THE SELFLESS WRITER

Set in a weird mixture of the present and the past this two-part story deals with the punishment of the innocent.

PART ONE

"We live," said Artie Archer, nodding his head sagely, "in a selfish age."

"I couldn't agree more," agreed Millicent Mower, pouring tea from a beehive teapot and producing, as if by magic, a tin of ginger-nut biscuits and a few marshmallows

"The trouble is," muttered Archie, "everybody wants to dominate everybody else. Take me, for example. I'm a writer as you know. Kids stories and the like. But what happens? I get despised for my stuff, that's what happens! I put in something funny and I'm either racist or sexist or anythingist. I include a few chapters about murder and blood and gore and I get called irresponsible. Me, irresponsible! I ask you!"

"You can be a bit over-the-top," ventured Millicent. "After all, my Mickie read one of your stories and it gave him a heart attack. Died, he did, clutching his chest and cursing like a trooper. But he still died, and that was one of your stories as did it."

"He'd have died anyway," replied Artie defensively. "After all, he was ninety-seven."

"And a half. He was ninety-seven and a half!" put in Millicent proudly. "And he could still read, at that age too! He read that story from start to finish without a break, you know the one, it was about a kingfisher!"

"There's not much in that one to scare a man to death," muttered Artie. "I can't see what was in it as would give anyone a heart-attack unless it was the part when Curly the Kingfisher pecked the scarecrow's eyes out. But it was only a scarecrow and the eyes weren't real, you know."

"My Mickie thought it was real," mused Millicent. "Millie," he said to me all bright-eyed and the like, "Millie, listen to what your mate Artie's written!" And he went on to tell me about this scarecrow, a lovely fellow with button eyes and a wife and kids at home. And the way an old kingfisher zoomed down out of the skies and pecked away at those eyes of his, like a drill he said it was, rat-a-tat-tat-tat!"

"Then your Mickie was a twallop!" almost exploded Artie. "I write for kids, not old men, and I've not had a single report of any kid being damaged in any way by a single word in any one of my stories!" His eyes were blazing as he spoke, and Millicent might have taken note had she been looking, but she wasn't. Instead, she was munching on a ginger-nut and knitting pearl and plain stitches with rainbow coloured wool.

"Our Mooney was damaged," she chuntered. "Only last week he was damaged. He was reading that story of yours about a fat man climbing down chimneys with a sack on his back, and he came on the word 'footprint' and he was damaged. We had to have him locked away, we did, he was so damaged. He became like a loony, he did, all shouting and raving because of that word 'footprint'."

"There's nothing about 'footprint' to drive a kid mad!" scoffed Artie, clearly upset by the way the conversation was going. "If you ask me that loony kid of yours, Mooney you called him as if you knew in advance he was going to be a nutter sooner or later, anyway, as I was saying I reckon he was three sheets to the wind before he ever picked up my Christmas book!"

"That he wasn't!" wept Millicent, wiping her eyes on a brand new rainbow sock. "And as for you being rude about my one and only little boy, our Sadie was damaged by one of your words too. And I've heard as your books have been banned by the library down town! It's said your words are like knives, cutting away and stabbing the youth of today! I've heard them say that you should be locked up on account of the damage done by your words!"

"You're as mad as a drain," exploded Artie, "saying things like that when my only aim in life is to add a little colour to the lives of future generations!"

"Colour?" squawked Millicent, "is that what you call it? Colour? Why, I was talking to old Mrs Henderson down at the flea market only this very morning as is, and she reckons you made her Angela's little lad turn blue! She said as he picked up one of your stories, just a little one about peas and beans and a greedy little princess, and he turned irreversibly blue! Daren't go to school daren't even go out to play! As blue as a summer sky or a warm tropical sea! So what do you say about that, Artie?"

"I say she's bananas," muttered Artie. "I say she should never have kids in her care, not blue ones and not green ones and not yellow ones. I say she should be taken to the burning field and put to the stake and set light to. That's what they should do to the Mrs Hendersons of this world!"

"That's not such a nice thing to say," said Millicent, pausing with her cup half way to her lips and dropping at least two stitches and a ginger-nut. "To say that the poor woman should be set light to! To suggest, suggest mark you, that a good lady like dear Mrs Henderson should have to suffer a burning! It's beyond belief what some folks say, and that's a truth!"

"That's why I say we live in a selfish age," grunted Artie. "We live in the kind of age when a woman like you can tell tales about my words damaging kids and actually killing old men, and that Henderson woman not being burned at the stake for suggesting that my innocent stories sent her brat mad! Next you'll be saying that my tales have unplaited some girl or other's hair! And that would be the most selfish thing anyone's ever said to me, worse even than the day old Ma Biggead wrote to the papers on account of her hair turning grey when she read my little book of nursery rhymes!"

"Well, it did!" insinuated Millicent, darkly. "I saw that hair of hers, and it was as grey as the sky in November when it's raining cats and dogs!"

"She's eighty if she's a day, and ladies of that certain age often have grey hair!" scoffed Artie.

