the ballad of alan borky 1.3

7/28/2019 The Ballad of Alan Borky 1.3

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OUSPENSKYVILLE

Alan Borkwood, 88 Tunnel Road, Liverpool L7 6LS, tel: 0151 709 0521 1

OUSPENSKYVILLE or The Ballad of Alan Borky 1.3

There was a consolation though because while I was gono have to pay for a

sandwich I didnt want Id now get to take a better look round the joint whilst

avoiding the possibility of embarrassing meself by asking 'stupid' fucking

questions.

But after waiting what LITERALLY seemed like hours I now became

convinced I was losing it again because not only did I keep suddenly finding

myself somehow right back down the queue everytime I couldve sworn I

was on the verge of reaching the till but the longer things kept dragging on

the more convinced I became customers Id seen make their purchases and

leave were somehow sneaking back in the queue ahead of me without any one

but me seemingly noticing a thing whichsprobably one of the reasons why

when the infernally loud harsh brassy k-TCHING! sounded for the umpteenth

bastarding time and yet another icy tornado calamitously once more robbed

the shop of any last vestige of heat itd begun to accumulate all the willpower

whichd been mounting in me to finally work up the nerve to break out from

the queue and make for the open door seemed to just suddenly fizzle right out

leaving me feeling defeated and crushed and like Id never know what it felt

like to be warm or dry ever again.

But now I knew this Sandwich Shop business wasnt going to be over until I

finally managed to reach the till and stay there without somehow magically

slipping back the other way it was inevitable Id start tryno distract myself

from the tyranny of the endlessly repeating harsh brassy k-TCHING! rattling

the teeth in my skull by dreaming up yet more new ways to torture myself.


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For instance how very remiss of me tove neglected going overall those

possible forthcoming harrowing scenarios whichd be bound to unfold the

moment I finally got to order the bastarding sandwich I didnt want. I mean

would I for instance have enough on me to actually be able to pay for it?

Well of course thatd depend on how much I actually had on me and as I

bleedin full well knew since I'd actually come out with a tenner and hadn't

done anything with it therefore logically RATIONALLY I must still have a

tenner on me but unable to resist making certain I hadnt somehow blacked

out on the way and managed to spend it without actually noticing or more

straightforwardly simply somehow lost it I now began surreptitiously patting

the contents of each pocket only for my blood to run cold the moment I

realised I couldn't find it.

Resisting the urge to start tearing my hair out in a fit of pique and terror at the

thought I really might be about to make a fool of myself over it I was

suddenly struck by how both sides of the queue seemed to subtly incline away

from me whenever I started gushing sweat out of every pore orifice or nook

and cranny in my body making me obsess for a moment if I had a body odour

problem but before I had a chance to enthusiastically snatch up that particular

baton and run with it I managed to sufficiently compose myself to veer my

attention back towards starting on a second much more thorough survey of

my pockets finding the task made all the more difficult by the fact not only

did every groaning individual bone and muscle in my body feel encrusted and

riddled through with needles of ice but me hands were so frozen I could

barely sufficiently unclench them to begin surreptitiously insinuating my


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fingers slowly between the rough rippled unyielding layers of the rain and

sleet thickened denim of my jeans paradoxically shrunken pockets hence it

came as no surprise everytime I did finally manage to tease something

sufficiently to the surface to be able to catch a furtive glimpse of what it

might be out the lower corner of my eye it always seemed to have the soggy

amorphous appearance of bundles of grey pulp.

Eventually though I managed to clandestinely extract from the brass stud

decorated corner of one particularly freezing water filled pocket something I

was finally able to visually confirm was indeed the tenner hence I began

relaxing because YES the tenner was there and YES it was still a tenner and

YES it hadnt somehow transformed itself into a sodding sodden fiver or a

crushed gold foiled wrapped chocolate coin or the mutilated remains of an old

bus ticket or a piece of notepaper or what used to be an old piece of snotty

tissue or simply dissolve out of existence.

But of course the moment I finally shoved it back in my pocket I immediately

began worrying I mightve accidentally shoved it to the floor instead.

