Dai Coelacanth


Top Ten Things I May Have Stolen

Do you believe me be careful I am unreliable narrator born liar the tall tale slug born in a different time a different world holes in my pockets holes in my shoes holes in my mind I ate worms started fires smashed windows slept under bushes took the hits I WAS RAT BABY

From birth I was warped distorted twisted re-shaped by poverty and misfortune festering rotten be glad you did not know me the dance of life enacted differently at the bottom of the bucket incomprehensible to surface dwellers we may have the same physiology but we are not the same

1. Football Stickers
When I was young-young in single digits all the kids blew their pocket money on football stickers. Brutal playground hierarchies were formed reflecting the society of the time. Haves at the top have-nots at the bottom. I stole boxes of the fucking things and existed in a parallel reality where I could not be touched.

2. Swiss Roll
I quit school when I was 15. The only subject I had excelled in wastruancy. Life at home was orderly and rhythmic. Dad would rob me of any money I had and then kick me out of the house for the day. Hungry I would walk into town and steal Swiss Rolls from Woolworths. They were a good size and very filling.

3. Alcohol
Hanging around with punk rock shits no real connection faces voices blurred colours weak signals vague sensations brothers of the bag we got blasted in junk space ditches playgrounds after dark anywhere wrong or wrong enough to feel like home I didn’t really care for alcohol at the time but the others were keen for it one day we found ourselves transported by the mighty bag to a shop of some sort someone pushed a bottle of something into my pocket and pushed me out the door. Later on there was fighting I took a beating or two we were living in a life without meaning.

4. Alcohol
I started robbing off-licences when I got into drinking properly. Smash and grab. Brick through the window do a runner with an arm full. I robbed so many off licences I didn’t even think about it. It was as natural as breathing. I nearly got caught once but managed to stash the booze in someone’s garden. Had to endure some comedy cop routines whilst a punk rock girl retrieved the goods using her baby’s pram for cover / convenience. Back at her house her mam had a right go saying we should have done a chemist instead. I was sixteen. I never slept or closed my eyes I don’t remember eating it was an incredible time.

5. Alcohol
Actual robbery. Unplanned. No thought behind it at all. Broke into a supermarket and cleared it of fags, booze and chocolate biscuits. I was high at the time. Years of paranoia followed. I was 17 and felt like I had been alive for a million years.

6. Alcohol
I mainly hung around with people I hated. They hated me. I hated them. We endured each other doing all we could to stay unhinged. This one time I was with people I liked. Freaky losers. Strange kids. I doubt any of them are alive now. One of them shot himself in the face with a crossbow. Ow. They lived in a flat that backed onto a private yard at the back of a pub. In the yard was an unlocked shack where they stored some of their goods. We stole cases of wine boxes of crisps. Life was alright. Life was good.

7. Bottle of Orange Juice
I was 18 and the bag was far in the distance the paranoia was manageable some people found me to be pleasant company I had interests I had obsessions I made things I had the appearance of normality I looked and sounded like a regular human being. One day leaving a friend's house I noticed his neighbour had had an early morning delivery a bottle of milk a bottle of orange juice. I stole the juice. Walked up the drive grabbed the bottle popped the top walked off. Natural. Friends said it was a scum move. They were right. They looked at me differently they saw who I was.

8. Alcohol
I knew this jazz freak who torched his car for the insurance. Burning cars were very common at the time. He was really into Herbie Hancock. One night we were at a jazz do and got into an altercation with the pub owners. Dickheadsthe lot of them. We stole large bottle of brandy from behind the bar. I think that’s the last booze I ever stole. At my house we drank it mixed with water in half-pint glasses. We laughed all night.

9. A Car
Another night roaming with punk shits this one started less shitty than other nights and was kinda fun. Random encounters left us unsteady on our feet giggly and stupid. Weirdly we did not steal a car. High as kites stumbling home we stopped at a takeaway. A fellow was convinced we had stolen his car and he convinced the police of this. Police are such funny creatures. Spent all night hallucinating in the cells.

10. A Skinhead's Jacket
Do you remember The Exploited. Livi punks. I saw them once. Not sure what was going on. The band kept threatening to stab people. The gig was full of skinheads. Hundreds of them. There was a lot of fights. A lot of glue. I stole a skinhead’s jacket. Leather sheepskin bomber affair. Beat up battered stylish in its own way. It wasn’t a conscious decision I was just cold. Don’t know how I got home. Bunked a train maybe. Some of the people I was with ended up at a skinhead house and experienced new levels of horror. Next day they caught a bus into town. Skinheads pissed on all the seats. Their unrepentance was alluring.

Dai Coelacanth a short fella barely three inches in height lives on a diet of plastic soup never has gravy in his pocket always tells the truth and is known for his love of worms you are encouraged dcoelacanth@outlook.com


Andy Heck Boyd


Top Ten List For Chocolate Monk (no particular order)

10. old hardwood floors in old houses with sunlight coming through a bit

9. pine trees

8. slowly melting butter in a butter dish

7. small junkyards on quiet back roads

6. people with freckles wearing polkadotted lemoncoats doing zig-zags in a big olde sanctuary for goofball alley crypt possessors but not currently in possession of any

5. clouds

4. whispering vocals in metal music etc

3. race car sounds

2. little dogs

1. first snowfall of season

Andy Heck Boyd likes to make things, like drawings, writing, videos, music and voice recordings, photographs, paintings, for most of his life he lived in New Hampshire and three years ago he met Kasper Melted and moved with her to Kentucky and soon after they married.

BACK