Dane Cobain's Blog, page 32

[COVER REVEAL] Social Paranoia: How Consumers and Brands Can Stay Safe in a Connected World

Hi, folks! Today is a big news day – it’s cover reveal day for Social Paranoia: How Consumers and Brands Can Stay Safe in a Connected World, my new non-fiction book.

You can check out the cover and blurb below, and you can also find out a little bit more about the book – including its launch date and how you can help to support the launch – at the bottom of the article.

 

Dane Cobain – Social Paranoia

 

Social networking sites can be scary places. When the whole world is connected, anything can happen and it can happen at lightning speed.

Social paranoia is the feeling you get when you hesitate before posting an update. It’s the feeling you get on a Saturday morning after drunkenly texting your ex the night before. The feeling you get when your friends won’t stop posting about their perfect lives, making your own life look boring in comparison. 

Social Paranoia: How Consumers and Brands Can Stay Safe in a Connected World is the true story of how sometimes the updates that you post come back to haunt you. Filled with real case studies and practical advice, it’s a guidebook for everyone who has an online presence from consumers to massive corporations. 

Sometimes, people really are out to get you. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

Dane Cobain – Social Paranoia

 

Social Paranoia: How Consumers and Brands Can Stay Safe in a Connected World is due for release on Monday 22nd August, in paperback and e-book formats from online retailers.

In the meantime, I need your help! I’ve launched a Thunderclap and I need you to pledge a share on your social networking site of choice to help me to get the word out on launch day. Please click here to do that!

Thanks, as always for your support, and be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter to stay up-to-date with the latest developments. You can also click here to receive e-mail updates whenever I have major book news. I’ll see you soon!

Exam Papers

Where in the world

are you reading from?

Which world do you live in

and is your world

like the world

I’m building?

 

Every single cell

in the observable universe

is like a piece of paper

with your name on it,

and your god

took away

the answers.

 

It reminds me of rumours,

hearsay and superstition,

like the way they say

you could roll a joint

in a page of the bible,

probably superstition

like pirates who get given

the black spot.

 

It seems like life is multiple choice,

and it is,

but multiple choice

and free living

aren’t the same;

you can choose the red pill

or the blue pill

but you can’t choose no pill at all,

which is a shame

because the capsules

contain gelatine.

 

Some people pass with flying colours,

and others barely scrape a C minus,

and some people get held back

to explain their answers.

 

I used to draw birds

on my exam papers;

I guess it meant something

about freedom.

Amsterdam Diary: June 2016

Wednesday 22nd June 2016

It began at 2 AM, when we woke up after a couple of hours of sleep and squeezed in a quick coffee before hitting the road to Gatwick. Becca drove, and had treated us both to an energy drink for the journey, but I would’ve had plenty of energy without it. I can get by without sleep if it’s for a good cause, like going to Amsterdam.

By the time that we’d parked at the airport and hopped on the shuttle bus, it was four o’clock in the morning. By five, we’d checked the suitcase in and made it through passport control, although first off I spunked £12 away on a pack of airport cigarettes, because I was too shy to turn round and say, ‘Ah, never mind,’ when the cashier told me how much I owed her.

 

Fear:

Of the unknown,

from the lack of sleep

and the vertigo,

from home

to across the globe,

the shaking hands

to the glint in the eyes

of the elderly gentlemen

still working themselves

into the grave.

Of failure,

or of building paper aeroplanes

overtaken by Iranians

or blameless homo sapiens

singing Nearer

My God

To Thee.

Of diffusion,

like a confused illusion

of a musical movement,

of a constant improvement

that soothes you

in and out

of the European Union.

Of flying,

of oh-my-god

-I’m-going-to

-dying,

of foreign policemen

claiming writers have

no diplomatic

immunity.

Of opportunities,

of nicotine yellow pages

in second-hand bookshops,

or of booze-stained notebooks

in the sunlight.

Of maybe leaving

the bathroom light on;

of sleeping with the lights off

and riding the night bus.

Of fear

itself.

 

With the final, pre-flight, expensive cigarette out of the way, and with passport control passed and under control, we stopped off for an early morning pint at Wetherspoons. Then, we boarded.

It’s only a short (1 hour) flight from Gatwick to Schiphol, and so it was over before we knew it – I only managed to read around 40 pages of my Stephen King book (The Tommyknockers) before we landed, at which point I fell asleep while waiting for the plane to taxi to a stop.

Customs was no problem on the other side, and we caught a direct train to Centraal shortly afterwards. Then, we went for a stroll down the Damrak in search of food, finally stopping for a sandwich and a drink at a place called Mr. Paprika.

 

Dutch Sunlight

Their sunlight

is brighter than our sunlight,

and their prime minister cycles

and rides his bike

to work and back,

and the people speak English

so the English

don’t speak Dutch,

unless they’re ordering vlaamsefrites

or stroopwafels.

Their sunlight

shines down in alleyways

and reflects and refracts

off the strawberry motifs

of cafeterias

and restaurants,

paging a message

to Mr. Paprika.

Our sunlight

reminds me of the time

I want hiking,

and we lost our maps and minds

and ended up winding our way

through the Peak District,

when I was 13-years-old

and in an awkward state

of nothingness.

Meanwhile

there’s this big debate

played out in newspaper pages

about minimum wages

and people immigrating

in search of a better;

at least,

I think that’s what newspapers

talk about.

