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

her period this month so she would have to get back with her ex very quickly if she was going to convince him that the baby was his.

“I'm not going to buy you breasts implants,” said Eric.

Dammit, thought Marie, she would have to go back to her life in Braithwell. James was her only option. James had a well paid job as an engineer. James didn't have the same glamour as Eric. Eric with his handsome face and horse.

* * *

“I want you back babes!” said James.

Marie rolled her eyes. James was back on the drink.

“I want fake tits!” she said.

“Sure thing babes!”

“I want us to get married.”

“Sure thing babes!”

“I want a Vera Wang wedding dress!”

“Sure thing babes!”

“I want our wedding to be at HighClere Castle!”

“Sure thing babes!”

“I am pregnant. The baby is yours.”

“What? How? We haven't been together for-”

“The baby is yours!”

“Sure thing babes!”

* * *

James was on the telephone on his lunch break.

“Can I extend the credit limit on my card please?”

* * *

Marie and James walked up the aisle. It was a fairy-tale wedding. Beautiful chandeliers and candle displays. The roof stretched upwards to the grace of fifty-thousand pounds.

“Thanks for borrowing me the money,” said James to Marie's father.

“You'll be paying it back to me!” said Marie's father. “Every penny of it! With interest!”

“I know, dad.”

“That little bitch is all just take, take, take! She always has been. No matter how much she gets it's never enough! Oh, hi Marie my sweetheart. How are you?”

Marie glared down at her father.

“I need liposuction!” she said. “I look old!”

“You're only twenty-one darling,” said her father.

“You made your daughter look like a hag at her wedding!”

“Babes I'm sure he didn't-”

“Shut up you!”

Marie ran out of her wedding. She pulled her mobile phone out of her diamond studded handbag and phoned Eric.

“You bastard! You never loved me! You let me go off and marry a fucking engineer! I love you Eric! You were the best accessory of all time!”

ALPHA

"I don't need an erection when I'm this rich," laughed Alpha Romero, who lay happy and plump on his waterbed. His stick-thin wife on the floor was a draft excluder who sobbed through rigid, cocaine shakes.

THE MAN THEY ALL RESPECTED

“Everything everywhere comes together and expands and contracts into a contradictory, chaotic order. All our notions of individuality and self-determination pour together into one unified and collective whole of separations. We are all one and there is no need to worry.”

* * *

“You'll only understand what it means when you get it,” said the man they all respected.

They all nod.

“I understand it all,” the man continues. “You only have yourselves to blame if you don't understand. You can't blame other people for your problems.”

They all nod.

It is their entire fault.

“Forget your future and your past and live in the here and now. Listen to the sound of my enlightened, mindful, soothing voice and breathe deeply.”

They all breathe deeply.

Eyes closed and relaxed.

Outside, someone gets kicked to death on the pavement under a poster of the Dalai Lama shaking hands with a policeman.

RESISTANCE

“I’ve decided on three ground rules,” said the patient. “ONE: no labels or diagnoses. TWO: no conventional psychology, I don’t like it! THREE: don’t talk about my past; whether it be my childhood, adolescence or yesterday. FOUR: there are more rules but you’ll find out about those when you BREAK THEM!”

“So why do you feel like you need to see a therapist?” asked CounselBot C0N1.

“So I can shout at your indoctrinated, orthodox face!”

AGENDA

I stumble into the meeting room and the fat heads of management stare at me. I must look cool.

Emmett Corcoran is at the whiteboard with a marker pen in his ham hand. He's done some statistics again.

“We are happy for any member of staff to sit in on our meetings,” says Emmett. “Even if you are only on a temporary contract.”

He indicates a chair.

“Please take a seat.”

I light a cigarette and kick the chair over.

“I prefer to stand.”

I lift up my sunglasses, Emmett reels back in shock at my bloodshot stare. I snatch the pen from Emmett's pig hand.

“If you’re ill,” said Emmett. “You should have phoned your agency and asked for the day off.”

“I've never felt better, so shut your mouth Emmett!”

“If you have something to say you should have emailed me earlier. I could have added it as an agenda item.”

“I've got three agenda items!”

“You should have emailed me any new agenda items. We fix agenda items before our meetings.”

“Someone needs to fix your arse!”

I squeakily scrawl on the whiteboard:

“EAT, SHIT AND DIE.”

“Agenda items one, two and three,” I proclaim.

* * *

Ten minutes later, I'm escorted outside by security.

I lean against a lamp post and puke.

A man comes over with his dog.

“Are you all right mate?” he simpers, his dog sniffs the puke.

“Leave me alone! Or I'll set fire to both of you!”

TRAP

The little boy looked up in wonder.

A beautiful illusion of a desert landscape in the sky.

Clouds suffused with the setting of a big, orange sun.

“Keep your eyes on the pavement or you’ll step in dog muck!”

That's what his mum told him.

He looked down and saw a white, dried dog poo. He stepped out of its way, knowing that he would be due for a smack with a slipper if he stepped in any mess.

They got back home to their terraced house on their dead, shit world. His dad sat at the kitchen counter with a plate of grey pork and white chips. He slapped a newspaper with disgust.

“Them lot are bloody killing us!” he said, in an ill-written Yorkshire accent.

The little boy stood at the window and saw that the desert landscape in the sky had changed from orange to a purple, pinkish blue. A soothing texture of blossom.

"What you looking at?" asked his dad.

"The sky," answered the little boy.

"Don't be wet!"

His dad