Saturday, July 24, 2010

Zip - a short story

Zip

Do you ever just hate it? Hate everything? Life, your family just want it all to go away, to just not be there?

No?

I can’t say it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had.

I’m only 15 years old and my life’s already down the shithole! Mum and Dad dead. My brother tries but you know it’s not the same. He wants to be a parent and a brother at the same time. It don’t work like that. Not in this life. I can’t even remember Mum and Dad. Johnny, that’s my brother, he says I’m better off. I don’t think so. Who is better off not knowing their parents? WHO?!

He....he said, he doesn’t want to remember, that they were bad people. But I don’t reckon so. They can’t have been, they’re mum and dad. Mums and Dads aren’t evil. Everyone knows that.

He won’t even tell me what happened . Just says they’re dead and that’s the best thing for everyone. Course I love him, but I think he’s a right prick about them.

“Zip? Get your ass out here!”

Fuck, that’s El, god I love that girl to bits, but she has the worst timing.

“El, Just leave me alone. You’re not even allowed in here. Boys Toilets. I know your thick but even you can read pictures”

I tried to sound teasing, didn’t sound convincing even to me.

“You know the drill Zip; teachers will tell John if you don’t go”

I knew that, stupid teachers, they knew nothing!

“You just gotta make it through graduation then, you can fuck off for all they care”

I knew that too. They pretend to care, acting in “locy parents” or whatever it is. But they don’t as soon as you graduate and decide you ain’t coming back for more, they’re laughing in front of your face not behind it. I really did not want to have to go into a room full of liars and cheats and bastards and sluts and the general scum of society. That’s what we were, students, teachers, the lot. I’m not all high and mighty, I’m as bad as all of them, maybe worse, but at least I don’t lie
about it.

“Zip come on! You know I’ll drag your skinny ass outta there if I have to!”

Ha! She would and all you know. She has some moves my El.

We’re not dating or nothing, she’s like my best mate! More of brother than Johnny. She has this thing for leather, denim and chains. Got a bit of Goth look about her. I think she’d kill me if I told anyone she loves “The Backstreet Boys” particularly that Jason bloke. Jason Tumblerton or something. Don’t really give two shits about it to be honest. She just El and that’s all I need really.

Me and her don’t look half odd walking round the school. I’m a tall lanky yoke, 6’2 and she’s barely 5 foot not to mention me with my second hand baggy jeans that hang way too low and third hand Nike hoodies and t-shirts, and her with her leather and chains. Some of the lads thinks she’s into chains and whips, you know in the bedroom. I don’t think she is. Not something we really talk about though.

“I’m coming you impatient brat” I’ve always called her brat, little nickname, I’m Zip and she a brat. Hell I’ve been called Zip for so long I barely remember my “real” name. I do though, keeps me, like, connected to my parents.

She pulled me to the hall, little witch, at least I got to sit beside her. She ain’t got no family either. Well she does, but they’re alchos, they’d sell El if it could get them a beer or vodka or something. Never really like alcohol myself, drink it course, everyone in this school does, well cept for El, she doesn’t cause of her parents, but I never really liked it. I just do it.

“Now the last part of this evening’s event. The handing out of certificates”

God I hate my headmaster he can make the simplest sentence sound arrogant, thinks he’s so above everyone.....Did he say certificates ?

“El” I whispered “did he say certificates? And how longs it been since this thing started “

“Yeah he said they’re handing out the certs, and like 2 hours why? “She looked at me kinda weird.

“You okay Zip”

“Yeah I’m fine” I muttered.

Had I just spent 2 hours in my head? Just thinking? I must have, otherwise time was skipping or some other weird sci fi junk was happening.

“Zip!”....”Zip! They called your name! Get up!”

I looked up; apparently it had been a few minutes since they’d called my name. A few minutes too long. I got up and got my certificate, didn’t shake that bastard of a principles hand though. I think everyone noticed but no one seemed to care. Why would they? I wasn’t there responsibility anymore.

The last half hour of that stupid graduation we’re the longest of my life. I could tell I wasn’t the only one itching to get out. Even the teachers were pissed by now.

As soon as the bastard said goodnight, I was out the door. Apparently, I’d dragged El with me. I don’t remember doing that.

“Hey Zip, hold up, I got an idea.” She paused. I dunno why.

“You don’t get nothing from alcohol right?”