 

The food was delicious and hit the spot, and from Mr. Paprika we walked south, stopping off to check out a few shops and cutting through the flower market and then making a pit stop for a latte.

We planned to go to the Rjiksmuseum after that, but they wouldn’t let us in with the suitcase and we realised it’d probably be the same everywhere else, so we used that as our cue to check out the tram system.

The journey to the hotel wasn’t too bad – it took maybe 25 minutes and two trams, but the public transportation system was pretty good – definitely better than Arriva the Shires, at any rate. We got back to the hotel two hours before we were due to check in, but they let us go in early and so we were able to drop off our cases and to chill in our room for a little bit.

The hotel was awesome, a place called The Student Hotel, and as well as having nice rooms and amenities, it had a beautiful outdoor space, a cheap bar and restaurant, pool and table tennis tables and even a gym, a launderette and a basketball court, none of which we used.

After stopping off for a quick nap, we got our stuff together and headed back out again, this time by taking The Metro and then a train back to Centraal. From there, it was down the Damrak again for some vlaamsefrites and a pit stop at Prix d’Ami.

 

Converting Measurements from Metric to Imperial

Help me brain

I can’t do maths today

and anyway

I don’t know the currency

or its current conversion rate,

and lately I’m amazed

at the way things change,

changing change

in a change machine

and spitting out notes

of digital

bank transfers.

I want to go

on a boat

and float

slowly home;

I want to vote

for goats

and armadillos.

Put me back down

in the lost and found

and don’t go round

tonight.

Help me liver,

I’ve got drinks to deliver,

muscles to quiver

as I float along the river,

and Amstel

damn right you

are delightful.

I want to go

on a double-decker train,

write songs with your name

and my name in ‘em,

but Becca you’d better

behave yourself,

I’m dangerous.

Pick me back up

in the early evening;

these metres are feet

you can believe in.

 

From there, we went looking for boat tours, because we fancied going on a little cruise. We managed to find one company that did a tour of the canals for €10. Highlights of the tour included Amsterdam’s thinnest building, an incredible assortment of houseboats and riverside apartments, and the seven bridges, which all line up if you look at them from the right angle. It only lasted for an hour or so, but it was definitely worth doing!

After the cruise, we went for a walk in search of food, and we ended up eating Italian food at Pizzeria La Piazza. It was 10 PM by the time that we’d finished up and sorted ourselves out, and so we headed back to the hotel to get some rest – it had been a long day.

 

Trams in the Rain

We took the tram

in the rain

to the Rjiksmuseum,

and stood in long lines

to find our way inside,

and we wandered

past cheese shops

but they didn’t have cheese

for me.

We watched TV

with subtitles,

and learned to build

crude survival shelters,

found out more

about 18th century America

where frontiersman blazed trails

like the tail on Haley’s comet,

if it is has a tail;

I tell tales of my own

but I never figured out

how comets work.

We swapped Euros

for orgones

and found Anne Frank

along the Damrak;

we were swarmed

outside restaurants,

proprieters shouting,

“Buy our food

or be damned.”

I narrowly avoided collisions

with cars, trams and bicycles,

walking down cycle paths

like a psychopath,

except I have firmly held beliefs

about eating meat

and the way we treat each other,

so I will never be

a neo-nazi.

I’m pretty sure

we queued forever,

because the weather changed

and the heavens rained

and drained away,

and now it’s just

the survivors,

surviving in some kind

of purgatory.

I put my pen down

and took a short look

at the world around me.

 

Thursday 23rd June 2016

My alarm went off at 8 AM, but I was exhausted and so I turned it back off. I didn’t actually get up until 11 AM, and it was noon by the time that we left the hotel. It rained overnight, and it was still raining when we woke up, so we hopped on a tram and paid a visit to the Riksmuseum.

That place was massive, with three or four floors of exhibitions from the 16th – 20th century. They even had a couple of Van Goghs, although they were somewhat disappointing; there were only three or four of them, they were small and surrounded by crowds of people, and we overheard a conversation which implied that they were reproductions.

Still, they did have lots of cool stuff, and the museum was so big that we only saw half of it. But half was enough – we were still there for a fair amount of time, and I was worn out by the time that we finished. I’d got a sore back, sore shoulders and sore feet, from all of the walking we did.

The rain had stopped and the sun was back out by the time that we left the Rijksmuseum, so we stopped off at a supermarket to get a few bits and bobs for a picnic, which we ate out in the sun on the big field at the back of the museum. It was a cheaper alternative to eating out at a restaurant, but it was also highly enjoyable, it’s sometimes nice to have a change of pace and to just relax. It was so hot that it felt more like Spain than Amsterdam.

 

Humans Aren’t Dogs

I won’t go to bed

with a leash around my neck,

but I will chase squirrels

and hide in women’s handbags;

I won’t mark my territory

or cower on public transportation;

I’ll cower in my territory

and mark public transportation;

I won’t be called Spot

or Fido;

I’ll change my name

and try to act my age.

I won’t guard dogs

for dangerous men with no hair;

I’m more Howard Marks

than German Shepherd.

I will bite

if you try to make me bite you,

but I won’t fight

like a knife in the night.

I won’t be muzzled;

I need to be handled

by specialist

policemen.

I won’t be trained

to be a hearing aid;

I can’t even hear

my own heartbeat.

I won’t go to bed

with a leash around my neck;

I can’t even hear

my own heartbeat.

