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Thin Sidney Sideface was a suicidal chap. Come rain or shine he was always trying to banish from his mind thoughts of ending it all. In the morning, when he prepared his regulation breakfast of cornflakes and bran, he didn’t so much pour the milk on as drown each flake in a flood of white death. When he strolled to the corner shop for a newspaper, he didn’t breathe in the fresh morning air of the peaceful suburbs - no, all he could think about was being contaminated by the foul smog of the stinking death-on-wheels traffic.
Sid always looked on the dark side. His mind was a cauldron of woe and impending doom. So on the day his longsuffering girlfriend left him for a 59-year-old sugar daddy, he snapped, and there and then (as he read her goodbye note) decided to top himself.
On a windswept Saturday morning in late November, Sid embarked on a grim shopping spree. He purchased a rope: “good for hanging myself,” he thought. He purchased a Samurai sword: “good for impaling myself hara-kiri style.” And he purchased a replica Cougar Magnum handgun: “good for waving about in the street, inviting the bullets of a spooked s.w.a.t. team.”
Sid hadn’t decided which method of self-termination to use, but one thing was clear in his battered mind: he knew when he was going to do it, tomorrow morning, on the Lords’ day of rest.
That night Sid planted his sorry ass in his worn armchair and clicked on the tv. With a deadpan face his haunted eyes watched the regular assortment of Saturday evening light entertainment. Happy people, he thought, happy, colourful people in happy land. Sid was on the brink, yet just as he was about to go to bed, something happened which would alter the course of his wretched life.
*And tonight’s lottery numbers are 4,5,6,7,17,27. Early forecasts predict there is one winning ticket netting a jackpot of thirteen million pounds.*
Sid couldn’t believe his dark-circled eyes. They were his numbers, weren’t they? He hit the text button on the tv remote to check again. Surely not. 4,5,6,7,17,27. Mother of God! They were. Yes they were. They were HIS numbers!
As he sat motionless staring at the tv, the flames of his internal death wish slowly began to fade, firstly into the dying embers of doubt, and finally into the extinguished logs of a smoky optimism.
From that night on Sid was a transformed man. Something good had actually happened to him. All thoughts of suicide left him, and he lived every day in a mood of never-ending summer. Nothing could drag him down. Nothing. He was buzzing with rainbows.
With his newfound wealth, Sid spent his time travelling from one exotic location to another, living as an man of leisure with, let me tell you, playboy leanings of great appetite. “I’m like James Bond with a license to thrill,” he would joke. “Even Hugh Hefner is envious of my amorous exploits.”
Over the next fifty years Sid shared his boundless zest for life with a string of beautiful women, eventually passing away in a luxury suite in Monte Carlo aged 92, having just spent a typically extravagant evening winning thousands of Euros in a casino in the company of his latest lover Shalamar Sindarus, the 19-year-old daughter of a Bavarian baron.
Early the next morning, just before first light, Sidney Sideface awoke with a jolt in his worn armchair. What a dream he’d just had. What a dream. A dream. Nothing but a fantastic dream.
Two days later, Sid’s lifeless body was discovered hanging in his garage - a faint smile on his gaunt face.
Sid always looked on the dark side. His mind was a cauldron of woe and impending doom. So on the day his longsuffering girlfriend left him for a 59-year-old sugar daddy, he snapped, and there and then (as he read her goodbye note) decided to top himself.
On a windswept Saturday morning in late November, Sid embarked on a grim shopping spree. He purchased a rope: “good for hanging myself,” he thought. He purchased a Samurai sword: “good for impaling myself hara-kiri style.” And he purchased a replica Cougar Magnum handgun: “good for waving about in the street, inviting the bullets of a spooked s.w.a.t. team.”
Sid hadn’t decided which method of self-termination to use, but one thing was clear in his battered mind: he knew when he was going to do it, tomorrow morning, on the Lords’ day of rest.
That night Sid planted his sorry ass in his worn armchair and clicked on the tv. With a deadpan face his haunted eyes watched the regular assortment of Saturday evening light entertainment. Happy people, he thought, happy, colourful people in happy land. Sid was on the brink, yet just as he was about to go to bed, something happened which would alter the course of his wretched life.
