Oscar (Complete)

Beach. Sand. Wind. Froth. Pier. Screams.

“Well it’s too bloody cold a day to be working if you ask me.”
Detective Constable Roy David ‘Willow’ Harvard shook his head with distaste at the weather and tried to blow his hands warmer forgetting he had a burning cigarette hanging from his lower lip. Swearing loudly he plunged his palm into the icy sand and tried to think about the line of witnesses in front of him.
Drownings were utter wastes of police resources and time that could be better spent catching criminals or sitting in cosy English pubs. Drownings happen by accident; if you’re going to kill someone it’s much quicker, easier and most of all warmer, to shoot.

Dave was a stockbroker. I suppose, all considered, Dave still probably is a stockbroker, but not at this narrative time. He liked small moving green numbers and low oil prices. The other thing Dave particularly enjoyed was his early morning beach walk.
At precisely 6:24am on the morning we speak of, Dave’s alarm went off. He set it each night to the price of his favourite business’s shares before praying that they never got down below four dollars.
Soon after, Dave was moving briskly, as almost all stockbrokers do, trudging into the wind. A car or two sped past and he pretended the numberplates were share prices to keep his brain in gear, when suddenly his pensive thoughts of charts and dollar signs were interrupted by a screaming naked man.

Detective Constable Roy David ‘Willow’ Harvard noted these things down.

Patrick drove a re-make of a 1964 MG-B. Again, he probably still does. At 6:24am this winter morn he was pulling into the almost empty car park adjacent to the beach he frequented. Despite the cold, he stripped off down to his swimming trunks and started jogging along the beach towards the pier.
When he got to his favourite sand dune, which he could tell by the fat tree nearby, he put down his towel and gym bag and dived into the churning surf. Sufficiently cooled, Patrick walked back to his possessions as another early morning fitness freak ran past.
Almost ten seconds later Patrick heard the screams from just beyond the end of the pier.
“Oscar! Oscar! NOOO OSCAR!!!!”
Knowing someone was in danger of drowning, and not being fit enough or stupid enough to try and swim the whole length of the pier himself, Patrick sprinted towards his car, leaving his wet bathers and towel far behind, shouting for help and wishing he’d remembered his mobile phone.

Detective Constable Roy David ‘Willow’ Harvard noted these things down also.

Oscar was the state billiards champion. He’s not now, but he was. He had just finished his morning run along the beach and was driving home when a couple of police cars doing about 130 hauled him to the side of the road, sirens blaring and all.
A man had seen him running from the direction of the pier just before 7:00am.
“Yes officer, that’s right, why?”
The policemen then explained to him how a drowning person had been spotted near the pier where he was running, and how luckily a stockbroker had remembered his numberplate, and how perhaps he could help them as one of only a few witnesses in the area.
When Oscar told the officers his name though, their attitude changed very quickly, and their request for help was accompanied by handcuffs.

Detective Constable Roy David ‘Willow’ Harvard noted all of this down too.
Then he surveyed the three men and looked around the beach which was now milling with police and interested bystanders. He locked his jaw and ground his teeth and stared each of the gentlemen in the eyes, but he wasn’t really looking at them.
In all his clichéd years of being the grizzly British Detective he had learnt that you just didn’t throw someone off a pier to kill them. But he’d also learnt that you can’t ignore such open and shut facts.
He tried to roll himself another cigarette but the tobacco kept blowing away.
“Look, despite your proclamations of innocence Oscar, I’m afraid things look pretty dire for you right now.”

“Sir!” shouted a young forensic police something constable etc. “We’ve discovered some items behind a large tree on the sand dune over there. Clothing, wallet, and passport – we think it’s the victim’s. French tourist, young, female, attractive… no sign of a body yet.”
“Excellent. Oscar – do you know anything about these items?”
“Absolutely nothing, sir.”
“Well you’re all going to have to come down to the station and give… wait… did you say French?”
The young officer looked confused for a moment. Then: “Oh! The victim – yes. Whoever owns the things was travelling on a French passport.”
“Who speaks French around here?”
Dave tentatively put up his hand and said, “I lived there for six months or so.”
“Dave, how do you say ‘Help’ in French?”
“Um… Au Secours.”
“Au Secours.” Detective Constable Roy David ‘Willow’ Harvard looked tremendously sad for a moment and then started to laugh. “Au Secours. You just don’t kill someone by throwing them off a pier!”
His laugh boomed out across the whole beach.
“Go home! Get warm, all of you. Policemen, we’re going to an English pub.”

