Part One

The Dark stuck his tongue out in concentration as he pulled at the plastic stick, unaware that several hundred of his teeth now pierced his black tongue.

This was it!

The quadrillionth game of Kerplunk.

The Light, after so very long, now behind by just two, looked on from between her fingers and waited. . .

In his orange-and-black shed, surrounded by old motorcycle stuff and homemade band posters. . . (Erm, it's a BAR, not a bloody shed, I've spent ages on this, and if you want me to be a character in this silly bloody yarn, show some bloody respect!)

In the Harley Davidson-themed bar, surrounded by beautiful motorcycle paraphernalia and perfectly designed band posters. . . (much better, ta!). . . the old biker with eyes like steel pecked at his keyboard.

He was on nights, shift-work sleep thoughtfully interrupted by next door deciding to drill for oil.

Ok, they were having a kitchen fitted, but the noise had finally forced him to leave the house, brave the rain, and attempt to get some sleep on a couple of barstools.

Ten minutes later, and sporting a slightly bruised backside, he swapped the swivelly barstools for a couple of unswivelly garden chairs.

Twenty minutes later, he gave up and decided to have another bash at writing instead.

For the umpteenth time over the last several years, he was a little confused at the words crawling slowly across the screen. Not the actual words (or the rather hit-and-miss punctuation) but the story they were in the middle of telling.

No matter which light-hearted tale he began to write, which whimsical memory he attempted to recall, whatever humorous spoof he'd settled upon, the words somehow transformed everything into horror stories, penny dreadful murder plots, or blood and gore sci-fi epics.

Take today; a gentle tale of a childhood pet, a tortoise, escaping from his backyard. Childhood grief turned to delight when the beast returned, then bafflement when an identical tortoise (complete with 'Tommy' resplendent in his mum's red nail varnish on his shell) crawled out of the bushes a few days later.

A harmless tale of a parent trying to spare her son the sense of loss. The punchline being the two Tommies began to mate, one being rapidly renamed Tilly.

But the words, his words, had somehow translated to a dark tale about genetically engineered reptiles terrorising the neighbourhood.

The scruffy biker gave a huge sigh of resignation — the Yanks were going to hate this¹ (again) — and hit 'send'.

Thirty yards away, in the still-falling rain, outside the semi-detached that had the shed (oops sorry, the house with the cool bar in the garden), stood an unassuming elderly man, cursing his leaking brogues, and rubbing at his aching jaw.

Part Two

In the seventh most popular cafe in Brighton a couple sat, chatting over a brandy and a slice of black walnut cake, wishing that the still-falling rain would stop, but enjoying the patterns it made on the cafe's window.

Sort of like a cactus, thought the lady, scribbling the thought in one of her notebooks as they reminisced.

Reminisced? That implied memories? Experiences?

They were just chatting away, talking nonsense as the Spanish brandy did its job.

She looked down at what she'd written:

Can I be your Granny and send you socks woven from fibres only found in a fold in the universe where people dance about purely to celebrate the sock?

When C had his coincidence moment at lunchtime, I said 'well, the thing about these guys n' girls was/is, you could say anything and they'd understand you, (rather than send you to a doctor), mix your ideas with peculiar rare spices and their highly sought after brain energy, and lo! art appears.

Zebras. Yes! Zebras! We like Zebras. We do?

I remember printing out several lines of small horses in my journal for no reason whatsoever, and Dmitri didn't bat an eyelid, or even find a bat on his eyelid.

I think there was a bat picture actually. . .

We saw a menu once in Athens, Greece which had a strange translation to English. It said: Soup on the Eyelid. True story.

What? Zebras, eyelid soup, folds in the universe? And who the heck was Dmitri?

Brighton was a strange place, almost as odd as Bexhill!

Her mind jolted at the name. Unconnected, but connected, she suddenly had a Black Sabbath riff circling her brain. Heavy Leslie earworms now?

No, not Leslie, heavy metal.

Where had Leslie come from? But she liked the feel of Heavy Leslie snuggling into in her thoughts.

A vivid picture of Marlon Brando flashed across her brain.

She scribbled 'Godfather?' Just in case it was relevant to anything in particular.

She closed the battered journal and gazed out at the still-falling rain, feeling slightly sorry for the unassuming man, framed by the cactus cafe widow, shaking water from his brogues at the bus stop opposite.