 

The plan after that was to go to the Heineken Experience, but we missed last entry by maybe five minutes. Instead, we stopped off for a beer just around the corner, and then we hopped on the tram and went to the Torture Museum, which was short and sweet but worth the money.

That was followed by a quick drink and then a tram back to the hotel, where we refreshed ourselves in our room and then enjoyed a drink or two for happy hour.

 

Happy Hour

Happy hour

is the hour

to be in;

not quite an hour

and more like a lifetime

and more like a warning

to worry about;

happy hour,

where the drinks

go down easy,

cheap as chips

from a cheap

chip shop;

I’d like my life

to be a happy hour;

too short

and full of

laughter.

 

Friday 24th June 2016

Friday was a strange day, because we woke up to the news that Britain had voted to leave the EU and that David Cameron had resigned as prime minister. I voted to remain, but what I vote for never seems to happen. Weirdly, Cameron’s decision to resign is the first thing he’s done since coming into power which a) convinces me of at least a semblance of integrity, and b) I agree with. I’m not going to spend any time right now going into what it all means for me, because I’m sure I’ll cover that in my poetry, but I’m not going to lie – it’s left me unhappy and ashamed of my nationality.

 

Europe:

What’s the European Union

ever done for me?

Quite a lot actually

but mainly

it gave me

an identity.

I don’t like being British

or English,

because British English people

ruined being British English,

and I’m allowed to say that

because I’m British English.

I’m not one for patriotism,

because countries are just constructs

we created;

we’ve never owned this world

and we never will,

so saying, “Our country

is better than your country”

is like comparing the clothes you stole

in the London riots.

Don’t get me wrong,

I take some pride in my local area,

but only because

we tried

to make a difference.

And now my mind is reeling

and my body’s dealing

with a sinking feeling,

down at the bottom

of my stomach,

like when you know where you’re going

but the driver is following a satnav,

and you’re driving along

dirt paths and faded tracks,

and there’s one big crash

and the sky goes black.

Once again

I’m sorry, world;

I didn’t ask

to be British,

and I apologise

for the rest

of my countrymen.

 

We hopped on the tram to Centraal and stopped off for some vlaamsefrites – at the place which claims to have won prizes for them – but not until after Becca had opened her pug-themed birthday presents. Then we wondered over to Nieumarket, and on towards the Jewish Quarter.

Along the way, we discovered an outdoor market, where we got a couple of smoothies and a few bits and bobs – in one swoop, I found a new orange hoodie for ten Euros and three wooden tulips for my mother. You weren’t there, man – you don’t know the struggle. I got her a wooden tulip on my first visit and then got her another one, and so this year I had to find her exactly the same model again. I did it, but it took three days to find it.

After that, we stopped at a place called Frenzi for another drink, and then we hopped on the tram to go to the Heineken Experience. I’d been before, but so what? I’ve been to Cadbury World a dozen times and I’d still go back. Plus, I’d forgotten the little details, so it was fun to see how beer is made; halfway round, I also found a wristband on the floor. The wristbands entitle you to two free drinks, and so it was a tasty little bonus – even if picking it up did make me feel like a pikey.

We stopped off via a supermarket on the way back to the hotel, to stock up on Doritos and dip, as well as a few more cans of Heineken. We were planning on going downstairs to play a few games of pool, but we were both exhausted and so we just chilled in the room and watched a program about a Dutch vet who didn’t take shit from anyone.

 

Tommyknockers

Whatsthamatter Stephen King

you scared of a little

Armageddon?

The Tommyknockers

are comin’ to getcha,

and you betcha

bottom dollar

you’re going down

in flames.

You might be scared of nuffin’

and you might be scared

of somethin’,

but your scariest scares

don’t scare me,

‘cause I’m a child

of the revolution.

You got the Tommyknockers

a-knockin’ at your door,

with their nuclear devices

built from circuit boards

and readily available

electronic equipment,

reams of AA batteries

and green fire

spewing from your eyes,

500 angry villagers

‘becoming’ but not so comely,

battering down your door

like Jack Nicholson

in The Shining,

red rum,

red rum,

murder.

Me,

I set the Armageddon clock

to one minute to midnight;

I saw a future

where Scotland, Wales and Ireland

divorced their bully of a brother,

and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s Huge New Erection

is actually a nuclear

staging site.

Putin and You-Know-Who

will kill us all,

while England crumbles

like a dying rose

in a scrapbook,

which it is.

Whatsthamatter Stephen King?

I’m not scared of you.

Your words

are just words;

we gave the real power

to the people who long

for power.

It’s kinda like

digging up

a spacecraft;

me,

I don’t want to see

what’s inside of it.

 

Saturday 25th June 2016

We woke up at around 10 AM and packed up our stuff, and then checked out of the room at the Student Hotel. But they were kind enough to store our bags for us, which meant we were able to take one last trip into the town centre to hunt for some final souvenirs.

We took a tram to Centraal and started to wander along the Damrak again, because that’s where most of the tourist shops are. No trip to Hollan would be complete without some cheese, and so we stopped off at The Old Cheese Shop where I picked up some smoked goats cheese with chilli, and then we went for pancakes.

With the souvenirs sorted, we wandered south of the flower market, where I got some tulip bulbs for my hanging basket, while Becca got some wooden tulips. Then it was back to the hotel, for a quick beer while Switzerland played Polo in the Euros.

