I promised my friends and myself that I would write a multi-story about the multi-story car park in Stourbridge that is scheduled to be demolished today (April 1st, 2012). So here is a first draft, its pretty RAW will undergo editing at a later date.
Enoy, and please feel free to feed back as you see fit. (the original idea was a multi authored story, so if anyone wants to pick up a thread, please do). Maybe somebody from Stourbridge will get a hold of this a print it out and give it out to some locals, feel free my friends, Love, steve fly
THE MULTI STORY BARD BARK. (first draft)
by Steven James Pratt, 1st April 2012.
(Any names, events, or places that are similar by name, event or by places--existing in the real universe outside of this story--is purely and totally coincidental. It is, in fact, the wishes of the author to make fiction from the imagination and raw material of experience.)
The RACE day
A large group of people had gathered atop of the car park with a wide selection of wheeled vehicles about to embark on the well-travelled voyage down the ramps to the bottom, but today was a special day, the annual multi story car park rally.
With sponsorship from a number of locally independent brewers and horticulturalists the event boasted safety wardens, repairmen, judges and prizes for the winners. The event was broken up into 6 heats, a semi-final, quarter-final and final, with over 30 competitors in all. The event had attracted attention from the local news and print media along with the police and a couple of crazy poets with attitude.
A small Tescno canon fired from out of a shopping trolley to signify the start of the race, and a stretch of recycled Tesco bags provided the material for the finish line. Alike the London marathon many competitors dressed up in fancy dress and built customized vehicles with aesthetics and look in mind, as well as performance, a wacky races indeed.
Here is a list of some of the racers and their vehicles from the fastest heats so far: Steve and his hobbyhorse trolley, Nick and his Roller Bin, Dave and his modified skateboard, Dean and his sidecar, Scot and his wheeled snowboard, Sarah and her bicycle, Kevin and his space tractor, Paul and his fishtank tank on wheels, Andy on his boat bike, Mick and his jolly trolley racer, Adam and his cow cart, Nell and his fire engine, Jenny and her azzy powered cart, Emily and her Sex Cripple sled, Simon and his wheeled suit case, jimmy, and his tricycle racer, Bobby and his pogo-stick.
The semi-final race turned out to be one of the best remembered and closest of all races that day, here’s what a local poet threw up onto a page at the race, after a drunken night at a pole dancing club.
Nick and Scot were first off the mark leaving Sarah and Andy close behind, Nick’s roller-bin cornered remarkable well considering its shape, and Nick obviously knew the racing line and had the extra determination and racing spirit, which half way down the car park just slightly edged scot and his wheeled snowboard aside, putting his in the lead going into the final four corners.
The crowd noise was loud and wild, spectators wearing fancy dress egged on the racers like in the ‘Tour De France’ with some hilarious scenes, such as Sponge Bob Pete running alongside Bob's yellow lawnmower, and then tripping up proper, resulting in Andy’s boat bike hitting him and sending both parties into a heap of Bob, thankfully unharmed and easily the stars of that particular race, at least with the spectators who pissed themselves laffin'
Sarah’s bicycle was made to look like it was built from wood whereas in fact it was a traditional steel frame, painted and re-modelled to appear like wood, it was pretty fast but made it very difficult to turn quickly and pass other racers. However Sarah managed to pass Andy on the last corner and gain a quarter final place.
The race for first place saw scotty pulling Nick’s roller-bin by the handle and managing to pip him on the post, however due to this semi illegal move, and according the judges multi-story car park rally rule book 2000 A.D, Scot was disqualified and so Nick went through to the finals by default, his smile was as large as the viaduct.
The finals were held on a Friday evening, some strong spot-lights had been added which increased the tension among the racers, and with 300 Pounds prize money for the winner the pressure was building like a fart inside an evelope.
