It’s gotten to be THAT time again.
I, a British citizen have received that unwelcome email from Mister Amazon asking me to file for taxes in the United States Of America.
Sadly, because I sell books through Amazon US, I have to.
The IRS will get something like 0.0001 of a cent but they’ll take it all the same.
And this is why I can call myself an author, not a writer.
Because I pay fucking taxes. Fucking taxes in a country I don’t even LIVE in!
“We have uncovered their fiendish chemical warfare plot to carpetbomb our beloved country with dihydrogen monoxide.”
“Sir. That’s just plain water. So you mean our enemies are going to make it rain on us? Because I understand certain parts of Nevada are quite desperate for rain.”
Yesterday I read about becoming a slush reader for somewhere I won’t mention.
Mostly because I don’t want to attract competition.
Today I got my email telling me what to do for the 1st stage.
Which was reviewing all the stories from 2 issues of their magazine.
This was extremely good fun, I got to read several interesting and enjoyable stories (as well as some slightly not so enjoyable stories) and wrote them all up.
I’ve sent my reviews back, now I just have to wait until next week to see what they say.
So I’m currently an acting badger untrained.
They’d burnt the crypto within seconds of learning the General’s intentions.
“I’m gonna fire those birds, boys. Light up those god-damned Commies and nuke ’em back to the fucking stone age!”
He’d forced his way into the Battle Management Room, taking out our Air Commodore with a single shot. No, no-one was able to explain how he’d sneaked a loaded weapon into the bunker either.
Lots of RAF Police had tried to stop him. They made a rather nice ornamental torso pile near the door now. And he had amassed a collection of 9mm Brownings from them.
General Messing was on high alert now, anyone who even looked vaguely hostile earned themselves a terminal dirt nap.
But he took no notice of me. Innocent me, the guy who delivered his signals every hour, on the hour. I’d nearly bought the farm the first time, earning my survival pass by waving my handful of paper, showing I wasn’t.
At least that time I wasn’t.
As the hours had drifted past, it became clear to us that General Messing was determined to launch, codes or not. He’d spent every moment trying to brute force them, and by sheer luck he’d already happened onto half of what he needed to light up Russia.
3pm, or rather 1500 Zulu. The hourly signal run.
Messing’s gun was raised as I opened the door and immediately dropped to the table on seeing me. “Ah, the signal wallah. Enter, enter.”
I’d been the only living person to get anywhere near him, and it had given me an idea. “How goes the war sir?” I was trying to make idle conversation, mostly to distract him.
“I’ll get there sooner or later. Shame they destroyed the codes. So what’s this then?” Messing looked down at the paper I’d placed on the desk before him.
“Classified signal sir, needs your signature. Do you need a pen?” I offered him a ballpoint pen, my favourite Bic.
General Messing waved it away, pulling a rather nice Mont Blanc from his jacket pocket. Then he made his last mistake. He looked down to sign the log.
And I stuck the ballpoint into his ear, jamming it in as far as I could, killing him instantly.
General Messing, or least what was left of his corporeal being hit the table face first.
I called the RAF Police from his desk phone, they got there in less than three minutes. They were surprised, but full of praise. “You’re a bloody hero! They’ll give you a medal for this!”
I shook my head. “No they won’t. I’ll be lucky not to go to prison for killing a General.”
They protested, “But you’re a hero!”
I smiled. “No I’m not. I’m just a clerk with a pen. He never saw me coming. Bloody good job too.”
THE END.
“And so we walked off, to look for America.
Sadly, after walking for thousands of miles we gave up on ever finding this dreamlike place. Little did we know it was already beneath our feet, we merely had to look down.
But we had spent our whole journey looking forward, to the horizon.
America, no more.”
Today I had to find a story for submission and the piece I chose fell short of the minimum word count.
Which is annoying.
So I had to pull a little under 200 words out of my arse to make it. I do not, repeat DO NOT like rewrites. Nor do I like edits.
Generally I like to write a story and then leave it the fuck alone because it’s finished and there’s nothing more I can do to it to improve the beast.
I’m not one to edit. I don’t like adding things either.
I will do occasional updates or rewrites on the fly if I’m typing something up that I’ve hand written.
This is why I am a 1 man operation. No-one dares ask me to alter or rewrite or edit because they know I’ll tell them to fuck the fuck right off.
“Does not play well with others.”
“We’re fighting Lions today? You DON’T say? You see this bit of paper? Oh, you can’t read? Well it says I’m too ill to go into combat today. Yeah, sorry about that. You all have a LOVELY time! Love you, miss you, bye now!”
(waits until they’re out of earshot)
“Hope you DIE SOON!”
(looks around)
“I guess there’s about to be a whole lot of widows, needing to be comforted? And just me to do it. It’s a dirty job, but I think I can manage.”
“When I was a kid, you had to be careful when the battery went flat. Several million tons of metal falling from the sky at high velocity is deadly. But kids manage to find the humour in any situation.
You could hear them shouting from miles off into the distance ‘Big Dogs! Landing On My Face!‘ It always made me laugh. Until it almost happened to me. It’s not a laughing matter.”
A Boy and His Dog by Sandara
will be my story “Seeing Double”!
The anthology is called “Deserts Of Fire: Speculative Fiction and the Modern War” and it’s available to buy RIGHT NOW on Amazon.
I’m one of the many contributers (reviewed here, I even get a mention! (http://www.redbullrising.com/2016/07/book-review-of-fire-war-fiction.html) where I am described as “nearly Vonnegut-esque”
Very flattering.
raywriteswrongs 