Spring rolls and egg foo yong

 “And then we spoke of kids on the coast
and different types of organic soup”

- Lou Reed – Wild Child

 

Susan opens her bag and pulls out two cigarettes and a lighter. She puts one of them in my mouth and lights it.

‘I was thinking we could get Chinese tonight,’ she says while she lights hers.

‘Not a bad idea,’ I reply, ‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. Do you have a favourite Chinese?’

‘Do you mean in Southampton or in general?’

‘In Southampton, obviously.’

‘Oh. No, not really.’

I wish she would ask me about my favourite Chinese in general. It is in Tampere, Finland. It is open twenty-four hours a day, but no matter what time I went there the same two men would be working there. Whatever you ordered from the menu, they never had it. You had to list every dish you wouldn’t mind eating until you came across one that they were willing to make. Sometimes this didn’t happen at all, and it would get to the point where they were forced to tell you they only had rice, peppers, bean sprouts and onions left. Once you’d ordered that, they gave you a pink plastic watering can. On my first visit I genuinely started to worry what it was that was expected of me, but it turned out to be a jug of water to drink with the food. All the furniture was covered in sturdy see-through plastic, and there was a sign on the wall saying that if you wanted to take any leftover food home you were free to put it in the plastic drinking cups.

I follow her into the house and wait while she walks through the kitchen and into the shed in the garden.

‘Come over here, I can’t carry it all by myself,’ she calls out.

‘Jesus Christ it’s bloody heavy,’ I say as I grab the other end of it. She’s wrapped it all in bin bags and tied them together with some string.

‘Ok wait,  I’ll put the car right near the shed and then we only have to carry it out of here and into the boot.’

We just about manage to get it into the car before I would’ve dropped it.

‘I’m going to bring a saw just in case,’ says Susan.

 

‘How long do you reckon it takes driving to the New Forest?’ I ask her while she’s looking through her bag for the car keys.

‘About thirty minutes?’

‘I guess we’ll be home by about 7 then? I’m just thinking about whether I should bring something to eat.’

‘Nah, it won’t take that long, we’ll get the Chinese on the way back.’

I open the window as we drive down Portswood Road, past the dodgy-looking chip shop next to the church.

 

‘Have you ever been to the open mic night in there?’ Susan asks as we drive past the Talking Heads.

‘No, I should really go.’

‘I once went to this other open mic night with this guy I knew, Tommy,’ she says,  ‘He wanted to become a blues musician, but he couldn’t really play solos on the guitar, only Ramones songs, so he bought a harmonica instead. There turned out to be a whole subculture of blues fanatics in Chichester, besides Tommy and one other teenage boy they were all men in their thirties and forties. One of them told me to get them some beer while they discussed which songs to play, because ‘playing the blues is men’s business’. Then a rumour spread that the local blues legend, a man called Little Boogie Boy might show up. This made Tommy so nervous he smoked all of the weed he brought in one go, but the joint burned too fast because he didn’t add enough tobacco and he burnt his lip on it, so it hurt when he had to play the harmonica. When Little Boogie Boy finally turned up it turned out he was this fat white guy, he looked a bit like Chevy Chase.’

‘How pathetic! I hate men who are into blues. Maybe even more than I hate men who are into classic rock, and think that women only pretend to like the same music as them because they want to fuck them,’ I say.

‘Yes, you got me, I spent lots of money buying expensive vinyl records and limited edition Led Zeppelin t-shirts just so I could shag a spotty creep with a hairline that starts at the back of his head.’

The smell from the boot seems to be getting stronger, I light a cigarette to try and neutralise it.

We drive into the area of the forest, and Susan wonders where to park the car.

‘The thing is,’ she says, ‘if we park in a car park no one will notice us. But then we have to carry it all the way there.’

‘I could barely carry it into your car. I think we’ll just have to risk it and drive into woods a little.’

We turn into a muddy path and drive on for a few more minutes until we’ve reached a dense part of the forest.

Susan opens the boot and takes out the two shovels, and the big saw.

‘Ok, I didn’t bring this up beforehand because I was afraid you might find it a little too much, but I think we should cut off his head first,’ she says.

I contemplate this for a second, pushing my sunglasses back into my hair, ‘Do you think that will make it harder if someone finds him?’

