Sir Randolf Sandringham-Smythe was a nasty piece of work. Not only was he the director of four companies that all used child labour in Indonesia but he was involved in private arms sales and the sale of torture equipment. He always made sure arms went to military regimes who were trying to prevent the liberation of cheap labour. Like all of those in his peer group he was born into wealth and he saw the British class system as the only thing propping up his family’s tradition of exploiting the masses. He was fine with the modern right-wing policy of trying to convince the work force that class distinctions no longer existed but both he and his associates knew this was just a media smoke-screen in order to hide the truth about the pecking order. He pushed money this way and that and helped those politicians of all major parties if they allowed his unelected standpoint to take precedence over party policy.
He had recently had a breakdown. He thought that a whole strata of his associates in very high places had disappeared and even the structure and leadership of government had changed right down to the identity of the Prime Minister. He kept referring to “The Party” as if there had been only one real political force in Britain and not the selection of squabbling idiots that comprised the House of Commons. He had felt sure that there had been some extra-terrestrial conspiracy to change the whole fabric of reality. He had insisted for a whole year that it had something to do with the occupation of Trafalgar Square after the Dockers march in 1997. He had insisted that both the defeated Tory Prime Minister and his Labour successor later that year were not the people that he had seen in power before the march. He hadn’t recognised those in the positions of power that his “former” friends had held. These “replacements” knew him well enough. They were astounded that his memory of them at school and in their subsequent clubs and secret societies had been swapped with his insistence that his real friends had disappeared. After a year of sedation, hypnosis and shock treatment the powers that be had got his mind, power and money back securely within their ranks. Sir Randolf ended up accepting that he must have gone temporarily insane and restarted his life as an integral part of the society that he now saw around him. Little was different but he was niggled by the memory that his “imagined” friends and he had all had access to some interdimensional power that the present authorities seemed to know nothing about. He had to keep these thoughts to himself though. Any such talk would now lead to his return to the secret asylum where the super rich go when they loose their marbles. He couldn’t risk that. If it happened again he would be dethroned by some insolent careerist from his own class.
By 1999 he was back on top of his shit heap dishing out large slices of poverty and cruelty all over the world. All in the name of prosperity.
By 2000 he was satisfied that he was pulling enough strings in government and by 2001 he had helped mould the nature of British parliamentary leadership in his and his associates attempts to return it to the slightly more reactionary nature it had had five and a half years before.
He was not happy though. He kept having dreams concerning this “other life” that he was not allowed to discuss. He hadn’t been amongst those who had traversed any gateways between this world and others but his even more powerful associates at the time had shown him proof of interdimensional existence. It had only been a select few that had been allowed to meet those beings that had offered his associates even more power than they already had. He had been part of a larger, secondary circle of fat-cats who were waiting for their chance to enter the inner circle of directors who had face to face contact with the “help from outside”.
After his breakdown he had tried to link up with those from his “outer circle” of directors that “still existed”. Some of them had gone irretrievably barmy and some had been scared and had avoided him. Some did not seem to know what he was talking about and a few told him to keep it to himself for the time being. Of course he’d done just that for nearly three years now and he was beginning to get a growing fear that a sufficient level of stress may blur the distinction between his “madness” and the reality he was told to adhere to.
Sir Randolf Sandringham-Smythe turned off the alarm system with his remote control. He opened the door to his extravagant Kensington residence. It was one of 25 apartments and houses he owned around the world. This, of course, did not include the houses he owned as a landlord. He shut the door and sat on his leopard skin sofa. He had given his bodyguards the day off. They had begun irritating him. They were making him feel like a bird in a gilded cage.
The doorman at the entrance to the building had given him some post. He put his briefcase down and opened it. To his surprise the bundle of envelopes he had been given concealed a pizza delivery menu.
“Ha! You have to give it to these scum. They must be quite enterprising on the shop floor in order to find a way into the letterboxes of the likes of me. The irony is delicious! I own their arses and they don’t even know it. I own their arses and I wouldn’t eat the crap they sell on my behalf if it was the last food on Earth!”
