Erling E.
09-04-2006, 04:52 PM
I decided to post beginning of a novel I'm working on. I have no idea if anyone would possibly want to read it, but here it is anyway. It is a comedy novel much along the lines of Discworld and Hitchhiker's Guide, and it is currently called "Otherworld", but this is a working title.
Without much further ado...
---------------------
Chapter I
A blue-green ball hang high on the afternoon sky.
This, of course, tainted an otherwise beautiful piece of sky, and could only function as a further annoyance to the people of the earth, who, as always, was having a really bad day already.
It is the nature of the inhabitants of this planet, to regard most days as bad days. A good day would involve winning the lottery, getting a raise, seeing the neighbour's house burn down or having your mother-in-law dying in a freak knitting accident.
Seeing these things happen rather seldomly, by default, most days on planet earth are bad days.
And the ball could only enhance this fact.
That, at least, was Jerry Brighton's opinion. Pessimistic by nature, the sudden appearance of the blue-green ball could only be interpreted as something that would make the rest of the day really unpleasant. Interesting, in a morbid sort of way, but bad all the same.
Jerry, thirty-two years old, unstylishly clothed, thin-haired, no children and certainly no wife, was the sort of bloke you could quite easily relate to, but not while someone was watching.
In fact, it is an unproven fact (how the heck would you be able to prove such a thing) that most of the planet's population are some sort of Jerry Brighton, in some shape or form. Take the usual question of whether a glass is half-full or half-empty, for instance.
It has been scientifically proven (quite a lot easier to prove) that the glass is, in fact, half-empty. Upon consumation of the glass' content, the content in question lessened by each consumation that occurs. As such, the glass is half-empty, seeing it is on its way to becoming empty.
It should be noted that this conclusion has no base in serious science, but most serious science is quite boring anyway.
'This is bad,' Jerry sighed to himself as he looked up at the sky.
He was holding a canister of pesticide in his hand. Only minutes before the appearance of the blue-green ball, he had been fighting his own personal battle against invaders coming from the ground underneath his own feet: Earthworms.
Jerry was quite proud of his lawn, and was ready to face death in order to protect it from any force capable of destroying it. The lawn was a price-winner, having been honored with the title of Gumberton's Greenest Grass and South-Englands Most Neatly Trimmed Turf.
It had even been on national TV, quite accidentially actually, as the leading character of some detective series had walked past Jerry's property while discussing a particularily nasty murder with the camera. It only lasted for a few seconds, but such fame is sweet even for a lawn.
It was the sort of lawn that would wreck hotel rooms and have sex with screaming fans if it could. But seeing lawns have no ability to do such things, writing about it is really just a waste of paper.
The matter of the earthworms seemed trivial at this point, Jerry thought. Unless invading aliens would have a particular interest in the finer ways of gardening, there probably was little reason to continue. According to Jerry's nature, he was, by default, quite set on the thought that aliens would invade the earth sooner or later. It was a thought he had nurtured since childhood, having ignited in his mind after playing way too much videogames. And now this ball was here. It all made sense, at least inside the head of a man who really had no sense at all.
The blue-green ball still hang high on the afternoon sky. To the extent a ball can have a look of something, this one looked as if it had just finished its dinner and was now sleeping it off on the couch.
Of course, this was only one person's imagination putting a face on the thing. Further down the road, a more sinister sort of individual was contemplating how much it looked as if it was planning an attack and was only waiting for the orders to move in.
This individual was later seen firing at the ball with an airgun, and being subsequently apprehended by his mother who was looking very dissapointed and ready to smack him thourougly. But everyone was, by now, having an opinion on the blue-green ball in the sky.
Jerry Brighton lived in a quiet neighbourhood in the town of Gumberton. Don't bother looking it up on the map of sourthern England, because you won't find it there. The reason for this will unveil itself later. You'll just have to be patient, won't you.
Gumberton was the sort of town that most peopled moved from, but usually never to. You know how it is. You've seen them. Chances are you even hail from such a place yourself. Oh, don't try...
Anyway.
Of course, this was only the understanding of an observer who had little personal regard for the town. Because the population was rising, despite its seemingly endless export of quality people.
This could be related to the fact that sexual education had been cut from the scool's curriculum, but seeing this is a political subject, we'll disregard it and move on to something more important.
Like bananas.
If you ever had a banana while staying in England, the chances are that some gumbertonian sometime earlier had his or hers greasy fingers all over it. Gumberton was the primary importer of bananas to the country, and logically as it probably seem, this industry thrived on employing hopeless individuals such as Jerry.
Indeed, Jerry was a banana-packager.
Life as a banana-packager is simple. Simple in much the same way that accepting money at a toll booth is simple (and we're talking about the automated machines doing this, who don't even have the added challenge of giving back change to the poor drivers passing by). The kind of simple that would lead most people to insanity due to understimulation of the body's largest organ: The brain.
