Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
Smash
Ten miles away from me a man throws a small fluffy yellow hollow ball into the air and propels it across an open green with a precision strike from a carbon fiber frame enmeshed with cat gut.
This action is captured by the cameras on court and transmitted within a few seconds through a network of wires and transmitted signals to the television across the office where I spy two white blobs moving like a Vaseline-smeared Pong machine as they play out the point. I cannot tell who is on top and who is below, like watching porn in the dark.
The action is seen by the commentators in a booth overlooking the court and they alternate between criticism and excitement through a complex equation of jealousy, appreciation and admiration and their words are encoded and uploaded, arriving in my ears as I listen to the online coverage some seven or eight seconds after the action took place.
The action is automatically tallied up when the play concludes and the points have been awarded to whichever player played the best play. The scoreboard updates and triggers an automatic revision of the online scoreboard seconds after the online commentators have announced the result, well after the television has shown the play and wholely a minute too late and a dollar short.
I sit and ponder the stories of Japanese soldiers on remote islands in Micronesia, still fighting the second world war years after Japan's surrender and wonder if they realise Henman has lost again.
Corporate
At this altitude the wind would cause the carefully tended lawn to tremble with a chill, sudden and shocking. Flawlessly manicured blades of dollar bill green, cropped close like the hair of a soldier going to war, would flicker as gusts brushed tenderly over their severed tips. This lawn was one of the most meticulously kept green areas in the whole of the country, with a groundskeeper dedicated solely to keeping the soil proportions at their optimum level. A large plastic sheet that could be inflated was drawn over the lawn whenever it was at risk of the highly acidic rain, and heated mesh had been embedded an inch beneath the surface to protect against England's bitter winters.
This truly is the thoroughbred of lawns, thought the groundskeeper before jabbing a two-pronged metal hoop deep into the soil. Shame it's so wasted on these inbred toffs.
"Oh do hurry up, we're waiting to play. And I'm expecting a challenge this time, make it difficult."
His calloused hands, with their grainy lines discoloured by earth, whitened as his grip tightened on the remaining hoops. He jabbed downwards, imagining stabbing the stuck-up bitch in the neck, before pausing, concerned. What effect would spilled blood have on his precious lawn? He had spent years expending his love and attention on this lawn and it had come to represent an entire world, an entire life, for him. With a punctuating finality he stabbed the final hoop into place and stepped back to judge the course he had laid. It was a satisfaction he doubted any of the others shared.
"It'll do, it'll do. Now go away you filthy little man."
The groundskeeper retreated sullenly as the woman in the cream cotton sundress stalked over to his lawn. She had removed her heels and was barefoot on the grass, secretly savouring the feeling of the soft sharpness on her soles, her second favorite sensation after wet white sand between her toes. The wind whipped at her skirt pulling the material taut across her calves and thighs, outlining her shape as the marble of a statue. She was trim and aware of her body, unafraid to diet to the point of starvation until she had matched her physical presence to her mind’s ideal. She glared at the groundskeeper until he left.
"Thank God, I thought he'd never leave. Shall we start?"
"British Association Rules?" asked one of the men sat at the white iron table behind her.
"Really Brookie, British Association Rules. We play by our own rules, as always."
Brookie feigned a smile, doing his utmost to make it appear he had made a deliberate gaff for her benefit. Deep inside however he felt the pangs of his inner self chastising him for his stupidity. He repeated his mantra silently once more: say nothing, make your actions count, time's a-wasting. He picked up a glass of orange juice from the table and tried to look deep and mysterious.
"Brookie, that's mine."
A perfectly-manicured hand with blood-red nails reached across and snatched the glass back. She pinched the glass and stared loathingly at the smudged greasy fingerprints Brooks had left on it.
"Sorry Jacinta. I must have finished mine."
Our Darkest Hour
A Hackney cab drew to a halt in front of a towering ministry on Whitehall and a dapper young man in his early twenties stepped out. He wore a genuine Frederick Scholte pinstripe with pointed lapels flaring out at sharp angles across the double-breasted jacket. Chewing thoughtfully on the stem of a curved pipe he picked through the contents of one pocket in the open palm of his left hand and handed over the correct fare to the penny. Tapping the brim of his hat he turned and walked briskly into the ministry.
Captain Stirling was waiting patiently in the foyer, his hands clasped behind his back, strangely alert for someone supposedly at ease. When the suited young man appeared through the door he broke out into a devilish smile.
"Hello Alan."
"Hello David, how are you?" Alan shifted the pipe as he spoke, causing tiny embers to fall to the polished floorboards.
"Just fine lad. I was sorry to hear about Christopher, my apologies for not attending the funeral; I was up to my neck in Borneo jungle. What are you up to these days?"
Alan smoothed down the front of his jacket with a bashful look in front of the Scottish Laird turned soldier and with a modicum of pride replied.
"I've got a fellowship at King's now that I've earned my degree."
"Fellowship, eh? Well done Alan, well done. I was an Oxford man myself, but King's are lucky to have you. You'll go far. So," David paused, letting the word hang in the air before them, "the Mod seems to think you have the missing piece to a four hundred year old puzzle? Did you bring it with you?"
Alan patted a small packet wrapped in brown paper and twine that protruded from his trouser pocket. David said nothing and just nodded before ticking his head to one side, indicating to Alan to follow him.
Break-in
Orli shrugged and the shoulder strap of her purse slid down her arm. She caught the purse in her usual practiced manner in her right hand and sprang the catch with two fingers. Inside the purse her keys jangled against her sunglasses case. She tucked the open purse under the stump of her left arm and rooted around inside for the keys, bringing them out and sorting through the ring one-handed for the front door key. Only as she lifted the key to the lock did she realise the door had been forced and was slightly ajar.
Palming the keys she pushed slowly on the heavy door with one finger, the tip of her painted nail scratching against the rough wooden surface. Orli tilted her head to one side and saw a small pile of her things had been left beside the door; her DVD player, her laptop and a locked jewelry case she kept spare change in which probably felt heavy enough and sounded like it was full of valuables instead of copper and silver coins.
The purse slipped from under the stump of her left arm and dropped to the floor. Orli cursed in Hebrew and immediately felt her mother's disembodied heavy gaze on her neck, causing the hairs on the back to prickle up. She crouched down beside the debris and dug into the bottom of the small Gucci purse before drawing out a snub black pistol barely larger than her closed fist.
Much as she hated to use German weapons she had little choice when it came to fitting a pistol with her other essentials into something so small and stylish as a black Gucci. She stepped out of her shoes and hunkered down slightly to catch the slide of the Glock between her knees. As she racked the slide back to chamber the first round from the magazine the protruding sights tore her stockings. Another curse and another wave of matriarchal shame before she stepped silently through her front door and into her apartment.