The perfectly logical RATIONAL solution of course was to simply gaze

down round my feet for any sign of it but it now occurred to me if I did that

Id immediately alert everyone in the queue I thought Id dropped something

of value though of course I knew full bleedin well most of the guys round me

looked such authentic fugitives from a police lineup for bag-snatchers if I

really HAD dropped the tennertheydveplucked it out the air long before it

had a chance of ever even beginning to fall at which point my growing

nonchalance immediately disappeared the moment it suddenly occurred to me


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how completely fucking awful itd be ifwhen the time finally came to pay for

the bastarding sandwich I didnt wanted my assumption these thoughts were

just me neurotically entertaining myself were replaced by a shocked

awareness I actually HAD dropped the bastarding tenner.

Hence it was I now became trapped in an endlessly repeating neurotic loop of

checking me pocket the note was still there shoving the damned thing straight

back down then immediately worrying THIS time I mightve REALLY

pushed it to the floor and of course every desperate effort I now made to pull

myself together and snap out such a ludicrous state of mind only seemed to

exacerbate my ever more neurotic need to be certain.

Hence in spite of it being the middle of winter I now began sweating like a

pig resulting in the tenner gradually becoming more and more sodden more

and more mangled so much so I started worrying its ink might run until I

pointed out to myself how it was a stone cold scientific fact paper money was

specifically designed to preclude precisely this possibility until it then

occurred to me this wouldnt apply if the tenner was actually a forgery perfect

in every way save for one tell-tale detail that when exposed to perspiration

from the body of any poor bastarding twat called Alan Borky its inkd run as

freely as the Niagara Falls of cold glutinous sweat which now started

cascading down my back into the crack between my pert and glistening arse

cheeks hence I now found myself not only interminably checking the tenner

was still there and still a tenner but also nerve rackingly alert for any signs of

smudging. Assuming that is Id actually be able to see them through the

torrential curtain of battery acid now gushing out my brow and

simultaneously burning and drowning my eyes.


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But as if all that wasn't enough to be getting on with it now occurred to me

even if the tenner was still there still a tenner and NOT a forgery itdbe just

like me at exactly the moment when the public executioner like eyes of

everyone in the joint were all fixed on me with laser beam intensity to order

the one fucking sandwich in the entire world which cost more than a tenner.

Oh god what would everyone think of me? I was a cheapskate? I was poor?

I was tryno avoid paying? I was deliberately causing a nuisance? I was

deliberately holding up in the queue? I was a bunko artist? I was tryno pass

off a homemade tenner me or one of the other mentalpatients at the homed

made from brown daubed toilet paper freshly plucked from the bog?

The only thing worsed be ifthe girls at the till now suddenly cottoned on I

was also that very same semi-precious stone robbing pervert whodbeen

ogling them outside while suggestively rubbing his hands and hips up and

down the ever more slimy window pane before then having the nerve to

actually come inside the shop and keep returning to the back of the queue to

give himself more perving time pumping his hand in and out his pocket while

furtively eyeing up and down the female staff at which point my sweating

now abandoned its hitherto comparatively gentle flow and like the contents of

a bullet riddled barrel suddenly started bursting forth in huge great torrents

pshhh! from my brow pshhh! from my face pshhh! from my neck pshhh!

from my spine pshhh! from my armpits and pshhh-shhh-shhh-shhh! from my

bollocks arse crotch and legs bringing my already perilously weighed down

soggy undercrackers to the brink of actually dissolving on my body while at

the same time my heart was beating so erratically in between various


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explosive attempts to jackhammer its way out me ribs it genuinely felt on the

verge of exploding like an overripe tomato a prospect somehow poetically

counterbalanced by my correspondingly intense awareness my dry papery

bagged lungs were now pumping in and out so hard in their desperation to

suck in air which no longer seemed to be there they genuinely felt on the

verge of collapsing or even imploding.

