A Clockwork Aubergine

A CLOCKWORK AUBERGINE
Kevin Sweeney
BLACK RAINBOWS PRESS
Copyright © 2018 Kevin Sweeney
ISBN-10: 1984951238
ISBN-13: 978-1984951236
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not
be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without
the express written permission of the publisher except for the
use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and
incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination
or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely
coincidental.
Black Rainbows Press

www.blackrainbowspress.com
For Mooresboy
“It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play.”
Miles Davis
PRAISE FOR A CLOCKWORK AUBERGINE
“...with the laconic swagger of an early pre-menstrual Q.Q.Pril

and the ironic stagger of a late menopausal Q.Q. Pril, A Clockwork
Aubergine is a refreshing new twist on the shibboleths that are part
and parcel of Cold War era spy novels, as it has nothing to do with
either that genre or US-Soviet relations during the post-War years. A
triumphant disasterpiece.”
Aloysius Papamargaritis, author of Stop Flashing That Torch in
My Eyes, I Have a Migraine
“... words... genius… book… praise... can’t… breathe...”

Jorge Cauldron, author of The Pregnant... Pause, and The
Pregnant Pause II: It’s... Twins!
“Whilst reading A Clockwork Aubergine I was painted with

every color of the emotional rainbow... anger, hunger... both of them.”
Zuzzanah Zmith, author of Xavier Tesco the Fourth: A
Hagiography
“If proto-Vorticist enfant terrible Tobermory K. Funn and

terrorartist Robyn Hallas-Hambidge-Harding-Harding-Hawkey-
Hawkins-Hayter were by some inexplicable warp in the universal
constants able to exist in the same time-period and were involved in
a horrifying accident at a zamboni demolition derby that ended with
the twisted remains of each of them fused together, then A
Clockwork Aubergine is the sort of book that has nothing to do with
such an improbable scenario.”
January Demo, author of Slaughter’s Laughter
“...worshipped a god whose earthly incarnation was said to

carry a chainsaw with a mile-long blade... such thoughts as these...
the world dripping... in space... after reading A Clockwork
Aubergine.”
I.O.U. Nothingforiatenothing, author of Zombie Cucumber: The
Necronomicock Saga, and Where Do Cartoon Characters Go When
Their Voice Actors Die?
“After I had finished reading... A Clockwork Aubergine I found

myself utterly compelled... different kinds of soup, including but not
limited to ham and split pea, cullen skink, egg drop, cream of
mushroom, mulligatawney, brown windsor, gazpacho, primordial,
tom yum goong, churu, miso, French onion, snert, sour cherry, mock
turtle, glass noodle, birds nest... a good book, though not enough
references to soup.”
Vivian Westward Ho!, author of 1001 Soups to Try Before You
Die, A Brief History of Soup, King Philip Comes Over For Good
Soup, Kittu Kattu Soup & Fried Chicken for Xmas, Soup: What Does
It Mean and Where Is It Going?, No Country For Old Soup, Evidence
of Soup Worship in Aboriginal Societies, ...But What If I Want A
Whole Sandwich and Only Half the Soup? And Other First World
Problems, Ghost Soups of Antiquity, Skyquake Soup: A Novel,
Peeling Brain Soup: A Novel, Nazi Soup: Poems, 1001 MORE
Soups to Try Before You Die, and, My Life as a Soup Addict: Help
Me I’m in Hell
“I enjoyed A Clockwork Aubergine a lot more than when the

peas on my plate get too close to the mashed potatoes and get little
bits of mashed potato stuck on them because I hate peas.”
Seamus Eyebrows, author of Massive Aggressive, and BYOB
ELE
“Take three cups of abstruse metaphors, a quart of spoiled

alerts, three inches of prose, and a generous damnation of faint
praise, and you’ll have written one of those irritating ‘recipe’ reviews
that neatly side step the issue of whether the book you’re blurbing is
actually any good or not.”
S.O.B. Lewinski, author of Snuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
“A Clockwork Aubergine is the gold plated solar anus of
literature, the boss fight of letters, with plenty of public confidence in
the back half apropos of nearby locomotion. Do make sense? You
sure! The performance, as weaving a rope ladder from BBQ sauce
or preventing it.”
Hate Fllndllrs, author of A Complete and Detailed Descriptions
of Every Snowflake that has Ever Fallen
“A Clockwork Aubergine reads like someone battered a

