Kit Killroy Returns - part 1

Chased from my studio by the taunting idleness of brushes, by cans of unmixed paint stacked neatly on shelves on walls that no longer keep out the cold, by chaste canvasses, so frigid an unwilling that the pores from which I used to sweat creativity seem to have shrivelled and closed up for good...

Repulsed by what was once the warm womb of my imagination and a temple for the Great Kit Killroy...

Rejected, I roam the snowy streets of Soho with no intent of ever returning to a life of art. Correction: with no hope ever being allowed back in.

I enter a pub and buy a Jaegermeister to warm my cockles, but the burning sensation in my gullet doesn't spread through my body like it used to do. Throughout the years of creative block, I have absorbed so much wintriness that the alcoholic fire is soon smothered. I slump down on the pavement with my back against the gate around Soho Square, and stare at my hands in my lap.

These hands have brought me so much in life, so much more than I ever expected or even wished for. The smooth skin and hard nails are real life advertisement for Herôme hand cream, which I started rubbing into them twice a day when the Muse left me. She didn't leave me because I was turning into a snob – I started taking care of myself when there was no inspiration to deal with anymore.

Imitating the Buddha, I close my eyes and put my hands on my knees, the palms facing upwards in a gesture of receiving. She keeps me waiting for over an hour. I know this, because I hear church bells announce first ten a'clock and then eleven. My bum goes stiff with cold and by eleven I can't even feel my legs ache anymore. Though I'm sick of waiting, I have nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, so I stay put.

When finally a slight breath of warm air brushes over my left hand, I don't even dare to open my eyes. Is it really Her? I can hardly believe it. Warm wet flesh drags over my chilled palm. A trace of moist remains on my skin as She moves over to my right hand. Has She really come back? This time more real, more tangible than ever before? Is She no longer an abstract idea of which I am vaguely aware, but now a warm woman with body heat and fluids, willing to rub her humid antifreeze onto my hands, and melt my inner block of artists' ice? A shiver runs through my body when She licks me again. Starting from my right hand, it spreads in every direction and switches on every body part it passes on its way. It makes my stomach churn, sparks a swallowing reflex, tugs at the crotch of my Savile Row suit trousers and snaps open my eyelids almost simultaneously.

But what I see looming over me is not Her. It's an ordinary girl in a camel coloured duffel coat and matching pilot hat. A combination based on colour, not on style. Years ago, I would have been infuriated by her decision to finish the whole fashion crime off with cognac coloured cowboy boots. But not now. I hardly even register her footwear. Because it is not this girl that the Muse has sent me. It is her puppy.
“Come on, Roxy,” she says. Without even acknowledging me, she tries to drag the Golden Retriever pup away from me. Something I cannot allow her to do. This is my miracle, my first breath of air, true inspiration, after years of suffocation. The soft snout, the shiny black eyes, the floppy ears and the oversized paws are so beautiful it hurts. I have to examine this gift of the Muse. I stretch my hand out to stroke its head while the girl pulls its leash.

The moment my fingers touch the silken fur, images flash into vision so bright the night around me disappears. I see the puppy in my studio. I am stroking its soft belly and turn it onto its back. It playfully tries to bite and lick my arm, but the moment its tongue appears, I grab hold of the thin strip of flesh, press both my thumbs into it as hard as I can, and pull. If I ever wish to paint again, I need to consume the antifreeze that the Muse has brought to me. Fry it to a crisp like bacon, roast it in the oven or put it in a stew. It doesn't matter how, as long as I ingest this stretch of heavenly inspirational skin.
With my foot on the dog's chest, I pull and pull while the puppy screams in shocked agony and tries to bite off its own tongue because it hurts too much in the back of its throat. Its agony and terror settle in my soul, clashing together with the dark tidal wave of guilt that rises up when the flesh gives way under predator teeth. I take my foot off its chest and the pup turns to its stomach, whining and spilling blood out of its mouth all over the wooden floor in my studio. A blood offering in my temple will bring back to life the God, and deep, disturbing inspiration will last as long as the brushes I will make of its fur and the paint I will mix with its ground bones...