And yet what does soft bollocks do to alleviate his distress in the midst of all

this mental and physical chaos? Why of course I suddenly chose that moment

to become embarrassed at noticing how the sweat continuously gushing down

onto my legs and out over my shoesd formed two huge ever expanding lakes

round my feet a deeply ironic development given how my feet were

practically the only part of my body that never seemed to sweat!

Yet what really finished me off wasnt all the gallons of slimy icy sweat I

feared might be me melting away or the thought how embarrassing all the

violent spastic jerks twitches and facial/body convulsions must be making me

appear nor even my ever growing anxiety my inability to stop my tenner-

checking hand incessantly pumping in and out my pocket might eventually

result in someone calling the police station round the corner. It was the plain

old-fashioned hybrid claustrophobia/agoraphobia panic attack which now

resulted in the walls and ceiling of the shop seemingly starting to buckle and

bend and zoom off into infinity whilst simultaneously claustrophobically

closing in on me like an airless second skin somehow.

Hence desperate at no longer being able to breathe I now found myself

making a break from the queue at precisely the moment time seemed to slow


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down almost to a dead stop making the very fabric of space itself seem to

thicken and assume the consistency of very dense elastic glue forcing me into

what almost felt like a life and death struggle with some unseen living thing

determined I was never gono reach that shop door even as the door itself

now seemed to shrink down to the size of a postage stamp and pull away from

me off into the infinite distance making me feel like I was no longer running

on the spot but actually getting pushed backwards even as the black and white

tessellated surface of the shop floor now appeared to fold in on itself in a

series of three dimensional intertwining psychedelic swirls and whorls and

my stomach experienced a catastrophic plunging sensation as the ground

itself seemed to physically buckle and seethe and plummet beneath my feet as

if the concrete below the tilesd somehow turned to jelly or the tiles

themselves were now the surface of a huge very badly made trampoline.

Yet in spite of reality seeming to turn itself and me inside out or perhaps

because of it not to mention a seemingly indomitable cussedness not to be

railroaded into something against my will I somehow managed to

haphazardly stagger my way across the spiralling black and white maelstrom

of the floor like a wildly tottering drunk and get near enough to the door to be

able to briefly cleave to its old-fashioned gleaming brass-handle for sanctuary

only for the moment I now began trying to tug it open to become electrified

by the mind-blowing realisation not only were the door and the handle in

some inexplicable way both alive with their own form of intelligence but the

evil little bastards were gleefully resisting my every desperate attempt to prise

the damned thing open and escape until gambling everything on either

exerting enough physical force to actually rip the door from its hinges or give

meself an apoplexy they finally yielded. Yet even then the cackling little


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bastards couldn't resist playing one last final dirty trick on me by exhorting

the old fashioned brass bell at the top to let out one final extra loud and harsh

Big Ben sized K-TCHING!!! just to make certain no one failed to notice the

sodden semi-precious stone thieving self-abusing pervert was finally leaving

their midst.

But who gave a shit because all that mattered was I finally getting out o that

place yet there I was hanging in mid-air doing my very best impression of

Shaggy and Scooby Doo at the moment theyre no longer running on the spot

but actually about to accelerate away from Ol Man Masterson disguised as

the Swamp Mummy from Mars exhilarated by my awareness sheer

momentum was about to carry me chest first over the threshold my senses

dazzled by the contrast of the Sandwich Shops harshly brilliant acid yellow

tinged electric lighting and the now somehow unspeakably beautiful dank

gloom outside ravished by the gorgeous cocktail created by the chilled street

air rushing to meet and intermingle with the hot swirling savoury scented

shop air enveloping me as I breathed in a huge delicious soul-expanding sigh

of relief in anticipation of that last final momentous Neil Armstrong-sized

step whichd complete my return to planet Earth only to hear instead of the

heart-rending squeak of my new left shoes sole finally making contact with

the wet and slippery muddy marbled surface of the Sandwich Shops quaintly

old-fashioned black and white mosaic front step an oddly familiar voice

shrilly half croak half quack "These books in the window are they for sale?"

before realising to my complete and utter horror the voice was mine.

the ballad of alan borky 1.3

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