next. In the magazine aisle, again, he has a close call. A young man catches his eye and looks at him long and hard, the look says “Where do I know you from?” But then he picks up a copy of “Vibe” and heads for the register, without a word.

There are a second row of aisles in the back he just now notices... and soon,he finds what he wants. Row upon row upon row of it! Bowie marvels at the choice! Tylenol, Alleve, Motrin, Nuprin, Orudis. Do they even still make aspirin? But, it's there! Slightly dusty boxes of bottles of Bayer Aspirin. He takes one and heads to the front of the store.

And on the way there? He grabs a couple bottles of cranberry juice, a copy of “Vanity Fair”, and a Teddy bear! He's somewhat startled at first when he pulls it off the shelf, and it begins singing the first few lines of “Are You Lonesome, Tonight?” in a tinny, digital piping.

He puts his purchases on the counter and says, “I'd like to buy these things.”

And the girl behind the register, turns to him and says, “Wow! What an amazing accent! Are you Australian?”

#wayne l. berry #story by me

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spyvstailor · 8 years ago

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Chapter Seventeen of Pillar of Salt, for my fandom of two @daisylou2013 and @resurrectionofannabellee.

Chapter Seventeen

**Fate**

They were wandering past an empty gas station, when Sophia realized that she had forgotten her book.

“What do you need a book for?” Fate inquired when she told him.

“For nighttime reading,” she explained.

He chuckled. “Girl, how long do you expect us to be out here?”

She shrugged. “You never know.”

Pulling her into a drop behind an overturned truck, Fate whispered. “I want us to clear out this gas station. There may be some little treasures left behind.”

Sophia nodded.

“Now this will be the first time we work as team, yeah? I need you at my back, no faltering if something's bearing down.”

“I won't,” Sophia promised, her young face steeling into an adorably determined grimace.

Fate couldn't help reaching out and pinching her cheek, causing her to drop her grimace and giggle.

“Hey!”

“Alright, let's move out, you see anything move you shoot first.”

“What if it's someone alive?” She asked.

Fate paused, before he firmly repeated himself. “Shoot anything that moves.”

Sophia looked doubtful, before she nodded once.

“Alright, let's go,” he said, leading them up and over the truck.

Easing into the gas station as quietly as he could, he took in the space, memorizing any exits in the event they needed them. Behind the counter an uggie stood, gazing dumbly at the cash register.

Grasping Sophia by her elbow, he motioned for her to put her rifle on her back and use her knife. He figured if there wasn't a herd waiting for them, there shouldn't be too many more. No sense in wasting the bullets.

The girl hurriedly put her rifle on her back and removed her combat knife from the sheath at her hip.

Motioning for her to keep her eyes on him as back up, he approached the shuffler.

It jerked into a gross semblance of consciousness and grunted. Fate lured it out from behind the counter, before he stabbed up and into its brain from under the poor man's chin.

Dropping it quietly, he glanced around, before moving on into the backroom, Sophia at his back.

In the backroom another uggie was standing in the corner.

Fate kicked it in the middle of the back and knocked it forward, before ramming his knife into the back of its skull.

Copping a squat back there, he dropped his pack and opened it.

“Alright,” he said to Sophia. “Whatever looks useful, we shove inside our packs.”

“What's useful?” She asked.

“Lighters, batteries, unopened bottled water, granola bars, toiletries, anything that can keep and we can use,” he said.

The young girl nodded, before setting off going through boxes in the storeroom.

Fate waited until she was distracted, before going through the uggie's pockets for anything useful. Pulling out the man's wallet, he frowned and opened it long enough to read the man's name, before tucking it back where he found it.

“What's this?” Sophia asked pulling down a small metal object from a high shelf where it was tucked.

Standing up, Fate moved to her side and took the object.

It was a crack pipe.

Staring at the item in his hand, he pondered lying to the girl, before deciding she was taking things better than most girls her age would.

“It's a crack pipe,” he said.

“What's that?”

“It's a pipe you would use to smoke crack cocaine or crystal meth.”

Sophia was quiet for a moment, before nodding. “Okay.”

Tossing the pipe out of the room as far as he could fling it, Fate approached the girl as she continued her hunt for goodies.

“You find anything that looks like rock candy, you don't touch it, yeah?” He asked.

She nodded.

Turning his attention to going through a box of his own, he was buried elbow deep into a box of bubblegum, when Sophia asked, “why do people do drugs and drink?”

He shoved the bubblegum aside and opened another box. “Mais, that's a good question, lapin.” Sitting back, he pushed his helmet back and eyed her quietly. Normally it would be strapped tight if he was going to wear it, but he wasn't in the Corps anymore and annoyances be damned. “I suppose...well, you read your books to escape bad things, yeah? Like bad days or just feeling down. I guess some people drink and do drugs because of that.”