The visionary bloodshed makes me shudder as the night around me returns. The puppy follows the girl but looks around to see me, its own tail, or both. I scramble to my knees, not minding my expensive suit, because my only saviour is walking away from me, wagging its tail.

“Wait,” I call out to the girl.
She halts and looks over her shoulder.
“I'm Kit Killroy.” I brush the snow off my cold buttocks and gesture towards the spot where Roxy had found me. “This was an artistic experiment, but I couldn't let you walk by like that. Let me offer you a drink.”
She looks at my suit and the white scarf that I'm wearing, and I can tell she knows I'm not a bum. Can it be that she hasn't heard of me? Perhaps she's too young, or not into art?
“You mean The Kit Killroy?” she asks. She's got a thick Polish accent but I can still hear disbelief in her voice. “Of Flying Daisies and Mask 101?”
“That's me.” I'm suddenly proud again, though it is over twelve years ago that I finished the Mask series, and Flying Daisies was from even before that. “So how about a drink? My treat, of course.”
“Sorry,” she bends her head towards Roxy, “they won't let me take her into any pubs, I think.”
“That's all right, I've got an excellent bottle of Merlot at my studio, only five minutes from here.”

Shut Up and Eat!

Hurah! I've finished my novella! I handed it in yesterday and had champagne with Fay Weldon afterwards (oh how I love name dropping!).

Leave a comment or send me an email if you want a little preview of Shut Up And Eat.

Thanks everyone!

What we really want...

And there I was, all smug and self-satisfied that I turned out to have a talent for writing horror.
All I had to do, I thought, was please my audience more by improving my website. The new layout temporarily worked wonders, so my hopes were high when I decided to increase the interactivity options of my blog.

1) A little widget showing who's following my website quickly filled up with... yes! Seven followers!

2) Little buttons underneath each post which people can click if they don't feel like thinking up a comment, but still wish to show their appreciation.

Because I promised to be funny once in a while,the first button is rofl (Rolling On The Floor Laughing).

With my talent for horror I had to add a button pukealicious, which pretty much speaks for itself.

And last but not least, the button to tell me I really need to try harder: dilligaf? (Do I Look Like I Give A ....)

3) Promoting every new post on Twitter and Facebook.

4) And yes... the poll. Turns out my readers don't want explicit sex and horror. You want well-crafted pieces of literature, beautiful sentences and deeper meanings! And if I refuse to live up to that (I thought I took a sabbatical: no philosophy this year!), you'd much prefer some nice characters and witty dialogues over my real talent.

This surprised me, for people always told me 'sex sells'. But I suppose it would be a really stupid idea of mine, trying to compete with www.tube8.com. Even if I were willing to post some interesting author pics.

But, according to BlogPulse's trendwatch, sex isn't really what's on blogger's minds anyway. Money is about four times as interesting as sex. What we really want, apparently, is love.

Happy Easter Haiku

The rest of the year
He was a Happy Tree Fan
No more easter eggs

Roots - outline for a novel

For Benjamin

Opening:

Laura de Winter is a twenty-year-old girl from Leiden, a small city in Holland. She cocked up her first year in uni because she was not really interested in philosophy, her subject, and she went to too many parties, spending way too much time on numerous boyfriends. She has now taken the year off to think about what she wants in life.

Call to Adventure and Response:

Krystina Goldman, an old friend of her mother, happens to be in Holland in the summer and offers Laura a job as an au pair in London. Laura is very impulsive and says yes immediately. The next month, she moves to Mrs. Goldman's penthouse on Old Marylebone Road to take care of Rafi Goldman, the two-year-old son.

The Guide:

The Goldmans are a Jewish family, and every Friday night they have a big dinner with all the family members who happen to be in the neighbourhood. As their au pair, Laura is invited too. This is how she meets David, Rafi's eighteen-year-old cousin. He's handsome, cheerful and in his last year of college.

