Probably a Mutoscope

Well, it's Halloween, or Samhain, whichever you prefer; which makes it the perfect time for a short story.

Hope you like it.

-oOo-

When it came, the blow was brutal. It cut across the side of her head and the world just seemed to stop. Well, no, that's not quite right, it didn’t exactly stop; she could see the pearls of blood… Her blood, hit his sneering face, exploding in slow motion into delicate scarlet flowers that spread in a line across his cheek.  She didn’t feel any pain, there was just a burning sensation, but more like the feeling you get from touching a block of ice.  No pain, not really.  The strength faded from her legs and she started to topple backward, she felt the numb ‘pins and needles’ spreading down from the small of her back to her knees and smiled.

Richard had always thought she was odd, for enjoying the tingling feeling that restriction of the blood-flow sometimes brought.  In fact that’s why he left; he came into the shop one lunchtime to find her in the stockroom with the wire bound tightly around her wrist. Her fingers were swollen and purple, the veins standing out on the back of her hand like vines on some great jungle tree.  She hadn’t realised he was there until he spat the word, ‘Pervert!’ at her and slammed the door behind him.  By the time she’d composed herself and got back to the flat, he’d gone.  By the look of things he’d just shovelled his few belongings into a bag and left his key on the bedside table never to be seen again. It was no great loss.

      

She was still falling.  Her head snapped forward as she clipped the cabinet behind her and sent the credit card machine flying through the air. ‘Damn!’ She thought absently to herself, as it spun towards the floor, ‘That’s rented; it’ll cost a fortune to replace if it smashes.’ She saw the man that had hit her, his eyes wide and shining wetly, his cruel mouth lolling open like a panting dog’s.  He had dropped the baseball bat, but it had not yet landed on the counter, along its length, as it twisted in the air, she could see the glitter of metal sunk into the wood.  ‘Razor blades? No, can you even buy razor blades anymore? Stanley knife? Yes, they’re probably Stanley knife blades.  You’d have thought the bat would be enough, but then what do I know about current weapon fashions in the smash and grab industry?’ 

In time with her weakening pulse, her vision began to fade, the colours went first to make it look as if she were trapped in some terrible black and white film. Then the details started to blur, and the darkness began to seep in from the edges, constricting her field of view even more. It looked like an old-time silent picture now, the type where someone would be playing a piano in the theatre and every few seconds a card would appear explaining what was happening on the screen.

Her father had shown her a machine once whilst they were on holiday, where you put an old penny into a slot in the side and then wound the handle whilst looking through a lens.  Its real name was something odd, she remembered, but she couldn’t remember exactly what it was.  He called it a ‘What the Butler saw.’ But she didn’t really understand why, unless the butlers of the time often saw a set of dusty old postcards clicking past one after another.  Ornate white letters swam in front of her eyes, ‘Kally has been hit by a bat and is probably going to die!!!’ Her heart sank, from what little she remembered, three exclamation marks was never a good sign.

The man was grabbing jewellery from the case now; he used both hands as if he was starving and the diamonds were plates of gravy and potatoes.  Christ, she was hungry – She should have grabbed a sandwich from that shop next to the Tube station, but they’d only had egg, she didn’t really feel like egg, she was in a tuna mood.  She was going to die on an empty stomach, could this get any worse?

Her head continued to slide down the front of the cupboard, the muscles in the back of her neck getting tighter and tighter until she felt something tear and she heard a crack, ‘Owww! That hurt!’ She yelled, the words echoing around her head but somehow unable to escape through her lips.

Then it suddenly didn’t hurt any more.

And there was nothing to see.

And there was nothing to hear.

And as her last breath left her body, her nose was filled with the scent of her father’s aftershave. She’d not smelled it for years, not since she’d taken over the shop after he’d died.

Are you more a Ben or a Socrates?

