Seasons Greetings

It was very dark as I rode home the other night for the start of my Christmas break. I was going a route that I don't usually travel along, along where the canal path joins the river path in Bath, due to it being the hang-out of flailing drunks and school children desperate to stab something.

There's a bit that goes very thin, called the Cataract, and only one Person Walking/Jogging/on a Bicycle can pass at a time and due to my innate politeness I always stop my Top-of-the-Range Bicycle-from-the-future for other people to come through first. 

One thing I do expect is a "thank you".

I know that your not meant to expect thanks for your acts of kindness, and you'll only be disappointed blah, blah, effin' blah, but if I don't hear those two words, or something amounting to it, I start to lose my world-reknowned cool.

Well on this occasion, I saw another Person on a Bicycle approaching the Cataract and I stopped to allow their passage. The rider had no lights on their bicycle, and they were in dark clothes, and they had no helmet, and their bushy mad hair stuck out in all directions.

"Merry Christmas!" I merrily chortled in my merry way.

"You Bastard," said the approaching bike-riding darkness.

A red mist suddenly descended from the sky and wrapped itself around me and I started to shiver with it's intensity. As the unfriendly dark rider drew near to go past me, I could smell his fetid, drunken breath, see his terrible flame filled eyes, and I could feel the demons within him. I knew what I had to do.

Flinging out an arm, I caught him across the neck. He made an odd gagging noise and then toppled to one side, over into the scrub on the waters edge.

"I said, 'Merry Christmas'" just incase he hadn't heard me.

He was struggling for breath and didn't seem that keen on answering me. I got off my amazing bike, put the composite alloy stand down, and walked over to where he was lying, entangled in his bike and the undergrowth, a shaking, open hand raised towards me.

"Here, let me help you up." I said.

I reached down and pulled his bike out from under him. It was an inferior, old make, that was probably stolen or something, it didn't even have a motor. I threw it as hard as I could across the river. It hit the other bank, bounced around for a bit then splashed down and sunk out of view into the black water.

"Looks like your walking, buddy," I quipped.

Then I turned my head downward to look at his pathetic, frightened body far below me. He slowly reached into his dirty, oily coat and pulled out something, something small, furry, and full of the furious furry fires of fetid hell; a squirrel.

I stumbled away backward, reeling in horror, fear and despair. He placed the squirrel on the ground and pulled another from his coat, an then another, and another. Before long, he had pulled some thirty or more hideous, rodent nut-botherers from a hidden cavity in his abdomen.

Wow, I look AMAZING. Pee-oww! Bang! Splat!

The squirrels formed themselves into one enormous super squirrel and shot towards me, arms flailing like a flail. I neatly side stepped them and then pushed off from the ground and shot into the air, only to crash down again directly as a gnarled giant clawed claw grabbed me. I lashed out with my other foot and sent the massive mutant howling into the river water, where it thrashed around screaming the many tiny squirrel screams that come out of a mutant ginormo super squirrel as it drowns.

Glad that that was over I got back on my bike and headed home for the Christmas break, safe in the knowledge that I had struck a deadly blow against those who think "manners" are just a cockney gangster's territory.

Psychopath

Today is my first birthday. 

For one year I've been jotting down my experiences of over five years, riding my top-of-the-range-incredobike, exactly as things happened.

But this is one story that I have never told. A story so horrifying, so steeped in fear, so despair giving, that until now I have been unable to speak about it.

It was the day I met a psychopath and almost died.

CLICK THIS:

It was an average kind of evening when I was making my merry way over the top of Widcombe Hill, past the University, when a car overtook me as another car was going past on the other side. The road is quite thin, but the Black BMW Licence Plate W*****R squeezed past me, within a bank vole's cobblers, doing about 40 mph. 

As I wobbled about trying to stay on my cutting-edge-of-technology bicycle, I shook my head in disbelief of what had happened.

Big mistake.

The Beemer, instead of just roaring off down the road like the bloated germanic nazimoblie it is, pulled up like it was going to turn right, but there was no right turn! What was this Person Driving A Car up to? I cautiously approached and made to ride through the gap on the inside.

Bigger mistake.

The BankManagingWankmobile, started up and cruised along side me, hideously close, and then the window wound slowly down.

"Are you OK mate?" came the vile voice, full of mocking hatred.

I said nothing.

Mega mistake.

"Are you alright?" he uttered like an evil Darth Vader or maybe even the Emperor it was that evil.