"Not Ma Biggead until she read them rhymes of yours, and then she went white as snow!"

"I thought you said grey as the November sky when it's raining cats and dogs," growled Artie.

"Yes, that too!" nodded Millicent. "Them books of yours ought to be banned! They ought to be piled up on the burning field and set light to!"

"You're nuts!" raged Artie. "Nobody's come to any harm whatsoever after reading my little tales of gentle life and sweetness and light."

"I've been stalked," pounced Millicent. "I've been stalked, and I'd just read 'Gertie the Lonely Duck'! And out of the blue he came, a stalker with a willy so big you could have called it a python without lying, and he stalked me!"

"A willy, you say?" asked Artie, suddenly interested.

"Like a python! Like a gigantic snake wafting around inside his pants! Like nothing you've ever seen before! It enraged me! It filled me with fear! I had to chase him for seven miles on my own feet just to check!"

"And he was stalking you?" asked Artie, cynicism or something like it suddenly leaking out of his eyes.

"Every time I looked he was there," she confirmed.

"Well, he would be if you were running fast as a serpent after him," commented Artie. "It might be said, I suppose, as you were stalking him!"

She looked at him reproachfully. "How could you say such a thing!" she shrieked, and started weeping. "How could you say anything as spiteful as that! It's you as should be taken to the burning field! It's you as should be punished!"

"You're crazy," he conceded.

"I may be, but you know who my old man is don't you?" sneered Millicent. "He's the Chief Burner! That's who he is! The Chief Burner, and he'll have you burned, just see if he don 't!"

"You said he was dead," laughed Artie, "You said as your Mickie died after having a heart attack as a consequence of reading one of my stories!"

"Ah, but Mickie weren't my hubby," whispered Millicent, "he were my special, secret friend, he were. No, my hubby's Billy of the Big Belly, and he's a-coming right now! Hey, Billy, lover of mine! This prat's trying to seduce me and he needs a good burning! You'll see about it for me, won't you, lover?"

A huge man, so fat he might never have fitted through a door, came up to the two of them.

"Nah," he said to her, "He's okay! He's my mate! It's you as is mad!"

"Then I'll keep me legs shut from now on..." she ventured, her eyes gleaming at him.

"Ooops," he muttered, thoughtfully. "Can't have that! Okay, honey, if it means that much to you," said the greasy fat man, and he turned to Artie. "Sorry about this, mate," he said regretfully. "I'll get it over quickly, just see if I don't, but it's a burning for you!"

"You mean...?" asked Artie, his eyes suddenly swelling with alarm.

"Yes, mate," said Billy of the Big Belly, "So come along quietly, and don't think of running because if you were to do that a bloke of my size'd stand no chance of catching you!"

"Of course not," replied Artie meekly. "I'll come quietly, just you see if I don't."

And he walked off, hands in the air submissively, towards the burning field, where a crowd had already started to gather. And amongst them, sweet as candy (or something like that) and interested as any child has the right to be if she's a horrid little brat stood Janie Cobweb.

PART TWO

There probably comes a time in every man 's life when he wishes he'd done something else.

Artie Archer felt like that as he was led unceremoniously onto the burning field. Even though the flames had not as yet been kindled he fancied he could feel them singeing his skin and converting his hair to stinking dust.

"I don't understand why you're doing this to me," he muttered to Billy of the Big Belly. "After all, I've tried to make a goodness out of my life and live according to the highest ideals of a writer, and here you are charging off with me to the burning field with the express intention of converting my lovely red blood into ashes!"

"You shouldn't have done it, lad," replied Billy of the Big Belly out of the corner of his mouth, trying to look as if he wasn't saying anything because having apparently friendly discussions with the condemned would do him very little good if his role in the ceremony was ever to be debated in a Court of Law.

"I've done nothing!" exclaimed Artie, ringing his hands and sweating. "All I've done is write innocent fairy stories to entertain the children with! It's not as if I've been occupied programming violent Playstation games like some spend their lives doing!"

"You wrote that little thing about the fairy with the broken wings, and it melted my Alicia into a puddle, so don't you go coming the innocent with me!" snarled Billy, suddenly changing moods. "When a favourite lady suddenly becomes a puddle and, mark these words, and trickles down the guttering and into a drain, a fellow can't help thinking he's got a burning grudge!"

"But your Alicia was an ice-maiden!" protested Artie, shocked that he should be blamed for something as innocuous as a lump of ice melting on a summer's day. "You always knew she would melt! You told me loads of times how it would break your heart when you no longer found yourself waking up cold and freezing damp in the morning after she'd spent a night in your bed!"

"She was reading your rubbish when it happened, so you're to blame!" Billy was adamant and Artie could see there was nothing he might say that would change things.

"Here we are!" scowled Billy.