I was listening to BBC Local Radio on the way into work this morning, as I so often do - It stops me staring dejectedly out of the side window of the car into the bleak rain, like someone in a black and white Jimmy Somerville video that's just discovered his true sexuality and is running away from his closed-minded parents to the teeming Metropolis of Manchester, to live a brand-new life that involves many fabulous cushions, ostrich feathers and quite a lot of bumming.

Anywho, there was a 'Pest Control Executive' on there this morning, warning us all about the danger of a new breed of Super-Rat that was resistant to all of the commonly used poisons.  But he said that we should not worry, we should not all start looking on the Internet for contractors who will charge us our life-savings and then some, to rat-proof our homes because there is a miracle spray that we can use which discourages them.

Have you ever seen a discouraged rat? Me neither, but I assume that it looks a bit like this:

Note the drooping whiskers, the general hang-dog expression and the look of rodenty resignation.  He's either just had a good, hard, discouragement, or he's about to get killed to death with a shovel.  My money's on the latter.

Now, I think I may have missed the bit where it described whether you actually had to spray the stuff on the rat itself, like fly-spray, or whether it was a prophylactic (And no, I don't mean that it magically caused a little rat condom to appear out of thin air - And even it if did, I would suggest that you use tweezers to put it on the rat, at arms length - They're bitey little buggers,  I mean that you sprayed your worldly goods and it made them less attractive to rats.)

At one point, the interviewer asked his guest, 'So, am I right in saying that if you have decking, you've probably got rats?' to which his reply was, and I can only imagine that he did that thing we all do at Halloween, where you use a torch under your chin to uplight your face 'No, actually, if you have a shed, you've probably got rats.' - I mean, he didn't actually go 'MuhahahahahHAHAhahHha!' but you could tell by his voice that he really wanted to.

He did try to console the general populace by saying that rats don't often come in through your catflap though.

Let's just take a minute there... If you'd asked me yesterday whether having a rat coming in my catflap was a real worry, I'd have laughed like... Erm... I don't know... Like Christiano Ronaldo looking at my payslip, with the general absurdity of the question.

Now I'm having trouble thinking about anything else, and I haven't even got a catflap!

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not totally anti-rat.  I mean, they have a bit of a bad name, what with the whole Leptospirosis / Weil's Disease thing. Not to mention the small matter of that whole outbreak of Bubonic Plague in the 17th Century killing somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people in England depending on who you believe (Yes, I know that technically that was down to the fleas on the rats rather than the actual rats, but that's like saying that you actually get shot by a bullet rather than a gun. Saying things like this within earshot of me will normally result in you getting a thorough 'Belming', or a half-hearted 'Chinny Reckon' behind your back if you're bigger than me).

I mean, I remember many happy nights in the 1970's sitting outside my parents house and watching some fairly large rats run across the rooftops from house to house, it was the highlight of our Saturday nights.  There are even people who keep them as pets you know? And they will tell you that they're amazing, clean, intelligent creatures (That's the rats, not the people who keep them, obviously. They're just weirdos.) who can be taught to do complex tasks and do not just urinate everywhere, chew through your electrical wiring and get caught in your hair... Hang on, thinking about it, that might be bats though, not rats - They're pretty much the same animal when you get down to it aren't they?

They're as tough as old boots too, they're radiation resistant to the point where, after the big button gets pressed and we all disappear in a bright, nuclear (or New-cue-lar, for our Colonial readers) flash it'll be pretty much just rats and cockroaches as far as the eye can see.  They are also quite easy to muck about with on a genetic level, scientists have bred whole species of rats that are predisposed to obesity and / or diabetes so that they can be used in researching treatments.

I suppose that, when you think about it, it's a tough old life being a rat - Very few sane people like you, you're hunted to almost extinction, chased, trapped and exterminated wherever you may be, experimented upon, if you manage to live past your first few weeks after being born (which 95% don't, believe it or not.) Your average life span in the wild is about two years. You're even thought of as a delicacy in parts of Africa, China and South-East Asia - But don't tell the tourists OK?