*And tonight’s lottery numbers are 4,5,6,7,17,27. Early forecasts predict there is one winning ticket netting a jackpot of thirteen million pounds.*
Sid couldn’t believe his dark-circled eyes. They were his numbers, weren’t they? He hit the text button on the tv remote to check again. Surely not. 4,5,6,7,17,27. Mother of God! They were. Yes they were. They were HIS numbers!
As he sat motionless staring at the tv, the flames of his internal death wish slowly began to fade, firstly into the dying embers of doubt, and finally into the extinguished logs of a smoky optimism.
From that night on Sid was a transformed man. Something good had actually happened to him. All thoughts of suicide left him, and he lived every day in a mood of never-ending summer. Nothing could drag him down. Nothing. He was buzzing with rainbows.
With his newfound wealth, Sid spent his time travelling from one exotic location to another, living as an man of leisure with, let me tell you, playboy leanings of great appetite. “I’m like James Bond with a license to thrill,” he would joke. “Even Hugh Hefner is envious of my amorous exploits.”
Over the next fifty years Sid shared his boundless zest for life with a string of beautiful women, eventually passing away in a luxury suite in Monte Carlo aged 92, having just spent a typically extravagant evening winning thousands of Euros in a casino in the company of his latest lover Shalamar Sindarus, the 19-year-old daughter of a Bavarian baron.
Early the next morning, just before first light, Sidney Sideface awoke with a jolt in his worn armchair. What a dream he’d just had. What a dream. A dream. Nothing but a fantastic dream.
Two days later, Sid’s lifeless body was discovered hanging in his garage - a faint smile on his gaunt face.
Lol at the s.w.a.t. team but other than that, um..., well I read it^^.
:)
:)
Ah, excellent. This has a great pace to it, and the subtle humour really adds to that, as well as making it a refreshing read. And of course, everyone loves a twist.
Not much to say beyond this. A very solid piece of writing, and a pleasure to read.
Not much to say beyond this. A very solid piece of writing, and a pleasure to read.
pb wrote:
> It's like Bobby Ewing all over again...
Heh. But yeah, using the "twas all a dream" ending is a schoolboy error. One which I was aware of but couldn't resist.
> It's like Bobby Ewing all over again...
Heh. But yeah, using the "twas all a dream" ending is a schoolboy error. One which I was aware of but couldn't resist.
Well, that was different! Interesting idea and I certainly didn't see where it was going. It's like Bobby Ewing all over again...
Thin Sidney Sideface was a suicidal chap. Come rain or shine he was always trying to banish from his mind thoughts of ending it all. In the morning, when he prepared his regulation breakfast of cornflakes and bran, he didn’t so much pour the milk on as drown each flake in a flood of white death. When he strolled to the corner shop for a newspaper, he didn’t breathe in the fresh morning air of the peaceful suburbs - no, all he could think about was being contaminated by the foul smog of the stinking death-on-wheels traffic.
Sid always looked on the dark side. His mind was a cauldron of woe and impending doom. So on the day his longsuffering girlfriend left him for a 59-year-old sugar daddy, he snapped, and there and then (as he read her goodbye note) decided to top himself.
On a windswept Saturday morning in late November, Sid embarked on a grim shopping spree. He purchased a rope: “good for hanging myself,” he thought. He purchased a Samurai sword: “good for impaling myself hara-kiri style.” And he purchased a replica Cougar Magnum handgun: “good for waving about in the street, inviting the bullets of a spooked s.w.a.t. team.”
Sid hadn’t decided which method of self-termination to use, but one thing was clear in his battered mind: he knew when he was going to do it, tomorrow morning, on the Lords’ day of rest.
That night Sid planted his sorry ass in his worn armchair and clicked on the tv. With a deadpan face his haunted eyes watched the regular assortment of Saturday evening light entertainment. Happy people, he thought, happy, colourful people in happy land. Sid was on the brink, yet just as he was about to go to bed, something happened which would alter the course of his wretched life.