“Did you ever do drugs?” She asked.

Fate thought of the few times in high school where he smoked a bone with some of the rowdy kids who never went to class. “I smoked pot a few times.”

Sophia dropped from inspecting the top shelf and moved to sit beside him, dragging a box towards her.

“Why do you do that?” She asked him as they went back to sorting through the gas station's inventory.

“Do what, lapin?”

“Tell me truth all the time.”

Fate was quiet, opening a piece of bubblegum and offering her half. “Mais,” he began thoughtfully. “I suppose that's just what you do with people you love and trust.”

Sophia was quiet, chewing on her gum.

“When mama wasn't around,” she began softly, unable to look him in the eye, using the inventory before them as an excuse not to look at him. “My daddy used to try to...do things with me...touch me. Mama came home one day and found him...she never left me alone with him after that.”

The air around them felt like it was tightening, squeezing him like one of those blood pressure armbands, numbing his extremities.

“I know what was happening,” she admitted. “I'm not a baby, only he was really scary when he was mad.” Sophia's voice faltered and tears welled in her pretty hazel eyes. “That night he beat mama so badly she took me and we ran away to this place where we stayed overnight.”

“Why'd you two go back?” He asked, managing to find his voice.

“He found us a few days later and I remember him whispering really softly to mama, I thought they were making up, but he said something and we went home. I don't know what he said, but it scared mama, I could see it in her eyes.” Finding a box of lighters, she held it up and tucked the contents into his pack carefully. “I didn't tell you this to make you feel sorry for me and mama,” she said. “Only so that you'd know. I don't want to keep any secrets from you.”

“I appreciate the confidence you have in me, honeychild.”

She smiled sadly at him, tucking her creamed honey hair behind her ear and saying, “and I know you'd never hurt me or mama. You're different than daddy.”

He returned the smile. “I'd rather hurt myself than ever hurt you or your mama.”

“I hope you never have to, we love you too much,” she pointed out.

Spitting out his gum, he grinned and pulled a pack of Peeps out from one of the boxes. “Peep?”

She beamed and nodded.

Hearing a vehicle pulling up out front, Fate hurriedly gathered up his pack and pressing a finger to his lips, wordlessly motioned for Sophia to stay where she was as he crept out from the backroom to move to the window in order to peer out.

Outside a beat up old Cadillac had stopped and a scruffy man had emerged to urinate.

Grimacing, Fate ducked his head below the windowsill as the man looked up and around to ensure he was safe.

“Pete,” another man shouted from the car. “You're the only jackass I know who pulls over in order to piss on a gas pump.”

“Fuck it,” Pete shouted back. “This asshole got me arrested for jacking some shit last April, hope he rots in hell.”

Figuring Pete was returning not only to take a leak, but to perhaps finish robbing the place, he hurriedly moved away from the window and into the backroom.

“Come on, lapin, let's head out,” he said as casually as he could in order to keep her calm.

“Are there people here?” She asked.

“Yeah, let's take the back exit.”

They were returning home that evening loaded down with goodies, walking along a train track in order to avoid the main roads and Pete and his buddy should they be skulking around.

Sophia walked ahead of him, balancing on the rail as any child would.

After a while, he could have sworn he heard her murmuring to herself.

He edged ahead a little closer to her in order to hear her.

“O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street,” she sang under her breath. “Oh please let it be for me! O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street, I wish, I wish I knew what it could be!”

Beaming, Fate recalled the movie though he was sure it was a musical, wasn't it? He had watched it as a boy, curled up in front of his Mamere's old crackly television set. Late night movie, with oh...the mom from The Partridge Family.

“I got a box of maple sugar on my birthday.” Sophia went on singing under her breath.

Fate wished he knew the words. He could only remember bits and pieces.

“In March I got a gray mackinaw. And once I got some grapefruit from Tampa. Montgom'ry Ward sent me a bathtub and a cross-cut saw.”

Scooping up Sophia he helped her out on the next part.

“O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' now. Is it a prepaid surprise or C.O.D.?” He sang louder than she had been.

Sophia giggled.

Holding her under her arms, he walked her ahead of him, her feet barely touching the rail.

“It could be curtains! Or dishes! Or a double boiler!” She broke off into a fit of giggles. “Or it could be...yes, it could be, yes, you're right it surely could be--” She giggled some more. “Somethin' special. Somethin' very, very special now, just for me!”

Releasing her, Fate hopped onto the rail and balanced behind her as they walked and sang together.

“O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street. Oh, don't let him pass my door! O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin' down the street I wish I knew what he was comin' for.” They sang together.

