I decided it was worth a second edition as there are now three in the series, so it makes sense to unite them properly. Enjoy the new Intro.
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Fairies wear boots
It may have been the night before Christmas, or the night after Christmas or even Christmas night; well it was definitely the end of December.
I think.
And it was definitely a night.
It may have been Easter but Easter is in May.
Or Maybe not.
The clichés crowded my brain like a thousand railroad trains, though they didn’t give me all the confidence I lacked; still only Time will tell. I told myself a thousand times to avoid the exaggerations but to no avail. I was having the time of my life and things would sort themselves out in a jiffy. Joey tried his best to mess me up – a day on the lash and a night on the hash and I rambled on without a care in the world.
Catherine Street.
Could be the name of an ex-girlfriend.
Paranoia was in a taxi and following close on my heels, I was certain of it. Turned left, turned right, left, right; military two-step in the back end of Liverpool. Oh hello Mr Hardman I seem to be stumbling down your street.
Bizzies eyeing me , waiting to pounce and complete their monthly quotas.
“I met my target Sarge!”.
Paranoia.
Or just sleighted?
I had the moody blues in my days of future pissed.
As I was walking down this high street I heard a funny noise behind me. It could have been yet another cliché but my tingling spine told me otherwise.
“Ha ha ha, he he he!”
I refused to look back.
I felt as brave as a lion but as weak as a kitten.
Liverpool City Centre can be wonderful or scary, like a diamond in the rough.
I was in fear of being beaten to a pulp with a crow bar, but I had nerves of steel and knees like jelly.
“Ha ha ha, he he he!”
My pharmaceutically enhanced brain conjured evil clowns, demons, assassins and politicians scheming slyly in the theatre of my brain. Well not that slowly really, as the dope, beer and speed were sending my neurons round and round and round like electricity.
Which they are anyway – neurons and synapses and that.
But this was electricity with a spark.
I was confused – could it be Muriel?
“Ha ha ha, he he he!”
I suspected a good pasting from an over zealous Scuffer; so I slowly turned.
If my eyes had been working properly I would have described the sight before me; being stoned I couldn´t. However now with the passage of Time I will attempt a recall.
No more than three feet behind me and two foot tall stood a laughing gnome, his middle finger on each hand explaining quite clearly his contempt for my state of repair. He grimaced beneath his overly long beard, red eyes blazing amusement as I worked to comprehend this vision. Hallucinating again Mr Swifty?
I should have expelled an expletive but the connection between my conscious brain and my tongue had long ceased to operate.
Something really Strange was taking place. An overdose of beer?
Possible.
I heard the sounds again and thought maybe laughter is the best medicine.
Was something triggering my clichés?
“Look up in the sky now!” he said. “Can you see any flying saucers?”
I looked.
Flying saucers, flying teacups and flying teapots.
“Feck, feck, feck and Feckity feck!” was the best I could manage.
“I bet you can’t catch me,” said the laughing gnome.
Well smoking and drinking was par for the course but I decided a cheeky little fecker like this would probably benefit from a decent kicking. I mean, it´s always the little things that drive me to distraction.
In my inebriated state I tried my best to say “Come here you little twat and I’ll kick your head in” but the actual utterance went more like
“Cmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeerrrrswaaasssssreeeeeedddin”.
No matter.
We were off.
My tormentor, dressed in green (which I now understand is the favourite colour for visitors day) sped off down Hardman Street, his wheelbarrow kicking up dust and fag ends as his little legs carried him out of my reach. He shot across the road, weaving in between the cars, the drivers of which were attempting to get home before the breathalyser crews stopped them; the drivers not noticing him but cursing me with such dainties as “You feckin’ nutter!” or “You want yer ‘ead testin’ pal!” or “The cunt’s pissed!” or “He’s bloody bugs!” and “I say old chap, take a care with your running technique!”
No matter.
“Come here you bearded clam!” I screamed amongst the screeching tyres.
The Policeman held me up firmly by the collar. He tried to look me in the eye but became confused as they changed colour and focus like the lights on a Christmas tree.
His face told me he needed back up.
I told him I needed to catch that annoying little gnome who was taking the piss out of me.
His face told me he would be requesting an ambulance and the on-call trick cyclist.
