Elsewhere (The Walrus's Story) Part Two

© 2011 David Jasmin-Green

I logged into my Facebook account yesterday, or some day, I should say, as I'm not entirely sure about the timing – I'm not entirely sure about anything any more. I intended to read my messages from family and friends, and I was particularly looking forward to perusing any updates from my work colleagues.

I was a junior in a rapidly expanding sportswear company's sales office (maybe I still am?) and I'd just returned from a two week break in sunny Wales with my missus and kids. As I don't have internet access on my phone, I was seriously out of touch. Sunny Wales – that's a joke, isn't it? It pissed down for most of the first week so we were stuck indoors bickering, but I suppose we ought to count ourselves lucky because apart from a couple of thundery showers the second week was an absolute scorcher, and I still have the sunburn to prove it.

When I checked out my Facebook account everything was hunky dory, apart from the following outlandish entry. It had supposedly been typed by yours truly the previous afternoon when the real Will Schreiber (who, as far as I'm concerned isn't even a partial a knob) was sunbathing beside his beautiful wife, or maybe catching crabs in the rock pools with his usually delightful but occasionally unruly children. “Oh, shit - here we bloody well go,” I thought.

Will Schreiber (utter, complete and total knob):-
I just met a disabled midget giraffe riding a mobility scooter on a quiet, wasp infested street on one of those lazy, couldn't care less summer afternoons. The creature was about the size of a five year old child and he had a severely malformed neck, which, I suppose, was the result of severe curvature of the spine. He permanently looked to his left unless he made an obviously painful effort to look straight ahead and an agonising one to look right, which meant, I guess, that the right half of the world largely escaped his attention. My initial reaction was to feel rather sorry for him - I'm only human, after all, though of course I'm fully aware that empathy is a lot more constructive than sympathy in such cases.

The diminutive animal was delicately munching on raisins or sultanas from a massive brown paper bag in his lap, which warmed the cockles of my heart, because you wouldn't think he'd be able to handle such tiny morsels with his hooves. Every time he hooved a little scoop of his favourite snack, though, he dropped a few.

Then I spotted him openly swigging from a bottle of methylated spirits, and I suddenly felt less sorry for him. 'Naah,' I corrected myself, 'that's an unreasonable reaction, you thoughtless bastard. Think of the pain the poor mite probably has to endure - surely even a midget giraffe is entitled to a little drinky-poohs to help him through his torment, and if he can't afford even cheap supermarket booze on his Disability Living Allowance, why shouldn't he drink meths?' I soon felt less sorry for him again, though, when I realised that he was completely rat-arsed (and, as I was soon to discover, unreasonably violent into the bargain). He stopped just a few yards in front of me, and he just sat there slurring the phrase “Raisins are bloody amazing when you're roaming in the gloaming” over and over again. 'What a twat,' I thought, though I immediately felt guilty.

As I walked past the giraffe, for no apparent reason he happy-slapped a group of innocent tiger shrimps and fiddler crabs busking in a lay-by flooded with gravy from a recent catering truck accident. The complete bastard smashed the tiny crustaceans' home made banjos and acoustic guitars to smithereens with the wheels of his scooter in the beefy sludge, denying them the simple pleasure of playing the theme tune from Two and a Half Men, but foolishly I overlooked that assault because I hate the site of Charlie Sheen - because of that irritating, jumped up fuck I'm not the show's biggest fan. Everybody Hates Chris – fab; Malcolm In The Middle – sheer brilliance; Two And A Half Men – Yuuk.....

I walked on a little way, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard the belligerent ungulate (if giraffes are ungulates, I'm not really sure) dissing a passing pensioner, calling him an overdue candidate for the formaldehyde turkey baster, a washed out old coffin dodger and a dehydrated King Tut lookalike, amongst other things. And then he spat a huge, disgusting globule of phlegm onto the blazer of an infant fruit bat on its way home from school - understandably the bat burst out crying and flapped off home to its mumsie.

