AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (25) A Capital Fart (Short Stories) The redundant London underground is pressed into service to win a world farting contest. [736 words] [Humor] A Wrong Turn Somewhere (Short Stories) Somewhere near Birmingham a driver takes a wrong turn and loses everything. [492 words] [Mystical] Amnesty (Short Stories) A gun amnesty in a rough borough of London goes idiotically wrong. [561 words] [Comedy] Arnie (Short Stories) A little labourer has a terminator approach to his work. [646 words] [Humor] Back To The Garden (Short Stories) Depressing the extent to which everything is being dumbed down these days. Poor state education? Is that all it is? [527 words] [Mind] Changing To Go Out (Short Stories) In the aftermath of the genetic bomb, a simple night at the pictures with the missus is no easy task. [444 words] [Humor] God's Trainees (Short Stories) Him upstairs is thinking of retiring, all he needs to do is train up some suitable replacements. Easier said than done. They just don't make deities the way the used to. [1,570 words] [Humor] Mementoes Of Treasured Occasions (Short Stories) A struggling photographer finds a rich new source of business. [496 words] [Humor] Providing For Sarah (Short Stories) A desolate man finds comfort in an imaginary (?) companion. But who will care for her when he's gone? [883 words] [Mind] Sex Life Of The Amoeba (Short Stories) A serious paper on cellular mytosis in a well known eukarytic organism. The dirty little... [1,108 words] [Humor] Soup (Short Stories) A soup manufacturer ends life on Earth. [514 words] [Comedy] The Adventures Of Archie 1 - The Great Escape (Short Stories) A sort of Alice in Wonderland meets Canterbury Tales sort of thing but sillier than the former and even more boring than the latter. In episode 1 our elderly rabbit hero escapes his hutch and disappe... [473 words] [Humor] The Adventures Of Archie 3 - The Spider Catcher's Tale. (Short Stories) Archie escapes from the paralysing purple and find himself in a world where an avoidable infestation has eaten all the perspective. There he meets the spider catcher and learns why ballroom dancing i... [1,313 words] [Humor] The Adventures Of Archie 4a - The Great Regurgitato (Short Stories) Achie learns of the greats of bodily functions and meets the greatest of them all. [781 words] [Humor] The Adventures Of Archie 4b - The Great Regurgitato's Tale (Short Stories) Continued. [823 words] [Humor] The Adventures Of Archie 5a - The Army Surplus Salesman (Short Stories) Archie learns the truth they try and keep from us, that being disembowelled is fun, meets a descendant of the Piltdown man and travels to the army surplus fair to find Little Boy is no bargain. [913 words] The Adventures Of Archie 6 - A Peaceful Solution (Short Stories) Following a Little Boy explosion Archie find himself on a desolate plain and meets two tribes who are too stupid to realise that war and bloodshed are by far the most efficient means of resolving disp... [1,271 words] [Humor] The Adventures Of Archie 7 - The Puzzleman's Tale (Short Stories) Archie finds he is not alone in the valley. He shares it with a man in a very strange prison. You have to endure a little homily on man's inhumanity to decorating materials first. [2,988 words] [Humor] The Adventuresof Archie 5b - The Army Surplus Salesman's Tale (Short Stories) Continued. [1,116 words] The Fly And... (Short Stories) That Geoff Goldblum had it easy! One fly?? I should have been so lucky! [483 words] [Humor] The Horrid Tale Of Evil Worm (Short Stories) A rare accident in the vegetable patch transforms a humble earthworm into a satanic being. [1,158 words] The Several Voyages Of Fat Tony (Short Stories) Foul deeds on the dead sea coast get their richly deserved comeuppance. [1,377 words] The Two Bills (Short Stories) William Shakespeare fails to get to grips with Microsoft Word. [777 words] Vomiting On Tony (Short Stories) The Mad Messiah (AKA Tony Blair) gets what he thoroughly deserves. [499 words] [Humor] Your Little God Is Pooh And Creepy Too (Short Stories) Only the innocent find salvation. In the run up to the revelation the kids of St Crispin's Middle School are introduced to their own little salvations. PS I know Buddha was not a god, it's creative l... [1,442 words] [Humor]
The Adventures Of Archie 2 - The Little Demon's Tale Xoggoth
A silent psst. Down among the roots. "Quick, hide, hide" said a tiny demon. Archie tucked himself into the cramped space. The demon was minuscule but big on hideous. It had sixteen of everything and none of it was in the right places, but it seemed friendly. They waited for the nameless thing to pass by overhead and Archie stayed as quiet as possible. The demon did not need to, for it was Archie's nameless thing and nobody else's. We all have our own.