*And tonight’s lottery numbers are 4,5,6,7,17,27. Early forecasts predict there is one winning ticket netting a jackpot of thirteen million pounds.*
Sid couldn’t believe his dark-circled eyes. They were his numbers, weren’t they? He hit the text button on the tv remote to check again. Surely not. 4,5,6,7,17,27. Mother of God! They were. Yes they were. They were HIS numbers!
As he sat motionless staring at the tv, the flames of his internal death wish slowly began to fade, firstly into the dying embers of doubt, and finally into the extinguished logs of a smoky optimism.
From that night on Sid was a transformed man. Something good had actually happened to him. All thoughts of suicide left him, and he lived every day in a mood of never-ending summer. Nothing could drag him down. Nothing. He was buzzing with rainbows.
With his newfound wealth, Sid spent his time travelling from one exotic location to another, living as an man of leisure with, let me tell you, playboy leanings of great appetite. “I’m like James Bond with a license to thrill,” he would joke. “Even Hugh Hefner is envious of my amorous exploits.”
Over the next fifty years Sid shared his boundless zest for life with a string of beautiful women, eventually passing away in a luxury suite in Monte Carlo aged 92, having just spent a typically extravagant evening winning thousands of Euros in a casino in the company of his latest lover Shalamar Sindarus, the 19-year-old daughter of a Bavarian baron.
Early the next morning, just before first light, Sidney Sideface awoke with a jolt in his worn armchair. What a dream he’d just had. What a dream. A dream. Nothing but a fantastic dream.
Two days later, Sid’s lifeless body was discovered hanging in his garage - a faint smile on his gaunt face.
Sid always looked on the dark side. His mind was a cauldron of woe and impending doom. So on the day his longsuffering girlfriend left him for a 59-year-old sugar daddy, he snapped, and there and then (as he read her goodbye note) decided to top himself.
On a windswept Saturday morning in late November, Sid embarked on a grim shopping spree. He purchased a rope: “good for hanging myself,” he thought. He purchased a Samurai sword: “good for impaling myself hara-kiri style.” And he purchased a replica Cougar Magnum handgun: “good for waving about in the street, inviting the bullets of a spooked s.w.a.t. team.”
Sid hadn’t decided which method of self-termination to use, but one thing was clear in his battered mind: he knew when he was going to do it, tomorrow morning, on the Lords’ day of rest.
That night Sid planted his sorry ass in his worn armchair and clicked on the tv. With a deadpan face his haunted eyes watched the regular assortment of Saturday evening light entertainment. Happy people, he thought, happy, colourful people in happy land. Sid was on the brink, yet just as he was about to go to bed, something happened which would alter the course of his wretched life.
*And tonight’s lottery numbers are 4,5,6,7,17,27. Early forecasts predict there is one winning ticket netting a jackpot of thirteen million pounds.*
Sid couldn’t believe his dark-circled eyes. They were his numbers, weren’t they? He hit the text button on the tv remote to check again. Surely not. 4,5,6,7,17,27. Mother of God! They were. Yes they were. They were HIS numbers!
As he sat motionless staring at the tv, the flames of his internal death wish slowly began to fade, firstly into the dying embers of doubt, and finally into the extinguished logs of a smoky optimism.
From that night on Sid was a transformed man. Something good had actually happened to him. All thoughts of suicide left him, and he lived every day in a mood of never-ending summer. Nothing could drag him down. Nothing. He was buzzing with rainbows.
With his newfound wealth, Sid spent his time travelling from one exotic location to another, living as an man of leisure with, let me tell you, playboy leanings of great appetite. “I’m like James Bond with a license to thrill,” he would joke. “Even Hugh Hefner is envious of my amorous exploits.”
Over the next fifty years Sid shared his boundless zest for life with a string of beautiful women, eventually passing away in a luxury suite in Monte Carlo aged 92, having just spent a typically extravagant evening winning thousands of Euros in a casino in the company of his latest lover Shalamar Sindarus, the 19-year-old daughter of a Bavarian baron.
Early the next morning, just before first light, Sidney Sideface awoke with a jolt in his worn armchair. What a dream he’d just had. What a dream. A dream. Nothing but a fantastic dream.
Two days later, Sid’s lifeless body was discovered hanging in his garage - a faint smile on his gaunt face.