Sophia waited for him to sing the next part, but he shrugged, so she took over. “I got some salmon from Seattle last September. And I expect a new rockin' chair. I hope I get my raisins from Fresno. The D.A.R. have sent a cannon for the courthouse square.”

Somehow Fate remembered the next part better than he should have and bust in, “O-ho the Wellth Fargo Wagon ith a-comin' now, I don't know how I can ever wait to thee. It could be thumpin' for thumone who ith no relation but it could be thump'n thpethyul just for me!”

Sophia doubled over in laughter, falling from the rail.

Scooping her up in his arms, Fate continued their journey and they continued to sing. “O-ho, you Wells Fargo Wagon keep a-comin'. O-ho, you Wells Fargo Wagon, keep a-comin'. O-ho you Wells Fargo Wagon, don't you dare make a stop until you stop for me!”

When they finally got home, their voices were scratchy from singing and their feet hurt from fooling around on the railroad track, but they felt happy and lighthearted as they trudged through their front gate.

Only Dale at the gate and Carol were up.

“Find anything good?” Dale asked.

Fate pulled out a box of Peeps and tossed them at the man. “Peeps!”

Dale eyed the pink things in his hand. “Thanks. How'd it go, sweetheart?” He asked Sophia.

“Good,” she chirped. “We didn't have any real troubles and I found some lighters.”

“This little lady took down an uggie on our way home,” Fate bragged. “Without even needing my help. With only her knife.”

“Taking them down is good, but just remember so are you, once they were as well,” he cautioned.

“I will,” Sophia said. “She was suffering, they all are.”

“I was beginning to get worried,” Carol said as she walked over to them from the dorms.

“Sorry,” Fate apologized. “We had to stop at this farmhouse, raid their pantry for some preserves and canned goods. Got some more to go back for tomorrow, couldn't carry it all.”

Sophia held up her heavy pack with a grunt. “We got all this though.”

“How'd it go?” Carol asked her daughter, stroking her hair.

“Good! Fate showed me how to make a bush biffy,” she said.

“A what?”

Fate cringed. “Lapin, you make it sound crass.”

“That's what you called it!” The girl protested.

“Ooh-ye-yi!” He exclaimed. “Best get inside, yeah? It's bedtime, I think.”

As Sophia headed inside, Carol turned to him.

“What's a bush biffy?”

Fate felt himself grow a little red. “I showed her how to dig a hole to do her messing in, keeps people from stepping in it. Don't know why that was the highlight of her day.”

Rolling her eyes, Carol pushed him in the direction of the dorms. “Anything you teach that girl is the highlight of her life.”

#it's short #but im back at it #that's something #Spy's random fandom #That's your name now.

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sadmudzines · 5 years ago

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EEL IN THE BATHROOM - PART THREE

(Featured in The Salmons Vol 1)

INT. HALLWAY, OCEAN VIEW HOTEL – NIGHT

Earle knocks on the door to the bathroom but blushes when Dr Eel doesn’t reply.

Marge eyes him expectantly.

MARGE: Can we watch Inspector Morse now?

EARLE: In a minute-

MARGE: You said there’d be Pringles-

EARLE: There are.

Earle avoids eye contact to protect his lie.

MARGE: I’ve got a hankering.

Earle knocks louder, disappointed in the silence.

MARGE: I don’t need the toilet. I don’t go after 8pm. It’s a health thing.

Earle knocks desperately.

EARLE: Dr Eel?

Earle goes to knock again when he eventually hears a grumbling noise. He jumps on it excitedly as it grows louder and louder until suddenly, silence.

DR EEL (OS): Come here or fuck there, I don’t care.

Earle breathes a sigh of relief that Dr Eel’s still there. He opens the door and nudges Marge inside but as he goes to follow him Dr Eel’s tail whips and the door slams shut.

Earle sweats, locked out, panic rising.

EARLE: Dr Eel? Marge?

Violent splashing.

EARLE: Everything okay in there?

Earle knocks tentatively. But no answer.

The splashing sound grows wilder, then screaming. Louder and louder screaming.

Earle panics. His knocking desperate. He’s shouting now.

EARLE: Dr Eel! Let me in!

No response. Just splashing and screaming.

EARLE: Marge? Marge! You alright in there?

The splashing and screaming zip silent. The silence sounds dangerous.

The bathroom door slowly creaks open.

Earle’s panting, scared to step inside.

Earle steps across the doorway. The once white walls now drip in red, glossy blood. Dr Eel and the multiplying fresh eels swim happily in the blood-dyed bath water.

Pieces of Marge scatter the bathroom, torn as if he was made of wet tissue paper. Earle whimpers when he spots Marge’s head. A frozen expression of fear and confusion on his dead face.

Earle can’t bear to look at it. He picks up a towel and gently lays it across what’s left of Marge.

