sharplittleteeth

Back from the holidays. I'll write a proper post about it soon, but it was great to get away. I've brought back a horrid cold from Queensland though, so I've spent the last few days snoozing and reading The Great Gatsby.

And writing.

It's been a barren year on the writing front. This time last year jan_event and I were joking about NaMoWriMo - National Moustache Writing Month. Twelve months isn't too long between updates, is it?



( The Last Barbarian - original section )
The bouncers threw them both out. Scottish Joe stormed off. Bluey found another pub and kept drinking.

He was good at drinking, and good at drinking alone. He propped himself at the corner of the bar, sunglasses on, and give off this don't-mess-with-me vibe. Then he drank a beer for everyone who ever loved him, a whiskey for everyone who ever did him wrong. The more he drank, the longer the second list grew. The band. The record label. His ex-girlfriends. Scottish Joe. The Japanese Peaches, whoever they were. Each shot was a little "fuck you".

Around nine o'clock, a cover band started playing and Bluey drank a whiskey for each of them too. Cover bands were the lowest of low, in his opinion, the final admission of failure. Bluey may not have a band at the moment, but at least he played his own tunes.

Sometime after midnight he staggered home to his mum's flat.

She'd left a note for him on the kitchen table: HERE'S YOUR DINNER, PLEASE DON'T MAKE TOO MUCH NOISE. He had to blink to read it.

Dinner was cold lamb chops and boiled vegetables lying in a puddle of congealed fat. His mum was a terrible cook.

Bluey ate it anyway, wiped the grease from his moustache and rinsed the plate off in the sink. His mum had made the living room couch up with blankets and a pillow. Bluey sat down on it, shucking off his boots.

I'm thirty-two next year, he thought sadly, staring at the framed family photos on the wall. The last barbarian of rock and roll.

The Fender was tucked away under the couch. He slid it out carefully and balanced it on his lap. It was a beautiful thing, black and curvaceous. Bluey played the riff from "Bat-Winged Woman", one of the band's early songs, and the heavy strings purred beneath his fingers.

He loved this bass. He loved playing it. He loved feel of it, the smell of it, the scratches and the dents on it. It was the one thing that had never broken his heart.

The toilet flushed in the bathroom, and his mother tottered in wearing her nightie.

"You're home then, Bluey," she said.

"Shit. Did I wake you?"

"Nah. Had to pee. Get your dinner alright?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Good day?"

Bluey shrugged. "Scottish Joe wants me to join this new band."

"That'd be good. Get you out of my hair," she said, affectionately.

"Yeah."

She bent down so he could kiss her cheek, then she tottered back to bed. Bluey fingered the riff over and over.

He wanted to play bass again.

He wanted to be on stage again.

Bluey put the bass away and lay back on the couch. Fuck it. He'd call Scottish Joe in the morning.

He was going to be a barbarian again. Even if it meant playing in some poofter glam rock band.