From the hotel, we faced a tram and a train to get to Schiphol, where we discovered that the flight was delayed. We ended up sitting in a terrace bar with a decent view of the airfield, drinking beer and killing time until the flight.

It ended up being delayed by an hour, and then the traffic was bad on the motorway. But I was exhausted and so I fell asleep, which meant that Becca had no-one to keep her company.

It was gone one o’clock in the morning when we finally made it home and so we got straight into bed and fell asleep. An exhausted end to an exciting Amsterdam adventure.

Happy Little Lemons

We’re all human

and it’s good for the soul

to sing songs

and move slides along,

trying to build

a happier, more caring

society.

 

It’s the darkness

you never saw before;

it’s not the type you fall asleep in,

it’s the sort of thing you sing along with

tapping tambourines

against your wrist.

 

Your happiness comes from make-up,

your eclectic genetics

forming introspective friendships,

building better worlds

by bringing us together

like happy little lemons

making lemonade.

 

We search

for research,

because knowledge is power

and knowledge is the power

that powers social change,

because it’s all the rage

to turn the page and start again,

but we won’t be locked

in a crowded house,

stood up

on the shoulders

of giants.

 

We are human

and we make mistakes,

and we get scared

and tired

and anxious,

and it’s hard work

finding meaning

but it’s worth it

in the end.

 

The world is a big ol’ place

which is running out of space,

and a racial hate will fade away

before going the way of the dodo;

the world is just one dot

in a seat of space,

and your life only has meaning

if you hunt it down.

 

This is your first step

along a long, fulfilling road;

take another

and another

and another.

 

You can do this.

Hearing Loss

It’s like living at the bottom

of a well you fell into

or were pushed down hard

with a boot to your head

popping blood vessels,

and there’s this high-pitched scream

like steam from a dream machine

pitching slowly back and forth

like a longship trying to sail

through shark-infested waters,

and the water falls through waterfalls

like pastels and oils rubbed slowly

on a brand new canvas,

a hammer to an anvil

and the voices talk of nothing

and they won’t stop singing for anyone

and I can only hear

the rolling thrum of jetplanes

which might as well be lawnmowers,

and the undergrowth forms a jungle

I start to walk towards,

some sort of grey light

like the start of a migraine

where you want to take a bullet

with someone else’s name on it.

 

I’d quite like to write

a happy ending,

but I’m afraid

I’m so damn dizzy

that the world stopped spinning,

so please just kill me now

and kill me quickly.

 

Sometimes this life

just ain’t worth living.

FAT

Mike Walker was FAT, with a capital F, a capital A and a capital T. In fact, he wasn’t just fat, he was obese. Morbidly obese, Dr. Kurfieta had said.

His wife, Jayne, said he looked like a cross between an elephant and a redneck pick-up truck with a bad paint job. She’s shown him a photo of the psychrolutes marcidus – the blobfish – which she’d found online and which she said looked like he used to, when he was a little thinner. They’d switched from missionary to doggy style four years ago, but time and food had continued along on their inexorable march and it’s hard for a woman to get aroused after she’s wiped a man’s arse and held his penis whilst he pissed into a plastic bucket.

His daughter, Lucy, just said he looked like Shrek, and somehow that hurt him even more. She didn’t speak to her father much, despite living under the same roof as him, because his room smelled like death and he never left it. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to – he’d grown too large for his record-breaking bulk to sustain his weight or to fit through the doorframe. When she did speak to him, it was to ask him to override her mother if she’d asked for a new bike and Jayne had said no.

Her mother always let Mike get his way in the end, even when it came to food, which is why he was so fat in the first place.

It was so bad that Jayne Walker had almost given up hope. The initial onslaught of doctors and dietitians had slowed to a trickle of specialist nutritionists and physiotherapists. Jayne had even asked a priest to bless the house, but spirits or no spirits, Mike wasn’t about to start losing weight any time soon.

He ate what he wanted when he wanted it, and the most exercise he ever got was when he rolled over in his reinforced bed to put his plate down. In many ways it was no surprise that Mike was a big, fat bastard.

And the worst thing of all was that Mike was a genuinely nice guy. Sure, he’d never exactly been popular, nor the kind of guy who had a lot of friends, but he did hold on tight to the friends that he had. He called his mother every day, loved his family, never raised his voice in anger and had no other vices, except for his love of fatty foods. Not that the press – and particularly the tabloid press – had cared. To them, Mike Walker was just a headline: Morbidly Obese Father Costs Taxpayers Millions.

And so he hadn’t been particularly excited about meeting Dr. Kufieta. “Just another useless old man with a PhD,” he’d said to Jayne, when she’d first told him about the appointment. “It won’t do me any good.”

And then he’d been surprised when Dr. Kufieta arrived; he was white, for a start, and he was almost young enough to be Mike’s son. He wore khaki shorts and a white polo neck, and he drove a Peugeot 306. He wore wax in his hair and smelled faintly of Lynx Africa. In short, Mike Walker had dismissed the man before he even spoke to him.

Dr. Kufieta had started with the usual stuff. “If you don’t change your lifestyle within six months, you’ll die,” he’d said. “I can only help you so much, if you want to make a real change, you’re going to need to help me out here,” he’d said. “You’re too big to operate on,” he’d said. “We can’t get you out of the door, we can’t rig an ambulance that could carry you, and we don’t have a big enough bed to take you if you make it to the hospital without having a heart attack along the way.”

Mike had fumed on the inside, but he’d successfully hidden his disappointment behind several hundred pounds of skin and cartilage.