I had to intervene then, I couldn't resist putting my ten penn'orth in, and in retrospect I probably went a bit over the top. I grabbed the giraffe by his rather elongated surgical collar, a device I'm pretty sure he wasn't wearing when I first saw him – he was also sporting a daft kiss-me-quick hat set at a jaunty angle that I don't recall seeing before - and I threatened to report him to the authorities and punch him on the bloody nose, but not necessarily in that order. Oh, and I called him a sick, twisted little cunt.

“Get off me!” he growled, violently hoofing my hands away. Unperturbed, he casually rolled a ciggy, using those ridiculous leopard print papers, I couldn't help noticing, and lit it from a box of cook's matches that he kept in a side pocket of his scooter. “You know your problem, matey peeps?” he said through an acrid cloud of smoke. “You're a mutant Malayan bastard, and you don't belong here – you're well of your usual beaten track. Oh, I forgot to mention, as well as being a mutant Malayan bastard you're a dripping, syphilitic fanny, and you smell very strongly of cheese.”

I was speechless, which is unusual for me as I generally have at hand a long list of apt replies to sundry insults. The giraffe gave me the v's (or as close as he could get to giving me the v's with his hooves). “Fuck you, chancroid face,” he muttered as he sped off in the direction of the local parish church, leaving a trail of raisins in his wake, but I doubt if prayer or confession was anywhere near the top of his to do list. God only knows what was going on.
Yesterday at 15.53. Like:- 130,932 no-hopers like this.

For the benefit of social networking virgins and computer dinosaurs there's a 'like' button beneath every comment posted on Facebook, and folk (me included, I have to admit) get a sad kick from gathering likes to their posts - the more the better. The entry had an unlikely amount of likes, I noticed. I thought it was an odd thing for any hacker to write, but I didn't actually dislike it so far - which was a good job because unfortunately Facebook provides no 'dislike' or, even better, 'fucking hate' button.

Anyway, I tried to tell myself, it was an utter impossibility for a post purported to be by me to gather so many likes. I only have seventy or so friends, and supposedly the security settings I use keep strangers from reading or sharing my personal messages unless I grant permission for them to do so by making the statement public, which is something I rarely do. Who on Earth would press the like button beneath such an insane piece of crud anyway, I thought..... I was a little disturbed because some maniac had hacked into my account in my absence, but at the same time I was deeply intrigued, so I proceeded to read the long list of replies to the message.

Fractal P. Buffalo, otherwise known as Doctor Evil (a seriously fab guy):-
Ah, I see that my raisin and methylated spirit loving emissary has dropped by to pay you a visit, as instructed. I am a sort of intergalactic solicitor, Sir, I guess you could say. My faithful servant interfered with your profile in order to pass on a rather ambiguous message on behalf of several walrus (walrusi?) on my books who claim certain damages against you, you weirdo, you rapist, you spotty, freaky, pinniped poking perv.
Yesterday at 15:58· Like:- 1,779,842 people (and/or other entities) like this.

I was confused and furious and amused all at once, and I secretly wished Facebook did have a 'fucking hate' button. What the hell was going on? I mused. I guessed I wouldn't have a wheelchair bound cat's chance in a home for psychotic pit-bulls with no hope of rehabilitation of finding out if I didn't read the rest of the dialogue, and there was a fair bit of it.....

Will Schreiber (apprentice village idiot, talented player of the pink oboe and part-time male prostitute):-
Sorry, bud, but I accidentally mercilessly slaughtered your midget giraffe emissary with a sharpened coal scuttle that I happened to have about my person.

Not out of malice, you understand, but because I mistook him for my uncle Brian Ethereal Bloater (Mrs), a former female impersonator who recently escaped from Broadmoor high security mental hospital disguised as a nun after almost completing a thirty five year sentence for doing unspeakable things with a couple of heavily pregnant Friesian cows, a dead whippet, the Archbishop of Canterbury's pet turbot, a selection of large cucumbers, a bacon slicer and a blunt cheese grater.

And, I must admit, I rather fancied the giraffe's disabled buggy. I'm gonna soup it up and fit wide wheels and a massive Chevvy engine, I'm gonna paint it vermilion and black, apply a couple of those daft flame transfers on the sides and ponce around in it for a while at great speed until something more ridiculous comes my way. Oh, and I scoffed the little fart's raisins, every last one of 'em, including the emergency supply hidden at the bottom of his shopping basket under a gallon of meths (which obviously I drank) and a well-hoofed jazz mag entitled 'Red Hot Caribbean Camel Chicks.' I'm hanging on to that, too, by the way - waste not, want not, whatever that means.