I nodded, I didn’t know where this was going, but it was El she had her shit in order so course I gotta listen to her.

“Well, I got some Coke and E the other day, cause you know me and drink, I was wondering you wanna give them a go?”

Drugs? I didn’t know about drugs. Johnny said they were bad. That’s all I’d ever learned about them. “Drugs are bad”, never told why. Still didn’t know if I wanted to take em though, I mean I’d heard some stories of drugs going down the wrong way.

“El, I dunno, I mean like I’ve heard stories, and I don’t wanna get sick or nothing like”

“Come on Zip, it’ll be fine! And them stories are a load of bull! I’m not gonna take them if you don’t!”

Its drugs. What’s the worst that could happen? I always thought them stories were a bit...over the top, and sure I’d heard that they get you feeling good, and I hated most everything , cept El, I needed some feeling good.

“Uh, sure El, I’ll give it ago, you know how this shit works?”

“Course, you think I came here, uneducated?!”

“Bad joke, El”

She took my hand, and pulled me back to the boys toilets.

“What is it with you and boys, toilets El?”

She shot me a death glare I knew she didn’t mean then she gave me a small pill with an “M” on it, looked like the McDonalds logo to me, but I wasn’t gonna argue. She told me to “shove it down my noise hole”, course I did. Then she got this powdered stuff, the coke I reckon. Laid out four lines of it. She took 2 and left me the other ones. I was bit fuzzy cause of the weird M pill, ecstasy I think she called it. But I took the tube, and took my lines. She looked so out of it, I probably looked them same, but man it felt good. So good.

Till I collapsed. I just fell in heap, I couldn’t move, it was so weird. I didn’t have clue what was happening. I was so out of it. I think I heard El scream, I don’t remember though really. I just sorta lay there, not moving. It was the best I’d felt in years. It felt like the life was slipping from me. The hate was going with it. It was the best! Till I realised I was dying.

I hate life, and all that shit, but I don’t wanna die....

I just zoned out for ages. I curled up real tight; I didn’t want the life to spill from me. Then I heard it. The best and worst sound of my life.

“Zip you here?” It was Johnny looking for me. I must have been there a long time cause he works real stupid hours, the get home at 4am kind.

“Zip?.....Oh god no. Zip!”

I heard him fall to his knees, I was trying so hard to say his name, but nothing worked. It was like everything was dead, but my mind was still alive.

“How could you do this Zip?” He was crying, my big brother was crying. He wasn’t my parent no more; right now he was my big brother. And he was crying.

“I thought...I thought if I didn’t tell you about Mum and Dad you wouldn’t do this. But no your here just like they were.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. Did he think I was dead, like Mum and Dad were?

I needed to tell him I was here. I wasn’t gone. I was still his little bro, alive and kicking.
He looked at me. That’s all he did, look at me.

“So you took after dad, not a one drug kinda man, you like to mix and match”

Dad was a druggie? That was news to me. Was mum one too?

“Mum, always stuck to heroine”

Oh

“Now you’re here, on the floor like they were.”

I heard a noise in the background, like....like..... like a siren.

Then nothing just blackness. And a voice.

“Wake up Zip, you gotta wake up”

So i met Eoin Colfer


Okay, so I have to say this Summer has been pretty awesome. I mean i discovered the awesomeness of Doctor Who, I saw Green Day live and I'm just after meeting Eoin Colfer. A friend of mine said that Summer of 2011 will have a lot to live up to, and he is right.

There's a chain of bookstores in Ireland (it may be in the UK too, i don't actually know), called Easons. They've been having these young adult books signings since May. I went to one for an author called Derek Landy and i was hoping to go to one for Darren Shan but other things got in the way.

Anyway, so my mum entered her name in to win 2 tickets to this Eoin Colfer book signing (if you don't know Eoin Colfer wrote the Artemis Fowl series and the new hitchhikers book) and she won. I think its if you enter your name you can fairly certain you'll win.

I was, naturally, hyper about this, because i do love his books. I had intended to bring the books of his I owned with me, but i forgot, I blame the dentist. My mum and I walked around town for a while because we were early and we don't often get to go down to Dublin. While we wondered around I bought a Sonic Screwdriver, which I love, and the 2 Artemis Fowl books i didn't own. By the time I actually got to the signing I had 5 Eoin Colfer books, despite having leaving my own at home.

