Wart

I have a wart. It’s on the first joint of the little finger on my right hand. About the size of a squashed pea. Or one of those green lentils. I went to the doctor last week.

‘Is this a wart?’ I said.

He held my hand and peered at the growth with impressive feigned interest.

‘Yes.’

Apparently, I’ve got to get rid of it. Thing is, now I’ve got a wart, people all around me are telling me their own wart stories. John from marketing has one on the knuckles of his left hand.

“I like to chew it when no-one’s looking,’ he confides delightedly. ‘Sometimes it bleeds.’

My usually-frosty mother-in-law shares a story from her childhood, when two dozen pinhead warts on the palms of her hands made her the leper of the class.

‘No-one would dance with me,’ she sobs. ‘Can you imagine how I felt? Even Darren Brane. I hear he works for IBM now.”

I hold her as she cries into my shoulder, seven years of awkward unfamiliarity blasted apart by one tiny, brain-like growth.

Do I really want to get rid of my wart?

My wife tells me about a mutual friend, when she knew her in college.

‘Louise had vaginal warts in her final year,’ she says, laughing at  the memory. ‘It was so embarrassing. She had to have them frozen off.’

I laugh and wince at the same time. She nods.

‘She said it was the most painful thing she’s ever experienced. On the plus side, that’s how she met Dr Kev. What’s it been now? Twelve years?’

I smile at her and realise we haven’t laughed together like this for a long time. Later that night we drink too much wine and make love on the living room’s smooth polished floorboards. I crack my head on the television and turn on a rerun of Mork and Mindy, the laugh track punctuating every move we make.

Do I really want to get rid of my wart?

The internet tells me that I should wrap duct tape around it for a week, then soak it in warm water before grinding it to death with a pumice stone. My local pharmacy wants to sell me a one-hit chemical death stick, guaranteed to destroy.

It seems so… brutal.

I look at my finger. You have to look closely to see the wart. It’s flesh coloured, barely visible from over a foot away. Is there really any reason to get rid of it? Without it, I’d be just  another guy working in an office, pretending not to notice that nothing is happening.

I hear you have a wart. Let me tell you my story.

10 point plan to reinvigorate your life

First day back at work after New Year? This surefire to-do list will help you overcome lethargy and charge into 2012 with renewed zeal:

1. Stare into space
2. Drink coffee
3. Weep silent tears on to wrist rest
4. Enter tonight’s Euromillions lottery
5. Crave alcohol
6. Suppress murderous rage towards colleagues
7. Berate self for not writing bestselling novel / starting own business / wearing thicker socks
8. Bang head repeatedly against inside of toilet cubicle door while moaning softly
9. Hatch plausible escape plan that you will never act on
10. Repeat daily or as often as your contract of employment allows

Dark Advent 2011 – Day Twenty-Four

It’s Christmas Eve. You’ve been in the corner sobbing for the past twenty-four hours. This isn’t entirely unusual but the paper bag over your head is a new addition. It is a little extreme, you admit to yourself, but you can’t risk catching even the smallest glimpse of your face in a reflective surface of some kind.

Through the gap at the bottom of your face shame bag, you peer at the Advent Calendar. Only one window to go. The twenty-fourth. What can it hold? You allow yourself to wish, to hope for a moment that whatever it is, it involves the eradication of David Cameron’s features from your face.

You open the final window in your Advent Calendar. It’s a double window, with a traditional nativity scene inside. The part of Jesus is played by Miko, the dancing bear. As he gyrates, he begins to talk. It’s a little hard to make out some of the words to begin with, owing to his thick Russian accent, but you get the gist.

“So it is nearly Christmas, yes? And you are looking forward to the feastings and the present givings and receivings?”

You nod. The paper bag makes a rustling noise.

“You have many adventures this month. Maybe a few too many I think?”

Miko laughs uproariously, swivelling his hips and pulling out a number of classical disco moves.

“Yes, yes, it has been very entertaining for Miko. Very very funny.”

Inside the paper bag, you scowl.

“And now you have beautiful woman body and David Cameron head. Is all to much for Miko’s sides. Oh, how they ache.”

“What is this?” you say. “If you’re just going to tell me how funny I look you can just fuck off.”

The bear stops dancing and leans forward.

“I am baby Jesus, yes? You are nothing. Nobody. You speak to me like that again and I have you killed. Is easy for me, I say one word. You understand?”

“Yes,” you reply. Your breath catches in your throat. “I understand.”

