On the Slipmat with Saturn: a Gorillaz-inspired microstory

I found the following text in my blog drafts. It was an attempt at a picture story, a little micro-fiction slash thought poem, with added pretty pics. The images are taken from the video for Saturnz Barz by Gorillaz, which came out when I wrote this piece seven years ago. Time to finally publish it.

On the Slipmat with Saturn

I was browsing someone else's record collection. Leafing through the seven-inches, flipping them to check the b-sides. You only really know someone by the quality of their b-sides.



There was still something thrilling about placing the record over the spindle. The satisfying 'clump' as the disc settles onto the slipmat. A physical experience before a single note has hit you.

The needle travelled the grooves as the music played. A seemingly endless spiral. Satisfaction in ever-decreasing circles. My mind wandered more freely than that. Lost in eddies and twirls, beyond geometry. 

"You like it when my record goes round, huh?" The fifty-foot worm appeared from nowhere. It seemed flattered. A kindred spirit, connected in musical taste if not in anatomy. I handled it well. My screams were in tune with the music.

How we listened. Let the bass shake us. We jumped between tracks together, hand and tentacle on stylus. Our minds found a rhythm. We travelled to space. Rockets and planets and nebula, playing music in the infinite vacuum with my huge bendy friend.

You can plan your days. Play the music you want to listen to. But sometimes the needle doesn't go the way you want it to. Life can become the b-side. You will know this has happened when you find yourself travelling along a different kind of spiral.

Me and the worm. And the satisfying 'clump' as a new record begins.

Pictured: A hyperfuturistic digital 3D rendering of the worm from the Gorillaz video

Further Fats: I got the pop song, I got the melody (about earworms, 2011)

Further Fats: Story: A meeting regarding new material by the electronic music producer Aphex Twin (2020)

Story: Post, a commissioned piece for 330 Words and H@ndles

My partner in writingtons Tom Mason is staging a social media-themed play called H@ndles at the Lowry on January 31st.

As a lead-up to the event, he has commissioned a series of stories for his excellent fiction blog 330 Words. Mine was published yesterday and it's called Post.

The journalist from the local paper had Aubrey pinned into the corner; his yellow jowls threatened to drip onto his dog-eared notepad. He asked Aubrey questions with a wet mouth and Aubrey, paint-roller in hand, fixated on the journalist’s flapping, glistening lips.

Each 330 Words story has a related photo. I took this story's picture in Urbis before it became a footie museum.

Have a read of the short short story here: Fat Roland: Post.

Story: And This Is My Mother

In the fog of Christmas, my writing chum David Hartley kindly posted a story of mine called And This Is My Mother on his advent bog Merry Gentlemen.

It was a rather harsh story where I was cruel to the characters and there wasn’t much redemption. Which is what I feel about Christmas. It astonishes me how a season filled with lights and glitter can feel so dark. Anyhoo, you can read the story by clicking on the big 22 here.

I wanted to convey the theme of disappointment in as surreal a way as possible, yet using a recognisable festive occurrence: visiting a partner’s parents at Christmas.

Sometimes there are things that come easily in a story. They tend to be images. (I should warn you of spoilers at this point so read the story first.) In this case:

someone scrunching their face into screwed-up paper;

his intensely annoying childishness;

the subversion of Christmas things (crushing a bauble, punching carol singers);

his “making it snow” moment happening ‘off-camera’;

her feeling of existential angst while driving;

and finally, the reveal in the hut, which was the first thing I came up with when writing the story.

My next story? Something about a hangover, I think. That sense of losing who you are and everything being terrible. A bit like Christmas.