My mum and I were relying on my dad to pick us up, and we knew he was going to be lateish. So instead of being first in the line, which I could've been, I hung around for a while. In this time i managed to nab myself 2 posters, which made me very happy.

I should probably mention, that Eoin talked for a while, and is one of the funniest people. Really down to earth and just all round cool guy.

I got into the line, my hands bulging with books and posters and then I met the man himself. Apparently, I seemed familiar. As far as i know we'd never met before....hmmm. So he signed my books and he asked me some general small talk questions, when we managed to get on to the subject of my sonic screwdriver (which I had in my pocket) i then proceeded to take out said screwdriver, hand it to Eoin Colfer and explain how it worked, now this was awesome enough, but then we talked about our favourite sci fi shows! And them two moments have made my year!

I then said goodbye, left, and went home, annoying my dad with my sonic screwdriver all the way home.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Its been more then a week.

So i haven't exactly been blogging every week like I would. Its not that i've been busy or away or anything of the sort. I've just been lazy, as I am most of the time, but i am going to put in more of an effort.

This blog is just a general one to get you up to date with things that are happening, a few of the things i mention I will blog about again, only in more detail.

First things first, i've decided i'm getting a new guitar. A Yamaha APX500 to be exact. Why you ask ? Because it sounds rather nice, the one I have is older then i am and it will just be easier in the long run if and when i start gigging as this one will have an input. So yeah I am rather looking forward to that.

Secondly, I have a new video on youtube, its a lady gaga cover. Her songs are just so coverable. This is a rather short paragraph, I feel its needs one more sentence to be a proper paragraph. I have socks with sheep on, there we go.

I also wrote a new short story, which i will post on here in a day or two. Its a bit like a prequel to Steps, which is already on the blog, but both can be read on their own. Its about an event that i mentioned in Steps, but i won't mention it here in case any of you readers haven't read it yet.

I have a new song to, its about doctor who . Yeah I'm real proud of it. My first venture in to Trock. I feel this is an important moment. I wrote it mostly because I was bored and I had just gotten my sonic screwdriver.

Okay i think that's it for now.

Oh wait did I forget to mention i met Eoin Colfer ? That's going to be my next blog.

I will try to update weekly from now on, I promise.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Blog updates

This is just a short blog to say that i'll be updating weekly not daily from now on :)

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Doctor....Who ?

So you may or may not have noticed that in my blog about my top ten favourites of things i did not menion tv shows. I thought they deserved a blog of their own! That and i forgot to put them in when i was writing that. So here is just a bit about my favourite tv shows, starting with....

Doctor Who. Now i guess i should say now that the only full series I've seen so far is the 5th but i am getting the boxset so will catch up! But I just love this show! The writing is so clever and funny, and the qualtiy acting really does them justice. The characters are just so quirky and loveable and awesome! Just a little note here but i have to say i love Stephen Moffet for putting the doctor in a fez. With villans like the daleks and the cybermen its like a cycle of awesomness. I myself usually forget when shows are on or stop watching halfway through a season but I make a point of seeing Doctor Who week in week out, when its on of course.

This next show i only started watching because my cousins in Australia liked it, and i must say they have great taste! The show I am talkin about is NCIS. If you don't know what that stands for its Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Its like C.S.I but better written, with awesomer characters and just in general its better. Oh and its about crimes involving people in the navy. Abbey, a goth forensic scientist, has to be one of my favourite characters ever! She has some of the best lines ever.
Director Jenny: I'm not really here
Abbey: Do you know how long i've waited to pass into an alternate dimension ?!!
And her relationship with Gibbs, the main investigative dude person is so sweet. I think he's like a father figure to her! Abbey may be my favourite character but i love them all really, from Magee's nerdiness to Dinozzo's well i can't really describe what it is about Tony that i love but its there and of course Davids (Dah Veed) badassedness. I just love the show to bits, i will watch the same episode three times just to get all the witty lines or looks!