EARLE: Mum’s going to be so mad… Why’d you do that for?

DR EEL: He just smelt so delicious. Like croissants.

EARLE: People will ask questions, what are we going to say? What are we going to do? What a mess, what an awful, disgusting mess. I don’t-

Earle stops mid-sentence as he notices his white trainers are stained with blood.

EARLE: Oh. They were brand new…

The eels continue to slosh in the bathtub.

DR EEL: Go on then, go and get your sweeties. Same place as before.

Earle looks around at the bloody mess.

EARLE: I’m not really in the mood anymore-

DR EEL: But look at all this effort you went through.

EARLE: I know but-

DR EEL: It’s not often you get a night like this.

Earle scoffs.

DR EEL: It’s not often it’s just you, relaxing-

EARLE: With a fucking talking Eel.

DR EEL: Do it.

EARLE: Hmm…

DR EEL: I mean it, do it. Do it, there’s nothing else left to do.

EARLE: I really don’t feel like it anymore.

DR EEL: This isn’t an invite to a tea party. Snort the cocaine, Alice.

Dr Eel whips his tail. As it touches Earle’s skin, electric current zings through his skeleton. Earle howls in pain. His hairs on end.

Dr Eel raises his tail again as a threat. Earle jumps to the cotton wool pot. His hands shake in fear as he scrambles for the drugs.

Pinching the powder between his fingers he pushes it up each nostril. Desperately. He snorts and sniffs as chunks fall from his nose. White rings highlight the circles of his nostril holes.

He repeats until the bag empty. He slumps to the bloody floor once he’s inhaled it all.

DR EEL: Now, more.

EARLE: No more.

DR EEL: Another human, a prettier one. A skinnier one.

Earle shakes his head.

EARLE: No more, I just want to go to bed-

DR EEL: These are the final hours of the night. Aren’t you curious about what could happen? How much we could achieve?

EARLE: No.

DR EEL: That’s what you tell yourself now. But in the morning? When the memories are already made…

Earle softens, tempted. Dr Eel hisses in excitement at Earle’s change in heart.

DR EEL: One more human.

EARLE: There’s no-one who’s thin or pretty in Sugar-On-Sea.

DR EEL: Just thin, then. I can use my imagination…

EARLE: What are you going to do with them?

Dr Eel just hisses.

EARLE: I’d feel guilty about Marge if it wasn’t Marge. But another person… I don’t want you doing what you did to Marge.

DR EEL: One more human, one more line.

EARLE: But I don’t want one-

Dr Eel flicked his tail and electrocuted Earle. The flash created shadows from his bones, nerves and organs as if his skin was a silk screen for puppets.

The air smelt of burnt hair, his own. The electric current had singed his extremities including his fingertips. He didn’t want to leave the house, he meant it when he told Dr Eel there was no-one thinner, prettier and awake. Sugar-On-Sea drained the life from people and instead pumped them full of Trans fat and pessimism. It was a lost cause, but he couldn’t face Dr Eel. The shocks were becoming more painful as Dr Eel’s strength gained from the Fanta and blood. It made his bones vibrate, he never felt pain like it. He sank to the sofa, his hope catching a ride out on every exhale he took. His lungs were nearly empty of all air and feeling, his body as flat and flimsy as a pair of tights. He tried to concentrate, but his head swam; neurons darting in directions as a school of fish at a junction. He thought if he could brace himself, go back into the bathroom and tell Dr Eel no – as confidently as the women who reject him weekend in and out– then it would be all be okay. Just as he was to make the long walk back to the bathroom; something stopped him. A book on the shelf. Sugar-On-Sea still published the yellow pages. A mistrust of the internet in this town gave way for long lost relics to still have a functioning place in society such as phone boxes and Marks & Spencer’s.

This edition of the yellow pages was a few years old, Mr Salmon liked 1988 so he tried to hold onto as many things from that year. It was Earle’s last and only shot.

The town’s council had a surprisingly progressive stance on sex work; prostitution was legal and the strip club was more like a town hall than… well, a strip club. But really, to Earle, it was just a veiled attempt for the council men to cheat on their wives in the name of feminism and freedom.

Earle flicked through the yellow pages and came to the section he needed; whores. The council really had a way with words. He ran his finger down the listing from the Angelas through to the Bettys and then to the Catherines. He stopped on one, Daphne. Her shoulders were sharp points, her soft skin fell dramatically from cheek bones which could only have been achieved by a decent few years of an eating disorder. Thin, yes. Pretty, sort of. The decider was her foreign surname; at least if she was to end up on the floor of his bathroom, like a macabre pick and mix, then maybe it best if she didn’t have any family in the area, no-one would miss her – at least not in a one hundred-mile radius. Earle rang and to his surprise she answered straight away. His heart sunk a little as he heard a thick Essex accent. But it was late, and he just wanted this whole horrible ordeal to be over and done with. He imagined her pink lip stick smudging the other end of the retriever.