Lawrence of Aradia Street (1)

Lawrence was ass-parking on his back patio, de-reconstituting his orange juice.
If the bastards at the company didn't constitute it right the first time, he thought, why the fuck should they be given a second chance?
He put the stuff into a long tall container and added some cookies from the big biscuit tin in his pantry. The cookies soon squishified and the glug had a pretty odd new constitution indeed, which pleased Lawrence.
He then added some beef mince, set up the ready-made catapult and tape recorder, and ran inside to hide behind the futon.

"waaah! Waahhhhh! Take that bad baby nephew! I'm putting you in the blender! Waahhh! BVVVRRRTTTTTTTTTT. silence."
Phhhtwang! Hurl. Spludge.
And then Lawrence waited patiently.

* * *

Lawrence Jules Harvey was not stupid.

To make sure everybody knew this, he had constructed a large sign which stated "I am not stupid" and attatched it to his door. Lawrence never got the opportunity to find out if people agreed witht this assertion becuase he didn't get any visitors.

No visitors, that was, until the Heissmans moved in to the other half of the duplex where Lawrence lived.

Lawrence thought that the Heissmans spelt their name with two little dots above the i instead of one. This was becuase a bird had shat in exactly the right place on the Heissman's letterbox, and it meant that Lawrence assumed they were German.

Hans and Julie Heissman were most certaintly not German, but they were from Europe, and they didn't speak English. Lawrence's suspicion that they were German was not only reinforced, but proven by their non-Englishity.

Bing Bong! (do tiddle doo) Bing de Bong Bong Boo.

Lawrence hated his automated musical doorbell, but it was a clause of the rent, and Lawrence wasn't stupid. He was onto a good thing with this duplex. WAS onto a good thing that is, until Hans rocked up at his door this very narrative moment.

The first thing Hans said when Lawrence reluctantly answered the door was, "Please neighbour new hen-fucker I need not be truthful mistake of my speech English."

And Lawrence raised one eyebrow carefully. Then Hans pulled out a sheet of folded paper and put on a monocle. He then read from the paper.

"Excuse me from boothering you but I am you new next door. First of questions, why is you owning "I'm not stupid" sign on door pathway?"

Lawrence decided two things at this point, firstly, that Hans was German, and secondly, that Hans did not deserve his own "I'm not stupid" sign.

Really Getting Out (1)

Cory felt lonely.

Lon Lei felt Cory.

Cory felt kinda squishy.

Cory felt bored. That was the problem ya see, with prostitutes. You could pay a woman to pleasure you, but you could never be pleased by a woman you pay.
Cory yawned therapeutically, and picked up an old Wall Street Journal to flick through.
Lon Lei looked like she felt angry, but she kept on feeling Cory.

* * *

Much later and on a different day, Cory was inspecting the felt of James' pool table.

"Oh man... that's gotta suck. This shit is expensive."
"I know," said James in reply, "You've slashed holes into it four times this year."
"Three. The other time was my dog."
A little later still the gentlemen were consuming beers.
"James, we've consumed all the beer." Cory noted truthfully. "May I borrow some money with which to buy more? I've fuckin spent all mine."
"Oh Boysterous Youth, thy tongue is sharp." was something along the lines of what James meant to say, but came out as "Fuck off, I'm out."
"So we're both broke then?"
"Seems so."
"fuck."
"yeah."
"Who's gonna pay for the felt then?"
"Ah forget it mate, it was a bad joke anyway."
"yeah."

There was a film on television which our protagonists viewed, In which funding was aquired illegally from a casino by attractive men in suits. Cory slowly started to have an idea.

Introduction and Explanation

Heya, and welcome to an experiment in creative writing called Short Stories for Short Attentions.
I write a lot of creative stuff, and I post a fair bit of crap on my blog too, so I've come up with the somewhat obvious idea to write creative crap on a blog.

The deal is that, as often as I can, I'll post a section of a short story that i'm working on. Very rarely will the whole short story be written out in one blog entry, so each entry read in reverse order will make up the whole story. Or if you follow as we go, you can tune into the site as if it were a really crap unregulated TV network. with less pictures.
I'll probably have 4-5 stories going at once, and some might never actually see the light of ending, but you'll just have to bear with me until I get into a groove with this one.

So that you know which story's which, I'll keep the entry titles the same (ie: Legend of John (1) ) and you can follow whichever stories you want.

Not really sure if this idea is going to work yet, but if it does it'll be a good collection of random pieces by me, and some whacked out shifting stories too.