Stephen Fry is like an Idol for me. That man is a genius, and he hosts the next TV show in this list Q.I. I love Q.I for its little obscure facts, like the fact that the little shap the ticketman punches out of your ticket is called a didcot. That fact actually first appears in Douglas Adams' "The Meaning of Liff" and of course he created the show. But its the intelligent banter and jokes, and the sometimes not so intelligent banter and jokes that really make me keep watching. Take for instance my favourite scene, well one of them, the tales of obscurity. This is the answer Ronni Ancona gave
when asked what the tales of Obscurity were.
Is this book about the word Obscurity before it got famous, how it was beaten by its adjective father, and left on the doorstep and abandoned by its mother, and then it was the only noun growing up in a house of verbs, and the verbs were always going out doing lovely things, because they're
doing words, and poor Obscurity was stuck inside suffering from asthma, and then after school it was surrounded by quotation marks and got beaten up terribly, and then one day it entered into a reality TV show and it became very famous, and it was much in demand and used to describe all the people that leave Big Brother House?
I really don't think i need to explain why i love this show, do i ?

Pokemon! Now i know I know, aren't I a bit old for pokemon ? Not a chance. I still watch the original series online, can't really beat Ash, Brock and Misty, can you ? It was like the best thing on televison when I was growing up. I didn't get the games until recently, but as a kid i loved the whole friendship thing between the characters and the pokemon. I thought it was really cool that they weren't just pets or tools they were life long friends. And you have to admit the battles were pretty intense!

There are so many other TV shows i could've included Star gate, scrubs, house, bones, futurama and many others, but this is what came out. So what are your favourite Tv shows ?

Saturday, July 3, 2010

My guilty pleasure

We all have them , our little guilty pleasures, weather it be the pop song, you know you should hate or the movie that's so bad you have to love.

Fanfiction....or rather Harry Potter Fanfiction. I love it. Now i don't love all of it, some of it, is really bad. But the ones that are well written, have a good plot and characters and aren't too unbelievable are rather enjoyable to read. The thing I like about it is, that even though the series has ended, we can explore what may, or may not happen. I know there are many Harry Potter fans who did not like th epilogue, and fanfictoin gives you the chance to change what happened. To let characters who died live, to see what happened if a character had never exsisted and well if somethings well written why no read it ?

Now, this is becoming less and less of a guilty pleasure but musicals. I don't know what it is, maybe its the telling of a story through song or the whole putting on a show of it, but I cannot get enough. I can trace the beginnings of this pleasure back to Calamity Jane. It was the school musical in the school last year, and i was put in the chorus and i still remember the songs. " But its Harry I'm planning to marry". I did like the songs in that musical but i wasn't mad into it. Then i discovered Wicked. Now that just blew me away. The songs were incredible, i mean take Defying Gravity for instance ? Such a beautiful song. As much as i love Wicked i have to say my favourite musical, has to be A very potter musical. Combining my love of Harry and his adventures and music! It is just one of the funniest thing I have ever seen. My favourite character in any musical has to be Draco as played by Lauren Lopez ( at least i think thats her name i'm not certain). It is so funny and well timed and just to use an internet phrase EPIC!!

Twilight. Now let me get this straight. I like the books, cause, well they're just a fun read, I don't care about Team Jacob or Team Edward, i am very much team Harry Potter....but i did rather like reading them. Saying that i do enjoy taking the piss out of them as its so easy to do. I have no intention of seeing Eclipse or any of the others movies. I actually hate how people are so obsessed with the characters Jacob and Edward, i mean i'm a Harry Potter fanatic but i love the whole thing not just Harry or any other character.

This isn't a great blog, but i'm trying to blog every day so some of them might not be all that great.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Well that was a bit odd.

Do you ever have really odd dreams ? I do, everything from a weird dream with portal system that i had to jump through to get through the, for lack of better word, "proper" dream to a dream involving a giant evil mushroom, don't remember much of that one though. So i thought I'd share a few of my weirder dreams with you.

When i was younger I had a recurring dream of going fishing, that wasn't the weird part. We'd go fishing for whales inside this giant lake. These whales weren't exactly anatomically correct, they were more like cartoony blue whales, if that makes any sense. So we went out on this little, old creaky boat and we threw in a line and the whale took the bait and sunk the boat. Not being ones to give up we went back again, no no with a bigger boat, the same boat but.....with a car on it. Now i don't really understand how that was supposed to work, and in the end i didn't, the whale sunk that too. Then in a last stitch effort to try and catch this whales we put a bus AND a car on the boat, i still don't understand that logic, and yet again it didn't work. But this time instead of magically appearing on new, with vehicle added boat we were dragged to the bottom of the lake and we had to swim to the top. At this point i should probably mention that the dream had gone from first person to third person and i was now watching someone who looked like Tarzan in a naval uniform swim to the top. Odd one wasn't it ?