By the way, Fractal, all walrusi (I believe they're they're descended from the Jedi) are bare-faced liars, and due to their irrepressible, totally irresponsible multi-universe skipping tendencies they have the most confounding imaginations. So are lawyers, bankers, mortgage advisers, wasp mimics, birds of paradise and Austrians who keep their kids as sex slaves in secret cellars.

So don't bother sending any sick, milky eyed old men around to spy on me from their concealed subterranean burrows, otherwise I'll do what I did to Barry Manilow – I'll beat them senseless with a long dead codfish, I'll give them frontal lobotomies without their explicit permission, I'll invoke the fleas of a thousand lousy llamas to infest their sacks. I'll fry the silly fuckers alive in their own stinking body fat in a specially constructed man-sized frying pan with loads of garlic, a hint of thyme, a sprinkling of finely chopped olives and oodles of white truffles. And a handful of raisins, perhaps. Then I'll poke their piggy, predatory peepers out, I'll crush them like the cockroaches that they patently are. Banzai - I declare war!
Yesterday at 16.13. Like:- 556,242.005 complete twats like this.

Doctor Evil (swiftly emerging super being and universally acclaimed master of wit and repartee):- Mwu-haa-haa-haa-haa-haaaaar! Joy to the world - my experiment was an unmitigated success, and it clearly reflects my genius and proves my superiority over pathetic, nauseating little maggots like you. Hail the Right Honourable, highly exalted Fractal P. Buffalo (the 'p' stands for Pandora, but please keep that quiet because I'm a tiny bit ashamed of it), otherwise known as Doctor Evil (or Betty Tit-fuck on Thursday evenings behind the bike shed at the local working men's club, but I'd thank you not to mention that to Mrs. Buffalo or to my dear, bedridden octogenarian mother – such an unsavoury snippet would probably kill her).

You, Will Schreiber, a low down bum and closet raisin fetishist of my acquaintance, were secretly given a powerful camel shit and psilocybin mushroom based hallucinogen by one of my many acolytes, causing you to see belligerent arthritic midget giraffes where no giraffes actually exist. The raisins aren't real either, buddy - they're a figment of your over-active, currently (ha, get it?) dried fruit oriented imagination. What is it with you and bloody raisins, anyway? You're obsessed with the sodding things, they're becoming your raisin_d’être.

The only thing you consciously like more than raisins is Yvette Fielding, the little belter who hosts Most Haunted - still, after all these years, though she claims that practically every series is her last because she has other offers in the pipeline. I've heard she's trying to get on to Big Brother, but they don't bloody want her..... Don't think I didn't see you a few weeks back having a crafty in-trouser wank over your secret bit of fluff while she was pretending to be shit scared in the darkened psycho unit of the long closed West Virginia State Penitentiary. You shot your bolt while Yvette was blarting for dramatic effect. Don't bother denying it, spermy pants - I know the truth, I was there.

You bloody love it when Yvette gets all tearful and her eye-shadow runs, don't you? It makes you feel all manly and protective, you dirty bastard. You only wish she'd get her tits out now and then..... Aah, even the sound of her name – Yvette Fielding – gives you a stiffie. Yvette Fielding, Yvette Fielding, Yvette Fiel – Wahaay! I rest my case, your cock's as hard as a table fucking leg!

There's no need to feel guilty, mind, because you're not the only one to be turned on by impossible to obtain TV personalities. Nowt wrong with a bit of harmless fantasy, is there? It might or might not comfort you to know that at the exact same time you were creaming your boxers over Yvette Fielding your missus was in the other room watching Ross Kemp On Gangs, and she was covertly flicking her bean over the bald pillock under a conveniently placed pillow in case you or one of the kids walked in. She's fond of Tom Selleck as well. Oh, and she's quite partial to Cape buffalo and occasionally dolphins, but those are different stories, rather succulent ones that I can't really tell you about right now. Sman..... Oh, stop fucking crying, man, it doesn't become you!