He thought about this for a minute and considered the last advert this company put out. It gave the idea that if your kids ate nothing but this brand of mass produced pizza they would not only get all the nutrition that they needed but they would also be healthier than kids on other diets. This particular menu provided information about the pizza equivalent to the kind of fast food crap you’d find in Macmurderers. Companies like his were wilfully driving smaller, higher quality hot food retailers out of business not to mention the fact that they were also discouraging the public from cooking at home.
Sir Randolf laughed.
A thought started niggling him. Could he eat this crap if he were starving? He analysed the menu. He noticed that on the back of the menu was a “colour in the clown” competition. The 1st prize was £40 worth of food. The 2nd was £20 worth of food. The 3rd was £10 worth of food. He noticed that there was no age restriction information and no information about where to put your name and address. There was also nothing to say when the judgement was to be made.
Sir Randolf scratched his chin. If he were to try some of this company’s food he sure as shit wasn’t prepared to pay for it. He could hardly be seen to be eating it in front of his employees. He believed that such a familiarity with the substandard goods that he pushed onto the public was not a wise thing to show in front of the lower classes. It could dent their perception of him being above that sort of thing. It could give them the impression that his palate was as unrefined as theirs.
“I know.” he said jumping up from the sofa. “I’ll win the competition!”
He telephoned the staff in his building and ordered them to get him the most expensive felt tips possible. He gave them a deadline of 15 minutes. He then ordered other workers to find an art forger. He gave them fifteen minutes. Within an hour the clown had been collected from him and also returned with a previously transparent jester now sporting the most incredibly rich three dimensional set of silken clown robes that big money can buy.
The clown in question had his right foot on the ground and his left foot in the air as in a high kick in a dance routine. He held a duck in his left hand and an umbrella in his right. He had a miniature trilby with a flower sticking out of the top. The only other distinguishing features were a giant bow tie, gloves, a puffed out jump suit and long, floppy boots. All of this, including his make-up and afro wig were now a sea of swirling, silken colours that twisted into spirals all over his clothing. Even his boots had at least three primary colours swirling across them.
Sir Randolf was delighted. He then rang for someone to pick up the menu with the picture on it and deliver it to the relevant offices of the pizza company. His parting instruction to the maid who collected the clown was that she should put her address and name on the menu next to the picture and inform him as soon as the company got in touch. He also informed her that if she claimed a prize and did not inform him then she would lose her job and perhaps a lot more than that. Sir Randolf could be so petty.
When he returned to his Kensington residence the next day he was irritated to find that the pizza company had not contacted the maid straight away. Oh well.... he was in a good mood. He’d just settled a deal that would prevent all those freaks from reclaiming their cherished Kensington Market. He’d been really happy that he’d been one of the back-room boys that had got that nest of sub-cultural scum evicted from their building. Punks, Goths, Bikers and Counter-Culturalists had had the market in Kensington for decades. It had been a thriving amalgam of body piercers, tattooists, clothes and record vendors, hand-made jewellery traders and fetish stallholders. Sandringham-Smythe had hated them all. Now the multi-story Victorian building was out of their hands for good.
The next day he got in he was still surprised to find that the pizza company had not contacted his maid. She had posted it but had not enquired as to when she would hear from them.
He considered this and rang her.
“Miss Kolanovic? Svetlana Kolanovic?”
“Yes sir?” she replied.
“You’re fired. Please leave the building immediately. Don’t bother to get in touch about any money owing because there isn’t any.” He put the phone down. She was only cheap immigrant labour anyway. He cleared a lot of arms during the Kosovo crisis and enjoyed the fall-out of desperate asylum seekers. It had been his bombs that were amongst those that had destroyed her home and children and now it was his place to own or expel those, like her, who had been driven out of their own country. He didn’t approve of immigrants generally and always supported the most extreme right wing legislation that sought to drive out any that weren’t working for him. Svetlana Kolanovic had not asked about the “colour in the clown” deadline so she had to go. He’d save a bit of cash on not paying her her outstanding wages. He chuckled.
The next day he got in he shouted at a replacement maid for ten minutes over the phone after she’d told him that there was still no information about when the decision over who won the competition would be made.
The next day he came in he demanded the number of the department of the pizza company that was dealing with the competition. When the department could not be found he had the boss of the company switchboard fired.