typewriter with his dick. I mean that in the best possible way, of
course.”
Patrick Joseph, author of Drac the Ripper, The
Aristocrats, and Hamlet Sapiens
“Like a Norwegian forest cat staring with desire at a layered

cream cake under a glass cloche, this book is like that. Exactly and
precisely like that.”
Fanelli Fatboy, author of NOVEL: A Novel
“One of the most important books written on the subject, in

much the same way that breakfast is one of the most important
meals of the morning.”
Meek Inheritor, author of Sequel: A Prequel
“Not bad.”
Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116aWolfeschleg
elsteinhausenbergerdorffvoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswesse
nschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvonangreifen
durchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolftausendjahresvorandie
erscheinenwanderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgebrauchlichtalssei
nursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumau
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htvorangreifenvonandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternar
tigraum,
author ofa
Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmato
silphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisterale
ktryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon for
the Soul
“With a sure flair for what is, was, or could have been
temporarily orgasmic, A Clockwork Aubergine serves up in glorious
Technicolor the kind of literary event that this reviewer craves more
than any other, though insolvency prevents me from specifying
exactly what for fear of letting the cat out of the bag. Or should I say
octopus? No. No I shouldn’t, because that is not how the cliché runs;
it’s most definitely not an octopus in the hypothetical bag, but a cat.
Really, I don’t even know quite why I vaunted the notion that it could
have been an octopus. Perhaps I’m coming down with a brain-
quake... a brain-quake brought on by having read this seminal,
tertiary, and utterly runcible book.”
Scheele Green, author of Who Ate All The Pies? Who Ate All
The Pies? You Fat Bastard, You Fat Bastard, You Ate All The Pies!,
and You’re Going Home In A Fucking Ambulance!
“...like an existential road map scribbled on onion skin and then

nailed to a whale, this book... Oh, please excuse me, the telephone
is ringing… Hello, this is… What? Who are you, and how did you get
this number? What? No, I don’t know anything about a snowman, or
snowmen, don’t be stupid, and quit calling this number... Sorry,
another crank call, where were we? Oh yes, as I was saying, about
the road map; vivid and unsettling, by turns often genuine (and like
any map, a total cunt to fold up and put back in the glove box, not
least because it’s nailed to a whale, which wouldn’t even fit) A
Clockwork Aubergine is vivid and unsettling, and by turns often
genuine.”
Jungfrau Schneiseunteite, author of Carving Frozen Vomit for
Fun & Profit, and The Menu
“Arousing; a wet nightmare.”

H.M.S. Beagle, author of Gingerbeard the Gingerbread Pirate,
Gingerbeard and the Night of the Living Gingerdeadmen, and,
Gingerbeard meets Greenbeard and the Ginger-inbred-men
“This book - this collection of squid-fear splattered slices of

tree- this book... this book!”
Gavin Whiney, author of Isn’t “Christmas Carol” A Tautology?
Carols Are Never Sung at Any Other Time of Year, Are They? and
Other Mysteries of The Season
“I once met a woman whose toes were each as big as a sumo

wrestler, and even that didn’t impress me as much as this book.”
Box !!!Boxx, author of Box !!!Boxx: An Autodefehagiography
“Is A Clockwork Aubergine a missive, a mission statement, a

manifesto? Is it a gospel or a grimoire or some other glossary
of glossolalia? No, probably. Is it the only book ever written that is
worth reading? Yes, probably.”
Colden Common, author of I Don’t Know How Much Money to
Give My Wife So She Can Buy a Butter Dish at The Antique Fair
Tomorrow, I Think About Twenty Quid Should Do… Two Fun Facts
About Us; 1) We Got Married on Loch Ness; 2) We Have Three
Chihuahua’s Who Are Named After Puppets
“Before I offer my insights on this incredible work of written
words, I have to say I am not intimidated by comic book
superheroes. So what, their costumes are real tight, tight enough to
see their huge bulging muscles, but check out the crotch and what
do you see? Nothing, no bulge where it matters. And that’s why I
ain’t intimidated, because at least I can fill out my Y-fronts. And A
Clockwork Aubergine is incredible, and totally written with words.
Good words.”
Barton Pevril, author of Cold Lasagna, and Other Cuisine of
The Undiscovered Country
“I would describe A Clockwork Aubergine in one word, albeit a

