iarpo

Ice Cream Motorcade

On a council estate the ten armoured ice cream vans drive two abreast, a motorcade hogging the road. All the kids are chasing and laughing with glee.

Inside the vans are ten clear containers of thick glass. Each a rounded cube with no visible way to open them. Each contains a mysterious and valuable thick brown syrup. They’re arranged in the same formation as the vans, two abreast and five deep.

When one of the trucks crashes a cube of the liquid rolls over, splitting in two. The liquid holds it’s form for the most part, oozing at the speed of a glacier.

In The Closet

We’re chasing the bus through East Morton, a small village I used to live in. The kids are there waiting for us. As we’re running there’s piles of processed meat in the road, like piles of horse muck. As we’re chasing the bus it runs over a few piles, meat exploding out and as we stamp on them the same happens. Mechanically reclaimed meat is splattered all over the road, graphic and in maximum high definition detail.

[fragment missing]

It’s the early 90’s in Leeds, we’re moving out of our house, boxes are piled everywhere. I only see one of the rooms, a sparse bedroom, brown textured wallpaper that probably started life cream hangs onto the wall. There’s a single bed, tall and worn, next to a glass front cabinet filled with shelves, maybe six feet tall.

A new guy’s moving in, his hair black and floppy, wearing a striped knitted jumper - quite emo. He emerges from the adjoining room, conspicuous in it’s mystery, the door seeming more real than real. He’s not coming out with us, deciding instead to hide from someone. However he chooses to hide in the cabinet. The glass fronted cabinet, with small shelves. He presses himself in trying to close the door. Somehow he manages, the glass warping around his features. We stand looking at him, ridiculous. He ushers us on so as not to give him away - idiot. Though he did lend me a book on Gothic films.

As we leave, another housemate says hello to me, inconspicuous and throwaway. But it’s laden with emotion, with unrequited love for me. It took all her confidence to say hi to me, that one word filled longing. I know this and make a mental note to talk to her next time I see her and check out is she’s hot. That’s for another time though, right now we have to leave.

We step outside, the door to the bedroom leading immediately onto the street. The air’s heavy with imminent rain and electricity. It’s early 90’s, and as we walk to college the camera swoops high, taking in the vista of the city, everything subtly tinted sepia. It swoops here and there in impressive aerial shots before sweeping back down at the college, where we’re just arriving. We study advertising and one of my tutors is Jeff Goldblum.

The bore-tender

I'm stood in a large triangular bar, an old pub. Small red atmospheric lampshades dotted around, old oak all over, once varnished, now smooth and worn from hundreds of elbows, old trophies and photos pepper the walls. The bar itself makes fills most of them room, right in the centre serving from all sides. A plethora of bottles filled refracting the light, the amber liquids almost glowing.

I'm the only one in the there, everyone else is in the beer garden outside drinking and having fun – it's a friendly, lively atmosphere. The bar tender's talking away to me, taking his time. I don't mind though, I'm enjoying my coffee, stirring in rich cream. He points to the TV on the wall in the corner, tells me his friend was in the TV show, but apparently he's a bit mental. He yammers on, I only half hear what he's saying. I can see my friends through the window drinking and having fun, getting the neighbouring table involved, wishing I was out there and getting a bit frustrated.

He keeps on talking, the elderly bartender, white hair, in his red velvet waistcoat. He looks like part of the furnishings. Like the old wood he moves to a different time scale. I'm getting really frustrated now, why won't he just get my pints? I can't seem to get a word in edgeways, I'm stuck in here listening to him talking away while the fun's outside. Through the window everyone's laughing. Guess I'll never hear that punch line.

My coffee starts to taste foul, like the cream's curdled and the coffee's burnt. This stupid old man. Just give me my pint – I'm your only customer! The coffee's disgusting. And he won't stop talking.

Accidental girlfriend

I'm in a house full of people, all family and friends of my girlfriend. However my girlfriend is my real life ex's sister, and the worst bit is that I don't know which girl she is. So without wanting to lose face I try to navigate a busy house and try to figure out who's my girlfriend. I don't even want a girlfriend – how did this happen?

I walk around giving pre-emptive smiles to pretty girls, trying a process of elimination, deflecting questions from her family about me and her. I finally think I've figured out who I think it is and call her name, she glares at me, wrong girl. The right girl however is behind me and didn't see my mistake. She leaps at me with a hug and plants a kiss on me. Ok, problem solved, I guess she's my girlfriend. She's quite hot, long blonde hair (I prefer brunettes), tall but not taller than me. She looks like a mash up of all the blonde mainstream actresses.