Look, pal, none of that crap matters anywhere near as much as you think, because the world as you know it is an illusion. Well, not so much an illusion as one of many realities of various degrees of juiciness, as you'll soon find out. Oh, yes.....

In another life you've been locked up in a certain Austrian cellar for the past several years. Furthermore, you are a sweaty Frenchman with a fifty percent non-human pedigree, without giving too much of the game away. Not that I have anything against Frenchmen or even French man/animal hybrids, as long as they have a basic understanding of personal hygiene, unlike your stinky self – you smell like a geriatric tomcat's ball-bag after it's been rolling in rancid cheddar.

Have you never suspected that you might not be fully human, Will? Don't you find your love of the sea, particularly the icy Arctic Ocean, even slightly suspicious? Ever had an inexplicable compulsion to jump into certain animal enclosures when you take the kiddies to the zoo? Do you like sushi? Hmm? Oh, never mind, all will be revealed in good time.

All you need to know right now is that you are a decidedly unsavoury half human pastry chef by the name of Gerard Bumb, though I have programmed your fool, insect brain into believing that you're a middling, white collar English toss-pot with a morbidly obese wife living in a crummy town at the heart of the Black Country. Mwu-haa-haa-haa-haa-haaaaar!

Next week, perhaps on Tuesday afternoon just before teatime if I haven't got anything better to do (and if I'm feeling particularly malicious) you will be programmed to believe that you are an half bee called Eric as depicted in the delightful Monty Python song. This will bring about a physical transmogrification so powerful that it may well produce frightening changes even in the staid reality you foolishly regard as your own – that's sure to stir the stagnant, uninspiring waters that you numbly wallow in day in and day out, isn't it? Of course, the other half of your genetic make-up will forever remain useless cunt..... Perhaps I'll call you Nathaniel to avoid plagiarising the Python team too much. Or maybe Sheila. Ha! I like it. So long, sucker. TTFN, girlie pants. I'm a trifle peckish, so I'm off to feast on the tender, lightly sautéed flesh of battery farmed children. MWU-HAA-HAA-HAA-HAA-HAAAAAR!!!!!
Yesterday at 20.55. Like:- 3,743, 901 practically immortal, dimension hopping mega-beings like this.

Will Schreiber (stamp collector, secret goat botherer and closet transvestite):-
All right, it's a fair cop, you unmitigated dollop of shit. I foolishly swallowed your poisoned bait, along with a few raisins to sweeten the indignity, perhaps, and I genuinely believed that I was eating common or garden knackerwursts in a strawberry and ocelot sauce. So now you've got me, boss. It's cramped and damp and dark in this bleeding cellar, and it's seriously doing my head in. lemme out right now!

My mind is all a muddle. During my more focused moments I miss the leisurely contemplation of mundane objects like bread bins, soap dispensers, spanners and sugar lumps, farthings, spinning wheels, cheese triangles, boiled ham and monkey puzzle trees. Like all useless cunts I crave the contemplation of normal, everyday delights like fields and trees, rolling hills (preferably pine-clad), sunshine, butterflies, dicky-birds and blue sky and the cheeky, wooly arses of Standard Poodles..... And my sodding TV – I'm missing the Jeremy Kyle show and Yvette bloody Fielding! Oh, and if it's any of your business (which it probably isn't) I'm desperate to indulge in a number of innocent pastimes such as pastry rolling, dwarf hurling, making shrew and sparrow kebabs, nailing giant clams to clergymens' shin bones, random drive-by shootings and an occasional good, hard shag.

No, gaoler, not from you. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not that way inclined, that I'm not in the least bit attracted to evil, twisted and from the reek of you rarely washed old men? How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not your daughter, that I'm not even a real woman despite the fact that I choose to model myself on Beyonce Knowles? Please, stop. Put it away! Don't. Stop. Don't. STOP DON'T STOP DON'T STOP DON'T STOP! Yodeleeeee-heigh!