‘Yeah, I guess. Mostly I’ve just always wanted to see a severed head.’

‘Fair enough.’

We dig the hole first, the ground is moist and sticky so it is harder than I expected. The wooden handle of my shovel rubs into my skin, so I wrap my scarf around it.

‘I wish we had some ice cream,’ I sigh.

‘I know!’ says Susan, ‘We could drive by Sprinkles later?’

‘I think they might close early, it’s a bank holiday.’

‘I wish they delivered.’

I stop digging and lean on my shovel for a second, ‘I’m not sure if delivering ice cream would really work, wouldn’t it melt?’

‘They could just have a some sort of device and a freezer bit in the back to make the ice cream for you on the spot.’

‘That exists though. You just invented the ice cream van.’

‘Oh yeah...’ she says.

‘I think the hole is deep enough now?’

She nods. ‘Ok, time to get dirty.’

A strong odour of death escapes as she opens the boot, and I tie the scarf around my face. We pull out the body, and I watch as she puts on latex gloves and removes the bin bags. The dried up blood around the stab wounds in his chest looks brown and crusty, and there are a number of flies crawling around his eyes and mouth.

‘If you just put on some gloves and hold him steady, I’ll have a go at the sawing,’ she says as she grabs the saw.

It’s a simple hand saw and I’m not sure how easy it will be. The talcum powder in the gloves makes my skin crawl. I kneel and lean down on his chest to hold him steady.

I expected blood to flow when she starts sawing, but there is none. She cuts through the flesh easily, but the bone puts up more of a struggle. The saw slowly cutting through it makes an awful chirpy sound that makes me grind my teeth.

 

‘Do you already know what you’re going to order?’ she asks.

 ‘Definitely spring rolls. Ooh and maybe egg foo yong.’

‘With egg fried rice?’

‘Yes, obviously. You?’

‘Crispy duck pancakes. And something that involves chicken.’

‘I’m so hungry now.’

I didn’t realise it was that far along, but suddenly she pulls the head off entirely.

‘Haha!’ She holds it in the air triumphantly, a piece of flesh falls out and lands on my foot.

She waves it around a little.

‘It looks weird,’ I say, ‘ Like, his mouth is open a little. He looks surprised or confused.’

‘He probably is mate, he’s dead! Hahahaha!’

I watch as she puts the head aside on the bin bags, and gives the rest of the body a slight kick so it rolls into the grave we dug for it.

 ‘Ok so if, hypothetically, the zombie apocalypse happens anytime soon. Do you think he would come out without his head?’ I ask her.                                                                                                                                                                       

‘I don’t think so, I’ve never seen a zombie without a head. To be fair though, I don’t think a real zombie apocalypse would have zombies coming out of their graves, that’s not very realistic at all. It’d probably be some infectious disease. You know, like in 28 Days Later.’

I ponder this for a few seconds, while I throw some dirt into the hole, ‘What do you think would happen if the zombie apocalypse happened like, tomorrow?’

‘I guess everyone dies eventually? Then there will just be cockroaches. And Keith Richards.’

‘Yeah, I guess he’s been around forever.’

‘He survived taking more drugs than anyone in the world, he will survive the apocalypse.’

‘Yeah, I guess he must have done quite a bit of drugs in his days.’

‘He snorted his dad’s ashes.’

‘Oh you mean Keith Richards! I was thinking of Cliff Richard. It seemed strange that he’d have done drugs, but I figured he probably did in the sixties and everything.’

We’ve buried him quite sufficiently now. Susan is trying to flatten the bump of dirt a little, to make it look natural.

‘Ok,’ she says, ’If it’s someone really hot, like I don’t know, Ryan Gosling or Zooey Deschanel, would you still have sex with them if they were zombies?’

‘Hmm...’ An interesting question, for sure. ‘Zooey Deschanel, yes. I never really got into Gosling. Tom Hiddleston though, I would probably still do if he didn’t have a head.’

‘But then how could you tell it was him! It could be any relatively toned guy!’

‘No but if you knew it was him.’

‘How? He told you without a mouth?’

‘If there was some sort of proof that it was him. What about you then?’

‘You mean who would I have sex with if they didn’t have a head?’