Although Laura is two years older than David, Mrs. Goldman encourages him to take her out and show her the city. They share a great sense of humour and fall in love, but they both know it's not meant to be. Laura will move back to Holland after her gap year, and what's more: she's a shiksa, a non-Jewish girl David can only date until he is ready to get married to a Jewish woman. They laugh over it, but secretly, David's jokes about her being a goy do make her a bit insecure.

David is very fond of the soft parts of her body and touches them whenever he gets the chance. He even squeezes her legs under the table during the family dinner parties. She likes his attention, but she can't help but think she is the fattest girl he has ever been attracted to. She decides to lose weight by exercising and banning sugar from her tea.

The Threshold Guardian:

That's when she starts to hear voices. Every time she drinks her tea, she hears a very thin voice complaining in Dutch that there's no sugar in it. At first she thinks she is imagining it.

The Void:

David says in a joking manner that one would almost think she was Jewish because of her voluptuous body. She is very unhappy about this and decides to cut back on food more drastically. The voice starts protesting louder and she discovers it comes from her second upper molar tooth.

She doesn't dare to tell anyone about it, for she fears they will think she is a nut case, but she doesn't doubt the voice is real. He is asking for sweet food continuously, up to the level that she often can't hear what people are saying when they are talking to her.

Trials and Helpers:

The only way to shut the tooth up is by eating something sweet. She's afraid other people, like David, will hear the voice too and starts carrying around sugar free chewing gums to satisfy her tooth in case of emergency. At first, these seem to do the job, but soon she can't trick the molar any more. She has to seek refuge to real sweets.

Laura visits a dentist and tells him the molar tooth hurts. He can't see anything wrong with it and tells her to floss and change to another brand of toothpaste. When she leaves the dentist's practice, she suddenly hears a lot of voices in her head. All her teeth are yelling at her in Dutch that the dentist has hurt them and they demand that she does not change toothpaste.

In vain, she tries to shut them up using aspirin. She locks herself up in her room, cancels her date with David and and tells Mrs. Goldman that she cannot take care of Rafi because she is ill.

After a while all the voices are quiet again, except for the molar tooth who is asking for sugar and his neighbour, who is nagging for greasy food. Their whining keeps her awake, so she sneaks into the kitchen to fetch something to eat. Mrs. Goldstein catches her in the kitchen with a spoonful of Nutella in her mouth and warns her that she will get fat if she entertains such eating habits.

When Laura gets back to her room, another voice emerges. It encourages her to throw up so that she won't get fat.

The next day, David drops by with a box of chocolates. She eats them during his visit to keep the voices down and throws up again as soon as he leaves.

Laura considers going to a psychologist, but, before she meets her GP to explain her concerns, she finds out the voices are not imaginary. When she is cuddling Rafi, it turns out the toddler can hear them too. She tells him it is their little secret and decides to keep her problem to herself because other people would definitely think she's mad.

When Mrs. Goldman says Laura is setting a bad example for Rafi, eating all the time, Laura bursts out crying and almost tells her employer about her problem but holds back at the last moment.

The voices are fighting so loud that she can't sleep at night. She tries to focus on her lower left canine. It is telling her they will shut up if she smokes a cigarette. She has no sympathy for smokers whatsoever. It's an unhealthy, disgusting habit. However, she can't bare listening to the voices any longer and steals a cigarette from Mr. Goldman. When she smokes it out of her window, she finds out her lower left canine was right. The next day, she buys a pack of cigarettes and smoking becomes her ritual to fall asleep.

Since she keeps giving in to the demands of her teeth, she is getting bigger. She doesn't feel comfortable any more making love to David. One day, after a romantic dinner, Laura is giving him a blowjob, when the voices encourage her to bite him. She stops and with tears in her eyes she breaks up with him, muttering something about not wanting to be an in-between-girl to him.

He tries to get back in touch with her, but she avoids him. She asks Mrs. Goldman if she can be excused from the Friday night dinner parties. Mrs. Goldman replies she is worried about Laura since Rafi says she talks to herself with her mouth closed. She also says she has called Laura's mother and told her about this. Laura's parents are coming to London to pick her up and take her back to Holland that Friday night.

