The harp had not been touched in over two thousand years. For those who believed, it was a relic from the funeral of Jesus Christ. For those who did not, it remained a priceless archaeological find.

The cook’s hands were calloused and dirty. Streaks of grease stained the harp’s ancient frame as he hefted it from the alter, soaking swiftly into the dry, sacred wood. He spat into his filthy palms.

No one was quick enough to stop him.

As his fingers stroked the ancient strings, as the notes rang out across the cathedral, everyone who heard could only weep.

The Minister had been bringing homeless people here for as long as he could remember. Sometimes, if he strayed far enough, he had thoughts about what his life had been before. He vaguely remembered other places, other people, a thing named “God”.

But that was before the Starport, and before the tree.

“So, this is it?” the homeless man asked, “I just put the noose on and …”

“That’s it,” said the minister, “Instant transport … a life among the stars”.

“Well,” said the homeless man, “You’re the priest …”

The tree moaned, just a little, but it didn’t give the game away.

Originally published in Monkeys with Machineguns #2, “Why Snow Should Not Be Red” is being re-published as an eBook in honour of the shutdown of the UK in the great snow of February 2009!

Don your snow shoes, you’re in for a chilly one …

“Are you wearing a cape?”

“It’s not a cape, it’s a cloak.”

“Big difference. Where the hell did you get it?”

“Antiques place.”

“Is that a stain?”

“It’s second hand isn’t it?”

“More like tenth. Is it even your size? Looks big.”

“One size fits all apparently. The guy said I’d grow into it.”

“Paul, you’re thirty two!”

“No physically. Mentally. You have to get used to wearing it, you know.”

“I know you’ve finally lost your mind.”

“You’ll never guess what else he told me.”

“No, I don’t suppose I will.”

“He said it was Jack the Ripper’s.”

“Paul, no one knows who Jack the Ripper was.”

“Well, someone must. And that doesn’t mean that his couldn’t be his.”

“So, what are you going to do with it?”

“I thought I might wear it on my date tonight …”

My wife left me for a serial killer,he moved into our house the day after I left.

The last time I saw them,he was painting the lounge wall with her.

Mother dragged us to the sea-front every year. It was abominable, but she said that it was all that she could afford since Father left. We weren’t allowed to talk about Father, we were always to say that he was dead, killed in the war. We didn’t know what war it was supposed to be, but nobody ever asked.

We knew he wasn’t dead.

We didn’t like the seaside because everyone stared at us. At home,
people were too polite to stare, or point, or whisper as we passed. There were too many sideshows and fun fairs at the sea-front.

Everyone thought that we were part of the attractions.

The last time we ever went, mother took us to the edge of the sea late at night. She said we were there to meet Father. He lived in the sea.

We couldn’t wait to go back the next year.

To write a haiku
Take five then seven then five
Include a season

Written for Mr and Mrs Meanie, sometime ago, whilst signing in Comic Guru.

“So, how does it work again?” asked Helena, nervously sipping her latte.

The technician didn’t look up from the machine, a Victorian nightmare of cogs, gears, sprokets and springs.

“I mean … biologically …” Helena continued, “Is it even possible?”

“No,” grunted the technician, “I spend eight hours before every shoot tuning this thing for it NOT to work.”

Helena shuffled her feet. She had done it all, so she thought, seen it all, and had it done to her again. Somehow though, this small, greasy man with this machine made her nervous. Even fully clothed, he made her nervous.

“And how DOES it work?” she asked weakly.

The technician lifted his two ended screwdriver like a conductor’s baton.

“You,” he said, “Here.”

The baton landed on something that looked like two seats fighting each other.

“The rooster,” the technician continued, “Here.”

The baton landed on what appeared to be a tube with bicycle clips attached.

“That’s a weird stage name,” said Helena.

“Yeah,” grunted the technician, “Whatever.”

Most of us have heard of BitTorrent, the highly scalable peer-to-peer file sharing technology designed to reduce the bandwidth strain on content distributors. With BitTorrent, the challenge is not in finding content to download, but in installing BitTorrent on your computer and finding a good, user-friendly client to manage them. We took a look at BitTorrent itself and the excellent Azureus client, and can offer you some tips on how to install them on your system.

Read the full article at http://www.linux.com/feature/113973

Every user whose client connects to the Internet should configure his firewall immediately after installation. Some Linux distributions include firewall configuration as a part of installation, often offering a set of defaults configurations to choose from. However, to ensure that your machine presents the minimum “attack surface” (a measure of the number of vulnerable ports, user accounts, and sockets exposed to attack) to the predatory inhabitants of the Internet, you may need to do some manual configuration of your firewall. Here are three tools that can help.

Read the full article at http://www.linux.com/feature/44818