And... there's the ever present danger of Toxoplasmotic Zombification.  We've all heard of Toxoplasmosis right? That thing that pregnant women use as an excuse for getting someone else to empty their cat's litter-tray (And let's face it, it's usually the women who decide to get a cat, right? If the choice of house-pet was left up to the men, we'd all have eagles and crocodiles and badgers running around the house wouldn't we?) - The disease is caused by a little parasite, made of a single cell, called Toxoplasma Gondii (Pron. Gone-dee-eye) which only really grows and reproduces in cats.  However, the way it gets into the cat is pretty odd.  It's a well known fact that rats eat pretty much anything up to and including steel - One of those things is cat poop (ewww, right?) If the poop is infected with the parasite, it rages through the rat, to it's little rodent brain and flips a switch, the one that normally says 'You really, really, don't like cats, avoid places that smell like cats, specifically places that smell like cat urine' so that it now says 'You know what you feel like right about now? some cat urine, find things that smell like cat urine and hang about in their general vicinity.'

So, what do you often find near cat urine? That's right, a cat's backside, which is often connected to a cat's frontside, which, ninety nine times out of a hundred, comes complete with a head, mouth, teeth and the sunny disposition of a wet ninja with hemorrhoids.

The rat's lifespan is then measured in femtoseconds, there's a squeak, a bit of a scuffle and it dies, but not without infecting the cat (which I suppose is a bit of a cold comfort for it, all things considered) and the magical circle of life continues on.

Poor, poor Ratty

But on the other hand, and who, other than some of my teenage girlfriends, knew I had so many hands? A rat did kill one of Mrs Dandy's cats once.  Not through any heroic beastial fight for its life, not by giving it some nasty parasite, not by causing a grand piano to fall on it in a Tom & Jerry stylee.  But by choking it to death.  I opened the back door one morning and saw one of the most pathetic, but at the same time blindingly funny things that I have seen before or since.  There was the cat, quite dead and stiff, lying on its side on the patio, with this huge rat's back end sticking out of her mouth.

She was old and didn't have any teeth you see, so she couldn't chew...

She'd attempted to swallow it whole...

She failed...

We gave her a viking funeral, it's what she would have wanted.

But I don't even got a Belfry or nuttin'

Those of you who have access to my Facebook will have seen this little fellah's picture before :

Aren't bats brilliant? Really? They're, like, my third favourite animal after Rhinos and Pangolins. The only true flying mammal, there's none of this glidey-aboutey, jumpey from tree-to-tree nonesense. It's all about the real, hairy, flapping about using tiny muscles and wings made of skin and stuff!

Brilliant... Especially their feet... Lookit his feet!

There are two main kinds of bats in the world, there's the big fruit-eating beasties like the one in the toe-curlingly cute picture above, known scientifically as MegaBats, who weigh about the same as a bag and a half of sugar and can have a wingspan of just under six feet! And there's the ones that you see flapping about in Scooby-Doo cartoons and churchyards and the Public Park after dark (What? is it just me that sometimes wakes up in a paddling pool, illuminated only by the waxing moon and a small campfire mostly comprising empty crisp packets and some dry bread that the ducks wouldn't eat) - Actually, thinking about it, I can't really talk about that, what with the impending court case and everything. But it's these that we're going to chat about.

They fly around, from dusk onwards, filling their spiky little faces with insects and squeaking at really high frequencies and if you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't realise just how many of the little monsters there are flying just above your head.

Our local park had an organised bat walk a couple of years ago, and I took the MiniDandy out to see what it was all about, it was an OK-ish kind of way to spend a summer's evening, full of people wearing bush-gear and wearing wooly knee-socks over their trousers (even though we were on a gravel canal path and the nearest bracken was a good half-mile away) and for the first hour or so we saw a grand total of no bats whatsoever.

Suddenly ! (Actually, I'm sexing this up a bit... The word 'Suddenly!' might be gilding the lily a bit, but I don't know any other way to say it that's less boring than 'Then') the group leader's bat-detector started to make rythmic clicking noises and he said,

'That's a Noctule Bat, making his way up the river, going into town to feed'

We all looked around and saw a sky full nothing.