“Good. So, is Christmas Eve. Miko very happy on Christmas Eve. Full of festive cheer, yes? I wish to do you a favour, something nice for you because you make Miko laugh so much over last weeks. So what you want?”

“Oh god,” you cry, pulling off the paper bag. “This, this… please fix this.”

Miko nods. “You want Miko make rest of body like David Cameron, yes? No problem.”

“No! I don’t want that, god no.”

“Ah, you want beautiful face to go with beautiful body, yes? Is harder but Miko can do it.”

“Yes. Actually, no. What I’d really like is my old body back, the one I had before.”

The bear looks at you. “Serious? Miko means no disrespect but old body pretty uninspiring. I am guessing you no have much luck with ladies, yes?”

“Well, that’s true but…”

“How about I take old body, give it polish and then give back to you? Like old you but better?”

You smile. “I like the sound of that.”

“Okay, then that is Christmas miracle for this year. Bit selfish I think, with all poverty and war and famine in world but there you go.”

“What? But I didn’t know I could…”

“Too late now. Is done. Merry Christmas, selfish person.”

You pat your body. It feels just like your old one but a little enhanced, a little less podgy, a little more muscular. Thank god, you think. But the face, what about the face? Are you rid of David Cameron forever?

You run to the bathroom. Even in your haste, you notice the powerful torso and strong legs you now possess. You like it.

You look in the mirror. It’s you all right, but with tweaks and changes to make you look better, more handsome, more charismatic. It all looks great. You smile. It’s a lovely smile.

The whole thing, the ripped body, the beautiful face, looks familiar somehow. As the features coalesce and become a single face, rather than a collection of independent parts, you realise the truth. The horrible truth.

You look exactly like Nick Clegg.

Merry Christmas.

Dark Advent 2011 – Day Twenty-Three

Despite your apple-eating antics, nothing of any real note happened yesterday. You pottered about a bit, ate some food, made a papier mache replica of Des Lynam’s nose. All in all, an average day.

This morning, it seems to be more of the same. You reflect on the true meaning of Christmas as you throw on your dressing gown, wrapping it tightly around your slim waist.

Hang on a second.

Wasn’t this waist – your waist – a lot fatter yesterday? Not to the point of obesity perhaps but certainly not as slim and toned as the one you’re currently sporting.

Although your hips… your hips seem wider somehow.

And… good lord. You are almost positive you didn’t possess the fine pair of breasts that now adorn your chest.

The pink worm! You must have eaten the pink worm. Granted, being a woman will take some getting used to but a fine body like this can only mean one thing: joy and rapture for the rest of your life. You’re home free.

You grab the Advent Calendar and search out the twenty-third window. It doesn’t matter what happens this time, you’re guaranteed joy and rapture. You open it up.

Inside it a picture of the green worm. It’s smiling. There’s no sign of the pink worm.

The caption is larger this time, easier to read.

“Ho ho ho. You ate the green worm. Bad luck.”

You can’t believe it. Surely this is a mistake. You look at the window again. There’s an extra bit of text below the lines you read.

“P.S. Look in the mirror. Love, the green worm.”

You rush to the bathroom, dropping your dressing gown as you go. Although you can’t feel anything wrong with your body, you have a growing sense of fear that something damnable has been done to you.

You look in the mirror, starting at your toes. Your eyes travel up, carefully taking in the incredible physical specimen that you’ve become. Long, slender legs… Firm thighs… A peachy backside, slim toned waist… Glorious perky breasts… This is the body of a goddess.

And then you see your face.

You see his face. On the most beautiful, desirable body you have ever seen.

You see his face.

David Cameron’s face.

His mouth opens. Your mouth opens.

A hoarse cry of soul-wrenching anguish fills the room.

Dark Advent 2011 – Day Twenty-Two

It is the twenty-second of December. About 10am. As usual this time of year, it’s unseasonably warm.

You stand in your kitchen with an apple in each hand. In the right, a Golden Delicious. In the left, a Braeburn. Neither are you favourite. Which one should you eat?

You can’t decide.

Instead, you elect to open the twenty-second window of your Advent Calendar. Inside is a picture of a two worms, one pink, one green, entwined. There is a tiny speech caption. You use the bottom of a pint glass as a magnifying glass to help you make out the words.

“Whosoever doth eat the pink worm will have joy and rapture for the rest of his life. But if thou dost ingest the green worm, beware, for your life will be full of woe. Two worms full of colour, each one in an apple of her choosing. Which one willst thou eat, hungry traveller?”

