The House of Writers

by M. J. Nicholls

  Laziness and phlegm had consumed them. One morning when Pete was asleep, I managed to steal his Man-Blaster. I disabled the horrible weapon and hurled it into the sea. I announced I would be leaving.

  “No dice. I will blow holes in you with ... ” Peter looked around.

  “Gone. I disabled it earlier.”

  “Why, you—” he leapt up. I produced a small rodent from my pocket.

  “Meet Philip. He will spit venomous poison in your eyes if you dare to touch me.” Peter flopped back onto the couch. “I had hoped we might club together to conduct this revolution but you have both lapsed into moral indigence. There’s no point us remaining a unit now, since I can trust neither of you. Good luck.”

  “Hang on there ... I mean we are in this together,” Rob tried. I was already out the door. I had expected Peter to attempt some lastminute mode of attack so kept my little friend alert (the rodent was a sluggish thing that only appeared sinister with its infrared laser eyes) as I left the slobs to stew.

  My plan was to live on the fields, monitoring and spreading the sheep destruction in a ten-mile radius. I had a rucksack of cold chicken and chips, but I was going to face a food and drink shortage if I didn’t find another source within a fortnight. I had to return to The House. Doing so, I could resume hackwork for food and spend my weekends in the fields inseminating the sheep. To avoid the ScotCall buses, I carried a sheep under my arm and sent him to munch up the barbed wire whenever I spotted a bus approaching. If I kept the sheep hungry, he could devour a man-sized hole in the barbed wire in time, allowing me access to the ditch where I could crouch undetected. It was in this manner I returned to The House. I had sold my desk, so I had to hunt in the stock-dump fields for some form of replacement and for a usable laptop. Fortunately, after I used the public phone to call my reader, he enthusiastically sent me £100 for my next novel. This made my return a little easier.

  I wrote a noir thriller set at Bela Lugosi’s funeral. A romcom set at a mathematics conference. A Faustian drama set in Hull. A fabricated history of Partick Thistle football club. I wrote whatever my (five) readers desired. I moved between departments and became known as a floorhopper—someone who refuses to specialise in one genre (thus deluding themselves they are “artists” by being loyal to their area of expertise, as opposed to adaptable craftsmen who can turn their hands to anything) and had to fend off muttered oaths in the lifts. I forgave them their transgressions. I was single-handedly bringing about the downfall of the ScotCall empire with my sheep impregnating on weekends. They weren’t to know that as they called me slut and scab under their breaths.