The gnome stopped, smirked, gave me the middle finger again. The red mist that descended completed the evening’s clichés; a quick spin, push, kick and run ensured my name on a wanted list. The Rozza hit me in the head but it was tough like lead; so I punched him in the eye and he started to cry.
Another dodge.
A sidestep.
A shimmy.
The gnome was by St. Luke’s shouting Gimmee Gimmee Gimmee.
“I’ll get the little fecker now Officer and you’ll see what I mean!”
I ran through the gates, stopped and wondered.
I ran through the gates!
But they weren’t open!
I ran through the gates!
Feck – smoked too much!
Well you’d better cut down a little.
Sorry?
A burnt out shell since 1941when a drunken German Pilot dropped his load and shouted ´Gott mit uns!´only for the scousers to shout back ´we got mittens too!´
Or was that another terrible tragedy?
And here I am melting, running, transcending, going through the gates.
“Twat!” said the laughing gnome.
“Ha ha ha, he he he! I’m a laughing gnome and you can’t catch me!”
Somewhere inside a voice told me this wasn’t really happening and actually I was on the sofa at Joey’s brother’s house tripping the light fandango. A riff burst through my brain like a heavy metal thunder.
Then there she stood.
The most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on.
Well not quite a girl.
A Fairy.
Not just any Fairy.
It was Fairy Hanny.
“Hello Swifty,” she said. “I thought you’d never get here!”
“Why didn’t you say ‘doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy do’?” I asked.
“Because I wasn’t just a walking down the street,” explained the succulent succubus.
She shimmered in a diaphanous rhapsody of light, the angel of the rainbow having cast his spell upon her. Her hair shone like the girl over there with the fair hair. Hanny is a vision of beauty in a way unknown.
Inexplicably stunning.
Deliciously described.
Her eyes milked the Milky Way, strode across the Universe, encapsulated the Galaxy, and glistened like raindrops on Mars. Like all of the heroines of such tales she was a lusciously lithesome lovely.
And she has big tits.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said.
“Waiting?”
“Waiting!”
“Waiting?”
“Waiting for you!”
I drooled a bit, calculating my options; she didn’t seem to notice so it must have been a sly drool.
“Waiting for me? Have you tried writing letters?” I asked.
“You need to come with us so you can write your letters about all of us, and all of our lives, and all of our tales, and capture in words all of our souls,” she explained.
Then she laughed.
Music started – a Solar Music Suite played by a Lunar Music Person Of Restricted Growth.
It was the Gnome.
His wheelbarrow was now a Wordy Hurdy Gurdy, Music and Lyrics pouring out as if by Magic.
So Hanny began to dance.
With veils of delight slipping sensually from her slender frame, lithesome litigious long legs looped through the trance that was her dance. Every nuance of nicety nestled neatly knowing nothing needed now to get me to follow her wherever she led.
Then I noticed.
Those luscious legs laden with boots.
Big black military boots.
High lace.
Twenty four lace holes.
Brightly polished to a parade ground mirror shine.
“Fairies wear boots!” I exclaimed.
“Of course we do; else how would I get to kick your arse into the rest of this narrative!”
Things became a little strange after that…
An awesome sulphuric smell filled the Church.
“Oops!” said the Hanny, “probably those Dwarf Beans I had for breakfast.”
Then I was choking, smoking, yoking in a rhythmic union, beside the Sun, the one, that makes all the flowers grow. Here and now and then.
It was what is and what should never be.
From the corner of my eye I caught the shimmering silhouette of a Floppy Haired Fop, fiddling with something in his pockets.
“Am I going Insane?”
A worm hole caught me in his majesty and spun me through the Seven Open Lotuses on The Pool of Life, past seven Sides of Heaven and introduced me to Dawn on the other side of the Sky, coughed just the once, then deposited me on an alternative surface of our Solar System.
I sang my song to keep me alive as I landed on Planet Number Seven at Seven on the Seventh day of the Seventh month of the Seventh year in the Seventh Heaven of Outer Space. The Sun smiled on my predicament, which of course can cause a chap to lose confidence in the Lady Department of the Great Supermarket in the Sky.
The Moon Chortled from his Dark Side.
“You’ve landed on Uranus,” he laughed.
From that day on I met them all.
Pixy’s, Goblins, Ogres, Brownies, Imps, Gremlins, Trolls and of course the beautiful Fairies.
So I was compelled to write down everything about the Strange Things From Uranus.
Fairy Hanny 