You look at the apples. A fifty-fifty chance of joy and rapture for the rest of your life is not to be sneezed at. Should you take the gamble? After all, your life has been full of woe for the past twenty-one days, so a little more probably won’t make much difference.

You reach out and pick up the Braeburn. You raise it to your mouth, hesitate for a moment… and then bite. It is so delicious, so tasty you can’t control yourself. You devour the apple like an animal dressed in pyjamas and standing on its hind legs indoors.

You wait.

Dark Advent 2011 – Day Twenty-One

You stand face to face with the real Santa. At least, it looks like him. But then, so do you. So who know, right?

“What the hell are you doing here?” barks the man in the sharp suit.

“Ho ho ho,” says Santa. “And fuck you.”

“The board of Santa Corp instructed you to stay at the North Pole. You’re not a fucking one-man band anymore, Santa.”

“I know that,” says Santa. “But I didn’t leave. I was summoned here. By this, err, gentleman.”

“Bullshit,” shouts the man. “The Cyborg Santa 1000 isn’t capable of independent thought.”

“I think you do him an injustice.”

Santa looks at you. You feel a sudden increase in the weight of the sub-machine gun, by approximately 517 grammes.

“The question,” says Santa, “is who has been nice and who has been… naughty.”

Your automatic Santa Sense unit comes online. Once again, it locks on to the man in the sharp suit.

>>> NAUGHTY LIST, CATEGORY 5 >>>

>>> TERMINATE >>>

>>> EMPLOYEE OF SANTA CORP >>>

>>> CANCEL TERMINATION >>>

Santa continues. “And even though I am being usurped by my own board of directors, I am still the man in charge.”

He turns to the man. “Simpkins, you’re fired.”

“Thank you,” you say.

Your heads-up display cancels the last two lines. You raise the sub-machine gun and fire. The slugs tear into the man’s body, killing him instantly. The children scream and run for the door. You put down the gun.

“Don’t worry,” says Santa. “They won’t remember a thing. And now it’s time for you to open the twenty-first window.”

You open the window on your Advent Calendar. Inside is a picture of you, before your cyborg body modifications, sitting on your sofa at home, eating a mince pie. And without moving, that’s where you are.

Home again.

Dark Advent 2011 – Day Twenty

You stand in front of a full-length mirror. You are dressed as Santa.

Correction, you are Santa.

Your brain has been hardwired to act in the interest of Santa Corp at all times. All you can see of your old self are your eyes, looking back at you from the mirror. As you stare, you feel something flicker abruptly inside you, some vague hint of consciousness, of self. It goes out again.

You look in the mirror. Santa looks back. Santa is carrying a sub-machine gun and a sack full of toys.

A sharp-suited man strides into view. Your Santa Sensor automatically takes over.

>>> NAUGHTY LIST, CATEGORY 5 >>>

>>> TERMINATE >>>

>>> EMPLOYEE OF SANTA CORP >>>

>>> CANCEL TERMINATION >>>

The man turns to the scientists.

“Is it ready?”

“We could do with a few more weeks,” they say.

“It looks ready.”

“We need to do a lot more lab testing. Maybe by February?”

“Testing? Fuck lab testing. I need it out in the field in four days’ time, you dicks.” He looks you up and down. “No, we need live testing today. Get him in there.”

You are ushered through a set of doors and into a room full of children. They are look at you, their eyes full of wonder. You scan the room.

>>> 18 GOOD LIST, CATEGORIES 1-2 >>>

>>> 1 NAUGHTY LIST, CATEGORY 3 >>>

Your Santa Sense homes in on one little boy, who is engaged in pickpocketing sweets from another child in front of him. Your vision targeting system locks on.

>>> TERMINATE >>>

You raise the sub-machine gun and take careful aim. You do not want any collateral damage. Inside you, something screams “No”. There’s nothing you can do. You see the boy’s face, astounded, afraid. You pull the trigger.

The gun clicks and then… nothing. There are no bullets. No blood. No death. A small part of you feels an almost imperceptible sense of relief.

“Santa Cyborg. Access code 6729563. Standby mode.”

You lower the gun.

The man in the suit steps into view.

“I think we can say that was a success,” he says. “Now, at last, being naughty or nice will mean something in this world.”

One of the children comes up to you. You look down at her from your great height.

“This is for you, Santa,” she says, holding out the advent calendar. “Look, number twenty is right here.”

You reach out a hand and open the window. A blaze of red and white light fills the room, and the noise, laughter, echoes all around.

“Ho ho ho!” says a voice. “And what have we here?”

