Pongo Pygmaeus

NaNoWriMo was mostly successful this year, for a first attempt. I didn't manage to make it to 50,000 words like Jack_Cade and numerous other seriously industrious souls did. In fact, I managed almost exactly half of that, weighing in on Day 30 at just over 25,000 words. However, Jack's insistence that I try the exercise in the first place has left me actually wanting to continue writing a novel, something I never thought I would do.

So here goes: I have to eventually sift through the continuity car-crash that is already blocking the road, but meanwhile, here's the ongoing saga of Pongo Pygmaeus.

Pongo #41

Andaw I am wrestling with the skin of a mango when the intercom goes. The video screen shows a large man in security armour yawning. I am about to fuzz over the intercom that I want to see ID when I notice the parcel under his arm. So they sent a knight this time. Three seconds, a deep breath, and then, just as I see him cuh and reach again for the button, I buzz him inside.

Pongo #53

Insa The lump on my head is still angry. So is my head. I can't believe it. I had her, and not just a glimpse in passing, I held her scarecrow body in my arms and said her name, and I still lost her.

Pongo #54

Zoom In this issue, readers share their worries about Idolmorphism, the disorder that experts are claiming has contributed to tragic events such as the recent stabbing of Maren Gilligan

Pongo #55

Insa Dear Ms Harver, We have recently admitted an extremely disturbed individual into our care. We believe she is suffering from trauma-induced amnesia, as she cannot remember her own name and insists on giving different answers to the question. Despite this setback, however, we have been able to identify her as one Cadderine Jener Harver. Having tried to contact Cadderine's next of kin, her mother, we have met with no response. After a conversation with the patient herself, however, we believe that she is your sister. This information came more freely than her own personal details, if

Pongo #56

Miffy They're gone. I boil the kettle, barely registering when the steam scalds my hand as it rests on the spout. I think I say fuck. Or maybe I should say fuck and I don't.

Pongo #57

Andaw I hadn't realised before how much she'd given me. I thought I was pretty much equal cups of every donor I'd ever done business with until now. Mirrors don't lie as such. Lighting disguises, enhances, worsens, flatters, and mirrors can be read under delusion, or denial, but the actual glass is honest, even when cracked. It genuinely tries to process whatever is set before it, however hideous or malformed.

Pongo #58

Casenotes it is all smooth surfaces that's the first and the main thing you notice gritless grainless colours that blend without dramatic leaps chosen for their proximity to each other beige spills into white to buff into pale pale pistachio in the same way, the voices tightly reined speak to you in gently undulating inflection volume constant or close enough to upset only dogs and this one lady up the corridoor who on the hour waddles speedily down the hallway towards the lounge with her knickers round her ankles she smells of sweet tobacco as she passes she looks like a flasher penguin her face is a picture of zen they take her in arms and lead her back again knowing that she will be back in fifty nine minutes I suppose she knows that too since she comes so quietly with the orderlies though she doesn't know how to use the bathroom and if you try to speak to her to ask her not to do it again she either looks blankly at you gets irate at the mere insinuation or starts crying and snotting and slapping her own face because here everyone else is too polite to do it for her

Pongo #59

Pila I wake up again, and once more turn to face my neighbour's bed, only now the frail old woman is gone. In her place, a beautiful girl lies, flat-backed in soldier position on the sheets. Her hair is chocolate and the light dances on it. Her large, lidded eyes do not even flicker with dreams, she is so still. Above her head a canopy of glass, presumably some sort of incubation chamber or quarantine measure, seals her off from the outside world, while leaving her open like common land ' a scrap of green in the city to which everyone runs for picnics, exhibitions, firework displays.

Pongo #60

Longwave 1771.1 In a few moments, we'll be speaking to none other than Kella Prewitt about her debut novel "Microscope, a thriller in which the main character, an actress named Prin Fedena, finds herself sucked into the seedy underworld beneath the glitter of fame. The press release says it draws on classical myth as well as the author's own experiences, in order to give a cautionary tale and helpful advice for those who would seek their fortune in the entertainment industry.
Cherry

Pongo #61

Andaw "I'm not sure how to introduce myself, she says, when we first sit down and I ask her name. "I just found out my name used to be something else, but people mostly call me Miffy, and it's been that way for years, so I guess maybe Miffy is as good as anything.

Pongo #62

Dr N. Quellar M.D. The subject had risen early that day and gone immediately to the recreation room, asking for her paper and safety pencils. She had been told the previous evening to expect a visit from Insa. In the three hours between breakfast and the meeting, she had drawn twenty pictures of young women in different positions. These images were shaded lovingly and with a professional hand, the cross-hatching mimicking real shadow precisely. Such detail had been added that the absence of any facial features on the women was surely no accident.

Pongo #63

Pila I asked to be moved, because the dreams persist, but nobody has come to do the job, so I presume nobody will. When she's asleep, it's very easy to pity this husk, all couture nightgown draped over bones and white fibres, the bulge in her abdomen practically pulsing as it sucks the life from her. I realise the outside world has no comprehension of this. They think their radiant pin-up is sitting bravely in a hospital bed, breasts buoyant above the covers, doe eyes wincing bravely with pain every time the wound wakes. It's a comforting fantasy.

Pongo #64

Andaw I chicken out of brazening my way past security in broad daylight, and beep myself in after hours. The hospital is dark, and it smells like any other Hospital. Disinfectant squared. You'd think, given the price of the place, that they'd be pumping Pixx Gratitude through the ducts as a continual streaming reminder of money. The wards are dark, though the hall lights stay blazing in case of fire. A glance at the wall map reveals twelve possibilities for Maren's lair. I feel like a groupie sneaking backstage to blow the singer.

Pongo #65

Casenotes (from subject's recreational record) Today I am on a tiger hunt, tight-swollen with revenge. At least, the idea of it. The sketch overdrawn in song, inked in by gang war movies. A claw is lodged deep in me from the last charge and I think I love it, prodding the wound. A barrel of curare drips into my eye. Someone holds a cup above my face, catches drops, shields, only failing when the vessel needs emptying – a split second burn. I punch her but she stays, I cut her, jab, spit, but she remains. Today I bombard a friend. Today
Cherry

Pongo #66

If I were listening to all this, I’d want to know what I did next. I’d also slap myself on hearing the answer.

Pongo #68

Channel 22 Thanks guys. Today’s guest taleteller is none other than the star of new thriller “Skin Bitch”, Ms Hellin Fova! Glad to be here, Popun.

Pongo #69

1771.1 Longwave

Pongo #71

Pila I am woken by a pair of firm hands yanking me upright by the throat, nails digging into the slow-healing tissue. What is it with my throat? “Hello Roomie.”

Pongo #72-3

Casenotes (discovered beneath subject's mattress) Rocket pack. The only thing missing from my back. We'll go up through the asbestos tiles that sprinkle sleep

Pongo #77

1771.1 Longwave

Pongo #78 THE END

Please don't read this without reading the previous parts first if you have any intention of reading them at all. It'd spoil it a bit. Thanks!