'OH!' he gasped, his bat detector making a series of high pitched buzzes, 'That's a couple of Pipistrelles having a disagreement over a flying beetle!'

He was really getting into his stride now.

'Can you hear how the tone changes pitch, it gets higher?' He paused and waited for us all to nod sagely as if we had any idea what he was talking about, 'That means he's closing in on his prey!'

Luckily it was a warm night, the occasional star was out, the MiniDandy was in her element, the novelty of being out on the park at dusk was enough for her and she was no-where near as... well... not exactly bored, maybe just glad that it wasn't costing us anything... as I was. Then we went around a bend in the path and the detectors that were spread throughout the group (including the one that the MiniDandy was holding) all went mental.

We looked up and the sky was full of bats, caught in the last waning crespuscular rays of the setting sun, they were wheeling and diving and zipping through gaps that were obviously way too small for them. There were hundreds, if not thousands of the skinny-winged wee buggers (in the true sense of the word, in that they eat bugs) - It would be so easy to turn the 'Gay Description' knob (LOL, I said knob!) all the way up to eleven, and start going on about 'seamless aerial ballets' and 'breathtaking displays of aerodynamic pulchritude'... But I like girls and beer, so I'll just say that it was bloody impressive.

We stood there for about half an hour until the cloud of bats dissipated, it seems that the feeding frenzy was their breakfast, and they slowly spread out all over the park to suck up insects (around 3,000 each) until the temperature dropped. We carried on down the path, catching sight of the occasional Noctule and Soprano Pipistrelle, towards the lake.

'This is where the Dauby's live,' Said our Guide, 'There's a colony of a few hundred living on the island in the middle of the lake.'

I made a joke about them being lucky to have an island, as we had to make do with a paper bag floating in a septic tank, we'd have to go to work down t'mill for fourteen hours a day, week in, week out and when we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt...

You know that feeling you get when you wish you'd just said something in your head? - Well, I felt a little like that as our very worthy guide gave me a bit of a hard stare. I resolved to be educated silently after that.

He told us about how Daubenton's Bats pick insects off the water with their tails and flip them into their mouths (or something, in truth I was still embarrased about the whole Monty Python thing, so I wasn't really listening - but it was something like that, maybe they use a spatula, I'm not an expert) and how they often come out during the day if they get hungry. It was all very fascinating.

Eventually the evening drew to a close, we'd had a little flying display from the Dauby's and apart from another hard stare from the guide when I gave the detector back, it was a night well spent. We even bought MiniDandy her own bat-detector, which we've used a couple of times (Once as a hammer, and another time we propped a door open with it)... Good times.

I would suggest going on a batwalk to anyone who enjoys being genuinely impressed by the wonders of nature (Ooop.. better watch that knob again, take it back down to 2.7) One thing though, you might not be as lucky as us, you might only see a squirrel being taken roughly from behind by a badger, although that's still nature, in a way, and I guess it'd be a good story to tell the chaps at the pub over a medium sherry.

Your name's not down, but your girlfriend can come in.

This may suprise a few of you - But I am actually a fully fledged, licensed and notarised 'Door Supervisor' (What we all used to call a Bouncer).

In the dim and distant past, probably about twenty years ago, as I'd done some freelance bailiffing work, I would occasionally get accosted by the bouncers of local biker bars and clubs (Whom I'd known previously, I mean these guys didn't just spy my rippling biceps and go - 'He looks like he'd fill a doorway') and asked if I'd like to 'watch the door' whilst they stepped away from their posts for a bio break or to *cough* check some young lady's ID *cough*. This slowly evolved into me becoming one of those people that everyone hates - 'The guy who gets into places for free'. You'd rock up at the door of your venue of choice, the bouncer would ask 'Working?', I'd reply, 'Can do, if you're busy' and then there'd be some fist-bumping or that fist-handshake thing and I'd go and get a bottle of Dog and sit down for the rest of the night. The only proviso was that if things did kick off, you were seen to be in the front row, handing out righteous judgement with whatever blunt instrument came most readily to hand.