‘Or if they were a zombie in general. You can pick two.’

‘I’m gonna have to go with Jennifer Lawrence and the girl who plays Santana in Glee. They would have to have heads though.’

‘Look, I’m not saying I would prefer it if Tom Hiddleston didn’t have a head. But you’ve got to take into account the narrative value of it.’

‘The what?’

‘You know, sexual encounters can have a narrative value. When you sleep with your new boyfriend, you do it because you’re in love. When you do it with a random hot stranger, you do it out of lust. But when you do it with, say, Jeremy Kyle? You do it for the narrative value. That is a story you can tell for the rest of your life. And Tom Hiddleston without a head definitely has a high narrative value.’

‘With this kind of reasoning, you might as well sleep with like... Boris Johnson.’

‘Imagine though! The narrative value of Boris Johnson is through the roof!’

‘I guess I would sleep with that guy who sang Gangnam Style for the narrative value.’

‘That’s an excellent example. Imagine in twenty years, you could tell someone ‘I once had sex with Psy,’ and they would be like ‘who the hell is that?’ and you could start singing Gangnam Style and everyone would be like ‘no way!’

‘Also, Miranda Hart.’

‘The guy from LMFAO with the cardboard box on his head.’

‘The guy from the Old Spice adverts.’

‘Bonnie Tyler.’

 

We drive off, the head in a bin bag on the backseat.

‘What are we going to do with it?’ I ask.

‘I’m not sure, I thought we could throw it in the sea somewhere, but now I think I might keep for a while first.’

‘Keep it? It smells awful!’

‘I mean in the freezer.’

‘What about your housemates, won’t they find it?’

‘I was thinking I could put it in an old bag of oven chips.’

‘Oh yeah, or maybe a bag of frozen spinach.’

‘If I lived on my own, I would just leave it in the garden and see what happens to it. Maybe take pictures to document to process.’

‘Then you could keep the skull once all of the flesh is gone.’

‘Oh my God! That is the best idea! I’m going to remove the flesh, keep the skull, and paint it purple. I will put it on a shelf, and everyone will think it is some kind of novelty item I bought at Urban Outfitters.’

‘I think if you boil it the skin comes off, I’ve seen it on CSI.’

‘Well there you go, I will boil it and have a pet skull. I think I’m going to call it Raymond.’

‘It’s interesting that the skull would have like, a separate identity once it’s only a skull.’

‘Yeah man, Raymond will be a big improvement. He won’t smell of after shave for starters, and he won’t be into panel shows with Jimmy Carr.’

‘He won’t wear fleece jumpers.’

‘He couldn’t if he wanted to, because he doesn’t have a body.’

‘He won’t listen to U2 and insist that you just don’t get them.’

‘He won’t listen to anything because he doesn’t have any ears.’

‘He won’t tell you to stop listening to Rihanna and get into some ‘proper music’.

‘He won’t tell me anything, because he doesn’t have a fucking mouth.’

 

When we come home, Susan’s housemates are all in the kitchen so we leave the head in the car for now, on the floor under the passenger seat.

We order two portions of egg fried rice, twelve vegetarian spring rolls, plain egg foo yong, crispy duck pancakes, and broccoli chicken.

 

The Wicked Witch of Uithoorn

This is an autobiographical short story I wrote for my creative writing course at uni :)

~

I look around in drawers and cabinets and under piles of rubbish to find as many sets of coloured pencils as I can. I find four, providing me with seven different shades of blue. My mum has brought home a little tableau of traditional Dutch tiles from my nan that I can use as an example. Square tiles in slightly different shades of white, the edges have crumbled a little on some of them, and they all have little flowers in the corners and simple drawings of children playing in the middle. I carefully copy the corner decorations on the square piece of paper I cut out, using three shades of blue to make it more exciting. When my school teacher gave us this assignment, he said that we could draw anything we wanted as long as it as in the style of Dutch tile work. I decided immediately that I was going to draw a witch, flying on a broomstick. I noticed that the children on my nan’s tiles had very simple faces that all looked alike, so I didn’t put as much details in my witch’s warts as I would have usually. Next to me on my desk is a stack of other drawings. They are all of witches. Some of them flying, some of them dancing around a steaming cauldron, some of them engaged in a Witches Council meeting, discussing the recent influx of vampires in the witch kingdom. The witch on the tile is our previous Witch Queen, I realise, and the tile is the centrepiece of the tiling in the kitchen of the witches palace. The current queen doesn’t actually live in the palace, she prefers her own hut where she can talk to the neighbours.

