Author Archives: Tony Single

Covid Diary pp. 36-37

An email address is all you need to get payback.

There’s no need to hack anything, find a back door, or enter the Matrix like a pissed off Neo. Just visit their social media accounts, rummage through their footprints in the global network, puke a couple of times at their selfies with skinny grandmothers and chubby kittens, and bada boom! You’re about to destroy the life of someone who’s trying to destroy yours. Use that person’s email to leave some provocative comments on various news sites, forums and anywhere else online, then sit back and watch everything about them unravel into glorious chaos.

I haven’t limited my imagination either. I’ve thought outside the box, even running circles around it and performing hyperkinetic rain dances in order to create the most damning shit possible. My moves have been so calculated that my stalker should soon be ‘enjoying’ a run-in with the law. The police, the federal police, the army, and at least four or five other official bodies with many intimidating letters in their titles ought to be crashing through his front door any day now. I believe the internet gaming community calls it ‘swatting’.

Of course, I’m not an idiot, which is why I’ve posted this bullshit from internet cafes and the like, and not my personal PC. I may be a girl but I’m pretty aware of how IP addresses can be tracked. And with the kinds of outrageous things I’m writing in my stalker’s name, I definitely don’t want those traced back to me!

PS: All that social media bullshit came to an abrupt halt within two days. But I’ve not had a chance to bask in this sweet tasting victory because all my personal accounts were banned by each site’s administrators. Pretty suspicious if you ask me. I mean, ALL of them?! I’ve a hunch that my stalker probably decided to burn everything to the ground before being hauled off to whatever grand punishment awaits him. Never mind. It’s high time to put a pause on my virtual life anyway.

It’s good sometimes to step outside and pat the grass.

PPS: Fuck. That went downhill fast. Now I’m at the clink, face to face with my stalker—well, not exactly face to face. He’s across the room, handcuffed to a railing near the watercooler, answering the female detective’s questions.

He still doesn’t know what I look like but I certainly know him from the selfies on his social media accounts. He’s a lot shorter than I expected in real life. I can’t believe he’s trying to flirt with the detective who’s clearly a lot taller and a lot less interested.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

PERFECTION IN ACTION // The Last Bedtime Story

Her hair was like straw, a far cry from how it used to be. She no longer adorned it with dandelions. Nor did she wear clovers or ladybugs to make it grin with a certain visual poetry. No, a brush of dry, prickly, lifeless bristles was all that greeted his touch.

“Don’t worry, honey,” she whispered, cutting a faded tress. “We’ll bring our Summer back.”

And so they painted on the lush green grass with the remnants of her youth. Dewy dandelions and sleepy ladybugs. Clovers and sweet peas. Then the hedgehogs joined them in the sunlight, and they danced.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

nadir

there was no reason to stay
there was no reason to leave
so they hid behind their faces
and nothing happened

they didn’t fall in love
they didn’t sing their own songs
they didn’t even get a pity fuck

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

GUEST POST // An Octogenarian’s Pandemic by Barrie Purnell

There’s been some sort of epidemic
So say all-knowing academics,
A kind of dread Chinese infection
Designed to avoid early detection,
Resulting in oxygen deprivation
For which there was no known protection.
The government and the NHS
Said, what to do we can only guess
But until we can make up our minds
You must avoid contact of any kind,
Wash your hands 10 times a day
Put your going out clothes away,
And for restrictions we’ll atone
By paying you to stay at home.
Said if lockdown we don’t apply
Half a million would surely die,
But something they didn’t say
Was all of us would have to pay,
All the costs of shutting down
To the tune of 300 billion pound.
I have to think they’ve lost their mind
Paying ½ billion to save a life like mine.

On the news the professor reported
We’d all go mad before it was sorted,
But when I had the time to reflect
Saw on me it would have little effect.
I was allowed to form a bubble
With neighbour who said, it was no trouble
To do a supermarket shop for me
Of fresh food, bread, milk and tea,
And I booked an on-line delivery
Which hitherto had been a mystery.
My hour long visits to numerous clinics
Were now phone calls over in minutes,
And no waiting in a doctors surgery
With ill people sitting next to me,
Covering me in their coughs and sneezes
Spreading their as yet unknown diseases,
And oh what joy when they disclosed
All the dentists would be closed.
No visits from that demanding relation
Requiring clean sheets on each occasion.
My expenditure had been decreased,
From hugging I had been released,
No longer was I considered rude
When I indulged my love of solitude.
I don’t spend weekends in hotels
Or holiday in the Seychelles,
I have nobody to look after
I have no fear of the hereafter.
I thought now I will have the time
To watch programmes on Amazon Prime,
Then there was Netflix and Catch-Up TV
Opportunities spread out endlessly.
The prospect of gardening reared its head
Or I could do DIY instead.
Then there were all those books to read
Which would increase my reading speed,
And when these became less exciting
I could always try to do some writing.

