A charming collection of short stories

A Cautionary Tale

Gareth Armstrong was, in every respect, the very epitome of ‘wanker’.

Picture a girl crying, friends on either side rubbing her shoulders and giving words of sympathy.  Gareth Armstrong would walk up to them, whether he knew them or not, stand with legs apart and hands on hips, grin widely and say:

“So what are you crying about then?”

Picture a crowded lift.  Gareth farts in it.  Picture a funeral.  Gareth laughs in it.  Picture a wedding of a black man to a white woman.  Gareth gets too drunk and makes a very unwelcome racist comment in front of everybody.  Because everything Gareth did was in front of everybody; he always crowbarred himself into the centre of attention.  

Gareth Armstrong was never welcome.  Gareth Armstrong was nobody’s friend.  Believe me when I say, Gareth Armstrong was an utterly unmitigated unconscienable schmuck.

So it was that Gareth woke up one morning to find that he was invisible. Of course, it took him some time that morning to realise that nobody could see him, unobservant and self-absorbed as he was.  He talked at his long-suffering housemate Gerald for a full four minutes before leaving for work.  The bus driver apparently let him on for free.  Nobody shouted ‘wanker!’ at him in the street.  All in all, it was quite a good morning for Gareth.

It was at 10:20am that Gareth walked into his boss’s office to talk at him about how good he is at his job.  Two minutes into his spiel, he noticed that his boss, Mike, had picked up the telephone, so Gareth started to speak louder, so that Mike (and potentially the person on the other end of the phone) could still hear.  No reaction.  How odd!  Gareth waved his hand in his boss’s face, shouting in his nasal voice “hello?  hello?  hello?  hello?  hello?  hello?  is there anybody there?  earth calling Mike, do you read me Mike?  hello?  hello?”

Then the penny dropped.

Gareth ran into the office, full of glee, and stuck two fingers up at each of his colleagues, one by one.  “You’re a twit!  You’re a twit!  You’re a shitty little twit!” he was shouting. 

“David, you’re a twatty little bastard and your daughter is a slittly slutty whore!”…
“Annette, your tits are saggy and you’ve got knobbly knees… and a moustache!”…
“And as for you, Mr. High-And-Mighty-Marketing-Man, your wife is an ugly witch and your glasses are gay”

Out into the street he ran, pulling down his trousers as he ran, nearly tripping over in his glee.  He bent over and slapped his hairy bottom, screaming at the top of his nasally little voice “you’re all arses, that’s what you are!  look at my bum, look, that’s your face that is!  arse faces, you’re all arse faces!”

Gareth screamed puerile abuse until he was hoarse and exhausted.  After taking a breather, Gareth Armstrong appeared to have a cunning plan and set off to his local leisure centre.

Rung after rung after rung he climbed, up the ladder to the top of the diving board.  When he reached the top, red-faced and panting, he sniggered to himself, unbuckled his belt and dropped his trousers round his ankles.  Squatting with his hairy little bottom hanging over the end of the diving board, Gareth strained and strained and finally extruded a long brown sausage of poo.  The splash was most satisfying to Gareth, as he looked over at the lifeguard and laughed derisively.

A night spent peering over the compartment walls in the ladies’ toilets of Wetherspoon’s was followed by a wank and a long, satisfying sleep.  Even in his sleep, Gareth Armstrong’s face was smeared all over with a smug grin.

The next morning, Gareth Armstrong set off again in the direction of the leisure centre.  Inspiration had come to him overnight.  Once he finally managed to get through the automatic doors, he headed straight for the ladies’ showers, his hand already down his pants.

Once inside the ladies’ showers, Gareth stripped naked and started masturbating furiously, thrilled that he was experiencing the very height of voyeurism.  Gareth was doing exaggerated hip thrusts in the direction of each woman in the shower, grinning like an idiot.  As he continued to masturbate, faster and faster, his gaze fixed on one particular woman.  His gaze started at her feet, rose up her legs, fixed on her genitals for some time before setting off again up her stomach to her small but pert breasts.  As he approached the point of no return, Gareth raised his eyes to her face.

