Simon

Simon I believe they called it Simon but I called it hell. You see it was a naval officer who said it once. “Simon is here; he’s here.” Why he said it we will never know as Simon was in the room right then, in fact he was writing down what the officer was saying as he was the officer’s writer and it was his job. He declined from telling the Officer in question that he was right there as he did not want a royal whipping. This was a fatal mistake though and the whips though painful were far from fatal. Indeed moments later the Officer ran over to the side of the room and jumped out due to the pain. Thankfully though he only broke his nose as he jumped straight into the wall. It wasn’t long, though, before he got up walked over to the door opened it and then stepped outside. He was never seen again. Well until he came back five minutes later and proclaimed that Simon was here. He then proceeded to strangle himself. We would have stopped him but none of us wanted to be whipped. When he was dead we all said a prayer, held a moment of silence, composed a tribute song, and then started a fire and cooked him. We all had our piece; I quite enjoyed the rump. Medium rare of course. He was quite tasty ‘though the general who had been KIA weeks earlier had tasted much better. In fact I think it was because he was a cow. Nevertheless it made for better eating than the gruel we had been fed every day for the last three years. Indeed there was a rumour going around that the gruel was made from the hair of banshees mixed in with Indian ‘bath’ water. This, though not entirely impossible, was not true, as in my formative years I had worked in a gruel factory. It was in fact the minced up bodies of dead lepers, mixed in with double cream milk and lime. It would have been fine if not for the milk and lime. I digress though as I am somewhat missing the point with this pointless rambling. This was the day Hell – or should I say Simon paid us a visit. When we had finished our meal of Officer and then fed his bones to the ship’s computer we appointed a new office. The new officer’s name was not known so we called him officer. His first order was to continue doing what we had been doing under the previous officer until we felt it unnecessary. Needless to say, I immediately felt standing in the room during the late Officer’s speech very unnecessary indeed and left the room. This was my first

mistake. My second was walking back into the room bidding adieu, and then my third was stepping outside again. When I was outside I picked up some snow as it was cold and I placed it under my jacket. When I was of an appropriate temperature I made my way across the ship to the mess hall. Inside it was still messy, even though people were trying very hard to clean it all up. I sighed and turned around. When I did I was greeted by a little person. He said hello to me and asked where he was I informed him that he was aboard the HMAS Mardaviciah and then asked for some identification which he did not provide so I immediately apprehend the little person. As I grabbed his small arm he removed a small gun from his small pocket. I immediately did the same though it was bigger; both the gun and the pocket. As I did he shot me in my leg (he was quite short and he held the gun by his waist). This angered me greatly so I tried to kick him with my un-injured leg but my injured leg buckled and I fell over. I immediately rolled over and shot the little person. He fell over backwards and toppled over the edge of the ship. There was a loud splash which was odd as we were about one mile above the ground. I immediately stood up looked over the edge. Apparently I had knocked the little person into a giant soup pot and the chef was rather angered at this and threw a mallet at me. I ducked, though, and then made my way over to the ship hospital as my leg was not bleeding, which was somewhat odd. When I arrived I let myself in and sat down on the floor and waited for the doctor. He did not appear, though, so I amputated my leg and helped myself to a wheelchair. I wheeled myself back onto the deck and over to the soup pot and the chef. I gave him my leg as an apology and he offered me some little person soup but I politely declined as I had already eaten. I wheeled myself over to the command centre to report the little person aboard and when I arrived the captain was crying. “What is wrong?” I asked as I stood up on one leg and hopped over to him. “I just got word,” he said tearfully. “Simon will be here soon. Simon will be here,” he repeated again and burst into tears uncontrollably. “That’s what the Officer said before we ate him.” I said. “He’s one of the lucky ones. Oh if I could be eaten now. I would give my life for it,” he said and burst into tears again.

“Well,” I said, getting a little sick of his incessant crying. I had never liked infants even though I was told I had once been one. Still I do not like people and I was once one too. “I saw a little person aboard,” I said. “What does it matter now?” Petty Seaman Carpenter said. “Well he’s dead so it doesn’t,” I replied and turned around. “He’s one of the lucky ones,” said the captain again, crying a little less now. “With all due respect,” said I as I opened the door. “You are repeating yourself,” I said and wheeled myself outside. I was too cold so I removed my Jacket and wiped away the melted Snow. I wheeled my way across the deck and in the distance I could see something that looked very dark. The sky itself was dark but there was an even darker spot and in the middle of it there was a white spot. I wheeled my way across the ship and at the end there were a group of petty seamen staring and pointing at it. “Hand me a looking glass!” I said as I took someone’s glasses. I put them on but they did not help. I threw them over the edge of the deck in frustration as someone handed me a mirror. This did not help either so I took my binoculars out of my pocket and looked through them. I could not see it any better though but it suddenly became very hard to breath. “The weather says it will snow soon,” one of the petty seamen said. “I heard the weatherman say it would rain,” I said as I put my jacket back on. “The woman said she was a whore,” another of the petty seaman said. “Well, I paid after I raped her at least.” “It’s not rape if she consents,” another said. “Oh, well,” the petty seamen said, “I had hoped it was.” “I thought she was dead,” I said, puzzled. “Well we killed her afterwards,” another added. “Pity,” I said disappointedly. “I did not like her.” “None of us did,” another nodded. “Then why did you kill her?” I asked, again confused by their half truths. “Because Simon is coming,” the same one as the one before said. “No one deserves Simon.” “And what is Simon?” I asked somewhat frustrated. “Ah, you’re an atheist aren’t you Roger?” the one before the last one and a bit after the first said. “What of it?” I asked defensively. “WELL THERE IS SIMON!” He said pointing to the darkness with the white spot in the middle. “THERE IS YOUR GOD!” “I am an atheist,” I said again. “Well. I assumed our Satan is your god seeing as you’re an atheist.”

“Then how long until Simon is here?” I asked, getting sick of their manly melodramatics. “It is already here,” one of them said as he jumped over the edge of the ship. The rest followed and as they did the darkness enveloped the ship and I could not breathe. I stood up out of the wheelchair and found I could not walk, I found, however, that I was able to swim through the air, and in the distance I could still see the light shining. I swam towards to it and as I did I could smell and taste something disgusting, even though my mouth was closed, and I was not breathing. After about 5 days of swimming, I finally came to the white dot and when I did it was still just as small as it was in the distance, though I knew I was next to it, as I could swim around it. After a few days many more people came and we all started trying to work out what it was. After some time many killed themselves as we could never work it out and it was the most frustrating thing in the world. After several years I was the only one left and when I was the only one left a loud voice emanated from the small white dot and I will never forget the words that it uttered. “Simon says touch your nose.” And after that happened I did what the voice said. Simon has continued telling me things and I can never not do them and this happened for the last several thousand years and every time I die Simon would say “Live”. I once told Simon to do something but Simon just repeated it and it did not end well. In fact, it was quite painful, and somewhat embarrassing. How I have written this I will never know, as Simon only told me to write once, and that was with a fork on my eye. It has, however, become less boring over time, as I have somewhat got used to it, though, every few hundred years I just wish he would say take his own advice. Or just say. “Die.”.