But as months ran into longer time
I missed the freedom once was mine,
I missed the human interaction
Leading to increasing dissatisfaction.
I wondered if this imposed ban
Affected this old solitary man,
Someone long past his prime
Already living on borrowed time,
How much harder would it have been
If I had been just seventeen?
And here I had to face the truth,
We chose to sacrifice our youth,
They lost out on jobs and education,
On teenage fun and socialization.
My few remaining years protected
By youth, who even if they were infected,
Would avoid serious complication
And wouldn’t require hospitalisation,
But who’d be paying back for many years
The billions spent to keep our conscience clear.
So we mortgaged millions of young lives
To try and help the old survive.
Was this right, we don’t know yet
Or something the country will regret?
Maybe result would have been the same
If they’d just locked up the old and lame,
And supplied any help they needed
Until search for vaccine had succeeded.
Having lived through rationing and the blitz.
The old could surely have survived this?

Each year 600000 deaths are seen
From causes other than COVID 19,
For every 1 that from COVID died
Cancer and heart disease killed 5.
Now on the news a man of 99
Is said to have died before his time!!
What’s new is that now each day,
Presented in graphical display,
Death is there for all of us to see
We’re confronted by our own mortality.
Everyday more of the same
Until we look for someone to blame
For the extra deaths of an aged few,
As if death was something new,
When we have been able to ignore
The millions who have died before.
Only when that eulogy is read
Over the special one we’ve loved who’s dead,
Do we realise death is always with us
Even if it’s something we don’t discuss.
As mortals why do we believe
From death we alone could be reprieved?
Heart attack, cancer or suicide,
Broken heart or homicide,
Immortality is our minds biggest lie
COVID ………just another way to die.

by BARRIE PURNELL
© All rights reserved 2021

ABSURDIS EXTREME // Case Study #571 [01/04/2043] by B.A. Loney

This is the story of three cabbageheads: Cauliflower, Romanesco and Kale.

Cauliflower was the most effeminate of them. Most people had him pegged as being gay, but they were wrong. He simply wasn’t your typical manly man type. He openly enjoyed high teas, cross-stitching and frothy, scented bubble baths with rose petals. Oh, and he liked to wear pink in public.

Romanesco, of course, was the one most prone to flummadiddle. On a whim, he’d visited a couple of lectures about equiangular spirals, Fibonacci and determinism, and made absolutely nothing of it. Nevertheless, he was fearfully proud of his learnings. Also, he loved to wax lyrical about the wonders of nature, naturally identifying himself as one of them.

Kale was the serious one. He was a fan of lukewarm tea, Meccano, and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. He also owned the world’s largest collection of abacuses which he dusted daily. He would never smile, preferring to nod slightly whenever something pleased him—which wasn’t often. He also slept on a wooden slab because mattresses were too soft and would always mess with his back.

So, as you can see, they were vivid persons; each in their own way. Maybe they weren’t the best persons in the world but they’d sinned in good company at least. But now to the main question. A question of cabbage salad.

Firstly, what is cabbage salad? Is it a salad made purely of cabbage? Does there need to be more than one cabbage involved or can it just be the best bits of the one cabbage? Can other salady things such as corn and tomato slices be included? Can the cabbage salad be nude or does it need dressing?

Secondly, is cabbage salad better than other kinds of salad? Is it more regal than, say, Caesar salad? Is it more worthwhile eating than fruit or bean salad? Is it superior to potato salad because it can be eaten during even a famine? If only the scientists had known.

Speaking of such, science is the study of observed phenomena. While we were preparing this scientific content, a very irresponsible goat came along and gobbled up our central subjects of study, Cauliflower, Romanesco and Kale. So, we’ll need to stop the experiment here and make another trip to the supermarket.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021