Snodgrass Filchman Cont...

Chapter Two | For Bloody Christ's Sake

If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Snodgrass, please head back and have a read of Chapter One | Mother I’m In FLOW, over in fiction - or just be an absolute wild card and do whatever the dickens you fancy, it’s your life innit x

Chapter  2

“Mother, I’m going out. Leave my food on the table. And DON’T clean my study!! If I catch you in there one more time I shall have to barricade the doors, and that is NOT something I should be wasting my energy on! There are stories in that room waiting to be discovered, not destroyed with Dettol.” 

Snoddy’s mother looked up from her tv show. A mundane middle aged man strode towards the camera, arms behind his back, while a grey, blustery sky made the sparse hair on his head dance like a sleepy, possessed demon. She replied, still staring at the screen with a furrowed brow. “But on Changing Rooms they said feng shui helps with creativity Snoddy”

“I don’t CARE about your new fangled feng shui concepts. We aren’t in Japan, we’re in bloody England, woman! I hardly think Shakespeare would have wasted his time with such nonsense!” He snorted for good measure, swept up his long, black great-coat from the back of a kitchen chair and with a flourish threw it over his rounded, hunched shoulders and stomped out of the door. Snoddy’s mother tutted and went back to her show, where the mundane man was now jumping up and down on a trampoline covered in jelly.

***

The air was crisp outside, it was September and the nights were creeping in, the last few warm notes of summer melting away to be replaced by decay and barrenness. This was just how Snoddy liked it. The blanket of darkness encouraged feelings of bitterness in his fellow man, that Snoddy himself felt all year round. If anything, he felt much more jubilant in the darker months, knowing that others were suffering with him! HA.

His great coat hung heavy around him and reached all the way down to the tops of his brown leather brogues. As Snoddy briskly made his way through the greying streets, the coat swept up and spat out the first few leaves that had settled delicately on the ground, marking the change of seasons. He did enjoy autumn. Aside from how unhappy it made everyone else, it was also one of the only acceptable times of the year that Snoddy could openly and aggressively stamp on the ground, while being taken for a ‘normal’ person. Crunchy leaves were things he would go out of his way to find and destroy. He’s alive and they’re dead. Rightly so! What an idiot nature is. 

As he wound his way through the streets, the houses began to get bigger, the cars fancier and the trees more frequent. There was only one tree on Snoddy’s street and it had a weary look about it, even in spring. As though it was regularly threatening to quit its dead end job down the pub after work - but everyone knew the weak-leafed fool would never follow through. 

Soon, Snoddy reached his destination. It was an old gothic church with a very well kept garden. The grass was perfect and the trees were tall, condescending, and immaculate. Flowers of varying shapes and colours stood at a tasteful distance from one another, demure but somehow also judgemental. 

As Snoddy walked up the winding path towards the giant gothic door, he heard raised voices coming from the car park and veered towards it in interest. 

“What do you think you’re doing? I don’t want your dog shitting all over this garden!” A robust man with a ruddy face spat. He appeared on the verge of a heart attack.

“She wasn’t shitting! I’ve got the shit right here!” Came an indignant reply from a young woman. She thrust forth a large, very full plastic bag of dog faeces that hung from her hand like aged testicles. “Thanks for confirming that God’s house is an empty HUSK of JUDGEMENT! I found a grinder in there as well! Picked it up - YOU’RE WELCOME!” The woman stomped off and her dog wagged its tail in glee, keen to follow a squirrel she had just clocked. 

“Another troublemaker on your grounds Ceddy? Disgusting creatures. Who do they think they are, walking around like that. Outrageous.” Sniffed Snoddy, an exaggerated frown played on his face, but he was clearly taking delight in the situation. 

Cedric wheezed in surprise and turned around, mopping his sweaty forehead. “Oh, Snoddy it’s you! I know. Common folk with common pets. Fancy a spot of the blood of christ?” 

Snoddy smiled with an indulgent sneer. “How could I say no Cedric? What would the lord think of me?”