The finalists were Emily and Nick, Emily was riding on what she called her sex-cripple sled, and Nick was once more on his wheely bin. Both contraptions were heavily customized and almost unrecognizable from their former life, between the sponsors logos and personal messages in the rallying tradition and the new decorative racing suits worn by both racers, you might have thought they were formula one competitor’s, with a stronger sense for taste and humour.
The trolley cannon fired and the crippled sled just about got a nose ahead of Nick, maybe due to the longer vehicle, but into the first corner Nick already clawed back into the lead with a nudge on Emily and her sled, that put her off the racing line, she raised a middle finger and cursed her competition.
A bunch of young skateboarding punks who had claimed the Multi-story as their own with the help of a local councillor had made a special banner with the stylized words that read: “SOS: Save our Skate-park (from the Capitalist Tesco Devils)”. The banner caught Nicks eye as he whizzed past and caused him to wobble a touch when going into the third corner, at which point Emily regained the lead with a fantastic sliding pass, preserved in a photograph, now legendary taken by a very well dressed man in a trilby hat.
Entering the final corner in her sex-cripple sled, Emily let go of the steering wheel and punched the air for the hundreds of fans and supporters gathered near the finish line, as she reached up in the air Nick launched into a final spurt, ducking his head down to increase the aerodynamic flow of his vehicle, he shot forward edging neck and neck with Emily, who gasped with surprise at his unexpected last minute surge for the win.
Another memorable photograph captures the looks on the racers faces looking at each other as they pass the finish line together. After a few minutes deliberation and comparing of photos of the ‘photo finish’ it was decided that Nick was just a hairs knacker behind Emily, now the 2001 Multi-story rally champion.
Suddenly a bombardment of water bombs rained down off the top of the car park onto those below, then a shopping trolley was thrown off the top that left a local M.P critically injured when it struck her while she tried to shut down the races. Later it turned out the trolley was thrown by a rival M.P which just goes to show how politics is really a blood sport carried out by psychopaths and general wrong-doers.
PART 1 (12 years later)
Last night my friend Rice and I were both feeling pretty restless while waiting for some weed to arrive, twiddling our thumbs, when Joe said, let’s go down to the multi-story and get something going. Come on Rice, tonight’s the night, tonight’s the night, maybe the last one for 25 P beers, and 1 pound 69 p cider providers. Cheers on toast bro’
--Alright Joe, let’s go get em’.
We blacked up in our Ninja suits and set out the door with a night vision camera, a black bag of stainless tools and some gold spray paint. We arrived at the scene of the demolishment from out of the housing estate opposite, pausing behind a speed camera box before sprinting across the road up to the metal fence.
--Look, them crafty bastards have installed cameras all around the perimeter, Joe said, if we is gonna’ get in there we must be over that fence as fast as a cat running from a pellet gun.
--So on three, I said, shaking from a little nervous pang burrowing into my guts. A feeling I had felt before when breaking and entering, painting trains, robbing banks and crossing international boarders without the correct papers.
--Three!
And we hoisted ourselves up over the fence and dropped the other side into a pile of concrete and metal supports that looked like a large slabs of nugget fudge pierced by mint chocolate matchsticks. We scuttled off into the crumbling 8 story car park with our night vision goggles that Joe had nicked from his uncle Charles who was currently in the Royal Marines.
--Let’s have a look at the stair well, Joe said, maybe we can get up to the top that way rather than walking the route that the vehicles take, what do you think mate. Joe paused and then stopped walking, his attention shifted to a square man-hole cover next to what looked like a man hole.
--Hey Rice, looky what we have here, a god damned man hole hidden beneath the first layer of tarmac, I reckon we should take a peak. Joe said, alreading on his knees peering down into the hole.
--I dunno Joe, maybe we should drop our pieces first and investigate this hole afterwards I said.
And with that we prepared two large areas of wall with some white primer and threw up our latest ideogrammic equations over the next 40 odd minutes after which we rolled a nice joint and photographed the room with the new decorations that together elucidated the cosmological constant first intuited by Einstein himself, fulfilling their general guiding principle: Language versus the equation.