All right, the cat's out of the bag. So I let my decrepit gaoler give it to me occasionally, whenever he can get it up, that is, which is more often than you might think, considering his age. I have no choice, OK? I either let him slip me one or bloody starve. You know that well-worn Darwinism, survival of the fittest? Even the fittest of us have no hope of survival if we die of malnutrtion.

And it's Mrs. Gerard to you, Ethel Gorgonzola Gerard-Fritzy, in fact, the renowned, thoroughly pissed off walrus and seal enthusiast and Austrian paedophile's bitch, but I guess I won't be putting that on my CV – I don't want everyone to know that the stress of incarceration has forced me to follow in my sick uncle's footsteps.

I couldn't help submitting to Fritzy, really I couldn't. I'm weak, I'm damaged, I come from a broken home. As a child I was forced to watch Crossroads and Dynasty and Top of the Pops and anything involving Keith Chegwin and Bruce fucking Forsyth. I was beaten half to death and sexually abused by a General Custer lookalike and my mind's a shit hole, it's a filthy, irreparably broken mental midden pile. Oh hell, oh fuck, oh mummie – I don't wanna live!
2 hours ago· Like:- 5,715 tax inspectors, magician's assistants, over-painted, moronic tarts who used to work as beauty therapists but were dismissed due to their disturbing psychological peculiarities and an assortment of other arse-holes like this, but not a lot.

Will Schreiber (ex greengrocer and failed cheese manufacturer):-
Buzz buzz bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
1 hour 57 minutes ago. Like:- No one whatsoever likes this because it's lame and rather silly. Sad bastard.

Doctor Evil (superstar, superhero, monstrously endowed gigolo, heavily sequinned thong model and red hot lover):-
I can see your house from here.
About 2 hours ago. Like:- Everyone in the known multiverse likes this, including unicellular organisms, talentless X Factor hopefuls, vagrants and crack whores (including Janice Plover of flat 26, Belvere Crescent, The Dells, Milton Keynes. She gave me a dose of the clap, the dirty old slag, but I don't hold it against her – not any more, anyway).

Will Schreiber (the most big-headed, self-centred prick I've ever met):-
Which fucking one? You have to learn to be more specific, you insufferable twannock. I'll have you know that I'm a multiple residence individual – I'm a wealthy playboy, me. Are you referring to my posh palatial mansion, my ultra-modern Florida hideaway, my Wendy house, my hive or my concealed cellar?
1 hour twenty five minutes ago. Like:- No one likes this. Again. Ha!

Doctor Evil (Wowee!):-
I'm referring to that old water-butt down by the canal, as you well know. The one with the fancy extension that the neighbours might well be insanely jealous of, because they're all complaining to the council. Still don't recognise it? I mean the one with the compact, bijou lean-to made out of rusting corrugated tins and old tea chests and a recent, I have to say, even shoddier cardboard addition that hasn't yet been crumpled into a soggy mess by a light shower or blown away by the wrath of a pifflingly gentle breeze. You know, the residence with a swimming pool made out of a discarded skip (which unfortunately taints the water a sickly orange), off-road parking and easy access to the local dump and the seedier parts of town.

I'm referring to the residence with the unusual decor, the pictures of hunky, studded leather clad gladiators adorning the interior walls (if they are gladiators, you consummate bumberclot), the fifty gallon drum of Vaseline cunningly disguised as a table and the collection of novelty cocktail mixers (at least that's what a true innocent, which admittedly I'm not, would take them for). Not to mention the cunningly concealed men only naturist magazines, if that is their true nature - I didn't want to touch them in case I got the shit or come or blood of some lowly vagrant on my hands and caught something nasty.

But the gay mags aren't the most disturbing feature of your little palace, your homoerotic home from home, not by a long shot. If you're gay, which you obviously are, you're gay, and there's nothing you can do to change it. Being homosexual is perfectly natural despite what homophobics say or more often covertly think to the contrary, and you shouldn't be discriminated against or called a shirt-lifter, a shit-stabber, a brown-hatter, a turd-burglar or anything of that ilk, though the world being what it is you doubtlessly will at some point during your travels.

