Hole Punch by Simmons, Garth (the dot read aloud TXT) 📕

“Some Russian guys have been going around asking questions about you?”

“About me? What? Why?”

“Your tag is sprayed on the wall next to the body.”

“I could have tagged that weeks ago.”

“It's fresh paint Eddie.”

Eddie froze.

“Oh crud!”

“What happened Eddie?”

“This guy in the alleyway was dying, he'd been stabbed loads of times, he gave me a USB stick that he'd been hiding up his ass. Don't worry babe, I threw away the stick and my clothes. They aren't going to find it. Bin collection today babe, that USB stick is going bye-bye.”

“Bin collection is on Wednesday, not today.”

“What? I thought it was Wednesday.”

“It's Tuesday.”

“Oh crud!”

Eddie ran back home. He had to get the USB stick out of his bin and throw it into the sea or something.

Two Russian spies in black suits and sunglasses were looking through Eddie's bins. When they saw Eddie they chased him down the street.

“Get back here Kooms!”

They wrestled him to the floor.

“Tell us the password Kooms!”

“What?”

“Tell us the password to the USB sticks, or we'll kill you!”

Two bullets went through the Russian spies heads and Eddie was covered by their brains.

“I just saved your life,” said an attractive redhead holding a big smoking pistol.

Eddie wiped the brains from his face and gawked at her.

“Come on,” she said. “We have to get you out of here. Agent Wilson must have really trusted you to give you those plans and the password. Thankfully, we now have both USB sticks. I take it you’re Kooms?”

* * *

They drove down the highway towards Washington DC.

“Good cover disguise by the way,” said the redhead. “Not good enough though, those Ruskies tracked you down pretty quick.”

“What? No lady I'm just some stick up punk. I don't even know Agent Wilson. I found him in an alleyway when I was doing my tags.”

“Sleeper agent?”

“What? No. I don't even know what that means.”

“I'm taking you back to headquarters. They'll get the Intel we need out of you.”

* * *

They strapped Eddie to a table in a basement and fired electric shocks into his brain.

“Whoever programmed this guy did a good job,” they said. “We need to burn the Intel out of this deep-cover hotshot.”

* * *

Twenty-eight years later, back in his home town, Eddie is sweeping the floor of the supermarket. This is the best job he could get, as he hadn't been in proper work for so long. He'd been working in a government basement. His job was to try and remember a password for the government. He'd tried so hard to remember but all he could do was forget. Eddie is a much better janitor than he ever was as an undercover agent. Undercover agents shouldn't forget things.

After his shift, on his walk home, Eddie passes some faded graffiti on a railway bridge.

“KOOMS.”

He stares at it.

It means something to him.

He got on the phone and called the CIA.

“You asked me to call if I remembered the password,” he said.

“I'm listening.”

“I think the password is KOOMS.”

“That's your name dumb-dumb! Don't you think you've wasted enough of our time?”

SORRY

"I feel bad that I shat on your bed."

"I'm sorry that I smashed your windows."

"We were different people back then."

"We weren't the people we are now."

They both looked thoughtfully across the landscape and they felt clever.

ENGLISH LITERATURE

She stood on the stage, she had broken teeth and a black eye, she held up a shop receipt with her poem on it.

"I am wot ya see, dat's me."

She walked off the stage and the audience clapped, her English Literature Teacher stood on his chair and clapped.

"BRAVO!” he cheered. “A powerful and enigmatic new voice for the Lost Generation! The Street Generation! The TWEET Generation!"

ART HISTORY

“Can you not see?” said the critic to the other critic as they looked at the abstract image. “These shapes depict a simultaneous implosion and explosion of the traditional methodology of self-portraiture. See that frozen movement of the eyeball as it careers from the socket, whilst also being held by kinetic strings and springs. Thus creating a tension between action and inaction.”

“Oh yes,” said the other critic. “The helicopter blades seemingly erupt from the eye-socket to aid the propulsion of the ocular orb. Thus depicting the relationship between the viewer and the viewed.”

“Can you not see the convergence point of the piece? The shattered teeth in his concave mouth. A throat tunnel leading to the most tight bound singularity.”

“The darkness at that point of the image is clearly a deliberate ploy of the artist to develop perspective and visual depth, which has, insofar, not been seen in his work.”

“His photo-montage, A Vocalisation of a Broken Chasm, also shows visual depth.”

“ A Vocalisation of a Broken Chasm is from a later point in his career, therefore it would be churlish and improper for us to analyse it out of chronology with the work, that is, at this moment, under our scrutiny.”

“I seem to have drawn us away from the focus of our analysis.”

“Yes, I very much think that you have. Let us return our attention to this piece: Projecting Elements of a Disassembling Head.”

An unshaven man with a can of super strength stood behind them.

“Looks like me mum,” he said.

COWARD

“But how will I be able to express myself with my vacuous, community-affirming sculptures if the government cuts arts funding?” said the twitchy, calcified coward. "I would have to ask daddy for money."

MUSIC

The day I learnt that I hated music was at an “event”.

On the walls they projected randomised colours that meant nothing. On the stage people touched up trendy objects that made sounds like everyone’s already existing records. The organiser strutted about in front of the musicians and their instruments. The organiser wore a big, special hat and he shouted into a megaphone:

“MUSIC IS THE REASON TO LIVE! WE COMMUNICATE THROUGH MUSIC! MUSIC! MUSIC!