  The Farewell, Author! Conference

  6

  JULIAN announced that half a pack of biscuits had been found in a crate in the backroom. The writers, cranky, and with a literal and metaphorical hunger at large in their stomachs/souls, began the silent squabble for biscuits as Julian placed the six plain digestives on a plate on the table beside the scoffed chocolates and cola. An instinctive human barrier had formed to prevent a Jodi Picoult ambush, and Kei Miller, closest to the plate, took a biscuit and broke it in two. “DON’T BREAK THEM YOU MORON YOU WILL LOSE CRUMBS!” Christopher Sorrentino howled in rage, adding: “A SIGNIFICANT PERCENTAGE OF THE BISCUIT WILL BE LOST IN THE SEVERING PROCESS!” Kei’s motive was to share the biscuit between as many of the writers as possible, but if there was to be a share for everybody, the biscuits would have to be split into well over ten parts per biscuit, which was an impossible task without reducing the biscuits to (and losing to the floor) crumbs. Jonathan Franzen stepped forward. “I have a solution! If we can find two Ziploc bags, we can pound the digestives into a powder, and offer each writer a share of the biscuit remnants. What do we say to this, people?” he asked. “That you need a slap!” George Saunders said. No one laughed as tension was the prevailing mood. “I think that is a workable solution. All those in favour raise their hands,” Julian said. No one raised their hand. Everyone was contriving a means of securing a full biscuit to themselves. Aleksander Hemon stepped forward: “I think a biscuit should be allocated to those who have published the most,” he said. “YOU MEAN PEOPLE LIKE YOU? ARE WE GOING TO SWALLOW THAT BULLSHIT?” Christopher Sorrentino howled. Paul Verhaeghen: “I have a condition that requires me to eat one, or more, of those biscuits now, or I will die.” Christopher Sorrentino: “NOT EXACTLY AN ISSUE TONIGHT, IS IT?” Declan Kiberd: “I deserve a biccie because I have read Ulysses over a hundred times, and I bet none of you dweebs has even read it once.” Dennis Cooper: “I can spin all six biscuits on my fingers! I have a sixth finger! I will show you this finger in exchange for a biscuit, and thereafter spin the biscuits on each finger in exchange for one biscuit per finger!” Alison Bechdel: “The men should stop this patriarchal crap and surrender these biscuits to the women, or me in particular, since I am also a lesbian, and therefore more deserving of biscuits than the straight women, who, let’s face it, have never had any trouble acquiring biscuits. I also had a difficult relationship with my parents, so that counts for two at least.” Charlie Brooker: “I don’t want a fucking biscuit, and none of you self-involved cretins deserve one either. Pass them to me and I’ll rub them between my arsecheeks and mash them up.” Meredith Brosnan: “I have no special reason. I just want one because I haven’t eaten in a week.” Catherine Simpson: “Not for me. I prefer a custard cream.” Janice Galloway: “I was raised in Saltcoats. I deserve all the biscuits in the world.” Vernon D. Burns: “I was once a semi-amusing fake presence on the website Goodreads with two bungled bizarro novels to my name. Can I at least have a crumb?” Amélie Nothomb: “I will eat a crate of rotten fruit in exchange for these biscuits.” Christopher Sorrentino: “THERE ARE NO FRUITS, YOU MISGUIDED BELGIAN!” Lisa O’Donnell: “I once read the whole of Updike’s Rabbit series. I deserve all the biscuits in the world.” Chris Ware: “I am depressed beyond biscuits.” Marjane Satrapi: “I am Iranian, so you are going to ignore me anyway.” David Eagleman: “You are all awaiting biscuits in the next life. I’m not—pass them to me.” Michel Faber: “If we continue in this vein, the biscuits will go soft!” Julian: “They are already soft, I’m afraid.” At which point, Christopher Sorrentino, on the verge of a cerebrovascular accident, lost his cool and charged forward, screaming the while, punching those who tried to stop him with a fierce right hook, and stole the biscuits, attempting to stuff all six at once into his mouth. Four of the biscuits, alongside copious crumbs, fell to the floor, and a pile-up fight for the biscuits ensued. Jonathan Littell managed to cram one in his mouth before being crushed, and the ensuing punch-up led to the biscuits being pulled apart until only crumbs remained, for which the writers began the brawl that was to form the centrepiece of that evening’s activities.

  Mhairi

  7

  GERALD is an idiot savant, with emphasis on idiot. His savance stems from his carpentry and engineering skills—one of those inexplicable talents often given to the intellectually bereft and physically ungainly. Born in a barnyard and deposited in a tin bucket by his hick mother, Gerald was raised by two kindly cows, who let him suckle at their teats and share their cud and water, until a farmhand discovered him sleeping in a haystack at the age of nine, took him into his home, and taught him to unlearn his bovine behaviours such as crawling on all fours, chomping moronically, and mounting females. The farmhand, alas, was not as smart as the cows, and taught Gerald a new set of behaviours, such as eating with his fingers and licking the trough; urinating obliviously on the very patch of grass on which he slept; greeting strangers by dribbling down their chests; devouring liquids nasally; pronouncing each word “uh-huck-nuh!”; playing a game where one has to step in as many cowpats as possible; lighting a candle and two seconds later hysterically shouting “Fire!”, among others. Gerald single-handedly constructed the six-hectare ScotCall compound, and was paid nothing for his services except board, lodgings and meat. I discovered him lurking in a stock-dump field one day, giving succor to a depressed laptop, and invited
him inside for a coffee, or, as he preferred, a dishwater. I had been sleeping on the ground floor with Marilyn until then, sharing her bag and trying to prise her creeping fingers away from my erogenous zones. I discussed with Gerald my need for a more comfortable sleeping arrangement, and drew up a blueprint for my shouse, which Gerald made in 48 hours from 4,383 toasters (as a bonus feature, he installed a “pop-open” roof allowing a shaft of sunlight to enter in the summer), and I rewarded him with a permanent position at The House, where his talents were required hourly, and his diet could move away from melted monitors and microwaves. (In fact, for the first few weeks, after eating the risottos and curries I made him, he snuck outside and ate a few washing machines).