Dr. Kufieta had given him a slap on the wrists and a new diet plan, as well as his personal mobile phone number and a promise that he’d make Mike better, whatever it took. Mike was sceptical; he’d heard it all before, and the good doctor’s diet routine wasn’t new to him. He shared it with Jayne and thought nothing more of it.

The doctor shook his head and then disappeared for a quick word with Mike’s wife before climbing into his 306 and driving away. That night, Mike’s dinner was a thick vegetable stew, made with carrots, potatoes, onion, cabbage, lentils and plenty of salt and pepper. The doctor had allowed him two slices of wholemeal bread to go with it; the ultimate goal was a diet of green vegetable smoothies, supplemented with fresh fruit and the occasional grain as a treat. Strictly no meat, and no fish for the first 60 days. This stew was meant to ease him in, for fear that the sudden change might kill him. A secret, dark part of Mike Walker – the part that regretted his early marriage and that thought his daughter would be better off without him – hoped that it would.

But on that first night, he ate it, and he continued to follow the doctor’s plan the following day when his wife was at work, busting her metaphorical balls to earn enough money to put food on the table in the first place. Lucy was at school, and so the house was empty; luckily, they’d been thoughtful enough to place a blender on his bedside table, along with a colourful assortment of fruits and vegetables, from apples and pears to spinach and kale, as well as grains and legumes, like quinoa and soybeans. Mike thought it looked like an explosion in a hipster’s pantry, but he tried his best to devour it. At first, he did just what the doctor ordered, blending the ingredients together and drinking the resultant goop. It came out thick, with little chunks in it, no matter how hard he revved up the blender. It needed a little water, but Mike only had a two litre bottle of water to keep him going until the family got home, and he’d learned early on how important it was not to waste it. He tried the blender again without much success, before resulting to shovelling raw spinach into his mouth by the handful.

Later that night, his wife cooked up a ‘treat’; sweet potato salad – his daily allowance of carbohydrates – on a bed of rocket, along with home-made lemon sorbet – sugar-free, of course – as a dessert. It cleansed his pallet, but it didn’t chase away the gnawing hunger he felt, like a wild animal that was trapped beneath his ribcage.

He cried himself to sleep that night, and then slept so loudly that he didn’t hear Jayne and Lucy on the school run.

The only thing that kept him going the following day was the fact that it was Friday. He spent the morning staring mournfully at the blender, and he spent the afternoon staring mournfully at the fruit. At around 1:25 PM, he picked up a plum and threw it at the wall; it exploded, and the stone went skittering across into the living room, where Cookie, the family cat, tried to gobble it up. He choked on it and spat it back out, then cast a desultory look at Dave, who was lying on his bed like a beached whale or an elephant with a spear in its side, and staring straight back at him.

“Rather you than me, buddy,” he mumbled.

When Jayne got home he played the last card left to him – the sympathy card. “I’m starving here, Jayne,” he’d said. “Don’t you see? What the hell will it take for you to see that you’re killing me with this shit?” Here, he’d pointed at the bowl of fresh fruit and vegetables that she’d tried to poison him with.

“Don’t you want to lose weight?” she’d replied. “Don’t you want to stick around to watch your daughter grow up? To see her first school play? To scare the hell out of whoever’s unlucky enough to come to pick her up on prom night? To wave her off when she goes to university?”

But Mike was having none of it. “I can’t eat this,” he whined. “Please. I’ll try again after the weekend, I promise. You’re right, you’re always right. I can’t keep on living like this. But it’s Friday night, I’m starving, and I need something to eat. One proper meal won’t kill me, but it might just keep me alive.”

And so she’d relented, and she’d picked up a little pork and made him a kebab to go with the chips she’d grabbed with her Mr. Cod loyalty card. The old man in the chip shop had grinned his toothless grin at her, then asked her how Mike’s diet was going.

“Fine, thanks,” she’d said, abruptly. She bought him an extra pickled egg, just to prove a point.

Mike ate well that evening, and he slept badly that night. He had a weird dream about someone watching him sleep, and when he woke up he felt too self-conscious to go to sleep again. It was at times like this that he wished he still shared a bed with his wife; if anyone could scare the nightmares away, she could.

Mike tried again on Monday, but the truth was, he just loved meat. Maybe not the kind of pork you could pick up from a decent butcher, though; Mike liked the gizzards you got in a KFC bargain bucket, the deep-fried whatever-it-was in a McDonald’s chicken nugget. He tried and he tried and he tried, but he caved by Tuesday morning and by Wednesday, he was back to his old bad habits.

Dr. Kufieta paid him another visit the following week. He didn’t look happy. This time, he spoke to Jayne while Mike was in the room, watching impassively whilst his future was decided for him.

“It simply can’t go on like this,” Dr. Kufieta explained.

He took a long pause and a deep, sharp intake of breath before continuing. At last, he spoke. “If that’s your decision,” he said at last. “Then that’s your decision. It’s the wrong decision, but it’s a decision.”

Mike Walker grunted, and Dr. Kufieta took that as his sign to leave. “I never forget a patient,” he said. “And I’ll never forget you either, Mr. Walker.”

Jayne led the young doctor outside, and shook his hand one last time before he climbed behind the wheel of his Peugeot. “Please, Dr. Kufieta,” she’d begged. “Don’t give up. I’m tired of people giving up on us. I’m tired of Mike giving up. Please tell me that you’ll get us out of this mess.”