After sharing a pretty strong joint they packed up their cans neatly and moved back to where the hole descended into the floor. Joe looked at me, smiled and then clambered feet first down into the top rim of the hole, dangling his feet below trying to find some support.
--Yep, there’s something here Rice, another step or something, maybe we should drop an illuminated glow-stick down here and get a better idea of how far it goes down.
Rice cracked a glow-stick open and dropped it into the hole, they both watched it fall for about 20 seconds before it stopped at the bottom, or got tangled up in something. Pretty deep, I said, this looks like a proper entry to the sewer system I reckon, let’s get down there.
I climbed down after Joe and we descended the metal ladder into the dark damp silence, my heart racing like the clappers.
Roughly 20 meters down the hole there was another large pipe with some wool hanging from its sharp rusty edges, we stepped into the pipe and moved down towards a light source someway in the distance.
--We must have been walking about 50 meters by now, I guess, which would put us roughly under the Crystal leisure centre. Yeah that must be the source of the light source ahead, I said.
We came to another opening that led up a large stone step into a room from where voices could be heard. Men and women’s voices in what sounded to me like a jolly mood. We paused for a moment and looked at each other with a terrified stare, eyes white, skin pale.
--Shall we enter like we were invited then? I asked. Um, yeah, good plan man, Rice said. But maybe we’ll be getting into trouble for nothing, I said with second thoughts. First thought best thought, Rice said while pushing the door open.
PART 2.
Rice and I entered a large cold chamber area and we both shrieked aloud at what we saw going on before our eyes, two muscle men had a small lamb chained to a bridge suspended about 6 feet off the ground while a tall blonde women held a bejewelled dagger above her head seemingly about to sacrifice the lamb. She turned and looked at us as we entered, mouth agape, eyes alight with mania.
--Welcome young boys, please, take a seat over here behind the old bridge and please stay quiet, anymore sudden sounds and the lamb may choke herself to death before we get the damn thing right, so...the lady said, turning back to the lamb and raising the dagger above her head once more.
--Yes, I said, and we both sat down next to some other cloaked figures all in black and of both sexes by the look of the bulges poking out from their cloaks.
--Cloak and dagger, Rice said as he winked at me and smiled, I think we are in the shit bruv, we stumbled into some underground business ceremony and initiation. I bet this is some Tesco initiation, I said.
--Yeah, this looks like what my mate Rob once claimed was going on inside the car park on special days of the year, usually the equinox’s and summer and winter Solstice. This is just like how he described it. A Sacrificial lamb, a dagger and a bunch of men in dresses.
I stopped speaking when I noticed the female with the dagger had a tale trailing out from her robe, and a reptilian looking tale at that. I nudged Rice and pointed with my eyes, wide open, blinking and nodding to him. This is like David Icke's wet dream, i thought to myself.
--Jesus Christ, Rice exclaimed, and as he spoke the dagger slit the lambs throat and a torrent of blood began oozing out into a small golden bowl as the lamb wriggled and shook with jerky movements for about a minute.
The blonde lady then picked up the bowl of lambs blood and added an unknown white substance, next, she turned and acknowledged the four cardinal directions, waved her hands in the air and intoned something that sounded to me like a cross between Latin, German and Pakistani languages. A strange and eerie angry sound to my ears, just right for an initiation ritual I thought,
--and now we drink, the priestess said.
--Cheers, Rice said as he took a deep swig of the warm fresh blood, swallowed, squinted his eyes, smiled and passed the bowl to me as if this was a regular activity for him, for a split second I thought I have been hoodwinked into climbing down here and Rice was already one of them, whoever they were. Reptilian tesco's shapeshifters.
I tipped my head back and in classic style took a large quantity down the wrong hole, instantly I started coughing out a portion of the blood leaving specks all over the priestess and the chequered floor. She stopped abruptly before moving onto the next in line and uttered, silly boy, you must hold it down lad, are you stupid or something now you have lambs blood up your nose don’t you. It was at that moment I noticed her pointed ears and that she was in fact wearing a wig, images from the book and movie 'Witches' by Ronnie Doll crept into my hiphopcampus and scared me.
