DEEP IN ST.ALBANS ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM, 1339

here goes .. this just a writerly jam session .. Orlando Furioso is a pen name I use occasionally ..


DEEP IN ST.ALBANS SCRIPTORIUM, 1339

(two monks toiling taking a tea break from illuminating bibles, late one dark late November afternoon. Note: Bishop's Finger is a strong dark ale)

BROTHER JAYDEN: I tweets you not bruv, this guy strolls in, crazy mother, got the biggest kissass carp you've ever see. This big! Carpus mirabilis. S'truth! God's hooks!

BROTHER ROGER: Yeah, yeah. You been at the Bishop's Finger again Brother Jayden?

BJ: Nah bruv, God blind me! THIS! big. Two days to cook..

BR: Pass the gold leaf brother.

BJ: No can do, bruv. Used it on a bit of freelance.

BR: What?!

BJ: N.C.D. gold-leafed out.

BR: Listen, Brother Jayden, when the abbot hears, you're going to end up shovelling his night soil. Or the rood screen, up on the rood screen.

BJ: God's hooks! Bibles, bibles, bibles, bibles, year after year, nothing but 'The sins of Israel and Judah .. Deuteronomy .. reproof of the shepherds'. I tweets you not bruv, that dude man! Was from the twenty-first century, man! Just walks in! What you looking at me like that for bruv?

BR: (rolls eyes heavenwards) Holy Mother, save me from this poor deluded sinner!

BJ: Loook at this freebie the dude laid on me. Signing on fee.

BR: What's that?

BJ: iPhone.

BR: I?

BJ: iPhone. Look. Inter-centurial-internet-con!-nec!- tiv!-it!-eeee! Wanna see?

BR: (gazes at phone, which Jayden has set to a free online porn site) AGGGGGGGGGGGGH! The four-legged-two backed beast! (staggers back) Let me look again.

BJ: Hot babes, frotting the bacon.

BR: (looks over shoulder guiltily) Brother Jayden, let me see, one more glance, so I know what to pray for salvation from. Please.. Thank you.. What is she doing now? Gates of heaven! Ahh, now there's another one! What devilish work be this? Let me see. No, I can't look. Let me see, let me see! They are alive in there! Tiny devils in.. I don't know what..

BJ: Nah bruv, just an iPhone. They all have 'em in the twenty-first century.

BR: Devil's boy you!

BJ: Listen up bruv, I tweets you not, there's a wedge in this for u, you-n-me bruv. We're going to be R I C H bruv.

BR: Rich?

BJ: As earls.

BR: How so?

BJ: The guy, Orlando Furioso, he's this big shot indie author, you know a bike that robe you worked with in France..

BR: What, Geoffrey Chaucer?

BJ: Roger, Roger. My man wants me, us, to do a job for him. God blind me! I swear to you the carp could've swallowed Jonah's freakin' whale like some freakin' abbot's anchovie. This big! As succulent as a virgin's..

BR: Brother Jayden! We are in the abbot's scriptorium, were he to hear a word of this..

BJ: Sorry bruv, as succulent as the abbots pate!

BR: Brother Jayden! (draws closer) Go on.. The riches..

BJ: Orlando Furioso's, like, this crazy author from the twenty-first century. Don't! ask. He wants me, us, to, like, erm, illuminate his oeuvre, make God's light shine from his fundament.

BR: Brother Jayden! Go on.. The riches man, the riches!

BJ: Ten pounds a piece, enough to quit this living hell..

BR: I wish you wouldn't say such things. Go on..

BJ: ..a hundred hides in some sleep shire, sheep! Become sheep barons! Buy a wife, yesssssss Brother Roger, your very own maidenhead to frot. S'truth God send him.

BR: How many books does said authurial palladin crave?

BJ: Fourteen. You do ten. I do four. You being my devil in this device. And you being quicker.

BR: Yet I only get the same as you.

BJ: Yeah but, yeah but, I'm, like, his agent here, K? No me, no deal, no deal no sheep, no wives, no nuffink, K?

BR: K.

BJ: K then. Coolio.

BR: Might one see that cunning piece of devilment again?

BJ: All in good time Brother Roger-the-Roger. I'll let you look after you finish each book, K?

BR: K. When do we start?

BJ: Soon as the abbot goes off to devastate France with the king. K,we'll be behind with the bible quota when he gets back, but that won't matter as we'll soon be R I C H enough to naff off, K?

BR: Our vows? You saw what befell Brother Kyle when he tried to leave for his lady-of-St-Albans-town. Ordeal by torture. You helped me heap the weights on him until he..

BJ: S'why we've got to get out of this place bruv. It's crshing us.

BR: Speak for yourself. I'm up for spicer when Brother Ferkin dies.

BJ: Do you want to see the four-legged-two-backed beast again or not? I take it that's a yes. Good! Don't look so worried, Orlando of the future will square the abbot away with a series 7 Beamer. All will be well, we're going to be R I C H, rich as earls. Morphic reasonance, bruv. Right here, right now, sweet dreames are made of this, it's a beautiful day bruv!

(more anon)




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