On Monday I bring the drawing of the witch tile to school. The teacher makes us put all of our drawings on the big notice board in the back of the classroom, and says we’ll go through them all and mark them after lunch. Some kids have drawn footballers in bright red shirts with a green background, or princesses in pink frilly dresses with purple hearts around them. Only a few people have put in the corner decorations. After the lunch break, which I spend outside in the bushes trying to find a twig that has the right shape to be used a communication device to let the other witches know I’m still alive, the teacher puts us all in a half-circle in front of the wall full of drawings. He starts with the one in the upper right corner, a kind of yellow rectangle with black bits in random places. Rick explains that it is a Ferrari. He gets 7 out of 10.

‘You didn’t really follow the instructions,’ the teacher says, ‘but it’s still a really good effort, and I can tell you used a ruler and made sure you didn’t colour outside the lines. Very well done!’

The teacher is a man who has marked a spot on his desk with duct tape where you’re supposed to put your notebook for inspection. Right next to a sheet of paper, taped to the desk, where your name is written up if you have scratched out any words or made any capital letters too big or too small. Tania once drew a small red heart in her maths workbook and he made her sit in a corner by herself for a week.

Leonie has done her tile all in blue just like me, and has drawn a girl singing into a microphone. The teacher isn’t quite sure about this one.

‘You haven’t used the correct colouring method again. Do you realise your drawing looks like a mess?’ 

Leonie shrugs.

‘I can’t give you anything higher than a 6 for this, you understand that right?’ She shrugs again. Stephen gets a 7.5 for his drawing of an airplane, and everyone gasps in awe when Jackie gets a 9 for her princess on a horse.

Then it’s my turn. I get so excited I do that thing where I pull up my shoulders into a cramp.

‘I see you’ve had a good look at the way the old tiles look, you’ve done the flowers in the corner and everything. But, and just to make it clear that this is a question for the whole class, has anyone ever seen a traditional tile with a witch on a broomstick on it?’
Everyone is silent. He continues, ‘What you have been doing again is abusing a school assignment to just go ahead and draw something that you like. You were supposed to learn something about our culture, but you thought your interest in witches was more important. Or was that not the reason?’

My shoulders are going to be stuck in this position forever. I stare at my shoes, trying to think of an answer.

‘I did try to really make it look like a real tile.’ 

‘Everyone can just copy the actual tiles, that is not nearly enough. I will give you a 5.5, but actually this is unacceptable.’

~

I climb into the tree behind my nan’s garden shed and look out over the field. I’m spending some time with Ignis, a helping ghost made from an old sock with buttons for eyes. He asks me if I’m angry. We communicate spiritually rather than vocally. ‘I am still angry actually, yes. But I am also glad, and I’m not sure why.’ Ignis suggests that it is perhaps a good idea to take some leaves from the tree and cook a magic potion that will make school stop existing. We get out of the tree and I take a pan from the kitchen cupboard, and fill it with wet grass and water. A muddy brown fish comes out of the ditch and walks over to me.

‘I would add a little bit of sludge to the potion if I were you,’ he says. 

‘Yes, thank you for your input,’ says Ignis, ‘I think we can manage just fine without you.’

I don’t really understand why he is so dismissive of fish, and make a mental note to apologise to the fish on his behalf soon.

Later on, while Ignis is taking a nap, I have a really good chat about it with a skeleton that has recently moved into my neighbourhood. His name is Mek. I think that’s a very strange name, but who am I to judge? 

‘Actually,’ Mek says, ‘you don’t have to be afraid of the teacher. Do you really think he could take on someone as powerful as you? You have the Witch Queen on your side, and I can put in a good word for you with the other skeletons. People fear us, we are the stuff of nightmares, but you are our friend.’ 

‘I’m not quite sure about that. I don’t think teachers are afraid of witches and skeletons.’

‘That’s because they don’t know we exist. Didn’t you used to be afraid of me? You said the idea that there was a skeleton living inside your mum and dad made you scared at night.’

