This story was written at a point further into my first year at university, during the point where my writing style had become, to my mind, rather stagnant. Try as I might, I never felt any of my work could live up to what I felt I had achieved with 'Appointment with Fate'. I did not want to become a 'gothic writer', preferring to write a more diverse range of material more akin to my greatest inspirations - Chaucer and Shakespeare aside, I am a devoted fan of the intellectual crime fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the humorous absurdities of P. G. Wodehouse, the subtle wit of Oscar Wilde and the great social commentary of Charles Dickens and George Orwell, amongst others. It was with this thought it mind, that I made an attempt at writing comedy. This is, without a doubt, the silliest, most bizarre piece of fiction I have ever created, but it has proved very popular amongst those who have read it, and as such I have decided to include it here, despite my own reservations about it, as an example of my early work which will doubtlessly be held in high regard by future generations (fingers crossed).
Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming must be turning in their graves...
An angry Olive can be a horrific thing. Aside from their terrifyingly foul taste and their fearful texture, each Olive harbours within its soul a dark desire; no-one knows this desire but them. They are trusted not only by the Humans, but by both the Fruits and the Vegetables. Each gang believes that the Olives work for them, and this “double agent” status is made all the easier to maintain by the fact that no mortal being truly knows whether an Olive is a Fruit or a Vegetable anyway.
But Olives do, in fact, belong to their very own category. They are to this day the only known Evil food. They may have taught you at school, dear reader, that all food was neutral. I am sorry to inform you that they lied.
It was on the 86th day on January, in the year 1947, that I first learned the truth about the Olives. I was sitting alone in my armchair, in my office on the corner of 666th Street, minding my own business, and cradling a dish of those treacherous Fruit-Vegetables in my large, calloused hands, when I heard a knock on the door. It was a gentle knock. It was, furthermore, an incredibly timid knock, as if the person on the other side of the threshold had simply brushed their nails against the wood.
The woman entered the room upon my invitation. She was young and incredibly beautiful, possessing a chalky white complexion and a head of thick, blue hair which fell heavily down her back and trailed behind her on the floor. I determined from just one glance at her – such was my skill as a private detective – that she was in dire need of a haircut, and had potentially suffered an accident involving hair dye or food colouring at some point in her life.
It seemed to me as though she was about to faint. I considered for some time whether or not I should allow her to use of a chair; however, there was only one in my small office, and it was, I regret to say, situated directly beneath my firm and perfectly rounded buttocks.
By the time I had decided that I would indeed give up my most comfortable seat to her, she lay unconscious on the floor of my office, and I then realised it would be pointless now. I continued sitting, and waited for her to wake up.
As I sat there, attempting to finish he reading of a most fantastic novel – which, incidentally, was the most wonderful detective story of all time: The Adventures of Sherlock Hound – and at the same time attempting to finish writing my own novel while avoiding the use of vowels (as a phobia had gripped me in its iron fist ever since the alphabetti spaghetti incident in my early childhood) she incessantly mumbled in her sleep (or whatever you call it when someone’s unconscious). I heard two words repeated over and over again – Ollie and Viv. Sometimes, chillingly, the two words seemed to fuse into one disyllabic sound – 'Olive'. The mention of the Fruit and/or Vegetable made me uneasy, and with great anger and frustration, I threw my own Olives into the corner of my office.
I know what you are thinking, dear reader. Why did I throw my Olives away when it is common knowledge that they are highly volatile, and can spontaneously combust if not treated with great care. I have often wondered at my actions too, ever since that day. But it was too late to retrieve the lost Olives. They exploded, and a fire steadily spread throughout the room.
I quickly snapped to my senses, and ran out of the door. The corridor was ablaze. I turned back and noticed posters had been stuck all over the walls of the building. Each displayed the same image of two bright green Olives, each with a martini in hand, smiling out at the world. Below them ran the caption: 'Ollie and Viv – building a brighter future.' I smiled contentedly at this news, but I had exceptionally sharp eyes, and it only took me an hour before I noticed the small print at the bottom of the poster: 'there will be no bright future for Humans; Humans must die.'
It was the most terrible coup since the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; since the murder of King Snow Patrol; since the banishment of Lord Bon Jovi.
