Bin To Earth by Matt Woods (most romantic novels .txt) 📕

an elf from Klaferty?” asks Fizz.

“Only out of sympathy.” replies Sue. “When I gave him his final twenty four hour death wail he got so upset I took pity on him and we went to a nice fish restaurant. The haddock was absolutely scrumptious.”

“Died you ever see hom again?” asks Ross.

“Oh yes, we got on quite well actually. Next time I saw him was a week later at his funeral.” says Sue.

Stich looks at Freal. “I could think of better places to go on a second date that’s for sure” mutters the hobgoblin quietly to his pal.

The gang continue to chat and over the next few hours an assortment of alcoholic drinks are had by all, except of course for Sue who knocks back nothing more than several pots of tea, accompanied by a selection of tasty biscuits. Conversation flows easily as the sound of laughter and merriment fills the increasingly crowded Tavern.

Fizz tries her hand at propositioning Freal again, the ghost politely telling the witch she ‘wasn’t his type’ and that he rarely fell for ‘obscene old crones with next to no flesh!’

Ross continues to make mince- meat of his speech, it getting progressively worse the more ale he drinks. At one point he tells Skeleton Bob ‘thit the bost fush fangers I’ve over hid was it Munchy’s fush parlour and hos wee wonky willies and mishy pies weren’t half bid either.” Bob doesn’t even attempt to translate the zombies’ gobbledygook into proper talk!

Freal, Stich and Grunt talk predominantly about football, along with previous relationships. At one point Grunt becomes a little downcast as he realises how little luck he’s had with the opposite sex over the years. Stich does his best to console his pal by reassuring him that as soon as he was able to fix his head back onto his shoulders it would be females aplenty!

Although Grunt wasn’t aware now, within the next ten minutes or so Stich’s reassuring words would have quite an eerie prophecy to them.

Concerned that he was getting a little too pickled for his own good, Grunt is the
first to make his excuses and leave.

“Sorry guys, but I’ve got an early start tomorrow.” says the head, now perched on the settee, with Ross on one side and his own body on the other. “I’m meeting Gorrif first thing for a game of ’Head-butt the cow’ and I don’t want to feel too rough.”

The group start to say their goodbyes as Grunt’s body pulls itself of the settee. Whilst its head is still chatting away to the others, the body leans over and places a cushion under its armpit. It makes to head off towards the exit;

“Oi. You!” shouts the head, realising his body was off without him. “You’ve gone and put a bloody cushion under your arm. I’m still over here!”

Laughter erupts as the gormless body turns and flounders back to pick up its cranium.

“Bloomin idiot” says the head, perching itself once again underneath his bodies armpit.

“Don’t forget your hat by the way.” says Skeleton Bob.

“Ooh yeah, thanks” says Grunt, who’d left his trilby hat in the changing rooms earlier that day.

It did tickle them that their be-headed friend enjoyed wearing head-ware. Grunts’ argument was that just because his head was in the wrong place, this didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy wearing a trilby just like the next man!

As Grunt heads towards the exit, one of the obviously tanked up wizards yells across to him.

“Oi mate, mind your head going through that door. You don’t want to hurt yourself!”

Lots of drunken laughter and raucous table banging ensues. Grunt decides it best to ignore this poor stab at humour and heads out into the corridor.

Give it ten minutes and Grunt would realise that a small amount of mickey taking from a group of drunken sorcerers would be small-fry compared to what was about to happen next.


A DILEMMA

Making his way back to the changing rooms Grunt passes Cockney Jaffa, who was now taking a well-earned break from his painting. He was also trying to rid himself of quite a nasty itch;

“Alright there Grunt. I’ve got a right ole itchy Queen Mum.” says the dwarf, giving his behind a good, hard scratch. “It’s a bit Dudley Moore today.”

Grunt had conversed with Jaffa many times over the years, so had a relatively good grasp of the dwarf’s dialect. So much so, he was able to communicate with him on much the same level;

“I would stop and chat Jaffa but I’ve gotta get home to wash the ole Tony Blair. It’s well two-thirty. It’s gonna start giving off a right ole pen and ink if I don’t give it a clean. Gotta nip in here first though and pick up me tit for tat. Baked potato.” Grunt sticks his arm in the air as a goodbye gesture and makes his way towards the changing room.

Cockney Jaffa stops scratching his Queen Mum and just stares perplexed into empty space.

Grunt enters the changing room and heads towards the cubicle to fetch his hat. It was a nice pin striped trilby, probably Grunts favourite in fact, and he certainly wasn’t happy to leave it here overnight.