He told himself if he managed to clear up all the blood and Fanta and Class A’s by morning. It would be okay to stay up a little later and do one last deed for Dr Eel.

INT. FRONT ROOM, OCEAN VIEW HOTEL – NIGHT

Earle nervously scratched the back of his head.

DAPHNE (O.S): 5am? Make it 4am – gotta get the kids to school.

EARLE: Kids?

DAPHNE (O.S): I don’t know what you’re thinking you dirty pervert but-

EARLE: No, no. That’s not what I… I just didn’t think about them, about you having to be somewhere in the morning-

DAPHNE (O.S): I’m a real person, you know that right? Got jobs on my list that don’t start with blow. Got it?

EARLE: Yes…

Earle’s face drops, the guilt almost weighing down the skin around his eye sockets.

DAPHNE (O.S): Looking forward to it… What’s your name?

EARLE (sadly): Cunt-Fuck.

DAPHNE (O.S): Is that German?

EARLE: Sure.

Earle puts down the receiver. He sniffs and wipes his nose.

Thumping electronic music sounds from inside the bathroom.

EARLE: Dr Eel! The Neighbours, please-

The music is nudged louder.

Earle rests his head against the wood of the door, weary.

The purple light of dawn seeps through the window, intensifying with every minute.

The doorbell rings. Earle’s paralyzed.

The doorbell rings again, but this time the ringing is sustained.

Earle goes to duck and hide but is too late.

DAPHNE (O.S): I can see you in there! I’m not swapping my jammies for corsets for no money.

The door shakes as it’s banged.

Earle answers the door.

DAPHNE (58) stands on the other side. Older and fatter than her picture.

She barges past.

DAPHNE: What the fuck was that about? Told you I didn’t have the time for games. That’s extra.

Earle stares at the picture in the yellow pages. Looking up and down to persuade himself it’s the right woman. Daphne catches him.

DAPHNE: After the 80s, came the 90s and this is what they did me. Like I said I ain’t got all night.

Daphne drops her coat to reveal her body, like raw sausage meat poking through a complex of leather straps and fishnets. Earle grimaces but Daphne steels.

DAPHNE: Money. Now.

Earle scrambles for the cash.

DAPHNE: Actually, I’m desperate for a wizz. Back in a min-

Daphne turns to go to the bathroom but Earle goes green.

EARLE: Wait!

DAPHNE: I can piss on you, but that’ll be £30 on top of what we’ve agreed.

Earle’s thinks about it.

EARLE: Really?

Daphne takes another step closer to the bathroom.

EARLE: No, stop!

Guilt overcomes him.

EARLE: I can’t do this-

DAPHNE: You called me, remember?

EARLE: I’m not, I-

Daphne laughs as Earle squirms.

EARLE: What I’m about to tell you is… I just need you to believe me. It’s weird, I don’t really believe it myself but-

DAPHNE: Spit it out.

EARLE: There’s an eel. A talking one. In there. And I think it wants to chop you up. I told him no but he wouldn’t take it. He said to bring you here and-

DAPHNE: You were going to feed me to at talking fucking eel?

EARLE: Not feed, I’m not really sure what he wants. I think he likes blood or maybe organs I’m not really sure.

Daphne lights up a cigarette.

DAPHNE: I knew you were into some sick fucking stuff, but this?

EARLE: I was hoping he wouldn’t eat you.

DAPHNE: Where is he?

Earle nods solemnly to the bathroom.

Daphne sighs knowingly.

DAPHNE: £40 now then £40 after.

EARLE: I’m feeling quite vulnerable right now, I’m not sure I could… perform as I’d like-

DAPHNE: I’m not going to fuck you.

Daphne gestures to the bathroom door.

DAPHNE: I’ve seen this before.

EARLE: Oh.

DAPHNE: I should have known by the way you were chewing the inside of your cheek.

Earle claps his hand across his mouth, feeling for himself just how tight his jaw is.

DAPHNE: I need rubber gloves, a bread knife and salt.

Earle stares in disbelief.

DAPHNE: Now.

Earle scrambles for the items in the kitchen.

Daphne lights another fag.

DAPHNE: Nice place…

She picks up a family photo from the side and snorts.

DAPHNE: You a Salmon?

The sound of Earle clattering around from the other room.

EARLE (O.S): Yeah, why?

DAPHNE (mutters): Like father, like son.

Earle returns triumphantly. Daphne swipes the items from his arms and pockets the £40 into the leather strap of her girdle. She pings the plastic gloves onto her hands as if a vet would at the rear end of cow.

