| Mavis and George CHAPTER ONE : 1 It was like finding termites on the brow of Jesus. The pain stabbed into him, and the drizzle of a thousand nightmares swirled in his head. He fell to his knees, dropping wallpaper on the otherwise pristine fitted carpet. A shrill old cackle came from the landing, chilling every sound wave it endured. Mavis had arrived. 2 She was tall, scraggy and held a stepladder to one side. The rigid corner dragging shades of dark along the patterns of carpet, a brush held neatly to its side. �Want a hand?� she asked in a voice coated with pleasnety, but it was a strain to stop it sagging. Evil was bolted to it like a sidecar. �No� George said dryly, holding up his hands. �I�ve got two already� Mavis spears a boney finger at George. �Come� she said �I need your soul�. 3 George wipes a turret of sweat from his head. The excessive wall paper paste means it gets stuck there for a moment or two. Then three. And then four. Finally it is forced free tearing a shread of head away from its usual location. �Bollocks� George whimpered, his other hand leapt to his wound, the blood surfacing beneath it. �Shit!� he whispered as Mavis contained a snigger. He turned to her looking at the cavaty just uncovered. �Why does God�have pornography?� �It was put there by the last decorators� Mavis explained. �You know, harden the old cock�s image�. �That�s probably not the best expression� George says. �Stupid bastard ought to do his own wallpapering� Mavis reflected, sloshing more paste over the cracked surface. �Upper classes, eh?� CHAPTER TWO 1 Later that day was earlier that evening. A mound of confusion arose in Georges brain. How could that be � were the clocks wrong? Someone was lying and it wasn�t him � he was standing up. On some stepladders, loosely supported by the cold, unreliable hands of Mavis. �Mavis - Why do you want my soul?� he asked. �I�ve ran out of panini world cup stickers� she grinned broadly. He fell off the steps, banging his head again. 2 �Mavis!, that�s a bit of a step up, isn�t it? There�s plenty of soul collecters out there. It�s dangerous! There�s the devil, this wallpaper God hippie and the Chinese mafia.� �I�m not afraid of any of them. Not even the porno king�. �That guy who own�s Birmingham city?� . George CHAPTER THREE 1 George struggled to find the remote control. It was somewhere, but he couldn�t see a television so it wasn�t worth looking. He struggled to care, so he didn�t even look. One was in his hand, incaped like a muzzle of glue and paste. He looked at his wallpaper �fine, fine job� he thought. �Should I do it again?� It�d pass the time before my next call�. Visions of the ghostbusters flashed through his head. If only there was a film about emergency wallpapering. He�d be the star and not that guy from blues brothers. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a bulge in his recently completed fresh wallpapering. A bulge? He never had a bulge � it was a family tradition. His prized craft. Handed down from generation to next - a baton packed with skill and fiercely guarded family secrets. Never had they been so secure before the time of George � he had forgotten them. 2 She collected souls for the rest of the day, missing her part time wallpapering job and leaving George to struggle along. When the evening settled into night she had four and stuck them in a book. None were much good, but not a bad haul for a beginner. They had lost their way in the middle of their lives, stale and flat like old pop 3 The square blob on the other side of the wall goaded him, every glance pulled strands out of his web of family precision. �I�ve wallpapered over the television� he said. And a rock hit his inner pride. 4 �Give us your soul!� cried the haggard witch, her eyes sulken beneath the rim of her costume hat. �Give us your soul!� she snorted at passerbys, who quickened their pace along the street. �I�ll look after you for ever.� Mavis promised �Keep and never destroy. There are two paths to eternity, but people die before they get there.� The doctor looked at her strangely. �You alright?� he asked waving a handsignal behind him. Somewhere nearby, a car engine prowled into action. 5 �I�ve wallpapered the settee as well!� George clutched his head in disbelief, trying to release the grip of his agony. After a distressed lungful bellow of frustration, the redecorating started. 