"I didn't always live here like this among these roots" said the demon from all of its sixteen mouths at once. "I used to be a highly paid tempter, one of the best in the business" Its thirty-two eyes glazed over in nostalgia. (I should have been clearer that when I said it had sixteen of everything, it had sixteen pairs of everything that we have pairs of. It would have looked very odd with the same number of eyes as noses). "Let me tell you a tale of those days"
The little demon's tale.
I had to deal with a fiery born again preacher. We don't usually bother with that sort; they are usually so full of pride we get them anyhow, but this one had integrity and charisma and some of the ideas he was peddling would do us no good. There were hundreds of thousands around the world who hung on his every televised word and the numbers were growing every day. Most of all he had a way of relating the scripture he kept quoting to people's everyday lives, of making the meaning come alive.
I was under instructions to tempt him from his righteous path and if possible to sew doubts about his precious scriptures. The direct approach is always best. I took him to an enormous palace (one of Saddam's spare ones) and showed him the delights of earthly comforts. I told him that with his talent for persuasion he could easily be PM or the CEO of a large company and could enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.
He looked at the sparking fountains and the silks and the priceless paintings and the gold fittings and said "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven". I laughed. You're a bit out of date there Samuel. I took him to the Al-Quaida Winalot camel-processing factory near Algiers. One camel into the vat, mince, mince, then into the 50,000 psig injection machine. Fffft. One camel extruded in 5s from the 100-micron aperture, just like that, through the eye of the needle without touching the sides.
He was not one to be tempted by wanton carnality, but the carnal figures highly with any man. With some it needs to be suitably gift wrapped, that's all. There is nothing like an attractive and ambitious wife to turn a man's mind from all this noble poverty nonsense. In a vision I showed him a number of beautiful and virtuous but strong-minded women, soul mates for his life's short journey. He said "It is better to marry than to burn". Now that one was really idiotic and it just creased me up. I took him to hell where all the sinners burned in the eternal flames. I promised many men there that they could exchange a thousand years of fiery torment for a thousand years with their earthly wives. We had not a single taker. “Not F* likely!” was the verdict of most. "Neu pointes on that one too" Sam I said.
To cut a long story short I got him in the end. I was demon of the year that year, old Shit'un himself turned out to give me my award. It was the peak of a promising career, but it went downhill after that. I suppose I rested on my laurels. But worst of all I lost my judgement. To be a good tempter you have to be impartial, dispassionate, logical. I got full of pride at my success. I saw myself as important, just like humans do. I sought the admiration of others, just like humans do. In the end I found myself sympathising with human flaws and weaknesses and I could not do my job anymore. He was very nice about it, the big boss, when he told me they would have to let me go.
I was a hell-spawned creation of evil, a foulness of the universe, a thing of the eternal night that would never see a glimmer of god's brightness and I had sunk to human levels.
The tears rolled down the thirty-two cheeks of the little demon and fell hissing to the floor, dissolving the bare granite rock in clouds of acrid smoke.
Archie nodded off. The little devil's tale was so thoroughly interesting he could not stay awake even though, out of politeness, he tried his best. When he awoke he thought he was somewhere else. Actually, he was in exactly the same place but his surroundings had moved on without him. From Archie's point of view it was a rather academic distinction I know, but it pays to be accurate about these things. Why? It just does that's all. The new surroundings were purple. Not just coloured purple as you are probably thinking, they were actually purple i.e. made of, composed of, constituted from purple.
Submit Your Review for The Adventures Of Archie 2 - The Little Demon's Tale
Required fields are marked with (*). Your e-mail address will not be displayed.
Submit Your Rating for The Adventures Of Archie 2 - The Little Demon's Tale