Epidode Five - J Randell’s Schadenfreude

J Randell and Felix Metric were both successful authors of the dark and disturbing, but they developed a rivalry which was to lead to the demise of one and the imprisonment of the other. Their titles always topped the best seller lists, with sales at the high end and sometimes stratospheric. For their agents and publishers there was nothing not to like, especially when a little competition created positive publicity.

It was only when Felix Metric tweeted that much of his life was spent staring at a blank screen, that their rivalry moved up a level.  J Randell could not resist the opportunity to respond with some mischievous mockery. Incensed, Metric set a challenge that he knew his fellow author would eventually struggle to complete.

They had a year, he said, to see who could successfully publish more stories in the short form, either published or submission approved for publication. The forfeit for the loser would be a substantial financial donation to a charity of the winning author’s choice. Moderated by their agents, on the first day of the New Year, the starting gun for their write-off began.

At the first quarter, J Randell was able to prove he had taken a lead of four stories to one. Metric, well known for his sanguine demeanour, knew time was on his side, predicting J Randell (notorious for his mood fluctuations), would struggle to compete come the mid-way stage.

Six months in, they were neck and neck, but J Randell faced a dilemma all authors fear: 

Creative block.

Now normally this crisis could be overcome, given time, reflection and therapy. But the one thing J Randell did not have was time. He needed stories, fast and furious, and took a dangerous step from imagination to reality, to fill the creative hole.

His agent noticed the marked change in J Randell’s writing. There was a harshness, a coarse realism which punctuated each new story he produced. It was as if, his agent remarked: ‘the stories were true.’ But J Randell was on one, locked in creative mode, in the zone and not to be disturbed on any account.

However, come the third quarter it seemed Felix Metric had taken an unassailable lead, and by the final quarter nothing was heard from J Randell until a few days before New Year’s Eve. It appeared he was seeking a magnanimous ending, when he arranged with Metric and their agents, to attend dinner at his home on the top of the hill.

Unfortunately, this is where J Randell was to demonstrate how far he had departed from sanity, how far he had become absorbed in his own distorted reality. After Metric was crowned the undisputed winner, J Randell announced he had a great story to read, to round off a year of literary achievement. As they listened to his tale, he laid bare how he had committed the crimes in the stories he had told. Then, to their horror, the final scene revealed the poisoning of the food and wine at their celebratory dinner, to complete J Randell’s schadenfreude.

Episode Four - Stranger Then Fiction

At my last scout camp strange things happened: I cooked sausages forty feet up in a tree, our Scout Master showed us his willy, we were passed through by a ghost from the battle of Waterloo, and the Assistant Patrol Leader was accidentally decapitated. Facts are often stranger than fiction.

Our Scout Master was a gregarious man, who encouraged those of us who needed it and pushed those who were idle and sloppy. Perhaps that was why, on the first day of our last scout camp, I ended up a tree with a frying pan, a tub of lard, and a butane gas cooker, swaying nervously in the wind and cooking sausages.

However, it was when our Patrol, of half a dozen middle aged teenagers, stood to attention in the fading light, that we were told one thing by our Scout Master and shown another. Both were of interest. Our camp, he had said, had once been the staging post for troops preparing to cross overseas to fight at the battle of Waterloo. How exciting, I thought, but was confused by the constant childish giggling of our Assistant Patrol Leader. What the rest of us had failed to the see, in the dappled shadows, was the Scout Masters floppy flesh, unzipped and on display.

In our green tent, we laughed, extrapolated and feasted on our teenage hormones. Then everyone lay down without thinking, as if we had been told to go to sleep. We hid inside our sleeping bags to warm our faces, and felt the ground penetrate.

Then I wondered if I was asleep or awake?  There was an aura, a soundless state. In the darkness, the green canvas flapped. Odd, because the night had been so still and windless.

But this was how it all started: a vacuum sucked out the air and fear rushed in. I had to stand up, because I was expecting someone, something. I could hear running from the top of the hill, at an inhuman pace, sounding like flesh flapping inside old fashioned boots. Then we all heard it coming. Keep quiet, keep quiet, we all said, as the boots pounded and rushed in!

The ghost of Waterloo Hill, I said, as the torches went on. We swore, rationalised and speculated. Whatever the truth, nobody denied they had not heard and felt the same thing. 

In the morning, we were handed old cutting tools by our unapologetic Scout Master and headed out to a thick field of dew drenched ferns, to make the roof for a bivouac. Our scythes of long curved blade, stripped easily, but also bleed juices down our hands. This was how the flying blade cut off the Assistant Patrol Leaders head, as our Scout Master swung and slipped the cutter just above the neck.

He was found guilty of manslaughter and various health and safety regulations. We were treated for trauma. And we agreed amongst ourselves that we must have been possessed by the ghost of Waterloo, or why else would the Scout Master chop off his head?