A Blink of the Screen

replanting with spruce,’ said Mica.
    ‘Spruce!’
    ‘It’s not his idea. He wouldn’t know one tree from another. That’s all down to Clay. He put him up to it.’
    Cohen felt dizzy. ‘Who’s Clay?’
    ‘I said I’d got three brothers-in-law, right? He’s the merchant. So he said replanting would make the land easier to sell.’
    There was a long pause while Cohen digested this.
    Then he said, ‘You can’t sell Cutshade Forest. It doesn’t belong to anyone.’
    ‘Yeah. He says that’s why you can sell it.’
    Cohen brought his fist down on the parapet. A piece of stone detached itself and tumbled down into the gorge.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said.
    ‘That’s all right. Bits fall off all the time, like I said.’
    Cohen turned. ‘What’s happening? I remember all the big old wars. Don’t you? You must have fought.’
    ‘I carried a club, yeah.’
    ‘It was supposed to be for a bright new future and law and stuff. That’s what people said.’
    ‘Well, I fought because a big troll with a whip told me to,’ said Mica, cautiously. ‘But I know what you mean.’
    ‘I mean it wasn’t for farms and spruce trees. Was it?’
    Mica hung his head. ‘And here’s me with this apology for a bridge. I feel really bad about it,’ he said, ‘you coming all this way and everything—’
    ‘And there was some king or other,’ said Cohen, vaguely, looking at the water. ‘And I think there were some wizards. But there was a king. I’m pretty certain there was a king. Never met him. You know?’ He grinned at the troll. ‘I can’t remember his name. Don’t think they ever told me his name.’
    About half an hour later Cohen’s horse emerged from the gloomy woods on to a bleak, windswept moorland. It plodded on for a while before saying, ‘All right … how much did you give him?’
    ‘Twelve gold pieces,’ said Cohen.
    ‘Why’d you give him twelve gold pieces?’
    ‘I didn’t have more than twelve.’
    ‘You must be mad.’
    ‘When I was just starting out in the barbarian hero business,’ said Cohen, ‘every bridge had a troll under it. And you couldn’t go through a forest like we’ve just gone through without a dozen goblins trying to chop your head off.’ He sighed. ‘I wonder what happened to ’em all?’
    ‘You,’ said the horse.
    ‘Well, yes. But I always thought there’d be some more. I always thought there’d be some more edges.’
    ‘How old are you?’ said the horse.
    ‘Dunno.’
    ‘Old enough to know better, then.’
    ‘Yeah. Right.’ Cohen lit another cigarette and coughed until his eyes watered.
    ‘Going soft in the head!’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Giving your last dollar to a troll!’
    ‘Yeah.’ Cohen wheezed a stream of smoke at the sunset.
    ‘Why?’
    Cohen stared at the sky. The red glow was as cold as the slopes of hell. An icy wind blew across the steppes, whipping at what remained of his hair.
    ‘For the sake of the way things should be,’ he said.
    ‘Hah!’
    ‘For the sake of things that were.’
    ‘Hah!’
    Cohen looked down.
    He grinned.
    ‘And for three addresses. One day I’m going to die,’ he said, ‘but not, I think, today.’
    The wind blew off the mountains, filling the air with fine ice crystals. It was too cold to snow. In weather like this wolves came down into villages, trees in the heart of the forest exploded when they froze. Except there were fewer and fewer wolves these days, and less and less forest.
    In weather like this right-thinking people were indoors, in front of the fire.
    Telling stories about heroes.

THEATRE OF CRUELTY

    W. H. S MITH
B OOKCASE
MAGAZINE , J ULY / A UGUST 1993
    This was written to length (1,000 words, but tweaked a bit longer now) for W. H. Smith’s free
Bookcase
magazine in 1993, and some lucky people spotted it and walked out of the stores with armfuls of copies
.
    It works best if your culture includes at least folk memories of Punch and Judy, a glove-puppet show depicting wife-beating, child abuse, cruelty to animals, assault on an officer of the law, murder, and complete and total disrespect of Authority. It is for children, of course, who laugh themselves sick. The plot is: Mr Punch, who has a voice like a parrot with its foot caught in a power socket, beats up everyone, sometimes including the Devil, with his stick, while shouting ‘That’s the way to do it!’ It is, indeed, the original slapstick comedy
.
    In many shows, the small dog Toby also appears, and does nothing but sit at the side of the