In Holland she recovers quickly. The voices are quiet, she stops smoking and she manages to get back to her old weight within a couple of weeks.

Crisis:

Then she receives a letter from David. He writes that he doesn't believe in God and doesn't need to marry a Jewish woman. He admits that he has never really seen her as a shiksa, that it was only banter. In fact, he has never loved anyone in his life as much as he loves her, and he begs her to take him back because he doesn't think he can have as much fun with anybody else.

Laura realises she feels the same way about him.

The next year, they both get into Brunel University and live close together on campus. At first, nothing is wrong, but after fresher's week, the voices start again. She runs to the corner shop and tries to shut them up by smoking and eating, but they are relentless.

Climax:

Then she returns to her halls. With pliers, she pulls out her teeth one by one, naming each bad habit that she does not wish to give in to.

Return:

A couple of years later, Laura is sitting in front of a mirror and removing her make-up. She hears David singing in the shower and smiles at her beautiful reflection. She's got everything she ever wished for: she's married to Mr. Right; she's got a challenging job in PR, and she's living in a beautiful apartment in London. And, after she pulled out her teeth, she never heard the voices again. Then she puts her false teeth in a glass of water and realises that she is just like her dentures. By emigrating and marrying David, she has removed herself from her Dutch background, and with extracting her talking teeth, she has chopped off her roots in her native soil. Though she is welcomed in both the English society and David's family, she knows she will never be a real Brit nor an original Jew. She is shiny and she's happy. No one cares about it and neither does she, but she is a fake, a rootless sham.

Itch

Tommy was a healthy boy. He always finished his plate and loved to play outside. He had blonde hair and his cheeks blushed like peaches. He liked to climb trees, dig in the mud and build things. He often got very dirty. But he never complained when he had to take a bath, because that’s when he could play with his rubber ducky. Tommy had never seen a doctor, until he got the rash.
Red bumps covered the soft skin of his bottom. Tommy was four years old at the time. Though his bum was very itchy, Tommy was excited about going to the doctor. He loved doing new things.
Doctor Seymore was a tall man in white coat: a traditional doctor. He asked Tommy if he had pooed in poison ivy.
“Of course not!” exclaimed Tommy.
“I’m asking,” the doctor said, “because that’s what the rash looks like. It is an allergic reaction.”
“Will I need an injection?” asked Tommy. He was very excited about the idea.
“No,” said doctor Seymore. “A bit of cream on your buttocks will do.”

Every night, his mother had to apply a thick layer of white cream on the rash. But the cream only made things worse. It caused his skin to swell, and the tiny bumps grew bigger. As if they were feeding on the fatty substance.
“I hate that cream,” cried Tommy. It was bedtime, and he was hiding in his closet when his mummy came into his room. “I can’t sleep because it itches too much!”
“My poop baby,” his mother said, “is it really that bad? Let me have a look.”
“No!” Tommy screamed. He held on to the door of the closet, because he didn’t want to come out.
“I promise I won’t put cream on it,” his mother said. She put the tube on the table and showed him her empty hands. “Just let me have a look.”
His eyes were still red from crying when he let go of the closet door. He put his pyjama bottoms down and let his mum look at his bum.
She shrieked. His skin looked like a red orange: thick and shiny, with oozing dimples and pimples. And he had bright red scratches all over his back and legs, radiating from his bum.
“When did this happen?” asked his mummy. She softly touched his back.
“After I had a bath,” Tommy cried. “The water felt good, but the towel was terrible!”
His mother hugged him and gave him a cup of warm chocolate milk. That night she didn’t put cream on it.
The next morning, Tommy´s bottom was so big, he didn´t fit in his trousers any more. His mother wanted to take him to doctor Seymore in his pyjamas. When she took him to the car, Tommy screamed so load his throat went sore, and all the neighbours came out to see what was happening.
“Let the doctor come and see him,” someone said, “instead of dragging the poor kid all the way to the practice!”