Earle watches as she marches towards the bathroom. Naked aside from her bondage.

Earle winces as he sees her stub her cigarette out on the carpet. Daphne bashes the door down with her hoof-like foot. Earle goes to follow but she slams the door shut.

A high-pitched squeal ruminates from the bathroom.

Earle can’t bear to hear it.

The sound of water thrashing. It lasts forever to Earle’s ears.

Daphne eventually emerges from the bathroom holding the decapitated head of Dr Eel. It’s as if a bucket of blood had been poured over head. She coolly slicks her hair back and scoops the blood from her eyes. Two pearl-like peepers peer back through the ruby gloop.

She lights a cigarette. Breathing in the smoke with resolve.

She holds out the palm of her hand and a shaken Earle places £40 within it.

DAPHNE: Let me know what to expect next time. I wouldn’t have worn this.

Daphne dumps Dr Eel’s head next to Earle and leaves without another word.

Earle slumps to the floor, weary and broken. Stunned.

His eyes heavy, he falls into a deep sleep.

INT. FRONT ROOM, OCEAN VIEW HOTEL – MORNING

Hungover, Earle remains collapsed against the wall. The room is blood-stained. Dr Eel’s chopped head next to him. The end credits of Inspector Morse speed downwards on the TV.

The sound of the front door opening and closing. There’s footsteps for a few moments until suddenly they stop. A startling scream pierces the house.

Earle bolts awake. The force almost makes him sick.

EARLE: Shit, shit, shit-

MRS SALMON (59) appears from around the corner. Furious, she stands over Earle.

MRS SALMON: Have you seen the state of that bathroom?

EARLE: I’m sorry, mum.

Mrs Salmon burns red.

MRS SALMON: You’ve been doing drugs again, haven’t you?

Earle hangs his head in shame.

MRS SALMON: I told you, no drugs!

Earle goes to open his mouth but no words come out. She knows when he’s lying.

MRS SALMON: You haven’t even bothered to wipe the tiles.

Mrs Salmon storms from the room.

Earle is left alone, a naughty and sad little boy.

Mrs Salmon caught Earle a couple of times a year in his early twenties. He did it because it felt good – for a while anyway – a pursuit of pure, selfish pleasure where the dopamine hit was only equalled by online shopping and not much else.

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ourhealthyfoodblog-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Healthy Food and Remedies

New Post has been published on http://healthyfoodandremedies.com/2017/02/19/6-creepiest-lies-food-industry-feeding/

The 6 Creepiest Lies the Food Industry is Feeding You

As we’ve talked about before, the food industry is based almost entirely on a series of lies that, quite frankly, most of us just prefer to believe (“‘All natural?’ Sounds healthy to me!”). But we have to draw the line somewhere, right? Especially when the food you buy has nothing to do with what it says on the label.

Your Honey and Spices Are Fake

If you’re like us and you only use spices to impress the opposite sex with the illusion that you know what to do with them, then it’s possible that you don’t even really know what that stuff is supposed to be made of. And that’s exactly where the food industry wants you, if they’re going to sell you fake bootleg spices.

The Horror:

Take honey, for example. You’d think it’s a pretty straightforward product — bees make it, bears steal it from the bees, you eat it. Or something. But the truth is that pretty much all the major players in the industry knowingly buy their honey from dodgy sources in China — a country that, for instance, has no qualms in purveying pepper that is entirely made from mud.

Bootleg Chinese honey frequently has all of the pollen filtered out of it to disguise its origin, and it’s then cut like back-alley cocaine with cheap corn syrup and artificial sweeteners. The FDA says that a substance can’t legally be called “honey” if it contains no pollen, and yet most of the stuff tested from the main retailers contained not a trace of it.

Soy sauce is another thing you’d assume no one would feel the need to fabricate, seeing as soy isn’t exactly a rare commodity. Again, you’d be wrong. Proper soy sauce takes a pretty long time to make, so many manufacturers have started producing an imitation product that takes only three days to make and has a longer shelf life. It is made from something called “hydrolyzed vegetable proteins,” as well as caramel coloring, salt, and our good old friend corn syrup. Most of the soy sauce that you get in packets with your sushi is actually this fake stuff. But at least it comes with wasabi, too, right? If by “wasabi” you mean “horseradish mixed with mustard.” Let’s face it, you probably weren’t even served by a real Japanese person.

The worst offender is possibly saffron. The real stuff is up there with the most expensive spices at roughly $10,000 per pound. That’s especially impressive, considering that a lot of “top-quality” saffron consists of roughly 10 percent actual saffron. The rest is just random, worthless plant bits, ground up and mixed with the real thing.