I don’t understand Mek’s logic. ‘That’s different, because now that I know skeletons won’t come into my room at night it’s not quite so scary anymore.’

‘Aah, we may not come into YOUR room at night, but who’s to say we won’t do it to him? I might even see if there’s a couple of zombies that would be willing to do it.’

I tense up, I am very uncomfortable around zombies. I know skeletons and zombies tend to get on very well, but I still don’t quite trust them. I think the problem is that they don’t really talk, whereas with most skeletons I’ve met I’ve been able to have really interesting conversations. 

‘Just leave it to me,’ Mek says, ‘I will take care of it.’

~

I cycle to school with my mum the next day when it’s still dark, and when we cross the bridge I can see a bright white light coming from the direction of the football club. It’s a zombie light, I’ve learned recently. If the light is on, the zombies are out there. The closer we get to school, the more convinced I become that when I‘ll arrive, class will be cancelled. The teacher will not show up to work today, and when his worried colleagues will go see if he’s home they will only find a pile of bones. One of the zombies will have left a note that says ‘We ate him. Love, zombies.’ The Witch Queen has cast a spell on the bones to make sure that he won’t come back as a skeleton.

When I walk into the classroom the teacher is standing by the notice board, telling Eva’s mum about the Dutch tile project. His face is not the face of a man who’s been confronted with skeletons or zombies in the last few hours. I sit down at my table. Maybe the zombies will eat him tomorrow.

Toehair

I sit down on the floor of the bathroom, and bend my leg upwards far enough so I can look at the big toe on my right foot as closely as possible. There are about 5 to 7 thick black hairs on it, roughly a centimetre in length, and several thinner, shorter ones. The nail is a little rough around the edges. The upper bit is partly covered in purple nail varnish, the lower half is a yellowy white. I take a good five minutes to stare at it. If the toe belonged to someone else, I might be mildly disgusted by it, and I still am on a certain level, but I love to stare at it. I reach for the razor, and carefully remove the hairs. Then I do the same to my other foot. I bend over in all kinds of positions, in order to shave every part of my body. The three dark hairs below my bellybutton fill me with anger. When I’ve finished shaving, I take a good look in the big mirror on my wall. I’m quite content about the hairlessness, but the pasty white flesh of my thighs and belly not so much. I grab a bottle of self-tan and rub some on the upper bit of my left thigh, then down to my knee, and then I do the same thing for my other leg. After a few minutes, both my legs have an orangey glow about them. It’s not really an improvement.

I put on a pair of knickers that is a size too small. The flesh of my hips spills over the top, the soft pink stretch marks standing out against the blue-y white of the rest of my body. As a sort of challenge, I wonder if I can make myself look anymore disgusting. Luckily I find an old pair of skin-coloured tights. I pull them up all the way to the smallest part of my waist. I laugh because it’s ironic that I would call anything about my body ‘small’. The tights pull my belly in, squishing the flesh underneath the beige fabric. Knickers and tights without a bra is really the most ridiculous and revolting outfit there is. When I bend over the underside of my boobs touches the upper part of the tights, it tickles in an unpleasant way. I get into bed, but not before changing into pyjama bottoms and a long sleeved shirt. I don’t want my revolting body to touch the sheets, as I’ve only just changed them yesterday.

I wake up to see the sunshine pouring into my bedroom from between the curtains. I avoid the mirror when I go to the bathroom to have a wash, and quickly dry myself without looking at my body. I put on a pair of black tights and my most flattering deep green velvet dress. I struggle to get the zipper up, but it gets there. Feeling brave, I decide to have a peak in the mirror. I pull several ridiculous poses; my hands on my hips, bent forwards with my hands on my knees, one leg pulled up. I like what I see. I go heavy black eyeliner and put my hair up in a messy bun. I look in the mirror again. My clothes and my make-up is what defines me, not my body. It is going to be a good day, I decide as I slip my feet into a pair of purple platform shoes.

The lives of the Useless Lock, the Disfigured Deer Head & others

By Nienke Schellinkhout Diaz and Babet Klaassen.

The Useless Lock

The Useless Lock looks across his street. It was jammed with cars being loud as ever.

