Malcolm Twigg
Bio
Quirky humur underlines a lot of what I write, whether that be science fiction/fantasy or life observation. Pratchett and Douglas Adams are big influences on my writing as well as Tom Sharpe and P. G. Wodehouse. To me, humor is paramount.
Stories (28)
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Trope Tripe
In true Woke tradition, a trigger warning is appropriate for this piece. Trigger Warning The following material contains words that will be extremely offensive to some, involving homophobia, transphobia, fat shaming, racial stereotyping, body dysmorphia, disablement, implied sexual practices, cultural appropriation and paedophilia by association. If any of the above are likely to infringe upon your personal liberties, rights and sensitivities when reading them … grow up for Christ’s sake! To the rest of us it’s just good old fashioned fun. Nobody dies. God Almighty!
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Filthy
Flash in the Pan
Reginald Wellbeloved was a meticulous, pernickety little man, and so environmentally aware that he used to bottle anal wind, hoping to delay the onset of global warming that little bit longer. By the time he died, alone and unloved, from terminally trapped wind at the age of 89, he had a cellar full of neatly labelled glass jars that mapped out his entire gastronomic life. Which was all very interesting, but ultimately academic when an incredulous and careless house clearer called, appropriately enough, Albert Crapper accidentally dropped one of the largest jars whilst lighting up an environmentally unfriendly cigarette. Then, the whole cellar went up in a sheet of blue flame, blowing the door and Albert into the garden and releasing a lifetime's collection of fermented methane into the atmosphere at one fell swoop. Reginald would have been mortified, if he hadn't been dead already.
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
Pacificalia
Bubble City: a term of derision. Hundreds were planned once - great, domed sub-marine enclosures, colonised by a genetically modified population who were to be the salvation of an overextended world. Then, the phaser-field technology that made it possible found a more exciting application. Instead of looking inward, the heaving hoards of Earth took to the stars in their million in phaser-driven bubbles. Abandoned, the Bubble Cities slowly died until only Pacificalia remained,i ts population evolved to life beneath the waves.
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
The Book Club
“Spinoza! Whose bright idea was it to choose Spinoza? Spinoza was Jeeves’s choice of light reading, if you recall, but Jeeves had a brain the size of the Albert Hall. What earthly chance have I got of analysing a single word Spinoza says? Or even understanding a single word he says. I’m a poet not a bleedin’ philosopher.”
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
END PAPER
Lucien Booker had a reasonably profitable business, as well as an apposite surname and a very bookish demeanour to go with it. It had always been a family story that the Booker Prize was, in fact, connected with them. It wasn’t. It was just a fanciful notion promulgated by a grandfather who had more creative imagination than sense which was offset by a good nose for the book trade, even in his dotage when he came up with the notion. Hence, ‘Booker’s Independent Book Shop’, despite all the odds, was still going strong some 100 years after it was founded in Victorian buildings whose antecedents had been a public lending library and an early photographic studio. A mock Gothic structure, it lent the premises an air of authority and verisimilitude which had stood the business in good stead over the years. It looked like a proper book store. One where you could get lost amongst the shelves. One where you could pick up long out of print volumes at - it has to be said - a hefty mark up, but apparently worth it to Lucien’s clientele, because the antiquarian trade was probably worth more to the business than the modern stock.
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
Swamp Fever
'What you've got there, Finn, is a good, old-fashioned case of trench-foot'. Sanderson probed the sole of the geologist's pall-white foot with a surgical spatula, drawing a wince. 'You've got to keep your feet dry out in the field, you should know that.'
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
Uh, Huh, Huh?
Alvin Pratt was so convinced that Elvis was still alive he had made it his life’s work to track him down. That he did so perpetually wearing the full gear and a lop-sided sneer, rather detracted from any credibility he might have carried, but Alvin was never one for short measures – except when dispensing drinks in the pub he ran with his wife, Effie.
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
Two Sides of the Coin
"Two sides of the same coin, you and me." The speaker sat scuffing his heels on a cloud top, sorting through a bag of sandwiches and trying his best not to listen to the attempts of his companion to master a relatively simple piece for harp and solo falsetto.
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
Sting in The Tail
There are environmental activists, and there are environmental activists. And then there was Sid Smith. Sid was more of your actual tree hugger. In fact there was one tree deep in the forest that used to be Sid's favourite. That it had a conveniently placed knot hole was quite by the by and no-one's business but Sid's until a nest of wasps took up residence, unbeknown to him. Naturally, they took great exception at this brazen intrusion on their chaste privacy. When, after a few days, the swelling (and the barely controlled hilarity of the A & E Team) had subsided, Sid was a changed man in more ways than one. For instance, the mere sound of buzzing was liable to bring on an incipient attack of the hives and an instinctive shrinkage of the extremities in the nether regions that temporarily lent him the physical attributes of true gender fluidity. Which, for Sid, was an interesting condition given his predilection for the more extreme forms of sexual gratification. Not only that, the whole experience set him on the path to improve the lot of fellow introverted experimenters like himself.
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Filthy
(Dragon Breath)
DRAGON BREATH Dragons aren’t really the monsters they’re made out to be - they’re more like naive and very gangly, playful, puppies. However, there was this tendency to incinerate anything within fifty yards with their excitable and uncontrollable fiery breath. Now that was an unfortunate trait.
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
Woke Up!
WOKE UP ! Trigger Warning The degree of bias against gender dysphoria in this piece of writing cannot be overstated. It reflects the kind of societal norms that progressive Woke culture is so personfully trying to replace. Be that as it may, nothing will ever stop the bitching … sorry, not bitching, wash my mouth out - much too exclusive! Dogging? God no! Not dogging for Christ’s sake - and not purely for reasons of exclusivity.
By Malcolm Twigg3 years ago in Fiction