6 A shiver of fear struck Mavis� nose, making her brain rattle. Her wolf like eyes widened and fixed on the black car swimming towards her. Cutting rapidly through a shoal of helpless pedestrians. In an instant the future uncoiled before her. Her body sque.ezed aside reasoning, leaving the solid bones of instinct. All thoughts of souls faded. Her jaw hung open dumbly for a spilt second before closing itself with a soft pop. How had they found her so fast? 7 �That�s better�. George relaxed, his clothes sticking to the shabby setee. The television now revealed itself. Sitting proud with the wallpaper behind it. Somehow it looked sad, lifeless. A glossy pane to a dull world that would only sparkle with absent electricty. Now where was the remote? This simple question stapeled itself to the happiness of a freshly decorated room, lobsiding it, threatening to pull down the mood of relief. He looked around the room and terror hit him as he tilted his vision skywards. More hard pockets of wallpaper hung like mutated stalegtites. He squinted to make out the shapes. One was a square oblong, possibly a phone. Another quite clearly a houseplant and yes, as he suspected, the remote control he hadn�t looked for since he last decorated. He could tell as the dull red light shone, transmitting useless instuctions to an obscure corner of the room. He sighed and tried to get up. The seat resisited his movements, clinging to him in a tangle of fibre and wallpaper paste. He was tugged down then gave up the struggle landing clumsily like a rocket on elastic. From somewhere on his body fell an object to the floor. A strange remote control left infront of him. 8 Mavis grabbed her small and unplesent bundle of belongings and ran towards a back alley. The doctor made a failing swoop for her leg, brushing through the empty air beside it and clamping on nothing. reclaiming his balance at the second attempt. The car scheeched around the corner and skidded, leaving a robust trail of rubber in thin rails across both road and pavement. Out of it three suited heavies rushed towards the waiting doctor. �Small time collector� he assesed, straightening his white collar. �Maybe seven or eight. They�ll be in the bag�. The heavy, hardened heads of the heavies nodded individually before chasing the direction of Mavis. Evil glares stamped on their faces as they clasped tightly their crude Chinese weapons. �The boss�ll be waitin� for them� The doctor shouted after his clumsy henchmen, their muscles pumping furiously benieth their layers of fat. 9 George was confused. He gazed upward at the thinly masked minefield of objects in the ceiling. The red light still blinkered. The houseplant seemed to sigh and the phone rang hollow, distant tones in his imagination. He unstuck enough of himself to reach the foreign remote control. The workings of his brain twitched and stained, like putting pressure on twigs. �I must have picked it up from God�s house� � the thought composed itself then drifted away. A moments blankness as the next shades of thinking came. �It must be his remote control�. He fingers it slowly turned it over and over and vacant realisation dawned on his face. �My God�he�s�got cable� 9 Mavis lobbed her bag of souls over the garden fence, her head snatched a view at the ungracous waddling of her pursuers. Bearing towards her. Knum chuckes flaling behind them in deadly jagged loops. Mavis vaults the fence purposly. Half a mile away a television roared into action. It flung itself open to Gods vision. Wider than it had ever shown before. 10 George could see further than the eye of the sun. The galaxy stretched before him, a lush blanket of woven stars. The depths of Gods inner thoughts lay before him, the corridors leading to eternity. �This is dull� he thought, then watched The Bill on UK Gold. 11 �I�m bored of them� shrugged the devil �I�ve started to collect panini stickers� CHAPTER FOUR �Nice wallpapering� God commented, passing through the room of the house. �What was his name again? George? Well..I�ll see to him, maybe he�ll die just a couple of yards away from eternity, the others will be miles away�apart from the girl who did the kitchen�nice job�. �God�do you exist?.�no offence, but you just seem like a whacko� said the bravest butler in the world. �er�you�re fired� �Of course I exist�why wouldn�t I?� Gods advisors � need remote control. �Without it I can�t see the cameras of the worlds. My sight is my life. The devil weaved there way through the tight corridors. He took them to a catogue of souls, ut they never got paid for the wallpapering. �This is boring� said George �let�s go back�. |