It turns out she came into my room while I was asleep, woke me up and asked to be my girlfriend. In my confused state I say yes and run to the bathroom to pee.

We blow the party off and go for a walk on the seafront. I've no idea where in the country we are but it feels southern, quite well to do. The populous look like aristocratic stock. It's dark, evidentally not a massive town, very little light pollution, I can see way more stars than in Leeds. We walk along but nowhere's really open. We stop for a smooch on the doorstep of a jewellers, white tiled floor, it's door facing the adjoining McDonalds.

When we're finished we go into McDonalds but think better of it and leave, finding a small porch with a white tiled floor, the doors of the two businesses facing towards each other. Still hungry we go into the other door.

Inside is a small, shabby, windowless room, a long Formica table nearly fills the space, there's maybe two feet between it and the wall. The only light is from a small TV in the corner, a grimy blue glow, eyes just able to see in the gloom. The air feels heavy and cloying. I'm sure this was very recently a living room in a shabby bedsit. We're knelt at the table, she's snuggled against me, content in our new home together.

A customer walks in, dressed in a worn grey kimono. He orders the prawn noodles. I blink, realising I'm the chef in this debacle of a business. Problem is, I have no idea what I'm doing despite the massive menu we apparently offer. I look at the pictures in the menu for inspiration and turn to my stove, a crappy little camping stove, it's flame barely visible even in the gloom. I muddle around with a few ingredients, constantly scrutinised by the customer. He wasn't buying it, this super sleuth didn't believe I was a chef.

27/7

Found notes:
Farmyard Crime Stoppers: some kids prank call Raul Moat during negotiations.
Taking the video home.
Fighting giant things (still fairly harmless – like a Wallace and Gromit monster)
Devil fight
Football team
Fake fight
Video

28/8

Me and Jordan are watching a deep pink sunset. Everything is bathed in pink, it's beautiful. We sit stand there and bask in it.
[fragment missing]
Slimer (from Ghostbusters) tries to cut us off.
Downstairs the living bodies are being tied up.

Cats and cobbles

I'm at work in the skatepark, the car park's been replaced with a cobbled courtyard. Outside it's night, some of the regulars are dressed as boy scouts, all crowded round a tall campfire. They've set up a tight rope over the fire, each taking it in turns to walk the rope and do tricks; somersaults and spins. As the fire spreads to the rope's support the line droops, becoming a slack line. The boys carry on, using it to add variation to their tricks, swinging in and out of the flames.

Nearby are some talent scouts who've temporarily moved into the park, watching the guys on the rope, head hunting for the next big thing in skateboarding. I think I slept with one of them (women in skateboarding tend to come in two varieties:sour faced and stuck up or bubbly, busty and game)

I start to have a look round and see the cobbled street extends further back, tall tudor houses with flower boxes line each side. Bright white plaster and painted black wood set an idyllic scene, the sun now high in the sky, locals milling around a market, a few tourists dotted amongst them.

From one of the doors steps three clay animals, no more than a foot tall. Cartoon-esque, grey all over, one cat and two others I don’t remember. After milling about the market the cat was adopted by Quagmire from family guy. However he already had a bitch of a girlfriend and another cat creature, more advanced, futuristic and sleek, filled with servos and wires.

[fragment missing]

Quagmire’s house is pretty impressive, modern and expensive inside. In this particular room was the gym. The floor had a large raised area with wide french windows that looked out over the town. No need for curtains, the room was high enough to be hidden from view of the street. Exotic pot plants were dotted around between mini bars and modern sculptures. The lower section had state of the art gym equipment, chrome treadmills, weights, crosstrainers and a large mirror that led onto a steam room no doubt. In the night however, the room muted blue as moonlight streamed in through the large windows, the bitch girlfriend decided to try off the cat. She lunged for it, throwing it onto the tread mill. As it sailed through the air in slow motion the camera swooped low framing the cat in a close up and the woman, psychotic, in the background. To their surprise though, especially the cat’s, a single small sturdy dagger thunked out of each paw in place of claws. It landed on the treadmill and kept upright, maintaining purchase with it’s claws as it ran, thunk, thunk, thunk. In keeping up with the treadmill it survived, growing stronger and survived the night.