The changing room itself is quite large. Ahead of Grunt are four main cubicles, the one on the far left being the one he had previously used. To his left was a bench which ran the whole length of the wall. Adjacent to this bench were around half a dozen lockers, most of which had their doors ajar. Showers were situated to the right, and Grunt could tell by the hush from within that he was the only one inside.

The room wasn’t completely silent though. Coming from the vicinity of the far left cubicle, the one that Grunts hat was in, was a sort of humming sound. It was only just about audible but Grunt could definitely hear it.

Intrigued, he walks over to the closed cubicle, and, without hesitation, pushes open the door.

What Grunt sees catches him a little bit by surprise.

There, hovering two feet off the ground and tilted at around a thirty-degree angle, was a bin. The humming sound, now just that little bit louder, was coming directly from its inside.

Although Grunt is understandably curious, he is also a little frightened. He thinks back to when he was inside the cubicle earlier on, and was positive that floating bins had not been clogging his space when he’d changed.

The cubicle itself isn’t very large, and the bin without doubt takes up a good quarter of the inside. His head still underneath his arm, Grunt turns and peers around the room, primarily to ensure no-one else has entered. He quickly concludes he is definitely on his own, and this just serves to make him feel even more unsettled.

Grunt turns back and gazes once again at the bin. It looked like any other type of trash can, in that it was made of metal, had groves around its circumference, and handles on each side. Although he cannot sure, Grunt swears the humming noise is getting just that little bit louder, and that does nothing to soothe his nerves.

Still cautiously standing a few feet away, Grunt contemplates stepping into the cubicle to peer inside the bin. He tries to reassure himself that, as far as he knew anyway, no-one had ever suffered a serious fate at the hands of a waste container.

“I mean, what harm can it do.” he mutters quietly to himself.

Stepping cautiously forward Grunt enters the cubicle, and lifts his head above his shoulders to inspect the bins interior.

He hadn’t had time to forge any pre-conceived ideas of what might be on the inside, litter being about the only item he thought might make an appearance. As it turns out, what he sees both astounds him and causes him the utmost confusion.

The interior defied all known laws of space and dimensions. Rather than be a few feet deep, as Grunt would have expected, the inside gave the appearance that a bottom just wasn’t required! He felt he was staring into a deep, dark abyss, and that if in some unfortunate way he fell in, he would plummet downwards for the rest of his days. Not a favourable outcome he figures!

The common sense approach would have been for Grunt to run like the clappers out of the room, and never again give humming, floating bins a second thought. Trouble was though, there was something enticing him to stay. Something so tempting that Grunt couldn’t possibly entertain the idea of leaving.

There, inside the bins huge abyss, was an object. No just any old object mind; it was a very useful one as far as Grunt was concerned. He tentatively tilts his head a little further forward to get a closer look.

Within grabbing distance was a small box, a small box which contained an item which would change Grunts life forever.

No more would he have to fret about his lack of luck with the ladies. No more would drunken wizards yell sarcastic remarks as he walked through doors. And no more would his head get booted around a football pitch by a bunch of hairy yetis!

Grunt squints’ his eyes to get a better look at the box. It had some writing on the side, and he could just about make out all of the words. It read;

VERY EXTRA-STRENGTH SUPER- STRONG GLUE. GUARANTEED TO PERMANENTLY REUNITE A HEAD WITH ITS NECK. EXTREMELY SUITABLE FOR BE-HEADED MEN CALLED GRUNT.

“Mmmm, that’s quite tempting isn’t it.” says Grunt to himself. “I’ve got quite a need for that.”

The box was spinning slowly around, and was, without doubt, within reaching distance.

Grunt lowers his head, and, momentarily takes a step back from the bin. He contemplates whether to make a grab for the item. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ he wonders. ‘I’ve just got to make sure I don’t lean in too far, that’s all. And that glue won’t half come in mighty handy.’

Something was telling Grunt that grasping this item out of the bin was doomed for disaster. The temptation however was proving too much for him. Ever since he could remember, he yearned for the day that he could look like everybody else, with his head positioned nicely atop his shoulders. And it appeared he was just seconds away from making this dream a reality.

He’d made his mind up. Without further hesitation Grunt takes a few steps forward, his head once again nestled underneath his left arm for what he hoped would be the last time. The humming was without doubt louder now, but there was no way he was going to let a trivial matter like that get in his way.

Without any further thought, Grunt leans over and places his arm into the bin, and makes a grab for the life changing glue.

And that was the exact moment Grunt realises he might have just made a bit of a boo-boo!

Within the blink of an eye, Grunt is pulled up into the air and sucked forcefully straight into the bin. It was almost as if the largest and most powerful hoover ever made was lurking on the inside, ready to snatch its prey. Grunt would later come to reckon that this theory probably wasn’t exactly spot on, and that it may well have been something different!