Artie looked around him. A fair-sized crowd had gathered, men and women and children, all of them baying for blood. He knew there was a huge appetite for burnings in the community. The smallest children were brought up to look forward to their first one, and old gaffers and their hag-like wives told many a tale of memorable burnings from the past. It was a custom for everyone to gather round in eager anticipation, and cheer themselves hoarse as the first flames were kindled, and proceed to go crazy as the tongues of fire licked against quivering flesh.

"Now you just stand here so I can tie you to the stake all good and proper," snarled Billy. "It's most important that I tie you real tightly or you might get away when the flames get really hot, licking against your tender flesh and scorching it!"

"It doesn't seem fair to me," muttered Artie. "All I ever did was try to write good things and lead the children down a righteous path so they could grow into bold citizens."

"That's not what Daisy-Rose says," muttered Billy.

"Daisy-Rose who?" asked Artie, straining his memory and failing to find any kind of Daisy-Rose anywhere in it.

"Daisy-Rose the Butcher's cat," replied Billy with a strange look in his eyes. "I loved that cat, I did! It came round my house almost every day, sniffing in my boxer-shorts drawer and purring at me every time I stroked it! And then it read that story of yours, the one about a princess who could detect a pea through a dozen thick feather mattresses and changed beyond all recognition right there and then, and before you could say Jack Robinson there it was, lying on the road ready for the coal-man to run over it with his lorry, and sure as sure that coal-man did: he couldn't help it! Wept about it, he did, wept long and loud and couldn't be more sorry that he'd killed poor old Daisy-Rose!"

"Cats can't read!" admonished Artie. "They don't even pretend they can read! They just play with balls of string, chase mice and bring half-dead sparrows into the house as presents! They don't have anything to do with reading! And anyway that butcher's cat was half dead five years ago! It was so old it should have been dead back then let alone sniffing at your boxers last week!"

"Right! I'll hear no more of this Nancy-boy talk!" snarled Billy of the Big Belly. "It's time this village was treated to a good burning! Why, if you were to have your way we wouldn't have one, and then there'd be a rebellion! There'd be callings for someone else to be burned and that someone else'd probably be me!"

"Better you than me," observed Artie.

"None of that kind of rebellious talk!" shouted Billy. "We can't have back-chat of that general sort, that we can't! It's treason, plain and simple! You're to be burnt and that's that! It'll be fun for the children. Just think of them before you go off talking like you just did like some simple-minded traitor!"

"Who'll write their stories once I'm burned?" asked Artie. "Who'll provide little tales to entertain them during cold winter nights?

“They'll have none of stuff like stories!" shouted Billy. "Instead they'll have fighting on them there Playstation devices and Wiis and the like, and shootings and hangings and murderings! They'll have what they really want and not the mamby-pamby witterings you call stories!"

"Oh. Then you'd better burn me," muttered Artie. "I couldn't possibly live in the kind of world that doesn't allow stories."

So Billy tied him to the stake. He was most careful to make sure he used only the strongest flex from the Electrical shop, and he bound it round and round Artie until he looked more like a ball of wire than a writer.

"How does that feel?" he asked.
"Tight," replied Artie.

"Just as it should be!" nodded Billy of the Big Belly. "Right then! Where's the matches?"

"In my pocket," replied Artie. "My back pocket," he added helpfully.

"Damned daft place to keep them!" roared Billy, and he struggled to force his hand through the rolls of cable that he'd only just tied as tight as he could round his victim, searching for a back pocket.

"I wasn't thinking they'd be needed for a burning," snarled Artie. "I bought them to light pink candles on my niece's birthday cake, not to set light to a bonfire, with me in the middle of it!"

Eventually Billy reached into Artie's back pocket and slowly he withdrew a box of matches.

They were red-topped matches, which was good so far as Billy was concerned, and they were damp matches, which was equally bad from his perspective.

"They're wet!" he shouted. "The matches are wet!" and to prove his point he struck one on the box and it didn't as much as spark.

"Of course they are," muttered Artie. "I just weed myself. I had to. There weren't any regular toilet facilities when you tied me up and anyway a man who's about to be burned might tend to wee himself."

"You're a disgrace!" snarled Billy of the Big Belly. "You're the kind of lowly person who deserves to be burned!" Then he turned to the crowd who, by this time had become a multitude and bellowed "Anyone got any matches? This fool has wet his!"

First one then a second and then a third person produced a box of matches and waved them in the air.

"Cost you a tenner," said the first person.

"I'll take a fiver," volunteered the second.

"You can have mine for a pound," grated the third, a swarthy man with a boil that needed lancing on his neck. So Billy smiled at him, produced a pound coin and took the third man's matches.

Then he struck one of them and held the glowing sliver of wood aloft.

The crowed started cheering and roaring.

All of them to a man and a woman roared encouragement.

Everyone in that field except for Janie Cobweb aged five, and she took one step forwards until her little head was right up to Billy of the Big Belly. Then she fixed him with her innocent, pure eyes, her skin like newly-woven satin, and she said in a loud clear voice,

"What you waiting for you daft pillock! Get that timber burning before it's night and I'm sent off to bed!"

And the entire crowd roared again, and Billy of the Big Belly struck another match.