Jerry, whose thirty-two year old life must seem pretty hopeless to you by know, was, despite all common sense, quite happy in his work. Bananas, he reasoned, is something everyone needs. Much the same way as we need firefighters, paramedics and the police.
He was, of course, completely wrong.
It wasn't that he didn't go to college. Or rather, it was that he didn't go to college. He was enrolled, but he spent more time actually in the enrollment office than in the actual classroom. This was not because Jerry was the sort of person who was cooler than Walt Disney (who is cryogenically freezed, get it?) - you know, the sort of James Dean character who just sort of breezes through school just because they are so damn awsome and the world will just adapt to their needs later, expecting only payment in form of being allowed to revel in their coolness. Because Jerry was the exact opposite of cool.
No, he wasn't hot, either.
Jerry was the sort of person too uncool to disregard school as mentioned above, and too mindlesless to be a part of the faction of geeks who usually occupied the the table in the cantina closest to the classrooms. He was, quite simply, stuck in the middle. He finished high-school, but never completed college. And that was that.
The result was quite a lot of lonely nights spent in his parent's cellar, playing Asteroids and easting 5-minute pizzas.
Growing up, life had pretty much adapted to Jerry, anyway. It usually does for people whose expectations are as low as Danny DeVito in a prone position. Thanks to real estate prices being lower than Danny DeVito in a lying-down position, Jerry had indeed gotten his own house for the meager salary he made at the banana-packacking place.
Now, you must think Jerry is the most boring individual possibly imaginable. That, of course, depends on your imagination, but Jerry is actually quite a decent, upstanding and fairly interesting person. He is quite possibly the most normal, average and completely typical person you could meet. Think Al Bundy, but without the attitude.
Actually, you just replace Al Bundy's knife-sharpening attitude with an equally intense tone of pessimism. Because if there was anything Jerry was really good at, it was seeing the bad sides of things. And that was something he got to do quite often.
There is actually two things that really characterize Jerry: He is incredibly pessimistic and equally as paranoid. The walls in his home is virtually covered with news-clippings, all carefully laid out as to show the conspiracy of man that is so obvious to Jerry himself. He's the sort of guy that could be Oliver Stone's best friend.
He was also quite set on the thought that only he was aware of the conspiracy going on around him. Days spent at the banana packacing terminal, was the ideal place for Jerry to nurture this paranoia, seeing the job itself only asked four about a millionth of his brain capacity. And so, Jerry spun his web inside his head.
Jerry's pessimism, and paranoia, was about to have a field-day.
Without much further ado...
---------------------
Chapter I
A blue-green ball hang high on the afternoon sky.
This, of course, tainted an otherwise beautiful piece of sky, and could only function as a further annoyance to the people of the earth, who, as always, was having a really bad day already.
It is the nature of the inhabitants of this planet, to regard most days as bad days. A good day would involve winning the lottery, getting a raise, seeing the neighbour's house burn down or having your mother-in-law dying in a freak knitting accident.
Seeing these things happen rather seldomly, by default, most days on planet earth are bad days.
And the ball could only enhance this fact.
That, at least, was Jerry Brighton's opinion. Pessimistic by nature, the sudden appearance of the blue-green ball could only be interpreted as something that would make the rest of the day really unpleasant. Interesting, in a morbid sort of way, but bad all the same.
Jerry, thirty-two years old, unstylishly clothed, thin-haired, no children and certainly no wife, was the sort of bloke you could quite easily relate to, but not while someone was watching.
In fact, it is an unproven fact (how the heck would you be able to prove such a thing) that most of the planet's population are some sort of Jerry Brighton, in some shape or form. Take the usual question of whether a glass is half-full or half-empty, for instance.
It has been scientifically proven (quite a lot easier to prove) that the glass is, in fact, half-empty. Upon consumation of the glass' content, the content in question lessened by each consumation that occurs. As such, the glass is half-empty, seeing it is on its way to becoming empty.
It should be noted that this conclusion has no base in serious science, but most serious science is quite boring anyway.
'This is bad,' Jerry sighed to himself as he looked up at the sky.
He was holding a canister of pesticide in his hand. Only minutes before the appearance of the blue-green ball, he had been fighting his own personal battle against invaders coming from the ground underneath his own feet: Earthworms.
Jerry was quite proud of his lawn, and was ready to face death in order to protect it from any force capable of destroying it. The lawn was a price-winner, having been honored with the title of Gumberton's Greenest Grass and South-Englands Most Neatly Trimmed Turf.
It had even been on national TV, quite accidentially actually, as the leading character of some detective series had walked past Jerry's property while discussing a particularily nasty murder with the camera. It only lasted for a few seconds, but such fame is sweet even for a lawn.
