As a child, Alvin Pie liked nothing better than to stamp on snails. Great big juicy snails that made the most satisfying crack when pressed between the good solid sole of an inexpensive, soon to be outgrown boot and the dry cracked concrete of the pavement. The snail-gloop that would erupt from the splits in their shells was, to Alvin, the best Strawberry Jam in the whole wide world. He would stoop down to inspect his handy-work and on the occasions the mood took him, he’d scoop up the horrible mess and scoff it down greedily. Ah yes, it made him feel quite the big Alvin. He would feel like King Alvin of Snailand, able to mete out punishment and retribution to his loyal subjects on a whim. A dictator of molluscs. Those really were the good old days, back when you could kill a thing without the nagging feeling of crushing guilt that comes with thinking too much. Of course, due to the natural habits of the snail, he was fucked if it didn’t rain. On a dry day he would play alone and plot new methods of execution, but these new and ever more abstract plans would never be put into practice as a good stamp with Mr. Boot would always work well enough.

When Alvin was six he realised that he had no ears. None at all. Up until then he had suspected it but only in a strange ‘I must be missing out on something’ kind of way, but he had suspected nonetheless. He couldn’t hear and after some rigorous research he decided that he would do well to get some of these wonderful ears he had seen so much about.
It was on a Friday when he set out, he walked down the street and into the Ear Shop, ‘Lugs’, as it was then called.
“I would like some ears because I don’t have any,” he shouted at the shopkeeper.
“Sorry,” he replied, “they’ve all gone off. We’ll have a new batch in next year but they’ll probably be off as well. They don’t grow on walls you know.”
Alvin didn’t hear him, which was the natural effect to having no ears, as you’ve probably already guessed. He gestured angrily at the shopkeeper, turned right there on his heel and fled the shop. Outside in the street he bumped into his friend, Smelly Marvin, the name being more misnomer than wildly inaccurate because Marvin smelled rather pleasantly, like he’d just crawled out of a bottle of perfume instead of the assumed bad dirty smell that a name like Smelly Marvin implied. Not that his name mattered to Alvin because Alvin didn’t know that Smelly Marvin was Smelly Marvin’s name because Smelly Marvin had no mouth to tell him.

The two friends would venture off, running around the park and screaming for a while. Well, Alvin would scream, such things were beyond the mouth-less Smelly Marvin but Alvin would scream for both of them and Smelly Marvin would listen to Alvin’s screams for both of them.
Eventually tiring of the park they made their way into the town. Still they enjoyed their strange symbiotic scream in new more concrete surroundings. The scream continued and eventually became so loud that Smelly Marvin’s ears began to bleed and he began to cry, great silent wrenching sobs shook his body but Alvin just screamed louder and louder until Smelly Marvin could take it no longer. Overcome with a mania induced by the ever-deafening scream he lunged violently at Alvin pushing him into the path of an on-coming double-decker bus. Alvin fell sideways right in front of the bus which smashed him into a million billion smithereens. Crack went his Alvin’s bones. His guts, sinew, blood and gloop spilled out onto the road.

Alvin lay in the gutter, his legs at weird degrees and all bits and pieces hanging out all over the place. Smelly Marvin, realising the horrible consequences of his actions, took flight and was never ever seen again in any of the Earth’s great continents. Some say he fled to Greenland but others say he just got lost somewhere on the way to America. Perhaps details of his flight may one day come to light but for now we go back to Alvin lying broken in the gutter.

As Alvin lost consciousness the last thought that went through his head was just, quite honestly, too fucked up to ever put into words so I won’t try. Suffice to say, it was a damn good job for Smelly Marvin that he was never to show his face anywhere within two hundred and eighteen miles near Alvin ever again. Alvin would never walk again and would be confined to a spastic-chair for the rest of his days. Barring miracles of religion and such ridiculous things, of course. But we all know how unlikely a solid gold miracle can be.