The next day he got in his phone rang and he eagerly picked it up. To his disappointment it was one of his bodyguards.
“Sir.... we’ve seen hide nor hair of you for four days now. We’ve checked that you’ve arrived at your appointed destinations every day but we think this continued isolation in your rooms night after night is risky.”
“Why?”
“Well.... burglars and assassins, kidnappers and....
“YOU THINK I’M GOING CRAZY AGAIN DON’T YOU?”
“No sir. I....”
“IF YOU PURSUE THIS LINE OF CONVERSATION EVER AGAIN I WILL HAVE YOUR CHILDREN SHOT! IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?”
“Yes sir.”
Sir Randolf slammed the phone down.
The next day he came in he rang the head of the pizza company for the area his delivery menu covered. Now this particular do-right was still not high enough up the ladder to know who Sandringham-Smythe was so a ruse sprang to life in the lord’s head.
“I have a seven year old son who entered your “colour in the clown” competition earlier in the week and there is no information as to where and when a decision is going to be made over who has won. Nobody seems to know anything about it so I thought I’d ring you.”
“Well I don’t know how you got my number but I have more important things to do than to listen to the complaints of over-protective mummies and daddies.” Jamie Bolivar was pissed off with dealing with nobodies. Since he was close to earning “top dollar”, as he saw it, he did not react pleasantly to anyone unless they earned as much or more than him. The last thing he wanted was to have to do any actual “work”. That was what “workers” did. He went to business lunches and board meetings.
Sir Randolf was a tad miffed at the reaction of this younger man’s insolence. He mustn’t blow his cover though. He kept his cool.
“Pardon me young man?”
“Look I don’t know how you got through the switch-board but you’re going back there.”
“Mr. Bolivar.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Er.... the switch-board gave me it.”
“Well they’re not supposed to do that. I hope you realise that you just lost someone their job. Now go away.”
“Jamie Bolivar.”
“They gave you my first name?”
“Yes.”
“Jeeeesus Christ almighty! Look.... I couldn’t give a shit about your son. You’re obviously a sad, whining loser if you need a free meal out of us. I don’t give a shit about you. I couldn’t even care if you and your son starved to death. You probably haven’t even got a son and you’re the sad bastard that’s entered this competition. Anyway I don’t know of any competition so go and chat to the switch-board about it.” With that Jamie Bolivar put the phone down. He hadn’t even transferred Sir Randolf to the switchboard. He thought for a minute. He considered the possibility that he had been set up and that his abuse had been recorded. He dismissed this thought as extremely unlikely. All the other phone lines on this particular switchboard were only open to people below his level. He could squash any attempt to replay his conversation. Anyway his bosses liked his bullish behaviour. They’d probably commend him for his attitude. If it was a media watchdog investigator they could be paid off. They’d had to do that before and the reporter concerned was only too glad to take the money so that was no threat. He had powerful people watching over him. He could afford to say what he thought from time to time. After all, he was on top dollar.
The next morning Jamie was discovered in a skip up the Mile End Road with his castrated penis shoved up his own arse-hole. He had been beaten to death. A post-mortem revealed that the penis had almost certainly been cut off before the beating had taken place. The official police line was that he had been murdered by Jamaican Yardies for non-payment of cocaine debts. The truth was that Jamie Bolivar had never touched cocaine in his life. He had always seen drink and drugs as a weakness.
Sir Randolf hadn’t had Jamie murdered because of anger ensuing from the phone conversation. He hadn’t had Jamie killed because of poor work practises. He had had Jamie killed because Sir Randolf thought that Jamie’s comment about him having coloured in the clown himself proved beyond any doubt that the area manager had rumbled him. He even convinced himself that Jamie even knew he was Sir Randolf Sandringham-Smythe. Ironically he had got some bent coppers high up in the ranks of the C.I.D. to do the killing.
Later that next day Sir Randolf came home from an arms fair where he had put in an order for two Tornado fighter planes. He knew they’d be “stolen” from the British or American taxpayer but that made it more fun than a legitimate sale. He was always taught that if you cheat at something and get away with it then that is the strongest example of survivalism that a human being could display. Sir Randolf had attended a particularly unpleasant boarding school as a child. The place was famous for turning out dictators, authoritarian corporate bosses and secret service torturers. They all amounted to the same thing anyway. Sir Sandringham-Smythe picked up the phone.