Nay, nay and thrice nay, my boy. By far the most disturbing belongings in your humble abode that I accidentally stumbled across during my visit is the wholly unnatural stuff, you know exactly what I'm talking about – the graphic photographs of semi-naked, lingerie clad walrus in various titillating poses, the most pornographic of which are lovingly catalogued in a fat album stuffed under your meths and raisins stash in an inadequately camouflaged hole in the ground, though the slightly more 'tasteful' ones are hidden under the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle posters on your bedroom wall, you utter pervert. No doubt you think of your secret collection as breathtaking Arctic nature images or, dare I say, 'art'.....

Oh look, there's your mum. She's bare nekkid, the shameless hussy – nice nips she has on her too, but it's a pity there's so many of them. She's doing the backstroke as proficiently as can be expected in the tight confines of the family skip-cum-swimming pool. She's a good looking lass, all considered..... She wouldn't look anywhere near as rough if her tattoos were spelled correctly, her flippers weren't so ragged and gangrenous and she didn't have such enormous tusks.
Just over an hour ago. Like:- Every toss-pot ever born, and even Simon Cowell, the king of them all, likes this.

Will Schreiber (train spotter, vest wearer and Olympic standard knob jockey):-
That's no mere addition, buddy boy – damn your cheek and abysmal lack of architectural appreciation! Haven't you noticed the polythene inserts, or 'winders' as us cultured folk call them? That's a Victorian conservatory-cum-sunroom overflowing with exotic nettles and dandelions, I'll have you know. I've gone up in the world, I used to live in a rolled up copy of the Daily Sport in a septic tank. I ate stale turds (and I still do when no one's looking, but I add a little Chile sauce in these comparatively opulent times). In the bad old days I had to get up three hours before I went to bed to do a quadruple shift down t'pit mining fossilised sago for 4 pence a decade, but if you tell that to kids today they wouldn't believe you. And I lived within easy access of the naughtier parts of town even then..... Hey, hang on - call me stupid if you must, but are you insinuating that my mother is an aquatic mammal and I'm a funny feller? How dare you insult my mum!
1 hour ago. Like:- A big, fat, empty zero. Yawn.

Doctor Evil (male model, Fine Art buff and unparalleled style icon):-
You're stupid..... Right - if it's Python rip-offs you want, it's Python rip-offs you'll bloody well get. You were lucky, laddie. I used to get up fifteen days before I went to bed, I worked 47 months at a stretch in t' dark, satanic thunderbolt mill, which was 53,000 light years away from home on the edge of an interstellar gas cloud - there were no buses or intergalactic shuttles in them days, so we had to walk. I paid my boss tuppence a second for the privilege of raising myself above the work-shy masses, and when I came home for tea my dad would slice me in two with a bread knife while playing the maracas, singing hallelujah and dancing on my grave.
55 minutes ago. Like:- Oh, yes.....

Will Schreiber (pointless, fat, queer bint):-
Cunt.....
51 minutes ago. Like:- Oh, no.....

Doctor Evil (fantastical, solid gold, start-spangled superhero):-
Yes, obviously I am insinuating that your mum is an aquatic mammal. Any idiot can see that she's a walrus, and I can't for the life of me figure out why you've never noticed - perhaps you're in denial. And you are a funny feller; I think you're fucking hilarious..... Your house (for want of a better word) is the only one I've ever seen with a built-in dildo rail, apart from a slightly fancier example in a certain dominatrix den just outside Birmingham city centre that I deny all knowledge of. Oh, I believe there's another, even fancier ivory one in the secret hideaway of a recently separated Hollywood star who doesn't wish to be named. Cruised, cruiser, cruising ,Crusoe. No that's not it.....
49 minutes ago. Like:- A giant squid called Nigel, several hamsters, Jeremy Clarkson travelling at 350 miles an hour down the slopes of Mount Snowdon in a clapped out mini full of ill-packed panes of plate glass with no seatbelts, the Queen Mother (yes, I am aware that she's dead) and all of the plankton that ever existed like this.

