Steampunk Zombies

A steam powered mushroom that had nothing better to do stared through a dark window into the past and saw a tin man pushing a wheelbarrow full of zombies in the opposite direction and all of them waving flags.
‘Staring can make you go blind,’ said the flags to which there was no reply for the mushroom had run off.

SUICIDE WASTELAND

It’s a little thing this life, made up of small moments that pass too soon, and huge disappointments that take something from you each time until you’re too small to make a difference and too hurt to care.
They tell you things will change, just hold on, but wherever you go there you are and there you’ll stay.
Doors open and close in the steel trap of living where what you think in the surge occasionally comes to be to give you a time of relief, but to finish sooner than later, and then you bleed for it and find there’s no cure, not even when you end it, for it is written you’ll come back again to carry on where you left off; and you feel if that’s true then there’s no escape.
And looking around, you see the not so secret messages left by all the others who have passed this same way of torment and trouble where the half formed plea for help is ready to join the many already fallen, and if not today then tomorrow.
And so sick and tired you escape into any small diversion that will take your mind away from it all for even the briefest time and you call it life and what hope there is, is no hope at all in the mud of the suicide wasteland where you live and survive to bury yourself and become ever darker until your very existence is but a curse with no release, not even the grave; yes, wherever you go, there you are.

MEMORY OF A MEMORY

Far away from this moral turpitude on that beach of dreams, the happy place to dip the toe and feel the breeze coming off the ocean far and too the gulls are forever calling it’s so easy to be young again, a man, no more than a ghost really of all the days gone by was waiting for the tide to turn and had moved in to the old pirate’s house to wait it out, and as he waited he wrote: I love you...
It was only yesterday and hardly that I think when the time ran out and we had to part. And now, sitting in the indifference of another time zone our separation is complete and the memories will be only what will come of a memory of a memory of a memory until they become a movie projector rush played over and over.

A SHAPELESS DOLLAR

An independent survey long overdue was doing the rounds of the bars for inspiration and was aspiring to be the big cheese where no big cheese had gone before, and he had an umbrella with him just in case.
When the independent survey came across the immovable inroad with a shapeless dollar an expedient message was sent off to headquarters to send more money.
The message was put with all the other ones and forgotten about until after the lunch break of magnesium pills and Pilates where it would do the rounds of the departments to finally end up with all the other ones in the department of the big heap.
While the independent survey waited the shapeless dollar detached itself from the immovable inroad and began spending itself with free drinks for everyone.
This made everyone happy and caused much back slapping until the drinks were empty and then the shout went up for more of the free drinks until everyone was completely drunk and under the table, then the shapeless dollar made its escape to the applause of the piano that was teetotal to the end.
Out on the road the shapeless dollar joined an odd couple who looked to have the spending power of the sum of their beliefs in a cloudy day with the road too long and all hope left behind somewhere for the crows to fight over.
“How would you like a buffalo for your troubles?” sang the shapeless dollar warming up in its power to buy anything for a song.
“Don’t mind if I do,” replied the man and said no more.
In the next village a buffalo was for sale with only one horn so the dollar bought it and gave it to the odd couple who stared at it unblinkingly until a ladder was attached to the buffalo free of charge, whereupon the odd couple climbed aboard and were soon on their way and waving a goodbye to the dollar that gave them a similar wave to see them on their way.

BACK IN THE REAL WORLD

Back in the real world the independent survey was waking up with a sore head and a hangover to boot and without further ado ran off fast out into the desert to heave up and so happened to pass close by the village where the shapeless dollar was buried up to its neck in requests that had no meaning for it was all spent out and wanted only coffee at that time of day.
“Hello,” said the independent survey, “we meet again.”
“Hello, nice to see you,” said the shapeless dollar relieved to see a friendly face that didn’t want it to buy something.
“It’s really you then?” said the independent survey.
“Yes it’s really me,” said the shapeless dollar.
“Let me buy you a coffee,” said the independent survey helping the shapeless dollar out of its hole to walk arm in arm back to town.

FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BOLD

Fortune favours the brave, or so it seems for when they got back to the bar the place was empty and the barman had fresh coffee brewing. So the intrepid pair headed straight to the bar and ordered two cups and settled down to drink them.
After the second cup they both felt better about things and were in a mood to strike up a conversation.
“I have a proposition for you,” said the independent survey taking out a pouch of tobacco and rolling up a neat cigarette with one hand while the other hand made rings on the table top where some coffee had spilt.
“Let me guess, you’re flat broke and need a grub stake to see you through?” said the shapeless dollar.
“How perceptive of you; I see we see eye to eye,” said the independent survey warming up in its proposition.
“I may have to give you an I.O.U. on that,” said the dollar breaking out a fortune cookie that said: ‘only the lonely know how long the road is.’
“On second thoughts, maybe I could ride along with you, just for a while, until you find your feet.”
“Splendid, you won’t regret it for a moment, and maybe you could pay for the coffee, I seem to be a little bit short this morning.”
With a sigh the dollar folded in upon itself and became a parking meter that dinged for payment.
“Oh dear,” said the survey undecided now what to do.
“That’ll be one dollar,” said the barman hovering close with his shotgun loaded for bear.
“Now see here,” began the survey that was English from Britain and long overdue anything that could be construed to make a big noise to make a difference but got no further for at that exact same moment the postman walked in to the bar through the doors carrying his sack of mail and handed a dozen unopened letters to the survey that took them and slowly opened them with shaking sweaty hands under the scrutiny of the hovering barman.
Inside each letter was a thousand dollar bill that made up its wages for the year. And so with a whoop of joy the survey gave one to the barman to pay for the coffee.
The barman looked at the thousand dollar bill and shaking his head went off to get the change.
The shapeless dollar with no more use as a parking meter changed back into its original form and unnoticed left this story for another one.
The independent survey unmindful of all else counted its wages over and over and planned what to spend it all on.
Over in the corner the piano was waking up and began playing another day another dollar but soon stopped when the shout came: “Run, run, the elephants are on the rampage.”
And so with lots of ado everyone ran off to hide, but it didn’t do any good for after the elephants had charged by all that was left was a pile of dust that the wind picked up and blew away to swirl around the odd couple still on their buffalo as they rode away from what can only be described as an ado about nothing much but that was over fairly quickly.

UP A MOUNTAIN

A different point of view from a different part of this story had a huge Hail Mary and was hiking up the mountain to find a place to sell it. He came from over in the Indian reservation and had been converted to the religious faith from birth, which is the best time to get them they always said and had never looked back once on all his sins, that were forgiven every Sunday to leave room to make more.
His favourite picture was the one that showed Adam and Eve almost naked with their belly buttons hidden in plain sight for the entire world to see.
On top of the mountain he found a cave with a great view, no neighbours and cheap as chips. Never a one to pass up a good thing he moved in and set up home and decided not to be a religious Indian anymore but search for god and see for himself what was what.
After a year of not being religious and replacing all his beliefs with nature he became peacefully quiet but the big puzzle of how everyone came from Adam and Eve who only had two sons still eluded him until he decided it all must be a big joke and that god must be laughing his head off at everyone for falling hook line and sinker at what was only a story passed down by men who should have known better.
And then it all fell into place that it really was all fairy tales made up by men and then taken as gospel by other men who wrote it all down and said it was the word of god.
The real word of god was beginning to cause a magnitude earthquake in his belly and was making its way up and if he didn’t stop thinking so much soon he was going to miss it.
He looked up to the heavens to try to see if he could spot god on one of the clouds or at least an angel with a harp, but although the mountain was incredibly high and he could almost touch the clouds sometimes, still, he saw only clouds passing by one after the other.
And then the sun went down so he retired for the night to sleep on it.
A dream came to him that he should build an ark and fill it full of all the creatures of the world and to make it watertight so as to survive the floods that were coming.
When he awoke he became confused and wondered why god would send him such a dream seeing as it had already happened once before, but maybe it had something to do with the second coming, and who was he not to obey the command of god.
So he began building but soon realized the ark would have to be very big indeed to get all the creatures in; in fact the ark would have to be so big it would collapse under its own weight, and it would take a lot of steam to make it go.
So he retired to his cave to figure it out. His belly ache became more pronounced but he put it down to all the stress little realizing that it was the word of god trying to talk to him.
Every night he would get impossible dreams to carry out and every day he retired more and more into his cave to nurse his belly ache and count his twiddling thumbs.
In the third year of being a hermit the world came to an end through plagues, pestilence, atom bombs, religious wars and anything else the mind of man could conceive to destroy each other and the planet.
With nothing left to save in the wasteland down below and with his hair and beard shoulder long by now the man meditated in his cave on a huge sadness that came over him that he was the only one left and maybe he should have tried harder to do something to have at least saved a few.
After a year a few plants pushed through the dust but the earth was too poisoned to support them and they died off.
On day nine hundred and forty four the elite came out of their bunkers and went here and there in their oxygen suits, but after finding nothing but destruction they went back in to their bunkers and slammed the steel doors to wait for the world to repair itself.
The air in the cave was thinner than usual these days so that the man had to breathe harder to get enough air but slowly as life returned to the oceans and the plankton increased, oxygen levels went up and the man began to breathe easier. And then one day the man came out of his meditative trance and saw that down below the land was becoming green again and that people were walking about planting seeds and releasing animals into the wild.
Who were these people and where did they come from and how come they had seeds and animals to release; that should have been his job.