And that’s what you get when you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you get the complete forgery:

On the left, you see real saffron. On the right — saffron-flavored gelatin. Its appearance is convincing enough, until you put it in water and it completely dissolves, leaving behind little more than a bland aftertaste and a patch of froth shaped like a middle finger.

Your Chicken Is Pumped Full of Weird Liquids

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There’s nothing as appetizing as a nice, plump, juicy chicken carcass, roasted to a golden sheen. We’re getting hungry just thinking about it. But as much as everything with a kind of indescribable taste is said to “taste like chicken,” it’s kind of ironic that you probably don’t actually know what real chicken tastes like, because …

The Horror:

For decades, the vast majority of our “fresh” chicken has been infused with a whole bunch of other substances, up to and including beef and pork waste. That’s bad news for Hindus, Muslims and anyone else who is choosing the chicken dish from the menu because contact with beef or pork is expressly forbidden by their religion.

But even when the chicken is untainted by cloven-hoofed contaminants, you’re still likely eating a bird that’s pumped full of chicken stock, brine and “flavor enhancers.” It’s called plumping, and it’s been standard practice in chicken production since around the ’70s. The industry explains that it’s to add juiciness to chicken that would otherwise be too lean and chewy. Sure, they neglect to mention the fact that the chicken is stringy and inferior because they’ve deliberately bred it to be faster and cheaper to manufacture, but at least they’re not technically lying, at least not at this point.

But food companies often blatantly overdo the required amounts to “plump” a chicken to tenderness by pumping their fowl up until the extra substances make up as much as 30 percent of the total weight, and we’re sure it’s just coincidence that chicken is priced by the pound.

But the weight issue is just the beginning. The industry describes the plumping process as “completely harmless,” in the same way a marathon runner’s nuts could be described as “pleasantly savory.” Plumping can up to quadruple the meat’s sodium levels, leaving it riddled with unnecessary salts. All attempts to “improve” the plumping formula to fix the sodium problem have led to a giant spiral of more and more crap being thrown into the mix, to the point where you probably don’t know what percentage of your chicken is even kind of chicken.

Of course, you can try to avoid it by only buying chicken that has “100 PERCENT NATURAL” printed on the label, and they will laugh at your cute attempts to cheat the system. Due to a technicality in regulations, all chicken — plumped or not — can be labelled as a completely natural product … as long as the ingredients in the plumping solution can be described as “natural” without anyone bursting into laughter.

Your Meat Might Be Made from Glued-Together Scraps

Unless you’re one of those people who substitute a lump of tofu for a real turkey on Thanksgiving, meat is meat. And don’t worry, we’re not about to tell you that the juicy slab of rib eye that you brought home from the shady discount butcher isn’t a real steak. In fact, it’s quite likely half a dozen steaks … as well as whatever else they swept off the slaughterhouse floor.

The Horror:

There’s a substance in the meat industry’s bag of tricks called “transglutaminase.” That’s an awful lot of syllables, so most people just call it by its nickname — meat glue. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Its intended purpose is for fancy chefs who sometimes need to stick different parts of a meal together after preparation (to make crab cakes and such), but it has another, shadier purpose among renegade butchers.

It goes like this: During the heavily industrialized process of turning animals into delicious food, there tends to be a lot of pieces left over that aren’t good for much but pet food. Transglutaminase can be used to glue these tiny bits together into a sort of patchwork slab, which looks a lot like one consistent cut of meat.

Since the process doesn’t leave a trace, and transglutaminase isn’t among the substances required to be mentioned in the table of ingredients, you have fat chance of knowing it’s there unless you’re an expert at interpreting the seams in your meat. This process not only sells you scraps for the price of prime meat, but it also leaves you with a “steak” that might well be made from a dozen different cows, making it next to impossible to trace the source for your food poisoning, the chances for which are incidentally now tenfold, thanks to the uneven consistency of what you’re trying to fry up.

Meat glue works its magic just as well on chicken and seafood, which is bad news once again for our Muslim, Jewish and Hindu readers — transglutaminase comes from pig and cow blood. Well, at least that tofu turkey is pretty kosher.

Your Salmon Is Dyed Pink

When you think of salmon in the wild, you’re usually imagining a bunch of strong, determined fish swimming upward through a waterfall, maybe while getting chased by bears. It’s the blood rushing through the powerful salmon’s veins that makes its flesh so pink and healthy as a bastard — by devouring it, you also absorb its strength and the spirit of the untamed Alaskan wilderness.

The Horror:

At least, that used to be how it worked. The salmon you eat today has never swum a single damn inch upstream. Instead of the Alaskan wilderness, today’s salmon only contain the spirit of the cramped, overcrowded salmon farms in which they spent their entire lives. Because the fish can’t move much and their diet consists entirely of aquarium pellets, the salmon that arrives at your local Safeway is as gray as a British winter.