word which is actually an acronym I had to make up especially for
the purpose of describing the book, and that word is this;
J.L.O.C.K.L.O.C.I.L.O.C.I.L.O.C.I.L.O.C.K.L.O.C.D.L.O.C.B.A.
G.A.E.B.D.B.C.A.A.A.A.A.C.D.J.Q.A.A.J.B.A.A.M.I.F.E.B.C.F.E.C.F.A
.F.E.F.E.F.E.F.E.H.T.P.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.O.O.I.I.I.I.I.P.A.P.P.L.Q.W.G.T.I.I.I.I.I.I.I
.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.O.I.I.I.O.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.O.O.O.O.I.I.O.O.O.I.I.O.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.
O.P.P.O.O.O.O.D.M.A.A.A.J.A.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.B.B.C.F.E.N.E.K
.E.C.G.E.H.E.C.A.I.D.B.B.D.A.M.N.N.N.N.N.N.A.B.G.E.E.E.N.N.N.N.
I.D.I.F.B.D.E.A.C.E.A.F.G.D.A.A.I.H.C.E.A.F.D.B.F.E.F.A.X.M.X. Yes,
it’s really that good, so buy it you cheap cunt.”
E.T. Eliot, author of The Waist Line: A Mnemonic Hodge-
Podge
“After finishing A Clockwork Aubergine for the first time my

initial reaction was to tell my wife that her eyeballs smelled strange.
In fact, I was so floored that my initial reaction has continued; my
wife’s eyeballs still smell strange to me. We’ve tried everything from
colored contact lenses through to eye-patches, but nothing changes
the situation. But if the cost of reading A Clockwork Aubergine is that
I am filled with a growing urge to pop my wife’s eyes with a fork, to
lance them like two disturbingly scented boils of baby blue, then I
consider it a small price to pay.”
Thomas Spaghetti, author of This Revolting Graveyard of a
Universe, and Oh God I’m Depressed
“...miraculous and... astonishing paragraphs... shocking, A

Clockwork Aubergine is... shocking... shocking... shocking... not
shocking at all... luminous... fine-looking... beachball... the pages
were numbered... first tried cooking vindaloo... the whole tribe,
gone... scintillating... glorious... German...”
M.T. Graves, author of Bodysnatching for Fun & Profit
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a feldspar enthusiast from the

Confederate States of America, a legendary Japanese river monster,
a sentient deck of playing cards smeared with mustard, a space
machine, the archangel Sierrasamiel, or even a woman, the timeless
message of A Clockwork Aubergine cuts across all boundaries of
creed or class and can be read and enjoyed by anyone. Except
Vatican forcemeat inspectors. Or James.”
Diamond Geezer, author of YOU SLAG!, and How To Cheat At
Solitaire: It’s Really Easy, Because The Only One Who Can Catch
You Cheating Is Yourself
“...using the various letters in the Alphabet as well as the

Omegabet to make words... even if most of the Omegabet is
identical to the Alphabet, except for... a quintessential work.”
e.e. moneyshot, author of punctuation sux, grammer sux to,
and and spellin sux to
“I have a piece of advice I would like to give anyone who is

reading, will read, or has read A Clockwork Aubergine; if you enjoy
bowling then you may wish to invest in a house so decadent that it
has its own bowling lane, or possibly, lanes. This way you will be
able to enjoy a game of bowling whenever you wish, and not be a
slave to the times that bowling alley operators allow their
establishments to open from and to. This advice is given freely, and
exists independent of my opinion of A Clockwork Aubergine, which I
thought was almost as good as a game of bowling with people
whose company I enjoy.”
Jacques Brunswick, author of Bowling: Why Nothing Else in
Life Matters
“Once, I set my hand to writing the Great American Novel™.

