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

She finished her cigarette and went back to the bar, maybe she wasn't interested?

He walked past her and took a photo of her bum with his phone. He went to the toilet and locked himself in a toilet cubicle.

He stared at the photo and he stroked his dry, flaking penis.

“She’s got a good Public Image Limited!”

He gasped as a tiny bit of yellowed juice dribbled on his hand.

He went to the sink, looked in the mirror and he rubbed the semen into his balding quiff.

“Post Spunk!”

LAZAR

A blast of electronic trumpets.

“After last weeks mass demonstration by Alien Rights Groups our most superior Queen Garsix III will make a historic announcement regarding the exploitative humiliation of alien cultures. First though, a comedy performance by everyone's favourite moronic, alien freak: Lazar Phlicks!”

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” said Lazar Phlicks. “I am a stupid alien.”

The audience clapped and laughed.

“I am Lazar Phlicks and I am a stupid, alien freak.”

The audience clapped and laughed.

“When my people first saw your War Brick in our sky, we thought it was God.”

The audience clapped and laughed.

“We didn't understand space travel. We had never seen anyone come from beyond the stars. So we thought the War Brick was from God. Some of us thought it was a giant square bird.”

The audience clapped and laughed.

“We were so terrified when you attacked our planet.”

The audience clapped and laughed.

“When you burnt our cities.”

The audience clapped and laughed.

“All my family died that day.”

The audience clapped and laughed.

“I miss them so much and I feel so alone.”

The audience clapped and laughed.

“The Earth Empire soldiers came to our villages and they put me and the other survivors in chains. The soldiers told me that the way I cried was funny.”

A heckler stood up from the crowd.

“Cry then! You're rubbish now! Get crying! You’re bloody rubbish! You've not been funny for ages!”

The crowd started throwing mashed foetus from their bags of genetic waste. This was always the funniest bit of a Lazar Phlicks show. When he fell about the stage ducking for cover. Lazar Phlicks was good at physical comedy.

A blast of electronic trumpets.

“On this historic day,” said Queen Garsix III. “In light of the latest Alien Rights demonstrations: I have decided on a compromise. Instead of enslaving and humiliating the aliens, we must take an ethical approach. We must look inside ourselves and think of the horror we are causing. To allow these abominations to exist, in any form at all, is an offence against our planetary pride. No more shall we allow aliens to assimilate themselves into our culture. They cannot reap the benefits of the Human Empire. They do not deserve our blessed exploitation! From this aeon forward we will make those pricks burn! We NEED to make those PRICKS BURN!”

Lazar Phlicks was hit in the face by a blob of stem cells.

“Burn that prick!” shouted the heckler.

BILLY

Billy wore shorts with a computer joystick glued to the front. He wiggled it and pressed the fire button.

“Pew pew pew pew pew pew.”

Billy wore a hat with a rubber duck glued on the top.

“Quack quack quack quack quack quack.”

Billy wore pointed shoes with clowns drawn on them.

"Shoe shoe shoe shoe shoe shoe."

Billy's tortoise was on a lead and sleeping.

“Nyak yak yak yak yak yak.”

Billy laughed.

CAMP AMERICA

Jeremy looked at the hospital signs. Ward 34 she said she was on. He couldn't see the sign for Ward 34. He wandered past rooms full of old, sick people. A yellowed old man stumbled past Jeremy.

“Bleurgh!” said Jeremy.

An old woman slipped in a puddle of her own urine.

“Yeuck!” said Jeremy.

Jeremy stopped a nurse for directions.

“Where is Ward 34? Where is my mother? Where is that bitch? How dare she get ill and drag me here. She shouldn't make me visit this dirty proletariat hospital! What right does she have?”

“If you follow the signs that way-” began the nurse.

“I don't want to follow the signs! I'm asking you to do your job and show me where she is! I don't even want to be here! She thinks that just because she gave birth to me that I have to see her on her death bed! Well I don't care. Just take me to her. I'm not wasting my energy navigating my person around these sick sacks of shit!”

“I'm sorry sir, but I can't take you there, I have to look after the patients on my own ward.”

“Your patients are only going to die anyway! Why not try helping the living for once? Bloody NHS!”

Jeremy stomped off down the corridor.

He eventually found Ward 34.

“Where is she!?” he said to the ward clerk who was pushing some stool samples on his trolley.

“Who?”

“My mother!”

He leafed through a folder.

“Erm...”

“Come on! Chop chop!”

The head nurse of the ward came out.

“What's all this shouting?”

Jeremy pointed his finger at her.

“Where is she!?”

“Who?”

“My mother?!”

“Don't you know her name?”

“I can't bloody remember! She has the same surname as me! And you should bloody well know who I am!”

“Jeremy...” said a weak voice from behind a curtain.

“There! Found her! Fat load of use you were! I'll have your job for this!”

Jeremy went to the bed, his mum was all wrinkled, weak and with tubes up her nose.

“Hello mother, or should I say goodbye? I got the English Language job at Camp America. No thanks to you. I would have gotten it quicker if I was born into privilege. If you'd married someone worthwhile instead of my stinking povo father. So what did you want to see me about? Is it the fact you're going to be dead soon? Well, tough titty mother! Don't think I'm going to be fawning all over you for your last will and fucking testament! I don't give a flying poop! Poor, sad, lonely, old mother! It's what you deserve, after all the hell you put me through! I had to work my way up!