  Alice: A Fictional Serviette

  THIS fictional serviette concerns Alice. She worked on the ninth floor (who knows) composing various fictions (who cares) before deciding that sexual prostitution was a viable alternative to writerly prostitution. She roamed the north of England (which parts irrelevant) offering her body to paying punters. Since she had only been in The House for two weeks, her body had not succumbed to malnutrition, although she was bonier than most professional prostitutes. To retain her sanity, and delude herself into thinking she was still an artist, she would compose prose and poems to recite while screwing the males, and demonstrate her creativity by naming the manoeuvres in her sexual repertoire, among them: the shoreman’s trieste; the triple-layered diorama; the yellow back radio broke-down; the Simon Schama; the open sesame; the Colombian astrolabe; the freelance pallbearer; the severed head of Diana Ross; the roseate groceries; the chestnut situation; the bearded colonel; the gaping polytechnic; the unremotely untheatrical; the mumbo jumbo; the disappointed ostrich; the yodelling hat-maker; the last days of Louisiana Red; the semi-automatic bicycle clip; the xylophonic menace; the cheery potato; the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire; the sustained yelp of a diabetic Christian; the beer-soaked Bayern Munich supporter; the electric coypu; the Japanese by spring; the imperial leather; the lost episode of It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum; the terrible twos; the revolving stapler; the defensive response when Jeff asked Cybil for a renewal of the Birmingham contract; the somewhat exciting thing; the hectare from the black lagoon; the solar-powered sundial; the terrible exuberance of Maxwell House; the juice!; the retroactive insertion; the biased Wilson; the disappointed expression on Jeremy’s face when a tiger scratches his Blondie LP; the terrible threes; the frenetic game of Connect Four; the Basildon forceps; the overrated flamethrower; the syntactic embrace; the cobra’s politics; the nimble quicksilver; the spotty alabaster; the reckless eyeballing; the Geoff of my dreams; the humorous and seemingly honest politician who breathes new life into a corrupt political system, ravaged by cynicism and greed, who turns out to be as shabby and corrupt as the rest when elected, causing a full-scale revolt on the Houses of Parliament; the flight to Canada; the mechanical satrap.

  Alice performed this impressive roster of manoeuvres on her clients, and read unsolicited excerpts from her erotic fictions. As she was riding a male, four minutes from climax, she would recite (for instance): “Eleanor walked into the chalet, her skimpy pink panties sliding down her thighs to reveal the holy chalice from which Dominic was yearning to sup. The night was hotter than July in Havana. Dominic’s cantilever rose at the sight of Eleanor’s vision of deferred paradise, now becoming a mouthwatering reality.” And her clients would protest: “What you doing? Shut up and screw. I don’t want to hear this drivel while knobbing you.” That put an end to her recitations in flagrante, so she tried to sell copies of her erotica to punters after the act. “A bewk? Makes me pe-ewke!” was among the replies. One evening, as she was performing a yodelling hatmaker on Brian McHail, she decided the best thing to do was read an excerpt from her erotic novel, and include the novel in the cover charge, before any shagging commenced. So desperately horny males would find themselves warmed-up by one of her tales, making them pre-spurt to such an extent, her job simply became a twist-and-wipe, or a squirt-and-retreat. She had saved herself as an artist (sort of) and made her life as a pro easier. Thus Alice had one of the best literary careers of her generation.