To his horror, Gareth saw her eyes look straight into his.  In this split second of terror, Gareth began to ejaculate feebly onto the floor.  The woman began laughing outrageously, pointing at Gareth’s little cock, his erection now fading fast.  Other women emerged from their cubicles and joined in the chorus of laughter, all pointing and laughing hard in his face.  The fully-clothed manager of the leisure centre, a Mr. Andy Bingham, entered, and joined in the cackling circle.  Mr. Bingham was red in the face from laughing so hard, his suit drenched now.  Gareth Armstrong’s penis was well and truly flaccid by now, and unseen to the others, a tear fell down his cheek, hidden along with the water from the shower.

“You thought you were invisible!  Ha!” shouted Mr. Bingham in Gareth’s face.  “We could see you all along, we were just playing a big trick on you!  We could hear every word you said!”

Gareth’s face was no longer plastered with smugness, but was now broken.  That is the only way to describe it.  Gareth Armstrong had never experienced this feeling of shame before, and did not have that facial expression in his repertoire.  His face, therefore, was screwed up in a pained, gurning expression, a teardrop now falling from his eyes as a drop of semen fell from the end of his cock.  Gareth Armstrong was a broken man.  As the mocking cackles continued and more people joined the crowd, Gareth sank to the ground and held his head in his hands, sobbing and mumbling the words “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry”.

Grabbing him roughly by his wrists, Mr. Bingham dragged Gareth’s limp body from the shower room, up the stairs to the main entrance and out into the street.  Cars stopped and pedestrians gathered round to hear Mr. Bingham’s account of how Gareth Armstrong had been caught in the act.  Everybody erupted into laughter, closing in on Gareth and pointing at him.  By this stage the crowd had grown to around a hundred, the people at the back unable to get a good look at the broken man in the middle.

Some time passed, and the crowd dispersed, their job done.  Gareth Armstrong remained, like a spider playing dead, all his limbs scrunched up into a ball.  After that day, nobody heard from Gareth Armstrong again.

Sheeple

“Your honour,

The account of events just given in this court contained many glaring inaccuracies, of which I shall speak presently. As a start, may I make it clear to the jury that my shipwreck upon your fair isle was entirely misadventurous. The fleece which I was wearing was not intended to be a disguise, it was purely a practical garment. Upon stepping foot onto dry land, I immediately caught sight of a sheep in quite some distress as its head was stuck in what appeared to be a badger’s sett. I immediately came to the animal’s aid by standing behind it, holding on to its shoulders and repeatedly attempting to break it free of its ostrich-like pose. May it be pointed out that I was fully clothed at this point, the sex organs of a human being concealed beneath two layers of material, typically cotton.

The grunts and profanities could be attributed to my poor level of physical fitness, and I assure you not a sign of any pleasure on my part. When a number of sheep in blue uniforms arrived, I must admit in my confusion that I panicked and did attempt to escape, resisting arrest. This was due, not to wrongdoing on my part, but to my sheer surprise at seeing civilised behaviour amongst sheep. This court should be aware that on the mainland of the United Kingdom, sheep are still subservient to their human masters; they have not yet thrown off the shackles of totalitarian rule.”

Raucous baaing filled the chamber, the judge called for order. Baa after indignant baa rang throughout the underground complex of tunnels and a clamour built up into a thunderous roar. It became clear that the sheep were arming themselves for war.

Nets made from entwined plaits of wool were produced from dark rooms in the cavern complex. Hollowed tree trunks, lined with fleece, were launched into the wild ocean. The sheep were angry, and their wrath was for a single purpose: to enslave mankind.

The HMS Ovinissimus was crammed full of furious sheep, their expressionless faces hiding their sense of anger and injustice. The captain began singing a traditional sheepy song, a song of grass and sky:

“Baa baa baa baa,
baa baa baa baa…
Baa baa baa baa baa,
baa baa baa… BAA!”

The humans of the mainland of the United Kingdom did not know it yet, but they were buggered. Nothing can stop a sheep army, as soldiers are incapicitated by confusion and bewilderment. Woollen cannons fire sheepy poo and chewed-up grass is spat in the face of any who stand in their way.  It was only a matter of weeks before all of the mainland of the United Kingdom was under sheepy rule.  Males were farmed for their luxurious hair, females for their delicious milk.

But the funny thing was, welsh sheep were still accused of shagging humans.