“Is that Expresso Pizzas?”
“Yes?”
“What department have I got?”
“You haven’t got any department. This is just a take-away and delivery service.”
Sir Randolf had finally built up the courage to ring the number he had written down from the menu he had had delivered. It made him feel sick to think he was talking to the lowest level worker he possibly could.
“When is the “colour in the clown competition” to be judged?”
“Sorry?”
“When is the “colour in the clown” competition to be judged?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The girl on the other end of the phone was patient and amiable even though she couldn’t help this deranged sounding caller.
“WHERE’S MY CLOWN THEN? I WANT IT BACK! GIVE ME MY CLOWN!”
“Look, I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about a clown colouring competition. I would have remembered if there had been one because I’m working with the menus day and night.”
“Alright if I can’t have my clown back I want £40 worth of “rocky chocky peanut dream”. I wrote some of the menu down in the advent of winning.”
“Well, not only am I unable to authorise the sending of free food without clearance from our top boss, but we no longer do “rocky chocky peanut dreams”. I’ll certainly enquire about this competition though.... but I can’t do that immediately because we’re well over-worked at the moment. In fact we’re well over-worked all the time but if you leave your name and number we’ll get back to you. O.K.?”
“What’s your bosses number madam?”
“This outlet’s manager or my ultimate boss?”
“Your line manager.”
“My what?”
“THE GENTLEMAN THAT RUNS YOUR SHOP!”
“It’s a lady actually.”
“Can you get her on the phone?”
There was silence on the other end.
Eventually another women’s voice cut in.
“What can I do to help?”
“I ENTERED A BLOODY COLOURING COMPETITION A WEEK OR SO AGO AND I WANT TO KNOW WHERE MY CLOWN IS!”
“I don’t know anything about a clown but there is no need to shout. Any competitions that head office have put out will take weeks to assess. We won’t be getting any information about results for a further month or so.”
“But what about....”
“Goodbye.”
“But....”
“Goodbye.”
The phone went down and Sir Randolf was left on the other end in a state of psychosis. He threw the phone across the room and sat on the leopard skin sofa. He picked up a remote control and turned on the T.V..
Instead of the expected channels that were fed into his living room via his satellite dish a swirling vortex appeared on the screen.
Now he felt he must surely be returning to the madness that he was told he had suffered from. He stared in mute shock as the full weight of what this vision might mean coursed through his brain.
A collection of dots started growing in size in the centre of the vortex. As they got larger they started to form shapes that appeared to be writhing and flailing with a flurry of movement. Then, in a matter of seconds, they grew into the contorted images of humanoid creatures. Before Sir Randolf could fully take it all in they had poked their heads through the screen. Three pairs of malevolent eyes stared at him. They were set into the heads of three faces that hissed and growled. Their features were twisted into permanent expressions of hatred. They had pointed ears, grey skin and long, yellow, pointed teeth. The pupils of their eyes were red and they were each wearing helmets that had one, two and three horns respectively. Another couple of seconds passed as they climbed out of the television and stood before Sir Randolf.
They all wore leather armour and held long, jagged blades in each of their right hands. They were all about five-foot tall and as they carried on making hissing and growling noises Sir Randolf noticed to his further horror that they all had forked tongues.
“Who are you?” whimpered Sir Randolf.
“Goblinsss.” hissed the creature with one horn on his helmet.
“What do you want?” whimpered Sir Randolf.
“To see if this environment iss safe ffor our masster.”
“Who is that?” whined Sir Randolf.
“ME!” said a giant fifty-foot dragon as it squeezed its massive head through the T.V. screen and into Sir Randolf’s living room. It was as if the dragon’s head was pliable like some form of semi-liquid as it pushed its way further into the room.
“Who are you?” whimpered Sir Randolf.
“Malthus.” said the dragon as his giant eyes looked around the room.
“W-w-what do you want?” asked Sir Randolf as he seemed incapable of anything but this line of questioning.