“I feel so damn rusty! I hate mornings. How many mornings have I spent here anyway? Hanging on this brick wall? If only someone would use me. To be honest, I’m so rusty, after all these months, years, I don’t think they can open me… let alone notice me.”

He sighs. The cars walk off.

 “Finally, those loud bastards are g…” The lock’s heart skips a beat.

“Bloody Nora! Where’s the graffiti lady? Shit! Oh fuck, they cleaned her!”

A few weeks ago the graffiti had appeared on the wall opposite. She was nice to the lock.

“Aah I can still remember that face, she told me it was Stephen Hawking. And the text underneath her face made me feel so much better. ‘Because I am worth it, aren’t you?”

He notices a bit of paint on the street, the only thing left of the graffiti.

“You! Hey you!” the Lock yells.

The paint looks up indifferent.

“Why’s she gone?”

“Fuck you!” the paint replies, “You think I’ll be your mate? You’ve never noticed me, only her! Now she’s gone though!”

Facebook Robot

It’s not that no one sees us, it’s that no one takes the time to look.

Things have improved since we locked the stuffed animals in a jar. We cannot hear their screams now, they are sealed off from the rest of us. I never liked stuffed animals, their soft fluffy texture repels me.

PDthingsyouwant. But who ever takes into consideration what I want? To be fair, the Queen Elisabeth in pink to the far right does sometimes. Last month we had a quite nice conversation about the disfigured deer head up the read, and I really felt like she was in on my opinions on the matter. The Queen Elisabeth in yellow is a right bitch though.

Disfigured Deer Head

Silently I scream. I can feel the orange hat tickling my ear, it hurts. From the corner of my eye I can see the tiaras, they glitter brightly when the sun hits the window. I don’t think there is anything I wouldn’t give to wear one of those tiaras. That’s the thing, the monkeys don’t understand feeling out of place like I do. I am not the kind of deer who wears an orange hat, I am the kind of deer who wears a tiara, and purple eyelashes. The monkeys are content wearing their stupid sunglasses, grinning like idiots. They don’t feel my pain.

But that’s peanuts in comparison to the gargoyle situation. Ever since they got involved, and yes, by ‘they’ I mean that damn crocodile, ever since he got involved it has all gone downhill.

“Oi, quit your whining!” says the monkey on the right.

“You don’t know what it’s like, you simple primate, you wouldn’t understand how soul crushing it is to constantly have your masculinity questioned by a gargoyle situation just because you prefer to wear a tiara or a fur coat!”

“Aye, shut your mouth. Pubic hair? Not around my neck!”

“You don’t have a neck, you berk.”

The Handprint

“I remember the hand that made me,” the pink handprint says to the text next to him, THING.

“It was big, short thick fingers dripping with pink sticky stuff.”

THING laughed, “Yeah it was a bloke, bit mental. You know that wedding cake next door? “

“Behind bars?”

“Year… ever noticed it’s pink too?”

“Come to think of it…”

“Well the bloke had broken in and tried to steal the cake, but he was caught and had to run, but they pressed him to the wall. Cuffed him right here.”

The handprint cannot believe it.

“Are you telling me my maker is a thief?!”

THING looked away. “I’m sorry…”

“I wish you hadn’t told me that. I used to like to remember that hand. Now I know it was a thief. And that I’m just a bit of that fugly old tart! Oh Jesus!”

“Really, I’m sorry…” said THING.

“Look Nienke, the Stephen Hawking graffiti has been removed. Let’s take a picture of that.”

“Ooh yes, and I think there might be some interesting things in the shop window across the road.”

“This robot! And those Queen Elisabeth dolls!”

“Babet look over there in the jokeshop. A disfigured deer head, and monkeys in sunglasses.”

“I’ve never noticed there were gargoyles on top of that building, have you?”

“No! Can you get a picture of the crocodile?”

It wasn’t that no one had ever seen them before, it was the fact that on that sunny morning, those two girls had captured their souls with their cameraphone.

From that day on, the Facebook Robot, the stuffed animals, the Queen Elisabeths, the Useless Lock, the disappeared Stephen Hawking graffiti, the paint splatter, the disfigured deer head, the monkeys with sunglasses on, the gargoyles, the weddingcake and the handprint would forever be silent.