I kept my silence and rode on, I thought it best not to provoke him any more. 

Global mistake.

Steam was rising from my whirring legs, but he somehow he managed keep along side me. He could see I was trying to outrun him. I risked a glance to check out my foe. Just as I thought, a smartly dress out-of-shape fellow in his early thirties with a face full of unleashed evil and twisted monstrousness. As our eyes met, mine good, his burning with the devil's Maglites, I knew what I must do.

Switching my Bicycle-from-the-future into full auto, I leapt up onto the seat, and from there I jumped onto his roof. Just as I was pulling my Berettas from the holsters on the small of my back, his roof started to go backwards. I had failed to notice it was a convertible. I made a grab for the black canvas.

"What the hell are you doing?" he screamed as the car screeched to a halt. I was lucky to hold on. I knew I had to act quickly, before he could bring his laser eyes or mind control, or whatever these super-villains have, to bear upon me. Someone had to stop this psychopath now, and fast, before he killed someone.

"I am going to end your reign of horror now!" I roared, as lightning flashed all around me.

"Wha...?" He uttered in a guttural gurgle.

I pounced into the cab and proceeded to wrestle with him to remove his car keys. I easily overpowered him, because even though he was drenched through with malice and evil power, I am 6 foot 3 inches and really rather massively muscular, whilst he was really rather weak and didn't put up much of a fight.

I got the keys of evil in my just hands of good and turned and threw them into a nearby field full of cows.
"Thanks cows," I quipped.
"What the hell did you do that for, you...you...lunatic?" He raged.

I said nothing. Well, what can you say to people to make them realise what they are doing is wrong?

In one swift, smooth movement I leapt back onto my bike and rode on, safe in the knowledge that I had no number plate and was untraceable, unlike him, who I could easily find out where he lived and follow his wife home and stare at his children from across the street and burn his dog and poo through his letter box and get on his roof and kill his plants and rummage through his rubbish and live in his shed and appear in his bedroom one night and turn up where he works and form a sexual relationship with his widowed mother and wipe my wabblers all over his car door handles.

I think I have made the roads a little bit safer for everyone.

Now check out my Happy Birthday song video below.

Do it

or you're next.

FEAR!

I want to talk about FEAR, but I can't because I'm too scared.


Only joking! But seriously, Fear is no joking matter. Unless you are scared of jokes, then it is. Look I don't really want to get bogged down in all this, I just want to discuss the two types of Fear. There is Fear of Real Stuff and there is Irrational Fear. Which is worse?


I will give you an example of each of the two types and maybe you can decide for me, I am too in the thrall of my fears to make any judgements. That's what fear does, it makes you crazy if you live in it for too long.


Anyways, here is the first example:


You are riding your cutting-edge two-wheeled pedalec bicycle along the A36 coming out of Bath. It is raining in great black sheets, ice cold in your eyes. Cars continue to speed on their way home past you as if you weren't there, and you're all alone and yet surrounded by people at the same time. A bus overtakes you with not enough space between it and the car coming the other way. It pulls over and over, closing the gap you are in until hardly any road is left for you. You look up, almost in slow motion at the blank faces staring down at you from the greasy windows, the sick yellow glare of the buses light illuminating every line and crease surrounding their dead black eyes. You think, these can't be the last people to see me alive, please no! You think of your family and how they will cope without you, will they ever be able to put the TV on? That is when the crushing fear hits you like a harpoon ploughing deep into the flesh of a white whale. What if they can cope fine without me? 


That was fear of real stuff. Scary, huh? Now here is an example of Irrational Fear:


You are riding down the canal path at night and it is black, and eerie. Sounds from the trees and hedgerows are magnified into strange muffled calls and whispered words. You can see well in front of you due to your light, which is awesome and cost you almost 300 quid, but outside of your white hot beam is total dark. You think you can hear something rushing along behind you and you furtively glance over your shoulder to see what can be there. You can see nothing, no light of another person on a bicycle, nothing, but you can feel it is there. You pedal harder, but an image flashes into your brain of something following you, something with over-large eyes and sharp, bared teeth, a mockery of the human form, going ever faster, matching your frantic speed with ease, riding on a bike that is better than yours! THE HORROR!

Who knows what horrors lurk in the dark places of the earth?

So which is worse? All I know is that, if it gets too much, irrational or real, on either route, I swap to the other and instantly feel better. I could save myself from a spider by jumping off a cliff, and be gladly dragged from a cliff edge by a helpful spider. Weird.