Malthus looked straight at him and said.... “I want to know if I’ve successfully broken the spell Aristotle placed on me at the end of the Dockers strike. I also want to know if I can stabilise my form here.”
“D.. D.. Dockers strike?” stammered Sir Randolf.
“Yes fool. You are one of the only pathetic little contacts we have on Earth that is available at the moment. Now we seem to have contained the vortex we are using you as our focus for transportation. Your hatred and corruption is a beacon we are using in order to guide us in the direction of Earth. Now we are here you will serve us or die an indescribably nasty death. Such a death would make your treatment of Mr. Bolivar look extremely tame.”
“You know about that?”
The dragon started laughing.
There was a knock on the door.
“Answer it.” said Malthus.
Sir Randolf went to the door. “Whose that?”
“Open it.” said Malthus.
With his hands shaking Sir Randolf opened the door. Suddenly it was pushed back and Sir Randolf’s bodyguards ran into the room.
“What’s going on in here? We thought you were in trouble sir.” said one of the bodyguards as he turned to his boss who was hiding behind the door. Sir Randolf pointed in the direction of the goblins and the dragon and the bodyguard looked around. He was just in time to see a goblin chop his work-mate’s head off with one swipe of a jagged blade. He carried on watching in mute silence as the goblin bent down and picked up the head and tossed it into the mouth of the grinning dragon. That was the last thing he saw before a plume of ice hit him and froze him to the spot. Malthus was, of course, an ice dragon.
“Shut the door Sir Randolf.” said Malthus.
Sir Randolf shut the door. The dragon then ate the body of the first bodyguard and licked all the blood off of the carpet with such speed and efficiency that not even the faintest stain remained.
“I think I’ll save the other one for later. Magickal ice should take days to start melting here on Earth. Now I suppose I shall have to get the rest of my body into this dimension.”
There was a sudden flash of bright, white light and Baphomet appeared. He hovered, cross-legged, over the T.V. set. The goblins freaked out and started running about wildly. Malthus’ head immediately withdrew into the T.V. and disappeared along the twisting corridor of the vortex. A goblin grabbed Sir Randolf and held a jagged blade to his throat.
“If you do not leave Baphomet there’ll be more human blood on your handss!” hissed the goblin. Sir Randolf wet himself. It wasn’t his abductor that had caused it but the sight of Baphomet in the flesh.
“Leave now!” ordered the goblin. Baphomet’s goat’s head laughed hysterically and then fell silent. His expression changed to one of silent loathing and his eyes lit up with a shocking brilliance. The goblin’s head exploded and green and brown slime covered Sir Randolf’s head and shoulders. Sir Randolf then vomited as the stench hit him full on. The other two goblins ran at Baphomet and raised their blades. Their heads exploded too. As their body’s hit the carpet Sir Randolf retched again. All three goblin bodies and the mess their heads made then disappeared in sudden bursts of fire and smoke. The ice enclosing the remaining bodyguard vanished too and he fell to the ground stone cold dead.
Sir Randolf found himself in complete darkness.
He then caught a one-second glimpse of what the Earth would look like if Malthus and the forces of Cain got their way. He started weeping uncontrollably and the sense of loss made him crave the loving protection of others in a way that he had not felt before. It was as if he had been returned to the birthing experience only to find that where there was a chance of environmental protection there was now none. The infant fear as a result of no perceivable home shook him to the absolute core!
There was a flash and he was back facing Baphomet. The goat-headed, humanoid androgyny with cloven hooves then flew, cross-legged, into the spiralling vortex on the TV screen. A few seconds later the vortex was replaced by some fool advertising mobile phones.
Two days later Sir Randolf was admitted to a discreet institutional environment where he was judged to be in a catatonic trance. His business associates were told that the chances of him returning to the cut and thrust world of big business were rarer than Charles Manson becoming Pope. The disappearance of a body-guard and the discovery of a second who was found dead in Sir Randolf’s Kensington apartment were facts that never reached the press. In fact the families of both were led to believe that the body-guards were still alive somewhere doing important, but secret, governmental work.
Two months after these events Svetlana Kolanovic officially won the “colour in the clown” competition but she was none the wiser as she begged for food and money outside of King’s Cross train station in central London.