Dr. Kufieta looked at her, and he looked away again just as quickly. “I’ll do what I can,” he’d said. And then he was gone, just like that.

That night, Mike Walker slept terribly; he’d had that dream again, that godawful dream that just kept on coming. That dream where someone – or something – was watching him. He drowned his sorrows in sugar-free Coca Cola.

Dr. Kufieta didn’t come again, and Mike and Jayne quickly fell back into their old bad habits. Mike didn’t drink, but if he was a drinker then he would’ve been knocking back the bourbons and shotting vodka from the bottle. But Mike Walker didn’t drink, so he ate instead. He ate and ate and ate.

The dreams got worse and worse. At first, it was just a fragment of an illusion that he thought he’d thought; then, it became a living nightmare, something he could never escape no matter how much his wasted body wanted him to. It was always the same dream, and it was always something alien, a strange face he’d never seen before, something lucid and rancid, something so terrible that he wondered what the hell it was supposed to be in the first place.

All of Mike’s dreams were the same; they revolved around the same disturbing premise, where some unidentified alien guy seemed to break unashamedly into his room and start staring at him, until he caved and started screaming.

The alien had a green face and green skin, green legs and green arms, and green appendages which seemed to slobber green slime over the chunks of bony flesh that he’d been unable to swallow. Plus it had massive legs and a ginormous brain, separated into sections and ready to kick ass with its sharp teeth and devastating claws.

And worst of all was the way that it just stood there and looked at him, like it was sizing him up and figuring out which part of him would be the tastiest. For a humongous extra-terrestrial life-form, Mike made the perfect meal; sure, the meat was a little fat-heavy, but Mike’s bloated organs would be considered quite the delicacy on Altair-4, wherever the hell that was.

It wasn’t until the sixth night in a row that Mike realised he wasn’t dreaming. He realised this because he pissed himself, and the warm, seeping liquid failed to wake him up. He paused for a second, deep in stunned thought, and then the realisation hit him and he screamed the kind of primal scream that chills your bones and sets off nearby dogs and car alarms. A light clicked on somewhere, and Mike blinked and rubbed the crust from his eyes. When he moved his head away again, his nocturnal visitor was nowhere to be seen.

Thirty seconds later, the light clicked on in Mike’s bedroom and Jayne came barrelling through the doorway.

“What is it, sweetheart?” she asked, dampening a cloth and using it to mop sweat from Mike’s glistening brow.

“I saw something,” Mike muttered, hoarsely. “Something green and evil, with big teeth and weird tentacles. It was watching me.”

“Oh, honey, it was just a dream. Try to go back to sleep – you’ll feel better in the morning.”

Mike continued to protest, but it was 3:17 in the morning and his wife was having none of it. “Stop being stupid,” Jayne had told him. “Aliens don’t exist, and even if they did, I think they’d have better things to do than watch you sleep.”

“But-”

“But nothing, Mike. I’m going back to bed. Some of us have to work in the morning.”

Mike didn’t get much sleep that night, but the strange apparition stayed away. He was relieved when the sun finally rose and cast its first rays of light over the horizon and into the dusty room that he’d been trapped inside for the last five years. After the night of drama, he didn’t feel much like eating; for the first time in a long, long time, Mike had lost his appetite.

He slept a little throughout the day and tried to make it up to his wife that evening by earing the steamed vegetables she’d prepared for him without complaint. After all, he reasoned, perhaps it was something he ate. He’d heard that cheese could give you vivid dreams, but the green demon he’d seen took it to a whole new level. So he promised himself he’d try to stick to the healthy stuff.

But that night, the visitor was back again, and Mike was left with a sense of déjà vu. He called for his wife again, she came barrelling into the room like a runaway train again, and this time, Mike kept his tired eyes open for long enough to watch the alien climb out of his bedroom window. It was just a short drop from his ground-floor hovel to the rose garden outside, and when Jayne refused to listen to her husband’s impassioned plea for her to protect him from the visitor, he tried a different tack.

“Go out and check for footprints, then,” he whined. “If you don’t believe me, go and see for yourself.”

Jayne grumbled reluctantly, but she did what her husband asked of her. She was gone for nearly ten minutes, and Mike could tell that she was looking around out there by the way that the beam of her flashlight swept around outside the window, casting strange shadows inside the room.

“There’s nothing there,” she told him, when she wandered back inside with her dressing gown wrapped tightly around her shoulders. “Go back to sleep, I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

The following night, the visitors came back again. When Mike called for his wife, she didn’t come to him, but he was sure as hell that he heard him. He shouted until his throat was hoarse, but the weird being just continued to watch him impassively; eventually, he gave into sheer exhaustion and fell asleep. When he woke up, the visitor was gone.

Life continued. Over the next six months, the pattern repeated itself; Mike was eating better but sleeping terrible, and every night the unwelcome guest appeared in his room, as if by magic. Mike never saw him arrive, and he never saw him leave again, but sometimes he felt a chill in the air and he assumed – correctly – that it was his window sliding open and closed. Every night, he called for his wife, and every night, she ignored him. He tried the police, but they ignored him. He tried a priest, but she ignored him. He tried a wide range of independent ‘experts’ on alien abductions, but they couldn’t afford to come out to see him.

One night, he tried his daughter, but she ignored him too. “I’m scared, daddy,” she said. “Mummy says you’ve gone crazy.”

“Your mother said that?”