  Cal’s Tour

  Toilet Books

  THE sixth floor is fairly clinical with its very-off-white corridor, lino of dark aqua, and series of small lavatories—males on the left, females on the right—filling the air with scents of elderberry, lavender, vanilla, and shit. A sign reads: Please do not use the toilets on this floor. Content testing in progress. As I arrived, a man in lab coat (one of the “labcoats,” strangely enough) with a clipboard, black spectacles and an urgent face appeared—the look of someone unafraid and downright willing to tackle a fresh stool sample. “Are you a tester?” he asked. “I was hoping to write here,” I said. “No openings for content makers. You can test for us if you like. We’re short,” the man said. (He was short too, coincidentally). I was urgently walked to the not entirely unprisonlike canteen—a bustling eatery full of ravenous testers being served curries, beans, and all sorts of bowel-loosening meals, and told to help myself and honk my horn when ready (horns were placed on the tables to attract the labcoats, who hovered at the back waiting to swish). I ladled a skimpy helping of madras onto my plate, showered in pilaf rice and soaked up with two auriform naans. I found space beside a thug named Kobo with a shaven head and the tattoo of a gardening accident gone wrong: roses and pitchforks and severed limbs rising from his lower neck to his head. Kobo forked syrupy vindaloo into his mouth with starveling mania, alternating each spoonful with a doughnut. He was skinnier than me but could apparently consume four meals simultaneously without damaging his shapely figure. I chose not to say hi.

  Quickly forgetting my table manners, I attacked the madras like a glutton, downing my pint of ale in record time, and flurped back in my chair when finished, remembering to honk the horn. A labcoat swished me into the corridor toward the testers’ loos. He handed me the hardback A Thousand Squirrel Photobombs—a heavy picture book consisting entirely of photos where squirrels appeared in the background and ruined the intended shot in a way that some might deem amusing. The labcoat told me to press the bog-side button when I was bored reading (looking) and sealed me in the overly bright and bleached toilet. I had clearly misunderstood the honking command, believing the honk signified a full stomach and not a readiness to excrete. But I sat on the toilet anyway and focused my attention on the pesky squirrels. After five minutes I was bored and unamused, so flushed the toilet and washed my hands, feigning a swift voidance to escape the book. The labcoat, in marigolds, placed the squirrel book in a plastic Ziploc bag and mechanically thanked me for the feedback, swish-tickling me to the chill-out area. I was handed a pocket horn to honk if the urge for further ablutions should arise. The chill-out space is a large common room, where lazy and semi-obese halfwits in slogan-savaged tracksuits sit around watching TV soaps, discussing the books read (looked at), speaking in crude staccato, and hooting at anything remotely rude or euphemistic. A bald one slurred loudly about the hirrarious Pictures of Stoned Cats, which was so hirrarious he lillerally forgot he was shitting, while a spotty one was so fulking bored by Things to Say to Uptight Butlers that he coonent congcemtrape on shitting the shit out his shithole and had to put the book down and heave the fulkers by holeing onto the heave bars. A tiny blonde one said that she rannou of poo playper, so used plages out of the blook, which was the bess fulking use for the fulking blook she could fulking think of, ha-ha-ha-ha-fulk-you. I smiled along to be chummy.

  For my second trip to the testing toilets, I was handed Writers Making Tits of Themselves. The book contained shots of various writers across the world looking like crazed yetis, clinging to the legs of ScotCall tyrants, begging hobos for money to help self-publish their manuscripts, lying dead and frozen in ditches with pens clutched to their hands, or being shot by laughing policemen. I discovered that the shit flowed freely looking at these images (as you can imagine!), and more shit than I had intended to shit was
unleashed almost on cue. I flicked to the end page and honked later than planned, unable to look away from the pathetic horror. The success of this test meant the book would be published. As the chattier lab coat explained: “The process is pretty straightforward for publishing our books. If the manuscript keeps testers fixed to the toilet for the duration of their shit, or makes them want to hold back the shit for the sake of reading, the book is considered successful. Books that make testers eager to finish up their shit so they can get away, or are used as loo paper, are not taken to publication stage beyond the trial copy, no surprise. We restrict our content to funny or soothing pictures, or occasionally ones with very small lines of text, because most people find it hard to shit and read at the same time, and sometimes the images distract and help them with trickier shits, so that makes the bowel movements flow much easier. We’re in the unblocking business, not the literature business. The success of the shits is normally attributed to the success of the books the testers are reading as they’re shitting. So it isn’t exactly an exact science, but works pretty well.” I nodded and returned to the chill-out area. “How illuminating,” I wanted to say, but would have sounded like a ... shit?