Will Schreiber (an out and out tool who never, ever submits and refuses to acknowledge that he's seriously outclassed):-
I am not a funny feller, compadre. I'm not gay, OK? And I can't for the life of me imagine where you got that idea from. My wife's not gay, my hamster is well macho and my Afghanistan veteran no-legged springer spaniel is completely heterosexual. Oh, and I've never even met a bloody walrus, never mind bedded one or suckled from one or had one dress me for school, so take your accusations back immediately or I'll take you to the fucking cleaners.

So your dad sliced you in two with a bread knife while singing hallelujahs and dancing on your grave. You were lucky, because we couldn't afford graves.

My dad was a pillar of the local community. He used to get us kids up three and a half years before we'd gone to bed – there were 984 of us - and carve every scrap of meat from our bones with a blunt spokeshave and hack out our bone marrow with a hammer and chisel to feed the local stray dogs and hippies. We each had to pay him five florins a week for spokeshave and chisel maintenance, which we earned by renting out our ravaged bodies to perverted NSPCC officials, Catholic priests, Pantomime Princess Margarets, children's TV presenters, senior policemen and more Conservative politicians than I could possibly bloody count. Dad had a warm heart and he couldn't bear to think of underdogs going without, or maybe he was just a malevolent old swine, I'm not sure.

If our bodies hadn't self-repaired by the following morning (mum gave us a couple of band aids and a dab of Germolene if she was in a good mood) we were whipped to within a quarter of an inch of our lives with barbed wire, but at that point our agony had only just begun.....

We were forced to yank out our malnourished livers with our own teeth and saw off each others' arms and legs with a rusty hacksaw, which we each paid a fiver to rent from dad's battered toolbox. Our body parts were boiled with straw, dog shit and dirt to make a nourishing broth for old folk and a pair of destitute prostitutes called auntie Susan and auntie Wilma who, for some reason, enjoyed being shackled to a huge concrete block and shafted senseless at all hours of the day and night (or at least that's what dad told us.) They lived in a tiny, foul smelling crawlspace under the shed on dad's allotment, and they were told that if they made even a whimper they would be fed to the pigs alive and kicking, toes first. As Susan and Wilma were Jewish fugitives from the secret Nazi British government and they would be incinerated alive if they were caught, us kids were informed, we swore not to tell even mum about them in case she snitched..... Aah, memories; those stinking, toothless hags would do just about anything for a crust of bread.
About 10 minutes ago. Like:- Yeah, OK, no need to rub it in - just about every fucker likes this.

That was the final message. I logged out and turned off the computer, but less than half an hour later I switched it back on again because I couldn't believe the over-embellished tripe I'd just read. As I entered my password I noticed a small, brown shrivelled something on the keyboard. It was a bloody raisin..... Flicking the offending object over my shoulder I feverishly searched my Facebook homepage. I had to see the drivel again, I needed to convince myself that the absurd entries really existed, but do you know what? I could find no trace of the conversation, it had completely vanished. In its place were about three dozen perfectly ordinary messages from family and friends (which at that point I didn't feel like reading) and my own mundane, stiflingly boring entries, mostly about some crappy Russian novel I finished reading a few days before we went on holiday.

So that was that. I didn't tell my wife about the dialogue because, I guess, I thought it would worry her. And I was too busy trying to figure out what was going on, and why - I needed to know who had taken the time to fuck me around so elaborately.....

There was of course the added burden of feeling completely knackered - we were all tired, because we'd been up since the crack of dawn to make the most of the last day of our holiday. To make matters worse the kids fought relentlessly during the long drive home, so I was on edge. That was all it was, I told myself, I was overtired, stressed out and pissed off. I must have been on the verge of nodding off as I logged into Facebook, I reassured myself, I must have suffered an hallucination, or an hypnagogic vision. Before you start questioning that I know that my terminology is correct because I'm a bit of a psychology buff, and I'd recently read an enlightening article about hypnagogic and hypnapompic states.

By the time we had eaten, unpacked our dirty washing and put the boys to bed my missus and I were falling asleep in front of the TV. It was barely ten o' clock, which was ridiculously early for us, but we decided to drag ourselves upstairs. It was sometime during the night that the shit really hit the fan, and the next time I opened my eyes I had mysteriously been transported elsewhere – and a very odd elsewhere it was.