PART 3.
The charges had been set, all the sewer pipes blocked and the water mains switched off, the gas and electric suppliers had stopped all services to the Multi Story, Ken the fat foreman on the demolition job had checked his check list again due to the fact that he had recalled a dream from the night before in which he was constantly calling up the Gas company office where his wife worked, asking them why they had not yet turned off the gas, over and over again he saw this scenario play out in his dream, and responsibly acted on that dream.
--All good Dave, just need to get the go ahead plot from the Fire and Police services and our friends running the security drill from old Kroll associates, you know George and his mates, and so we’ll soon hit the plunger and detonate this concrete son-of-a-bitch.
One fat red faced member of the American based Kroll group was still inside the building analysing each charge that had been set, ticking them off on his check list. He knelt down to the ground and placed his check by the base of a large concrete pillar and heard a noise, it was a voice seemingly coming from below his feet, he stopped, smiled and walked on to the exit, calling back to Ken the foreman--all clear, he said.
--Check, Dave said as he closed his phone; this is it fellas', we are on schedule, it's 9.56 and the explosives are set and checked, and triple checked again, here we go, here we go, here we, here we go!
Simon Cowell stepped out of his trailer wearing a special combat suit and sparkling Michael Jackson inspired silver gloves, he shuffled over to the control vehicle and entered the red zone where the detonation plunger awaited him beyond the red tape and scissors.
--Hey Simon, I love you, I want your children, shouted a middle aged man holding hands with his wife, can you sign my Mr Blobby single please I just love you Si, please please, oh thankyou Jesus.
Simon turned and looked at the balding fat bloke and his pretty fat, pretty greasy looking wife and grimaced, stared out into space for 10 seconds and then stepped back out of the trailor towards the couple who were standing with thousands of other explosives fanatics behind the corded off area, holding a big black pen in one hand and an I-phone in the other.
--Give it hear you fat bastard, he said, watching his wife’s eyes light up to a bit of verbal abuse.
--Give us a good blow job then Simon, she said, laughing already at Simon’s face as it turned from a happy puppy to an angry dog. Motherfuckers, Simon said under his breath, tossing the Mr Blobby 7 inch single way too far into the crowd for the couple to grab. Jump you fucking retards, he said, Jump Jump Jump.
Simon stepped to the detonator and put on his fake cheesy smile as he wrapped his glittery gloves around the plunger in true wanker style.
--God save Tesco’s and the supermarket industry of this great nation, may god bless all who shop in her.
He pushed down the plunger, and at first nothing happened as if the charges had failed to fire. Then an almighty bang surged through the air, smoke, glass, debris and dust flew after it.
--For crying out loud, what the fuck was that? Dave shouted, still holding his hands over his ears and kneeling down in an emergency crash position. Holy shit.
There was an unexpected silence as the dust setled, everybody looked dazed and confused from the sound of the blast alone, staggering around like some of the survivors of the 911 detonation, or like Japanese Butoh dancers without the rags. Car sirens belted across the town in synchrony as if King Kong had took a massive dump creating an mini-earthquake.
Slowly and unbelievably to the onlookers and demolishment experts the structure of the multi-story car park was still visible to them, but, the rest of their surrounding town had been dramatically altered. Flatted, blew up, totally fucked up beyond all recognition.
--Holy mother of God, what have we done, Simon Cowell said, equally bewildered and shocked at what happened.
--What have you done, Simon! it looks to me like you blew shit out of every other building in town but the Multi Story car park that we supposed to have levelled, how on earth, Dave said, scratching his head which was still resonating with the blast of the after shock like a full force hangover from cheap Gin.