“She says you’re just telling stories and that the men in white coats are going to take you away.”

“It’s not the men in white coats I’m worried about,” Mike said. “You have to believe me, sweetheart.”

But Lucy didn’t believe him, and she started to cry. Then, she stuck a thumb in her mouth and scuttled away to climb into bed with her mother, who wasn’t too pleased to be woken up in the middle of the night by her snotty-nosed daughter, who was supposed to be sound asleep in her own bed. It was, after all, a school night, and she could tell by the fuzzy quality of the half-light that dawn was on its way.

When Mike’s visitor came back again that evening, and when he called for his wife to help him, he didn’t expect her to respond. But she did; by the time that she made it through to Mike’s room, the alien had disappeared again, but Mike’s eyes were still full of terror. Jayne’s eyes were simply full of fury.

“God damn it, Mike,” she shouted. “I’m sick to death of this rubbish.”

“But-” he stammered.

“We’ll go and stay with my mother, at least for now. Don’t you see what you’re doing to me? What you’re doing to your daughter?”

“But how am I supposed to look after myself?”

“You’ll have to figure something out,” Jayne snapped. “I mean it, Mike. Use that vivid imagination of yours.”

And with that, she turned on her heel and walked out of the room. He could hear clangs and thuds from the rest of the house, followed by the disoriented voice of his daughter. Then the front door opened and closed and he heard a screech of rubber and the crunching of gravel as a car drove away. He looked at the red LEDs on the clock on his bedside table; it was 3:17 AM, and his wife had left him alone in the dark. His daughter had gone without even saying goodbye.

All through the following day, he lived in hope. His ears picked up on every little sound, and he expected his wife to walk back in at any time, to beg for forgiveness and to sit with him through the night until the alien reappeared and he could prove to her that he wasn’t making it up. But Jayne didn’t come, and later that night, when the apparition paid him one final visit, he lost his temper.

“What do you want from me?” Mike screamed. The visitor didn’t reply; it just continued to stare at him impassively. “You’ve ruined my life. My wife left me because of you, you overgrown alien turd muncher. So go on then, do it. Let’s end it, let’s get it over with. Put me out of my misery. Do it, damn you. Do it!”

But the alien did nothing of the sort, and so Mike took matters into his own hands. He rocked back and forth in the reinforced bed, rejigged his massive haunches and slowly swung one of his legs off the mattress and on to the floor. Then, he pushed himself up, slowly at first, and then with a little more confidence. He swung his other foot onto the floor and set it down with a hollow thud. He was sitting up unsupported, for the first time in four years, and boy, did it feel good. And he wasn’t finished.

Mike used his massive hands to support himself on the reinforced bed, and slowly pushed off until he was standing upright. It hurt, and it set his heart racing and left him short of breath, but to his amazement, he didn’t fall back down.

The visitor smiled, exposing a mouth full of misshapen fangs that were stained a mottled brain. It waved slowly at Mike, a movement he could only half make out in the darkness of the room. Then it opened the window, climbed carefully out into the garden, and was gone.

Mike Walker took another tentative step, followed by another and then another, until he’d made it through his bedroom door and into the hallway. He rested against the wall for a moment to catch his breath, and then hobbled over to the coat stand, where he found his old walking stick. It fit into the palm of his hand like an old friend, and it took just enough of his weight for him to slowly let himself out through the front door and out into the cool night air.

He started out along the quiet suburban street, keeping his eyes peeled for passing cars. He stuck his thumb out at the first one he saw, but the driver ignored him. The second one drove past a couple of minutes later, slowed down as it approached him, and then sped off when they saw how big he was. But the third car, a Peugeot 306, slowed to a stop and let him in.

Mike didn’t notice that it was Dr. Kufieta in the driving seat until after he’d somehow managed to squeeze himself into the back of the vehicle. The good doctor had to tilt the passenger seat as far forward as it would go, and Mike was reminded of how the psychrolutes marcidus would look if it was squished into a goldfish bowl. He was trying to remove a seatbelt from his sizeable ass crack when he realised it was Kufieta behind the steering wheel.

The doctor asked him where he wanted to go, and Mike gave him his wife’s parents’ address before launching into a long explanation of what had happened since the two men last saw each other. Kufieta listened politely and drove with both hands on the steering wheel. When Mike was finished, the doctor had nothing to say except, “Remarkable.”

Kufieta dropped Mike off at his destination, and watched from the driver’s seat as he hobbled his way over to the front door. The house was dark to begin with, but when Mike rang the doorbell, it erupted in a flurry of light. It was Jayne who answered the door, dressed for bed in a black dressing gown. She took one look at her husband, who was still standing and putting so much weight on his walking stick that it looked ready to break.

Jayne wrapped her husband in a hug – at least, she wrapped up as much of him as she could manage – and squeezed him tight, then stepped aside so he could enter the house. Dr. Kufieta watched him go and smiled.

He drove home in silence, deep in thought as he cruised beneath the streetlights. When he finally got home, he treated himself to a rare glass of whiskey and updated Mike’s case file. Then he went back to his car, popped the trunk, and removed his alien costume. He folded it up gently and placed it at the back of his wardrobe, then gingerly laid the mask on top of it. He hoped he’d never have to use it again.

Dr. Kufieta slept soundly that night, as he always did. And when the sun rose on a new day, he climbed back into the Peugeot 306 and drove to the clinic. He had more lives to save.