As a consequence of his grisly accident Alvin withdrew into himself completely. His unfortunate spasticated situation was compounded when his little tiny woof of a dog, Cactus-head, died and his parents had the woof buried upside down in the back garden. No-one could ever work out this upside down-ness but it seemed like a good idea to Ma and Pa Pie at the time. After the burial Alvin seemed to sag into his spastic-chair and sink. To be beaten by life at eight years old is a sad thing and Alvin knew it. Deaf, broken and dog-less he was, a pathetic little tyke on wheels.
The day after the upside down funeral Alvin awoke to find Cactus-head sitting in the garden howling up at the early morning sun. Unfortunately no-one else could see the little dawg or hear his infernal racket. Alvin’s parents wheeled him to see doctors in hospitals. After seeing lots of serious men with wispy hair, all to no avail mind you, Alvin withdrew further and he stayed there. He felt very, very betrayed.

As Alvin grew a bit older he withdrew into corners. Always forever he was looking to do the perfect disappearing act. It was always corners, though. He would sit looking at the perfect angle of a perfect corner and he would sail into the heavens. His mind would fly and he would be stuck there, flying in the corner forever.

On one particularly rainy night he fought the corners like a madman possessed and finally he managed to wrench himself out of his favourite corner and off he went into the night. It was raining heavily, great coins of water banging off the pavement, and his shoes had fallen off somewhere, he didn’t know when. His arms hurt. His feet were white but he couldn’t see them. Once he even fell out of his spastic-chair and scraped the skin off his elbows. Poor elbows. He fell over and over. People looked at him as he fell but no-one offered to help. Nor did they mock, which was a turn up for the books.

After wheeling and falling for days he found himself on a desolate moor. The type of miserable moor where sheep and fowl are nowhere to be seen. A wild wind whipped greedily at the purple heather. In the distance Alvin fancied he could see a house. A big house with a big glass window set into the roof. A girl was looking out of the window. She saw him and moved away. Somehow, he knew her name was Just Girl.

“Hello, Just Girl,” said Alvin, but Just Girl didn’t answer. She was no longer at the window. Alvin rolled up to the door and knocked. And Knocked. Knock! Knock! Knock! But Just Girl didn’t answer and he knew that she never would.

Alvin sat at the front door of the house for years, growing old and big but still she didn’t answer his knocking. He was cold. His spastic-chair had turned orange with rust and it squeaked a really loud squeak whenever he moved around.

One day, it was a Tuesday, he decided to take a look around the side of the big house. He was starting to get old and hadn’t seen Just Girl in a very long time, not even at the window. She must have gone off him and gone home or something bad could have happened. What did he have to lose?

The side of the house offered no new clue then suddenly from the direction of the front door… SLAM! A noise! Alvin had heard something and he couldn’t believe it. All his life he’d waited for a noise and then all of a sudden one comes along. Oh, sweet slammy noise! Then the meaning of the noise dawned on him and he wheeled his wheels as quick as he could.

Alvin rushed squeakily back to the front of the house. On the doorstep was a beautiful twist of orange peel. Defeated, defiled and more than a little ready to push himself off a cliff he slumped down in his chair, put head in hands and cried. Long wailing sobs. He could wait no more, not a minute more. He had waited all alone for years and years. In the rain. It had rained for years, it seemed like it had rained forever. Alvin had had enough of waiting. It was Just Girl.

Alvin wobbled slowly down the path, off along the road and away from the big house with the window in its roof. A bird twittered around his old man’s head and he looked up at it and smiled sadly. It made a beautiful noise but it just made Alvin feel bad.
Alvin arrived home to find Ma and Pa Pie gone and the house in a terrible state, even mice had moved in. A couple of days later he found a note in his pocket, how it got there he didn’t have the slightest clue.

‘Please bring little dog next time.’ It said. ‘I like little dog’. Alvin looked forlornly out of the kitchen window to where many years before they had held the upside down funeral for Cactus-head and wished the little dog was here now. Alvin shut his eyes and went to sleep. He didn’t wake up ever again.

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