Then the emergency sirens started and the scale of the fuck-up could be seen, 12 buildings had fallen down which surrounded the intended one to be grounded, 6 of those had people inside and 13 of those people were injured due to flying debris and smoke inhalation. Remarkably nobody lost their life that day, well, that’s not really true, somebody did die that day, but the case is on-going, and the cause of death still under revision. Homicide or suicide?
2 hours after the explosion Simon Cowell was half way back to London for his group shot together with Mickey Mouse and Mr Blobby, who had teamed up on a new hit single called Blobby Mouse Music all night long. Yet at the site of the detonation disaster the real action was only just getting started, what happened next changed the day’s proceedings from strange to the damned right bizzare, I still can't believe what's happening now.
PART 4.
Some little chav’ joker, or skater-punk must have thought it would be funny to erect the American flag in the rubble beside the car park to give the impression that this was our local 911 attack, which would have worked out for the kid had he not tripped and twisted his ankle on his way out of the rubble and wound up squirming in the concrete and mangled metal like some injured animal by the roadside, needless to say, the security got to him and carried him away for questioning, a few beatings and a place on the criminal DNA database.
Once more from somewhere deep down in the earth an explosion could be felt which was at least 3 hours after the main mega-blast. Many people scattered like cockroaches in a panic believing this to be yet another demolition explosion, which it was, but true and in resonance with their perceptions it was way way down beneath the earth.
Then all-of-a-sudden the car park site cracked and fell through the floor and continued falling down one floor after another until the building was at least 50 stories under the ground, but nobody was looking at the shitty concrete rubble anymore, they were transfixed by something else, something beautiful and enchanting.
--Mary mother of Christ, it’s a fucking underground base, I knew they were breeding aliens in this town, I just knew it, look, LOOOOOOK! A kid shouted peering over the edge of the hole, pointing and wiggling his finger.
The American Kroll associate was already parasailing head first down the hole, followed by a group of cloaked individuals who came running out of a house situated close by. As they flew off the edge like base-jumpers into the hole some people started cheering, as if some sporting event was underway, yet, in fact these were not the people to be cheering, I tell you now. If only they public knew how despicable and evil their plan was, how they wished to destroy whats left of the town, and all who live there, leaving only a Tesco super village centre run by robots and automated intelligence systems designed by BAE systems, Northrop Gunman, Lucent technologies and Raytheon, all technologies which proved very effective at every task they were programmed to carry out.
The machines were indeed efficient but leaving the local people to roam around the streets like zombies, unable to comprehend the speed and efficiency these machines were capable of when programed to put the middle classes out of work and the means to productivity. However, the means to communication could not be upsurped in the same way.
--Rice, Rice, wake up mate, are you OK. I said, grabbing his arm in the pitch darkness. Yes, yes, fine, but those poor motherfuckers up there are going to be in a world of shit if we let this just roll along like a hollywood movie plot, or some weird short story that lacks any hero or a happy ending, Screw that, I ain't going out like that, I ain't going out! Rice pontificated.
The pipe we were sitting in was about half way between the lip of the hole and the top of the building that had just fallen in. A fat rat came scuttling by and leapt off the end of the pipe onto one of the parasailing ropes and ran straight down towards the concrete jungle below.
--I guess that’s the way to do it bruv’ Rice said while he also gripped the rope and started to slide down after the rat, come on Kinch, he said, and so I followed him down towards the glowing emerald lights and a low hum of engines or of air conditioning or of bass heavy ambient music, I couldn’t decipher which.
Upon reaching the bottom I looked back up and noticed another gang of cloaked weirdo’s descending down the line after us, a terrible sight as they were carrying swords and knives, gleaming in slice of light breaking on through from the hole.
--Go, go, go, I said.
to be continued....
--Steven James Pratt, 1st April 2012.
http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2012/03/30/landmark-car-park-due-for-demolition/
"With Stourbridge Lib Dem politician Chris Bramall, saying: “It will be so sad to see the end of ramparts - at least it will go out with a bang.”
http://www.stourbridgenews.co.uk/news/9617999.Skaters_set_to_mourn_multi_storey_wipeout/
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