A few months ago, I had a weird dream, woke up, fell asleep and had another weird dream, this is the second of those. Basically, i was sent off to a summer camp with my dad to see if we could get along better ,as far as I'm concerned we get along fine in real life, but it was a dream so i'm willing to accept it. Anyway when we got there we were told that the was only 2 other people there, and out of all the people it could have been it was Roy Orbison and Voldemort. At this point my dad had gone missing, and i was left alone with Roy and Voldie, who apparently were the best of buds! I'm still not sure were that one came from.

This one is the most recent, i had it the night before last. In the dream there was a talent show/variety show being held, apparently in my school (which had somehow magically grown an auditorium right beside the P.E hall). So this group were on stage and they had this very tiny drum kit and they broke it. So i went into the sports hall to find a replacement when i saw this evil super secret agent dude on some super secret spy gear that had apparently been hidden under the floor in the P.E hall, i called in my boss, and he saw it too. Seemingly this guy was part of a group of people who were involved in murders, and was trying to sabotage the second drum kit. So anyway we built the second drum kit, got it on stage and then planned to out the secret agent by writing the truth on the soles of some people shows and showing it to the audience and the camera which had somehow got there, and then i woke up.

Lastly, this is a dream that really freaked me out, I had it on the same night as the summer camp dream. My friends and I were adventuring around the world going to each continent. So we decided why not head into the Artic circle. In this dream Michael Jackson had just died of an Ice burg crushing him, in the Artic circle. So we went on up and then we found said ice burg. There was a giant crack in it. So i went up to have a looksie. I looked down through the big crack and what do i see ? Michael Jackson's face and he was croaking for me to help him. That was freaky enough. But then he lifts the ice burg all by his own weight gets up starts walking and then moon walking around the place! I have to say it was really really really weird.

So they are a few of my weird dreams. Whats the weirdest dream you've had ?

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The End


Harry Potter is almost over! Only two more movies, and well then what am i going to go all fangirly over every year ? Of course i could always.....rewatch the movies, reread the books, because really they never get old!

As i'm sure you've guessed i'm a Harry Potter fan, a Huge one! And like quite a few Harry Potter fans i don't want it to end, I want a book eight, nine, ten, because well that epilogue didn't really live up to my expectations, but I know that I most likely won't get them, because its hard enough to write 1 books let alone 7, so maybe it isn't fair to ask for more...

In my last blog i made a list of my top ten Harry Potter characters and Dobby was number 1. He's just so......Dobby. "Master has given Dobby as sock! Dobby is FREEEE" whats not to love ? But of course i do love all the characters even Voldie! I love little things about each of them, I love Bellatrix's madness, I love Hermione's intelligence and I love Tonks' clumsiness. Every characters has a trait that I have grown to love!

I remember when i first saw Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, i was i think maybe 7 or 8 ? But anyway, i was like "but this was in the book and its not there, the book is so much better!". I still maintain that the book is better but i've learned to enjoy the movies in their own right. When i found out the last book was going to be 2 movies i was not happy, at all. I wanted to see the motion picture version of the last in a series i love all in one piece not broken up. But maybe it is for the best. Although it is not the biggest Harry Potter book, there is a lot in it...that and it gives me the opportunity to have a fangirl attack 1 more time.

I think it was either 01, or 00 when i got my first Harry Potter book, i remember having it read to me and then me reading it and the second one, and even bringing it into school so that the teacher would read it to the class! It was a big book for me, now unlike a lot of people, it wasn't the book that got me reading, that was the Giggler Treatment by Roddy Doyle (very funny book by the way). But I think Harry Potter started my love of reading. Made me want to discover new books and read as much as i could.

I consider Harry Potter to be my childhood, it is something i have grown up with. As i got older and more mature so did the books. I can think back 9 years and remember getting the Chamber of Secrets, i don't remember that much from 9 years ago but i remember that. The memories i have of and have had with Harry Potter don't just bring me to Hogwarts in mind but also to real places, like my living room, when i read The Deathly Hallows in 6 and half hours, or my Nanny's spare bed room were i borrowed her copy of the prisoner of Azkaban. I think that, that is the beauty of the books, apart from the fantastic story, and characters and well just general awesomeness of the books, they have played such a big part in my life, that I can recall nearly every moment i've had with them, and for many other things i can't say the same.