What was it going to be about? Well let me tell you what it was going
to be about, it was going to be about a magician setting out to create
the greatest magic trick of all time, which is to say, not sawing a
woman into halves… but into quarters. It was going to be an epic
that spanned decades and continents as the magician strove to
perfect his trick, leaving thousands of dismembered assistants
behind. Then I read A Clockwork Aubergine and was so blown away
that ever since all I’ve been able to write about is airplanes having
sex with each other. Wow.”
Cliff Fascist, author of Birds Do It, Bees Do It, Even Other
Things with Wings Do It
“[A Clockwork Aubergine is the very bestest book ever wrote

and anyone who says differently is] ... a total waste of time,
meaningless drivel.”
Omar Sampson, author of *Annoyed Grunt*, and The Critic
Whose Blurb Has Been Removed from Context to Make It Appear
He Was Favorable
“Seven thumbs up!”

Polly ‘All Thumbs’ Dactyl, author of Living with A Genetic
Abnormality Which Is the Physical Embodiment of a Turn of Phrase
“There’s nothing else for it; I’m going to have the part of my
mind that controls memory –creation of, storage of, etc.- removed
and burned in a tire fire so that I can read and re-read A Clockwork
Aubergine over and over as if for the first time.”
Neil Carborundum-Illegitimi, author of the “Bastard” Books,
including, The Magnificent Bastard, Total Bastard, Too Many
Bastards, Not Enough Bastards, Just One More Bastard, Kill All
Bastards, Last of the Bastards, Tears of a Bastard, Kiss of the
Bastard, Flight of the Bastard, Raging Bastard, Hurts Like a Bastard,
Sing to Me of Bastards Past, If All Men Were Bastards Would You
Let Your Brother Marry One?, Call of the Bastard, The Bastards of
Venice, Happiness is a Warm Bastard, The Sweet Smell of Bastard,
Loneliness of the Long Distance Bastard, On the Trail of the Bastard,
One Bastard Two Bastard Red Bastard Blue Bastard, Oh Whistle
And I’ll Come To You My Bastard, The Iron Bastard, Bastard Rex, If
Bastards..., Bastard-o-rama, The Passion of the Bastard, Paint Your
Bastard, How To Be A Bastard For Fun & Profit, Chicken Soup For
The Bastard, Sink The Bastard, Caring For Your Bastard, How To
Win Carnival Prizes & Influence Bastards, All American Bastard,
American Bastard X, Vatican Bastard, Vatican Bastard II: Holy Cow
Papal Bullshit, Vatican Bastard III: Holy Water Pistols At Dawn,
Vatican Bastard... In Space, A Clockwork Bastard, Fried Green
Bastards, I Have No Bastard & I Must Scream, Get Thee Behind Me
Bastard, O Bastard Where Art Thou?, Carry On Bastard, Les
Miserable Bastards, Ayn Randall & Captain Hopkirk (Bastard),The
Bastard Syndrome, For The Love Of A Bastard, Zen & The Art Of
Bastard Maintenance, One Of Our Bastards Is Missing, The
Bastards From Brazil, Stepford Bastards, And All Because The Lady
Loves Bastards, Vorsprung Durch Tecnik Bastard, I Feel Like A
Bastard Tonight, Only My Bastard Knows For Sure, and the
autohagiobiography, I, Bastard.
“Before I read A Clockwork Aubergine I would call people -

complete strangers- on the telephone and ask them questions about
snowmen. I couldn’t stop myself. My addiction cost me everything,
my marriage, my children, my car, my dog, my house, my country &
western music collection... reading A Clockwork Aubergine saved
me.”
Eagle Maniac, author of An Illustrated Guide to Ancient
Breakfast Cereals: Vol IIII-IX, From the Marketing Wars of The
Chocolate Flavored Corn Puff Brands of Sumeria Through To
Detailed Descriptions Of The Free Toy Promotions of Etruscan Bran
Flake Varieties (Both With And Without Raisins)
“... [A Clockwork Aubergine] has so much depth, and so much
scope, it may actually be a submarine, a submarine full of
AWESOME! Double stuffed awesome, as if the awesome crew of the
hypothetical submarine had become marooned without supplies and
half of them had been forced to eat the other half!”
D.W. Hyppogriffith, author of Codswallop and Other Fish
Wulfilment, Black Rainbows Island Walkthrough & FAQ, and The
Clown Heads of Europe
“...travelled through time to hunt the deadliest game of all...