I ran back into my office and began slapping the unconscious young woman frantically across her face, hard. I had to take my frustration out on something, after all. After a few minutes, she came to, and I began to grill her mercilessly. She claimed the Olives had been in power for three whole weeks, and I cursed the day I had decided to spend three weeks indoors playing that game of intense physical and mental skill, “The Tower Game” (or “Jenga” as these new “hip” youngsters call it nowadays). The building continued to burn, and as the flames began to lick at my door, I knew I had to exit the room the only possible way – by diving out through my window. I knew it could be the end of me, but I had to try and get out. I took a running jump and dived through the glass. I plummeted an entire foot to the ground, and hit it with an almighty thump.
I had always thought it was a smart move to have procured an office on the ground floor. It was as I lay there, feeling the bite of the air – it was, after all, a cold, bright day in January – that I remembered the woman. Could I go back into the building and save her? I looked back into my beautiful, burning office. She lay at least three feet away from me. I cursed. She was too far away.
And it was then that I saw them. Hundreds of thousands of millions of Olives were roaming the streets. It was truly a terrible sight. Some carried people out of their houses and dumped them in the gutter. In the corner of the street, two Olives mercilessly skinned a helpless Banana. A car crashed into a streetlight, and the Olive that had been driving staggered out, laughing manically, and swinging a bottle of Chris de Burgh ’72 around.
It had begun.
I felt the tears of anger welling up in my eyes and, before they spotted me, I snuck into an art studio nearby.
The studio was filled with the rich odour of Olives. In a large, black chair at the desk at the far end of the room sat Viv (I recognised her from the poster). Her legs were outstretched and resting on Ollie’s back, who crouched on all fours in front of her, and she stroked a young Orangepip sinisterly with her long, spidery fingers.
'Well, Mr. Unnamed Detective Hero Of This Story,' she said mockingly, 'welcome to my lair. I must say, you’re not the Bond-style hero I was expecting.' She threw her head – if indeed olives have heads – backwards and let out a shrill, overexcited cackle.
I thought for a moment how to respond to this arch-villain. Eventually I said 'I have friends who talk about the pleasures of the Bond fantasy. But what that really boils down to is a bald bad guy, a girl in a bikini and loud bangs in a foreign country.' I paused, and felt satisfaction as the smile was wiped from her face at the cool way in which I spoke, expressing no fear and no agitation.
I continued: 'And given that he was already a thirty-something man when he first appeared, I feel he ought by now to be hobbling around on a Zimmerframe.' Viv had by now dropped her Orangepip and allowed it to scurry away across the floor.
'Have you anything else to say, my dear?' Her voice was snide, arrogant, and barely concealing her anger.
I felt it would be best to keep quiet, but I blurted out 'with built-in Martini-shaker' before I knew what I was doing.
'Are you mocking me?' she asked, kindly.
I felt the urge to enter into a lengthy conversation with her regarding the many continuity errors I had picked up in films and books over the years but, dear reader, I shall spare you the further anguish of having to pay attention to that part of the proceedings.
'No ma’am,' I answered.
Ollie and Viv stood up, and both drew long scythes from their... I suppose the best word is pockets, if you can imagine an Olive with arms, legs and pockets. I myself, sensing a potential threat, drew out my assault rifle from my own pocket, and prepared to do battle for the freedom of mankind.
I could describe the entire battle to you, but that would be a waste of time. After all, as I am the narrator of this story, I think the outcome must be obvious.
I won.
‘The Great Olive Cleansing’, also known as the ‘Olive Chainsaw Massacre’, occurred that year led, of course, by me. Naturally, we had traitors in our midst, who attempted to rescue the Olives (the most famous attempt was made by my dear friend Billy Schindler, who hid Olives away in a broken-down lift in order for them to escape their inevitable punishment (these events are told of in my finished novel, Schindler’s Lift). But none did escape. The human race prevailed. The new age had begun. Only the clinically insane would continue to treat Olives as a healthy and respected food. The rest of us never forgot, and we certainly never forgave.
And, finally, what of the girl in my burning office? I could never finish my tale without a reference to her. Did she make anything of herself in life? Did I ever discover who she was?
2010
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