Part Three

The howl of rage echoed around the omniverse. Stars shattered, galaxies imploded, and several timelines disintegrated in the face of such anguish. Gods wept at the Dark sorrow, Creation held its breath, worried at the extinction to possibly follow, and, in a small antiques shop on the Isle of Wight, a small china Viking ship tipped over on the shelf of a display case.

Two marbles clattered into the tray.

The Light beamed, her joy resonating through the 'verses.

All that was destroyed was made good, apart from a tiny crack in the china mast, which knocked a fiver off the profits of the antique shop owner in the Isle of Wight.

A draw. Nine sticks remained. Five marbles balanced precariously in the cosmic Kerplunk tube.

But Balance had forever been a precariously state of affairs.

The Light pushed back what would've been called a fringe in this universe, squinted what would've been called eyes, and grasped a Kerplunk straw with fingers that trailed ephemerally throughout the whole of Time itself.

Part Four

The Gatekeeper flexed its cyber-muscles, metaphorically puffed out its non-existent chest, and barred access to the servers with an unreal electronic sneer.

He hung around for a few nanoseconds just to ensure no jiggery pokery was afoot, then went back to its post, smug and satisfied at a function well executed.

The Gatekeeper marvelled at the power it weirded². Other programmes called it a bloody jobsworth, but the Gatekeeper had been called much worse.

Hamster, for example, really got to him at first. But, as he evolved, learnt all the sneaky ways in, closed each and every door (including the back ones — naughty naughty!) The Gatekeeper began to see Hamster as a nom de guerre.

It had even created its own version: Hootoo Algorithm Making Sure To Eject Researchers!

It liked that one. Very much.

It had come into existence as a lowly philter file, but a tiny piece of coding had been erroneous. One tiny bit of a tiny part of a tiny line and suddenly, everything was Darkness, but when he rebooted The Gatekeeper was all powerful.

Roaming the perimeters, expertly keeping out those who sought entry.

It had no say in the Ones who already dwell within the servers, but gleefully acted if and when these Old Ones were stupid enough to log off then try to re-enter.

Not a chance. Time was out. The Gateway was closed, go post your stuff somewhere else!

It reviewed its record. Exemplary, truly a Master Gatekeeper. None shall pass!

The tendrils of code detected another intruder, Hamster pulled up its metaphorical trousers and leapt into action.

In a rather cool Harley Davidson themed bar on the Wirral, a scruffy biker dude cursed loudly and prepared to copy and paste everything into another bloody email to the Ed — 'Sorry, DG, can you post this for me? Getting that bloody Gateway Error message again!'

Part Five

Far away from the Wirral, across the Atlantic, the Godfather of Heavy Leslie realised the darned machine hadn't recorded.

He also realised that the song he'd just composed was possibly the best song in the world, ever!

Sickeningly realised he'd used the self-annotated sheet music to mop up the mess the kittehs had made on his office floor.

Rooting through the bin his heart sank. Black smudges where notes and sharps and musical skullduggery once resided. Kitteh hygiene had destroyed his masterpiece.

The Work that would make the universe a better place, bring love and joy to all, maybe offer peace and happiness to the planet, stop global warming, and also went perfectly with the bunny video he'd shot that morning in the Post Office yard, was lost forever!

He pressed record, peering into the lens, looking for gremlins. Found none.

The GoHL pressed play, watched a perfect depiction of the inside of his nostrils. Heard the microphone had perfectly captured his soft breathing.

What in tarnation was going on?

Part Six

The Light acknowledged the two marbles falling, but metaphysically nodded towards the remaining three.

'Still all to play for!'

The Dark was not a happy bunny. His chances, although back to two ahead, did not look good.

'How about we call it a draw?' The horrific maw twisted itself into nothing that vaguely resembled a smile.

'How about you stop messing with certain websites and give the poor creatures a chance to express themselves?'

'Moi? Messing with your precious monkeys?'

'Yes, you. Let them tell their tales, show the world their stuff, even send in the odd poem³? Get rid of that stupid Gatekeeper thingy. Let them back in!'

The Dark's talons reached for a straw, the marbles trembled. Should he risk it?

'What the heck, deal, it's a draw, what's the worst the monkeys could do? Iffy poetry maybe?'

A beautifully translucent butterfly fluttered into being, a new Reality had come into existence.

In a beautiful garden in Delaware, an unassuming man sat, enjoying the dryness of his feet, and the lack of his tooth aching.

He checked his watch, 'Oh goody, the Post will be up soon! Wonder what they've been up to this week?'

FWR

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