SEE-THROUGH MARY

See-through Mary had been put on ice but was now up and on her mission to find and free her friends and find some place safe to hole up and figure things out.
The underground machine was huge with steam coming from vents in the walls, ceiling and pipes stuck at odd angles, and full of frozen people who where all beginning to wake up and crowd the floor until a big blouse in a uniform came along and shouted: “Shut up the lot of you,” through a megaphone with a compass attached.
When all was quiet enough except for a few coughs and stuff like that instructions were given and everyone formed into lines according to their speciality.
See-through Mary spotted some of her friends and got into line behind them and pretty soon they were all whispering away happily.
“We have to get out of here and make a run for it,” whispered Blue-Jane who was commando in chief of the company but didn’t like to show her true colours too much in case of adversity.
“Aye,” said the captain piping up and was shushed for being too loud.
“We’ll need a steam powered bus,” said one of the company.
“And supplies,” said another.
A plan was formed and after more whispering they all split up to find what they needed and to meet up later under the full moon or die trying, or failing that, trust to luck, whatever.

FOOTPRINTS LEFT IN THE DUST

See-through Mary who was good at driving was the one who found the bus and when the others had found their way to it after a few mishaps they all made their silent escape in the dead of night and were long gone by the time morning came leaving behind only the footprints in the dust of where they’d been.

THE REMOVABLE INROAD

The removable inroad was not making any sense and so had been relegated to the sidelines where the darkness of doom had it under its thumb for a time until other pressing needs moved it on.
When the soup of the day arrived a huge cheer went up from the hungry diners who had been waiting for too many long hours for it to be served and so the removable inroad gave a bow and then retired half expecting an encore, but when none was forthcoming went back to preparing the ingredients for more of the same to be delivered shortly after the percolations were calculated and luck would kick in to make the next move.
“What are we having?”
“Soup...”
“Nice.”

HAND WRITTEN

The long conversion, hand written and still captivating after so many experiences was turning the wheel that sped things up but after dialling it right up to the top and finding nothing different was happening turned it the opposite way thinking it was already set to slow.
A very long time later a thought came as if from nowhere that said maybe it’s broken.
And much later another thought came to say that the dial could be set back to front, and so change the dial to change what happens.
An uncountable time later and the dial changed and things were back to normal.
“I thought the old days were over and the new ones were here,” said the shapeless dollar still undecidedly shapeless.
“Not in this place they’re not; now sit down and have a beer,” said the long conversation of an old story beginning anew and will forever more be known as Blood popper, man.
“Thanks, don’t mind if I do,” said the shapeless dollar and sat to drink the beer.

GHOST TRAIN

Several revelations removed from this down the length of a long sleeper train going around a bend in the tracks to reveal the sunrise coming up behind it the independent survey that had been blown to smithereens was waking up to its demise and gazing out of the window and feeling pretty good all things considered and so decided it was time to go for coffee in the restaurant car that never closed.
A twisting dream later and the smell of coffee was rounding up the long dead brain cells lost in the mist that were calling out eerie stuff and herding them all to the bar to join the half expectant encore that was well past it after being up all night on the hard stuff.
“Coffee,” said the barman placing a strong and steaming cup on the bar and pushing it over.
“Perfect,” said the voice of the independent survey taking a sip and staring out of the window as the ghost train sped on down the tracks.

BOUNCING ALONG

Never to be forgiven and the wife of a French diplomat from Rio was spooning up the latest gossip at the other end of the bar much later and going at it like a crow-boat falling over the falls full of an appalling din and no known expiration date or antidote.
Blood popper, man, who could be forgiven for all his suffering just then in the face of all this was finding it a hard job keeping his window of retention up and was fixing to bust something and maybe over the head of the one not three feet away from him and talking noise.
Just as his eyes began to bulge wildly and his hands clawed spasmodically towards the nearest full bottle, Edith Piaf, who was a fully paid up member of the ghost train jumped to her feet and started singing at the top of her voice her most famous song.
The conductor who was so old by now and in his nineties turned over once in his sleep with a happy smile on his face as the train bounced along the rails.
Hidden above him on the rack, the secret agent also turned over and went back to sleep.

THE SHUTTER OF AN OLD DEFEAT

At the other end of the train by an open window that was terribly gay and a little bit noisy an old Romanian with a parrot was reading the worn out note he kept for emergencies and other things too and was humming along to Edith Piaf while he read it and letting the early morning go by him any way it would.
As the world passed him by he dreamed of how it could have been and of all the things he wished he could have had and done; but the connection was long broken and his dreaming fell into the silence that accepted them and buried them with all the others.
In this reverie of old dreaming he waited for the end to come, for it all to be over and he could be no more.

THE NOTE

My dear, if only I could play for you what I feel in my heart, but I can’t find the notes to say what I mean.
So therefore it is with great reluctance and regret that I send this note to say so. If by the end of day you find no need to reply I shall take it that you have no further interest and I shall withdraw accordingly.
Furthermore, under the terms of the Geneva Convention the flag of surrender means that no more hostilities are to be carried out after I lay down my arms.
So I am smoking this last cigarette in hopes of a reprieve.
Yours sincerely and expectantly yours...

end of part one of many

Images from Pixabay