It was the sort of lawn that would wreck hotel rooms and have sex with screaming fans if it could. But seeing lawns have no ability to do such things, writing about it is really just a waste of paper.
The matter of the earthworms seemed trivial at this point, Jerry thought. Unless invading aliens would have a particular interest in the finer ways of gardening, there probably was little reason to continue. According to Jerry's nature, he was, by default, quite set on the thought that aliens would invade the earth sooner or later. It was a thought he had nurtured since childhood, having ignited in his mind after playing way too much videogames. And now this ball was here. It all made sense, at least inside the head of a man who really had no sense at all.
The blue-green ball still hang high on the afternoon sky. To the extent a ball can have a look of something, this one looked as if it had just finished its dinner and was now sleeping it off on the couch.
Of course, this was only one person's imagination putting a face on the thing. Further down the road, a more sinister sort of individual was contemplating how much it looked as if it was planning an attack and was only waiting for the orders to move in.
This individual was later seen firing at the ball with an airgun, and being subsequently apprehended by his mother who was looking very dissapointed and ready to smack him thourougly. But everyone was, by now, having an opinion on the blue-green ball in the sky.
Jerry Brighton lived in a quiet neighbourhood in the town of Gumberton. Don't bother looking it up on the map of sourthern England, because you won't find it there. The reason for this will unveil itself later. You'll just have to be patient, won't you.
Gumberton was the sort of town that most peopled moved from, but usually never to. You know how it is. You've seen them. Chances are you even hail from such a place yourself. Oh, don't try...
Anyway.
Of course, this was only the understanding of an observer who had little personal regard for the town. Because the population was rising, despite its seemingly endless export of quality people.
This could be related to the fact that sexual education had been cut from the scool's curriculum, but seeing this is a political subject, we'll disregard it and move on to something more important.
Like bananas.
If you ever had a banana while staying in England, the chances are that some gumbertonian sometime earlier had his or hers greasy fingers all over it. Gumberton was the primary importer of bananas to the country, and logically as it probably seem, this industry thrived on employing hopeless individuals such as Jerry.
Indeed, Jerry was a banana-packager.
Life as a banana-packager is simple. Simple in much the same way that accepting money at a toll booth is simple (and we're talking about the automated machines doing this, who don't even have the added challenge of giving back change to the poor drivers passing by). The kind of simple that would lead most people to insanity due to understimulation of the body's largest organ: The brain.
Jerry, whose thirty-two year old life must seem pretty hopeless to you by know, was, despite all common sense, quite happy in his work. Bananas, he reasoned, is something everyone needs. Much the same way as we need firefighters, paramedics and the police.
He was, of course, completely wrong.
It wasn't that he didn't go to college. Or rather, it was that he didn't go to college. He was enrolled, but he spent more time actually in the enrollment office than in the actual classroom. This was not because Jerry was the sort of person who was cooler than Walt Disney (who is cryogenically freezed, get it?) - you know, the sort of James Dean character who just sort of breezes through school just because they are so damn awsome and the world will just adapt to their needs later, expecting only payment in form of being allowed to revel in their coolness. Because Jerry was the exact opposite of cool.
No, he wasn't hot, either.
Jerry was the sort of person too uncool to disregard school as mentioned above, and too mindlesless to be a part of the faction of geeks who usually occupied the the table in the cantina closest to the classrooms. He was, quite simply, stuck in the middle. He finished high-school, but never completed college. And that was that.
The result was quite a lot of lonely nights spent in his parent's cellar, playing Asteroids and easting 5-minute pizzas.
Growing up, life had pretty much adapted to Jerry, anyway. It usually does for people whose expectations are as low as Danny DeVito in a prone position. Thanks to real estate prices being lower than Danny DeVito in a lying-down position, Jerry had indeed gotten his own house for the meager salary he made at the banana-packacking place.
Now, you must think Jerry is the most boring individual possibly imaginable. That, of course, depends on your imagination, but Jerry is actually quite a decent, upstanding and fairly interesting person. He is quite possibly the most normal, average and completely typical person you could meet. Think Al Bundy, but without the attitude.
Actually, you just replace Al Bundy's knife-sharpening attitude with an equally intense tone of pessimism. Because if there was anything Jerry was really good at, it was seeing the bad sides of things. And that was something he got to do quite often.
There is actually two things that really characterize Jerry: He is incredibly pessimistic and equally as paranoid. The walls in his home is virtually covered with news-clippings, all carefully laid out as to show the conspiracy of man that is so obvious to Jerry himself. He's the sort of guy that could be Oliver Stone's best friend.
He was also quite set on the thought that only he was aware of the conspiracy going on around him. Days spent at the banana packacing terminal, was the ideal place for Jerry to nurture this paranoia, seeing the job itself only asked four about a millionth of his brain capacity. And so, Jerry spun his web inside his head.
Jerry's pessimism, and paranoia, was about to have a field-day.