Dark Advent 2011 – Day Nineteen

A voice. ”Is this thing on?”

Another voice. ”Hang on, I just need to…”

You feel a hand pressing against something on the side of your head. And suddenly you can see. Admittedly, it’s all rather grainy and there are weird text overlays over everything but at least you’re alive. A man and a woman stand before you, wearing long white lab coats.

“Do you remember who you are?”

You shake your head. As you do so, you hear the sound of servos and gears in the background, the kind of noise you might find in a poorly-written Robocop pastiche.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I… I…”

You falter. The image of Kim Clijsters flashes into your head, towering over you and laughing with orgasmic delight. You lie back, unable to move, your consciousness filled with just one thought as her magnificent breasts beat against you: you are dying.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Nothing,” you say. “I remember nothing.”

The two scientists move back so they can speak privately but your newly-augmented hearing picks up every word.

“Everything looks good.”

“It’s a little too early to tell.”

“You’re always so fucking negative.”

“Don’t make this personal, John.”

“You’re the one that made it personal, bringing that toy boy of yours into the office today of all days.”

“He’s not a toy boy. I love him.”

“Love? What do you know about love?”

“Actually, I need to tell you… We’re getting married.”

There is silence. They come back to where you sit.

“You need to open the nineteenth window,” says the man. “Can you move your hands?”

You flex your fingers. They work. You reach out and take the proffered Advent Calendar. Your newly-enhanced vision processing system finds the nineteenth window in microseconds. You open it. Inside is a sub-machine gun.

The scientists nod.

“Take it,” they say.

 

Dark Advent 2011 – Day Eighteen

You wake.

To your left you see Kim Clijsters pumping out press-ups at incredible speed.

“I’ll be with you in a minute, tiger,” she says. “But I’ve got to keep in shape, you know? You don’t mind, do you?”

You groan. Every muscle in your body feels as though it’s been smashed to the back of a court over and over again in a repetitive but ultimately worthwhile practice session.

With a massive effort of will, you manage to turn your head. To your right the door is open – you can escape! You jump to you feet and run… only to realise that you haven’t moved. Your body is deserting you at the very moment you need it most. The complete bastard. You clench your right hand in anger and it actually moves a little, such is your emotion. You feel cardboard give way until your fingernails, from the corner of your eye you can see the eighteenth window, opened slightly. Could this be your escape route?

With a pathetic low whimper you close your fist again, once more feeling the cardboard give way beneath your hand. The window is open now. You can’t quite make out what the picture is, it seems to be two things, both blue, they look a bit like…

“What’s this, darling?”

Kim gently lifts the calendar from beneath your hand. She looks at the eighteenth window. She lets out a little shriek of pleasure.

“Oh, you clever, clever thing!”

She holds out her hand. You see the two tiny blue pills, and the start of the brand name, Viag, before she pops them into your mouth. She leans forward and  kisses your neck.

“Kim Clijsters, powered by passion,” she giggles. “You, powered by pills. Normally I don’t go for weedy little guys but there’s something about you I like.”

You feel her hand run down your body towards.. . ah, no, not again. Not again.

Dark Advent 2011 – Day Seventeen

It is the seventeenth of December. You are alone and standing in front of your empty refrigerator. Why is there never any food in it? Why? You raise a fist and curse all the home appliance gods you can think of, from Beavis the God of Upright Vacuum Cleaners to Yentl the Goddess of Four Slice Pop-up Toasters. It sates your anger but doesn’t make you feel any less hungry.

Your eyes fall upon the Advent Calendar. You pick them up and put them back in. You sigh. It’s probably time.

You open the seventeenth Window. It’s a picture of a Citizen Eco-Drive watch.

“Take me,” it seems to say. “Put me on. You’ll look great. Like a real man for once.”

You reach in and take the watch. It fits perfectly on your left wrist. You marvel at its beauty and wonder whether Citizen sponsors blogs.

“The Citizen Ec0-Drive,” you say to yourself. “Powered by light.”

And then she speaks. Not the watch. Someone behind you. A low, throaty, unmistakably sexy voice.

“I’m Kim Clijsters,” she says. “Powered by passion.”

The next ten hours are a blur. Kim rides you to exhaustion time and time again, her legendary stamina and technique – so instrumental in winning the US Open – keeping her fresh and vivacious, while you feel your life force gradually ebbing away.

“Please, Kim,” you beg. “Just a five minute rest. Just five minutes.”

She smiles and reaches for you. “One more time,” she says. “For Citizen.”