This very seldom happened if I'm honest as, contrary to popular opinion, biker bars (in the UK certainly) tend to be self policing, and also, bikers in general are a pretty good natured bunch - Visit one, you'll love it, but it's probably best not to wear a tie unless you like people pointing at you and laughing. (This does not apply if you're female and dressed as a schoolgirl, feel free to wear a tie then, although in fairness, you'll probably still get pointed at - Although it's unlikely to be with a finger.)

However, it all tailed off as things got more and more regulated, you started to need certification, you had to have a 'Little Blue Badge' issued by the local authorities, then the SIA (Security Industry Authority) got involved and it all went to hell in a handcart... Bouncers became Doormen, then Door Supervisors, the bats and socks full of pennies got replaced by politeness and psychology and it became 'safe'... OK, let's qualify that bit, I mean it became safer for the punter. You were significantly less likely to wake up in a ditch, looking at a selection of your own bodily fluids, wondering why you could see the back of your own head. It was no safer for the guy in the monkey suit saying 'I'm sorry sir, not tonight, try again next week' as the local authorities had not seen fit to regulate the behaviour of drunks to the same extent, it was still quite acceptable for them to lash out with glasses and broken WKD bottles and whatever else they carried about their persons.

I thought myself to be well out of, for want of a better word, you could describe as 'A mug's game' and settled down to a life of comfort, videogames and beer. That is of course until my wife commented that I should probably 'Do something in my spare time', it seems that sitting, drinking beer and playing games aren't 'something' as far as the current Mrs Dandy is concerned. I took this to heart, and within a couple of months I was offered a place on a Door Supervisor training course - Spooky!

Our instructor was a little Scots fella, who had been invalided out from 3 Para after (IIRC) smashing both of his legs (or arms) to pieces after a faulty parachute deployment - And he was, without doubt, the most double-hard b*st*rd that I have ever had the honour to meet. He would merrily go through the official SIA Door Supervisors Training Handbook with us, then slam it shut and say 'Tammorae, I'll tich ya poufters whae ya rally need tae knae'

And he did... We learned what bits to poke, where to chop or twist, how fast, how hard and how long for - In fairness, he did preface every demonstration with 'An ya shoul' ne'er do thas, but ye'll nee' to knae how to defen agin it' - It was the first time I ever saw anyone use the 'sleeper hold' to it's natural conclusion and also the first time I saw a guy who was probably only 5'5" subdue a guy around a foot taller, one handed. (It should be noted that the big fellah wasn't just tall, he was probably about 300lbs and has once been sacked for knocking someone out with a live chicken - He works for the BBC now I think, or at least he did the last time I met him)

And he also HATED first aid training, don't get me wrong, he still taught it, and taught it well, but his opinion was that it made you soft and you'd worry about hurting someone if you thought you might have to fix them again afterwards. To this end, he organised a bit of 'role play' the day after the first aid training. He set the classroom up to mimic a darkened nightclub layout and slumped one of our number in the corner, then he let us in, one at a time and told us that it was the end of the night and the rest of the club was clear, 'Whad'ye dae?' Of course, we were all still in 'Helpful First Aider' mode, we checked for breathing and conciousness and stuff and went to help, whereupon the guy opened his eyes, brought an empty syringe from behind his back, and stabbed us in the neck, 'Yer deid, if ya lucky, it wae jus drogs, if ya wea onlucky it wea infected blod, if ya wae rilly onlucky it whuz jus' full o' air !' he cried, with more than a little glee - The only guy who passed this test was the one who he'd put in the sleeper hold - Maybe it focuses the mind?

I've used it a couple of times since, even done security for bands and suchlike. All in all, a pretty great experience, people who are interested in self defence should definately look into it - I've taught a lot of what I learned to my daughter, and will be doing the same when my son's a little older - So that's something for the next generation of bullies to look forward to.