Travelers Welcome

Travelers Welcome

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Drawing Noise

by Paul Tristram

There was this guy walking down the street, he was just you
know, whistling to himself (I think it was, ‘Watching What The
Rain Blows In’ by ‘The Tea Party’, but I can’t really be sure?)
When all of a sudden, he noticed that the street was completely
empty of people, I mean there were cars stationary all over the
road, but there were no people.

He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the scene remained
the same, some of the cars, which were in the middle of the
road, had their doors open, it looked as if the drivers and
passengers of these vehicles had simply stopped and got out
leaving their cars where they were.

He walked into the nearest shop (The doors were wide open!)
and took a look around, all of the shops lights were still on
and there was bad music coming from a cheap tape recorder,
which was sitting up on a shelf behind the counter.

Although to his amazement there were no people to be seen
anywhere? He tried calling “Shop!” a few times, but still no
one appeared.

He reached behind the counter and picked up a bottle of Jim
Beam (Because it was an off-licence!) but upon looking up he
saw the security camera and decided to put it back, besides
all of this ‘No People’ business was really starting to make him
feel paranoid.

He walked out of the off-licence and proceeded on down the
street, checking every shop that he passed by, but still there
was no sign of anybody about? Next he tried the shopping centre,
both floors, but not one single person was to be found, the
escalators were still running and just like the off-licence
and all the other shops that he had tried, all of the lights were
still on and the doors left wide open.

Now he was really getting fucking freaked out, he ran out into
the empty street and started yelling, this went on for several
minutes, then he resorted to screaming,

“Help, Help, Will Someone Please Help Me!”

But to this there was also no response, he then stopped calling
for help, because he realized that he didn’t need any help,
for there was absolutely nothing wrong with him, what he needed
was information.

Ah Ha! he thought to himself, I’ll phone someone in the next
town and tell them my predicament, someone must know what’s
going on?

So he ran to the nearest phone box, lifted up the handset, put
a fifty pence piece into the slot and dialled, it rang for three
minutes without reply. Then he tried another number and then
another number and then another but still no reply.

Then he hung up and tried the operator (By now he was sweating
like a pig, he felt like he was being hunted, all of his senses were
telling him to run, this was all just too wrong!)

When the operator didn’t answer he tried 999, he had never
wanted to hear a policeman’s voice so much in all of his life,
but alas, there was no answer.

He stepped out of the phone box and held his right hand up
above his eyes (So that his thumb and fore finger were against
his eyebrows) and in this common fashion he started searching
the sky all around himself for something. At first he didn’t
quite know what he was looking for? But then it hit him, he was
 looking for a mushroom cloud. My God, but have the stupid
fuckers actually gone and done it? he thought to himself as he
scanned the horizon, but he found no mushroom cloud.

In fact he found nothing up in the sky at all, not a single
aeroplane, helicopter, glider, balloon, bird, butterfly or bumble
bee, there was nothing alive anywhere except for himself.

He sat down on the side of the road and trembled like a
cornered fox, he momentarily thought of suicide, yes suicide
seemed like a very good idea indeed.

Now I know what you are thinking, why would he be thinking
about suicide? he has the town to himself, he can go and do
whatever he wants to (Well, besides copulate!) but he was not
thinking this way, he was frightened, he was used to people
and noise.

That’s when it hit him, there was hardly any noise, this was
all getting to be a little too much, he tried to think how he
could have missed whatever it was that had happened to
everyone, but he could think of nothing.

He had simply walked out of his house and found everything
like this, my God Sheila, he had completely forgotten about
his wife Sheila, he had left her sleeping at home in bed.

He quickly sprang to his feet and ran back down the street
in the direction of home, he could feel his heart pumping
blood to his entire body as he ran like a hero towards his
hopefully unharmed wife.

He finally entered his street, ran into his garden, then BANG!
Something leapt out at him from the bushes which he and Sheila
had lovingly planted together six years before on their first
anniversary.

He grabbed at the thing and knocked it off his back, he turned
and looked down at it, it was ugly, it was human in shape but
it had dead black eyes and purple skin. He flung himself down
upon the ugly motherfucker and started to strangle it, the thing
was strong but he kept thinking of Sheila and that seemed to
give him added strength.

Then he saw the things arm raise into the air, suddenly a sharp
wicked looking metal prong appeared out of its elbow, it was
about a foot long. Then he felt the pain as the thing stabbed
him in the ribcage with the sharp wicked metal looking prong,
he heard himself scream and then everything went black.

He awoke in his bedroom; he looked down and saw the blood
upon the bedclothes, he tried to sit up but felt a sharp pain in
his side. He looked around the bedroom, he could see three
police officers standing around the bed, in between two of
them stood his beloved Sheila; she was holding her throat with
one hand and in the other she held a bloody knitting needle.

“That Bastard tried strangling me in my sleep!” she said
coarsely.

“If I hadn’t have had the knitting needle handy, he would have
killed me!” she added in between coughing.

“What do you want us to do with him, shall we arrest him?”
asked the policeman who was standing upon her left hand side.

“I don’t give a fuck, just get him out of my bed and out of my
house, I never want to see the lunatic again!” she said quietly.

He is now in Cefn Coed Hospital in Swansea, he takes his
medication like a good boy, he spends most of the day trying
to draw noise and he lives solely for Friday afternoons because
on Friday afternoons they serve apple tart and custard with tea.

He no longer understands what clocks are for, the TV merely
confuses him, but he smiles when he sees angry people because
angry people make a lot of noise and boy does he love noise.

The doctors, who watch over him, are of the general opinion
that he will never recover, but they are unconcerned with this
as the patient is totally unaware of his rapidly deteriorating state.
The courts passed all of his personal possessions over to his
former wife Sheila.

He has now only two pairs of pyjamas, one toothbrush, a comb,
soap, toothpaste, face flannel and a calendar of steam engines,
all of which were provided by the hospital, except for the calendar
of steam engines which belonged to the old man in the next bed
to him.

Unfortunately the old man died two weeks previous and one of
the few kind nurses let him take the calendar of steam engines
and hang it on the wall by his own bed.

Sheila has since moved house and has now three healthy children
by her new husband who happens to suffer from insomnia.
And that is the end of this here story, there is nothing left to tell
thee except that her throat tissue was quite badly damaged in
the afore mentioned incident leaving her with a few problems.
They are, she can no longer give head and chicken curries burn
like a Bastard!

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