So how do they recapture the soul of Alaska? They pump the salmon full of pink dye, obviously. The pellets they feed to those aquatic prisoners are infused with a line of coloring agents developed by the pharmaceutical giant Hoffman-La Roche and selected according to a color fan. That’s right — just like the ones you use to choose the color of your wall paint from the hardware store. Behold, the SalmoFan:

This is no small-scale stuff, either. About 95 percent of Atlantic salmon is currently farmed, and pretty much all of it is dyed.

Of course, salmon is not the only thing in your grocery basket that isn’t really the color you think it is. Remember Perdue chicken, Frank Perdue’s famous poultry with the “healthy, golden color”? Turns out that the healthy, natural color was achieved with a mix of marigold petals and dyes. In the baked goods corner we have wheat bread, which is often dyed darker with brown sugar or molasses to make it appear more healthy. The peculiarly orange hue of cheddar cheese is also a careful mix of coloring agents, because the natural color of cheese batches varies, and being faced with variation reduces regular shoppers to confused and aggressive beasts.

For the red-meat lovers out there, rest assured that your hamburger and sausage meat is often dyed to a more appetizingly red hue that can cause cancer. But hell, who wants to eat slightly inconsistent-looking food?

Kobe Beef Doesn’t Really Exist

Seasoned carnivores know that Kobe beef is just about the cream of the crop, if you can afford it. The Japanese Wagyu cattle it comes from are raised with a very direct set of rules, followed with the kind of strict meticulousness you’d expect from a country where making a cup of tea is an hour-long ritual.

Luckily, the international market has made Kobe beef pretty widely available. Nowadays, many restaurants keep Kobe on the menu, and many a well-equipped meat purveyor is able to get his hands on a chunk every now and then. And as the markets open, the prices plummet — these days, you can totally enjoy a delicious Kobe burger for the relatively measly price of $81.

Say, ever wonder where all this sudden, delicious Kobe influx comes from?

The Horror:

Nowhere, that’s where. Every single restaurant and beef purveyor boasting Kobe beef is lying its ass off. You have never had real Kobe beef. Not in the U.S., not in Europe, not in Australia. Unless you actually flew to Japan and specifically sought it out, you haven’t had a shadow of a chance to even sniff a Kobe steak.

In fact, the strict rules that apply to Kobe production aren’t in compliance with U.S. legislation, which technically makes the meat more or less illegal stateside. And there is precious little Kobe beef to go around — so it doesn’t. With the exception of Macau, for some reason, Kobe beef is exclusive to Japan, and even there it can be a bastard to find.

So wait, what are they actually feeding us when we pick “Kobe” off the menu? Whatever the hell they want. The term “Kobe beef” is only subject to regulation within Japan, so for the rest of us, it can legally apply to anything that doesn’t violate the “beef” part of the description.

When you buy something labeled “Kobe beef,” it’s likely that you’re actually buying something with a vague explanation, like it’s prepared “in the style” of a Kobe steak, which probably isn’t enough to warrant the $80 price tag, unless you’re one of those creepy Japanophiles.

Your Olive Oil Is Fake, Thanks to the Mob

Even though it’s basically just fat, olive oil is one of those fabled “good fats” that sounds like “healthy cigarettes,” except that the folks at Harvard will even tell you that olive oil can prevent heart disease and generally help you live longer. It’s such a shame that you may never actually get to try the stuff, thanks to a shadowy global conspiracy that exists purely to keep it away from you.

The Horror:

As crazy as it sounds, olive oil piracy is one of the Italian Mafia’s most lucrative enterprises, to the extent that it appears that most olive oil on the market is either greatly diluted or completely forged by a massive shadow industry that involves major names such as Bertolli.

They’ve been at it for a while, too — Joe Profaci, said to be one of the real-life dons who inspired the character of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, was known by the moniker of “The Olive Oil King.” But evidence suggests that olive oil racketeering has been a major problem in the world for centuries. Hell, the ancient Sumerians had a fraud squad for shady olive oil peddlers.

Today, the stuff that is pawned off to us as quality olive oil is often just a tiny amount of the real thing, mixed with up to 80 percent of ordinary, less than healthy, cheap as muck sunflower oil. That is, if you’re getting any olive oil at all. In fact, we’re so used to shitty olive oil that apparently food connoisseurs reject the real stuff because it tastes fake to them.

But why would anyone bother? It’s freaking olive oil. How much money can there be in it when you can get a bottle for a few bucks at the grocery store? It turns out that, profit-wise, shady olive oil is comparable to cocaine trafficking. If anything, the reality would have really changed the atmosphere of the Godfather movies.

#Food Industry

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