When the doctor arrived, Tommy was having a bath. Only water could soothe the terrible itch. The red scratches were swollen too, now, and his mother cried because he looked so dreadful. But Tommy was happier than he had been for days.
“Look, mummy,” he said. He hid his rubber ducky behind his back. “Ducky is playing hide and seek!”
“I see, darling,” she said. “Here is the doctor. He wants to have a look at your behind.”
Doctor Seymore was wearing his white coat again, and put on rubber gloves.
“You have to come out of the bath now,” the doctor said. But as soon as he got out of the water, Tommy started blaring again.
“Hush, darling, hush.” His mother kissed him and patted his blond hair. Tommy didn’t want to cry, but he couldn’t help it. It felt like a colony of bees was swarming all over his body, and the stings and itches were unbearable. He fell on the floor and rubbed his back on the bathroom rug.
“Perhaps he’s better off in the bath,” doctor Seymore said, and together with his mother he lifted Tommy up and put him back in the bath. He had rubbed his back so hard, that he left streaks of blood on the white rug.

Tommy was still sobbing when the doctor started the examination.
“Very peculiar,” the doctor said. Between his gloved fingertips he held one of the big pimples. “This almost looks like an insect bite. It’s much bigger. But look at the pinhole in the middle. Very peculiar.”
Tommy clutched his mother’s hand. She felt how he trembled.
“Can’t you give him something?” she asked. “Something against the itch?”
“I’m not sure,” the doctor said. He squeezed the lump between his fingers and brought his face closer. “It’s almost as if there’s something in there. Look.”
His mother looked at the flaming bump between the doctor’s fingers. It was as big as a marble and had the shape of a rugby ball.
She let out a yelp. The bump moved under Tommy’s skin, like a rugby ball spinning in the air.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“It has to come out,” the doctor said. He had trouble holding on to the twisting pimple. “As soon as possible. Can you get my scalpel from my bag?”
His mother started rummaging through the doctor’s bag. But before she handed him the scalpel, the skin burst open between the doctor’s fingers. From the flesh, a beak appeared. It spat blood and slime onto the doctor’s white coat.
Tommy squealed at the top of his voice. His screaming was so intense, his mother could feel it in her marrow.
“Make it stop,” she begged the doctor. “Please make it stop!”
Blood oozed from the wound and mixed with the bath water. With his free hand, doctor Seymore tried to get hold of the beak. It snapped at his fingers. When it bit the glove, the sound of squeaking rubber was heard. The glove broke, but doctor Seymore got hold of the beak and did not let go. He started pulling and twisting as hard as he could, until something suddenly gave way. A round yellow head popped up from Tommy’s soft flesh.
“It’s a rubber ducky!” his mother exclaimed in terror.
“It’s alive!” the doctor screamed. “And it bites!”
But they didn’t hear each other. All they heard was Tommy’s constant screaming.
The bath was filled with blood now. Doctor Seymore took the round head with two hands, like the doorknob of a stuck door. He started pulling with all his might. But the ducky’s torso was stuck in Tommy’s flesh and didn’t come out. Instead, the doctor lifted the boy from the water by the head of the rubber ducky.
“Mummy!” Tommy screamed.
His mother grabbed him by the waist while the doctor kept pulling. He put his foot on the boy’s back and finally the ducky came loose. The doctor tumbled backwards and fell with his head against the sink.
Tommy’s left buttock was one huge gaping wound. His mother had never heard him cry this loud before.
“Doctor, doctor, what should I do?” she asked. She clasped her bleeding child to her chest. Under her hands she felt that the rash on his back started to move as well. “Doctor, please, what should I do?”
But the doctor didn’t answer. He was unconscious.
“Water!” Tommy’s voice rasped in her ear. “Water! Water! Water!”
Her eyes fell on the bath. It was filled with blood. In the middle floated Tommy’s rubber ducky. And then she felt a new beak pierce through his skin. A spurt of blood painted the wall above the bath red.
“Water!” Tommy’s voice was loosing strength as quick as he was loosing blood. “Water, mummy, please. Please put me in the bath...”