Creative writing

[Amatør1]

Som kjent er en av de mest populære fagene ved UEA (University of East Anglia, og ikke som mange har trodd University of Easy Access), såkalt Creative Writing.

Inspirert av dette, har en av de britiske skeptikerne, Geoff Chambers, produsert noen lesbare stykker, som vi kan ha stor glede av, her er et utdrag, hentet fra Apocalypse Close, settingen er fra en buss en gang i framtiden:



George shuddered as a bronzed couple installed themselves on the other side of the aisle and started browsing through their honeymoon photos on their iphone. Their harsh estuary vowels jangled in his ears. His fingers fell limp over the touch screen keyboard of his ipad. No question now of finishing the chapter of his new book. "Fear and Warming" was due at the publishers next month. Delay was unthinkable; the world could not wait.

He glanced over at the couple giggling at the photos flitting over the little screen. Essex Adam and Eve – sipping cocktails from coconut shells beside the pool; jet-skiing in a tropical lagoon; careering over the desert in a 4X4; paintballing in the nude on a coral reef...

George could stand it no longer. He rose and stood in the aisle looming over them, jabbing at the phone screen. "Don't you realise" he barked "For every litre of kerosene burnt on your futile pleasure jaunts, a baby drowns in Bangladesh?"

The man rose slowly in his seat, stared impassively at George for a second, then expertly head-butted him, knocking his wireframed spectacles askew into a mangled hockeystick shape.

George groaned and slumped into the aisle, as the driver braked and swerved into the motorway service station. "Five minutes ladies and gentlemen" he announced. He rose and ambled down the aisle towards George, who was wiping the drops of blood from his ipad "And you foureyes, hop it. I'm not having troublemakers on this bus".

Five minutes later, the driver completed his headcount and turned to the honeymoon couple. "I recognised him soon as he got on. Couldn't think where from. He was on telly last week, dishing out orders, telling everyone what they could do and couldn't do".

"Tory minister, is 'e?" said the honeymooner.

"Somefing like that".

[Amatør1]

Apocalypse Close kommer til å bli en gullgruve, her er noe Geoff Chambers kaller "a preview of Chapter eleven"



George was removing his foot carefully from the smashed cucumber frame and shaking shards of glass from his trouserleg (thank Gaia for cycle clips!), when the door of the greenhouse opened, and Old Briffa emerged, bearing a bucket of night soil. "Ah, it be young Master Gearge!" he exclaimed in an uncharacteristic explosion of human warmth. "Delingpole said you might be poppin' by."

And he opened wide the door of the greenhouse, gesturing to George to enter.

Inside, Professor Phil was sitting at a table studying a chart covered in small squares. It reminded George of the football pool coupons which he recalled from his childhood, in the kitchen up at the Big House during the long vac, watching the servants filling them in and sending them off together with a postal order for one and sixpence.

In each square was a number, and Professor Phil was running a grimy forefinger up and down and from left to right , painfully totting up figures under his breath.

George looked over his shoulder. "Ah," he said brightly, "It"s a map of the Pacific Ocean. I can see Vanatu."
"It's a noo game just invented from Japan," explained Briffa. "It's called Sod-U-Kev". Our Perfessor Phil 'ere is tryin' to find the missin' 'eat."