THE END

Poetry News: New Live Date Confirmed

Hi, folks! Today, I’ve got a bit of poetry news for you – I’ve been confirmed as a performer at 4WardEver UK’s Youth Voices 4 Justice fundraiser event in Birmingham on Friday 9th September.

The event is an aid of a great cause, and so I’m honoured to be taking part. You can find out more about the event below:

These benefit evenings will encourage donations to The Mikey Powell National Memorial Family Fund which was launched in September 2015. Join us to hear about the impact of custody deaths on families and to celebrate their struggle for justice through film, poetry, music and spoken word.

Tippa Naphtali (Mikey Powell Campaign & 4WardEver UK) said: “The plight of young people left behind after losing a relative in custody is often overlooked, not addressed or supported in a coordinated or practical way by either the authorities or the campaigning community as a whole.

“This event seeks to hear the stories of young people (or those that were young at the time of their loss), how they were affected, and what support would have assisted them immediately following the loss of their loved ones. Equally, the event will explore the impact on the family unit as a whole.”

The gig has a £10 entry fee (£5 for unwaged/students), with family packs available. It takes place on Friday 9th September in Birmingham and will feature a whole host of awesome poets, so click here to check out the Facebook page. I’ll see you there!

COMPETITION: Win a £10 Amazon Voucher and Signed Book Bundle!

Hi, folks! Today, I have some exciting news – I’m launching a brand new competition where you could win a £10 Amazon voucher and a bundle of signed books!

That’s right, one lucky winner will win the voucher and a signed copy of three of my books – No Rest for the Wicked (supernatural thriller), Eyes Like Lighthouses When the Boats Come Home (poetry) and Former.ly (literary fiction).

You can enter using the Rafflecopter widget below, and you can earn extra entries by heading over to Twitter and retweeting my competition tweets. Good luck!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Read on to see the competition’s terms and conditions:

1. The promoter is Dane Cobain

2. There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this competition.

3. Closing date for entry will be Sunday July 31st 2016. After this date, no further entries to the competition will be permitted.

4. No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received for whatever reason.

5. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without notice in the case of any event outside of the promoter’s control. Any changes to the competition will be notified to entrants as soon as possible by the promoter.

6. The promoter is not responsible for inaccurate prize details supplied to any entrant by any third party connected with this competition.

7. No cash alternative to the prizes will be offered. The prizes are not transferable. Prizes are subject to availability and we reserve the right to substitute any prize with another of equivalent value without giving notice.

8. Winners will be chosen at random using Random.org’s random number generator.

9. The winner will be notified by email and/or letter within 28 days of the closing date. If the winner cannot be contacted or do not claim the prize within 14 days of notification, we reserve the right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner.

19. The promoter’s decision in respect of all matters to do with the competition will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.

11. By entering this competition, an entrant is indicating his/her agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.

12. The competition and these terms and conditions will be governed by English law and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England.

13. The winner agrees to the use of his/her name and image in any publicity material. Any personal data relating to the winner or any other entrants will be used solely in accordance with current UK data protection legislation and will not be disclosed to a third party without the entrant’s prior consent.

14. The winner’s name will be available 28 days after closing date by sending a stamped addressed envelope to the following address: Dane Cobain, 19a West End Street, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, HP11 2QE

15. By entering this competition, you agree to join our mailing list to hear about future competitions as and when they’re announced.

16. Entry in to the competition will be deemed as acceptance of these terms and conditions.

17. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Twitter or any other social network. You are providing your information to SocialBookshelves.com and not to any other party.

Bleed Passion

Bleed passion

my friend

you are a diamond,

and the dark night

has nothing on you

love;

 

fear

is my

worst enemy;

I start to shake

uncontrollable

until the wheels

fall off.

 

So please bleed

passion;

red is the colour

of my nightmares,

and black

is the colour

of daydreams.

 

Love

is the

gamechanger,

a bruised type

of passion

like a coconut

you can’t get into.

 

Bleed passion

my friend

you’re barely alive,

and the light

shines down

on everyone.

 

Passion

is the fruit

you chew on;

you will reap

what you sow,

like growing crops

in an allotment.

 

Bleed passion

and believe

you can move

the world

on its axis.

Why I’m Like a Vampire

#1: I can’t come in

unless you let me in;

I must be asked to pass

the threshold

or I’ll just stand outside

in the rain.

 

#2: Sunlight hurts my eyes;

I don’t rise and shine,

I lose my mind because I’m tired

and then stay up all night.

 

#3: I don’t like garlic;

actually that’s a lie,

I fucking love garlic

but let’s not talk about that.

 

#4: I routinely drink the blood of virgins,

assuming virgins bleed beer

and cry strawberry tears,

which I’m pretty sure they do;

I don’t know,

I’ve never met a virgin.

 

#5: I’m probably immortal;

that’s why I’m so scared

of dying.

 

#6: Despite being probably immortal,

I will still die

if you put a stake through my heart.

 

#7: I hold dominion over wolverines,

break bread with bats

and liaise with the children

of the night.

 

#8: I don’t like mirrors;

when I was seventeen

and my mom went on holiday

without me,

I covered every mirror in the house

with a bedsheet.

 

#9: I could sleep

for a hundred years;

maybe I could even sleep

for longer.

 

#10: Society despises me,

and ignorant townsfolk

chase me with pitchforks

because they’re afraid

of the new millennium.

 

Bring me blood,

and lots of it.