ABCtales Magazine and me
By celticman
- 2178 reads
I got the new ABCtales ‘best of’ through the post this morning. I know you can download it, but I prefer paper, it gives me something to chew over and spit out. Some old friend are missing from the selection, but some new friends are here. The ‘best’ part for me is I don’t need to shoulder the blame. If you’ve any gripes I’d blame editor John Wilks. In fact I’d email and tell him how pissed of you are. How great you are.
John Wilks sent me some copy to re-read before printing, but I didn’t, because I’m lazy that way. I already know what happened in my story. After all, I wrote it, I don’t need to look again. How stupid is that?
I got into an argument with my sister about it. There’s a bit about authors in it. I’m not really an author, but I like to kid myself on.
‘You can’t be 54,’ she said.
‘How?’
‘Cause I’m 54.’
I know we can’t both be 54, because we’re not twins, although sometimes time shrinks and she’s a year older than me. Sometimes she’s two years older, but never in the same year. I hate getting in an argument with my older sister because she’s always right. Apart from that time she said manticores didn’t exist, because of course they do, they just keep themselves to themselves.
Another name for them is maneaters. When the world was full of smoke and my mum was on about 80 fags a day, and 80 cups of sweetened tea a day, and my Aunty Phyllis was also on 80 cups of tea a day, but unsweetened, and cutting down to about 120 fags, they used to nod at each other and talk in code—when me and my older sister were scooting about their feet—about ‘that maneater down the road’. Neither of them every told a lie, so manticores do exist. So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I was never great at arithmetic at school, my older sister even worse. She kept getting it wrong. It didn’t help that it’s after Christmas. And I still act as if I’m five, gorging all the chocolate. My glucose level is up at the top of Dalmuir high flats, ready to jump over. The only antidote known to mankind is beer or evil green broccoli, which is a bit like buckaroo (remember that?) without the donkey, because you keep adding years and you are the donkey.
If I was born in 1962 and its 2015 then I’m 54, but she kept saying I wasn’t, but she hadn’t factored in weighty leap years. And there’s always those years when you feel really old. Especially if the future is so depressing, what have you got to lose going to live in the past?
Time machines are handy Christmas gifts, but they don’t keep your feet warm. There’s always bottlenecks at the birth of Christ, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, you just can’t get a proper spot. Five loafs and two fishes. That’s easy with a time machine, shop at Aldis and it’s all individually wrapped (but you need to be careful with the sell by date). Lazarus crowd scene, throwing in a shout of, ‘fuck off back to your hole,’ is fun, but doesn’t make the cut in the edited book version.
The worrying thing about not knowing your age and continually saying your one thing, and not another is people think you’re taking the pish, which would-be writers must do, and you do tell more lies than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although that is hard to believe.
Because I tell lies all the time doesn’t mean I’m a liar. Pop into the old time machine and go back to the playground where George Osborne’s hanging about, practicing heading and kicking poor people when they’re down, for his later greatest hits album. And sometimes violence is the answer. When you’re finished with dealing out retributional justice before he’s done anything much more than being George Osborne, which is sin enough, you’d need to ask ‘What class is that other nob David Cameron in?’
ABCtales is sixteen years old. Thousands of us would-be writers have been stirring up stories with a big stick. Pyrotechnic flashes. What we were. What we are. We’ve travelled far. In what direction? Fuck knows. Who cares? Not me. Head down and just get on with it.
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Comments
I reckon you're 53 and I
I reckon you're 53 and I think you should go and apologise to your sister (depending on which month you were born in)
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Just give her one of your
Just give her one of your chocolates and you'll be fine
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Would be good to be in a book
Would be good to be in a book. Always listen to your older sister, I'm one and I'm usually right.
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You are deffo 55 and don't
You are deffo 55 and don't let anyone say otherwise. Really made me laugh.
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December birthdays are easily
December birthdays are easily buried, perhaps they don't count at all? Mine's the shortest day, the longest night, eaither way I feel bloody shortchanged. I went to Stonehenge, met a transvestite druid, it changed my life and now we're all in that time machine eating out of date Stollen.
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Im sure youve heard this
Im sure youve heard this before but I think your short stories should be on paper. I for one would certainly be buying a copy. Your writing is original and well excellent as we know. Yeah one day soon. Keep writing.
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