Web Site Story

And with that said, and also well said too, Big Bob marched on towards the riverside to take a dose of the muse.

The bar of the Waterman's Arts Centre was pretty crowded now. Fat moustachioed poetesses, who looked as if they were up for it, hugged their mugs of hand-drawn ale to their ample bosoms and sized up the knots of pimply youths, who'd heard tell stuff from a mate of theirs who had other plans for the evening. A wandering bishop engaged the barman in conversation. Two old fellas rocked -with uncontrollable mirth. Several mule-skinners supped their horse's-neck cocktails and discussed the latest trends in buckskin chaps. Badly dressed poets made serious faces and a very attractive young woman with wonderful blond hair and a sparkling dress of polyvinylsynthacottonlatexsuedosilk stood head and shoulders above most of the crowd, drinking red wine at the bar counter.

Big Bob recognized this woman, she and a young man, yes that was him, climbing up onto the rostrum, had helped him off the pile of stunt mattresses at the back of the Plume Cafe, where he had landed after the bus crash. She'd spoken to him, comforted him, told him that she was something to do with the Brentford Mercury.

Yes, Big Bob was certain it was her. She wasn't the kind of woman any man was likely to forget.

Big Bob might simply have pushed his way into the crowd. But he now knew better than that. He knew he mustn't touch anyone. He didn't dare, for fear that he would spread the infection.

So instead he put on a very fierce face, far fiercer than any that Mr Shields could ever have mustered up, and he made ferocious growling sounds and shook his shoulders about.

Ripples went through the crowd before him and it parted, as had the Red Sea at the touch of Moses' staff. Folk stared towards Big Bob, heads turned, faces looked startled.

Big Bob put a brave face on beneath his fierce one. It was a rather battered face anyway. His nose was broken, there was clotted blood around his mouth. He had lacerations all over the place and his suit was gone to ruin.

'Stand aside,' ordered Big Bob. 'Let me through, before I gobble you up.'

Kelly Anna Sirjan didn't see Big Bob as he approached her through the crowd. She was watching Derek and as he began his excruciating poem, she was thinking that she really should be going, because she had to get up early to begin her job at Mute Corp in the morning. When his big voice said, 'Excuse me please,' she was wakened from her reverie and turning, found herself almost face to face with one of Dr Druid's vanishing patients.

'Excuse me please,' said Big Bob once more. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you.'

'You,' said Kelly, startled, but rarely lost for words. 'You. Robert Charker, the tour guide. You're here.'

'Thou knowest who I am,' said Bob the Big.

'Yes I do, but you were in the hospital. Dr Druid said that you vanished right in front of him.'

'I am in Hell,' said Big Bob. 'It's in my head.'

'We have to talk. But not here.'

'Here please,' said Bob. 'I need a drink. Many drinks.'

'I'll get them, what do you want?'

'A sprout brandy. A double, no a treble.'

'Leave it to me.' Kelly hailed the barman. It is another fact well known to those who know it well, that a beautiful woman never needs to speak Runese to attract the attention of a young barman.

'Excuse me bishop,' said the barman, hurrying over to Kelly.

'A quadruple sprout brandy and a red wine please.'

A great roar of laughter went up from the crowd. Old Pete had made another funny at Derek's expense and the poets who tolerated Derek, while knowing his poems were crap, chuckled and chortled away.

The barman set to pouring out sprout brandy, Kelly turned back to Big Bob. 'Are you all right?' she asked. 'Do you need to sit down? You don't look well at all.' She reached out her hand towards him.

'Don't touch me.' Big Bob took a step backwards. 'I am infected. I carry the contagion. I shouldn't have come into this crowded place. Whatever made me do it?'

And then Big Bob realized what had made him do it. The idea to come here had never been his. Something had put it into his head. Something that was inside his head. 'You sneaky little bastards.'

'Pardon me?' said Kelly.

'No, I don't mean you. It's inside my head. It tricked me once again.'

'A quadruple brandy and a red wine,' said the barman. 'Blimey, it's you, Big Bob. I heard that you'd been Raptured.'

'Raptured?' said Big Bob.

'It doesn't matter,' said Kelly. 'But we must talk. You must tell me what happened to you.'

'I'm infected,' said Big Bob. 'I've got a bibbly bobbly wibbly wobbly, oh shit and salvation.'

'What?' said Kelly.

Big Bob snatched his drink from the counter and emptied it down his big throat. 'It's messing with my speech, trying to prevent me from telling you what happened to me.'

'Say it slowly,' said Kelly. 'Try to think about each word.'

'Computers,' said Big Bob, slowly, and struggling to do so. 'Mute Corp. Remington Mute. The Mute-chip. The computers th- No!'

Kelly reached forward, but Big Bob flapped his arms and backed away. He bumped into the wandering bishop, knocking the drink from his hand and drenching a pimply youth.

'Easy there bish,' said the youth. 'You've spilled your drink all over my grubby black T-shirt.'

'Sorry my son,' said the bishop. 'But it wasn't my fault, it was this great oaf,' and he turned and cuffed Big Bob lightly on the chin.

'No!' cried the big one. 'Don't touch me.'

'Pipe down over there,' called Old Pete, from along the bar. 'We're trying to take the mickey out of this young buffoon on the rostrum.'

'Some of us are trying to listen,' said a badly dressed poet, who wasn't really trying, but was all for keeping up appearances.

'Stay back,' shouted Big Bob. 'Don't anybody touch me.'

The wandering bishop stared at his wandering hand. His hand tingled strangely now and tiny needle pricks were moving up his arm beneath his colourful vestments.

For they do have some really colourful vestments, do those wandering bishops.

'Mr Charker,' said Kelly. 'We should get out of here.'

'Aaagh!' cried Big Bob. 'It's having a go at my poor left toe. Oh the pain, oh the pain.' And Big Bob took to hopping about in a disconcerting manner.

And the bar was crowded. Really crowded. Even though Big Bob had quite a respectable circle of space all around himself. Well, he had made a very fierce entrance and he was a very big bloke.

'Put a blinking sock in it,' called Old Pete. 'We can't hear the young buffoon.'

'Why don't you shut up, you old fart,' said a pimply youth. 'We want to get that idiot finished so we can hear another poem from the woman with the cat called Mr Willow-Whiskers.'