flying octopuses, a chainsaw in every tentacle! A Clockwork
Aubergine was the book I brought along to read during temporal-
transference... bloody good read.”
Sir Snapper Raffle, author of The Egyptians Worshipped a
God Called Horse or They Worshipped Whores, Or Something Like
That
“Having eye-eaten this sandwich of alphabets, my life is so

much for the improved! Even my brand name soda tasting is
improved!”
Ping the Perilous, author of SQUAT!, and Green Eggs & Ham,
and Other Fun Tales of Food Poisoning,
“Words cannot convey the experience of reading A Clockwork

Aubergine, so it would be futile to try here. Please instead imagine I
am performing an interpretative dance piece that conveys the
complex emotions that moved within me as I read. Oh, and if you
could imagine me wearing a leather jacket and a pair of shaded
sunglasses, that would be awesome; damn I’d look so cool in your
imagination.”
Swithun Wells, author of What Is the Sound of One Hand
Fapping?
“Before attempting this book the reader needs to be aware of

one fact; that God loves you, but is not IN love with you.”
Alderman Quilley, author of Forever Unuseless!
“A slanting of the standard deterministic corpus, or the

redeemable coupon of Quixotic exoticism? A tintinnabulation of
catechized axioms, or a haiku with far too many syllables? Are
questions raised? Too many questions? Is there any way of
knowing? Aren’t most academic exercises consistent of speaking
volubly through one’s ass? A Clockwork Aubergine addresses these
concerns with its own question; can you read? But will the answer
surprise you? Who knows? Who knows? Is this blurb favorable or
not? Who knows? Who knows? Do you? Or do you just think you
do? Are you going to eat that? Who knows? I ask you, who the fuck
knows?”
U.K. Toysnatcher, author of The Unified Stations, and,
Engraving Is to Tattooing as Origami Is To...
I HAVE TO USE EXCLAMATION POINTS BECAUSE THE PERIOD
KEY ON MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN!
Foreword
I THINK the simplest way of summing up what A Clockwork

Aubergine is, means, does, its value as text, as cultural artefact, is
by relating the following anecdote, and much like a Zen koan or the
terms of a restraining order, leave it to the interpretive skills of each
individual!
When the literary critic and wytch-house recording artist
DEKAYDE was first asked his opinion on the book, he delivered the
pithy reply that would become the motto of all the book’s detractors;
“Shit was so fucked,” he said, “that I woulds even climb thru’ a dog to
get away from it!”
So began my ten year experiment to see whether this was
true!
To test the limits of DEKAYDE’s plan of action should he come
close to an edition of A Clockwork Aubergine, I abducted and
imprisoned him in an abandoned hovercraft plant and began the
introduction of various breeds of dog into his environment whilst
slapping him with my personal copy of the text!
In order to make a comprehensive examination of his claim, I
elected to use an extensive selection of different dog breeds,
including; Alsatian, Rottweiler, Doberman Pinscher, Bichon Frise,
Chihuahua, Shih-Tzu, Poodle, Labrador, Dalmatian, Chinese
Crested, Pug, English Sheepdog, Pit-bull, Yorkshire Terrier, Presa
Canario, Dachshund, Pekinese, German Shepard, and even a Great
Dane!
Through painstaking double blind testing I obtained the
following results for each breed of dog; the Alsatian seemed upset at
DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through it, first via its anus and then
latterly via its mouth, and ultimately DEKAYDE was unable to make
good with his claim that he would climb through a dog in order to get
away from a brandished copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine; the
Rottweiler seemed upset and violent at DEKAYDE’s attempts to
crawl through it, first via its anus and then latterly via its mouth, and
ultimately DEKAYDE was unable to make good with his claim that he
would climb through a dog in order to get away from a brandished
copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine owing to a devoured face and
blood loss; the Doberman Pinscher seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s
attempts to crawl through it, first via its anus and then latterly via its
mouth, expressing its upset as eloquently as its limitations as a dog
would allow (it is a little known fact that dogs aren’t able to speak any
of the known human languages) and ultimately DEKAYDE was
unable to make good with his claim that he would climb through a
dog in order to get away from a brandished copy of the A Clockwork
Aubergine; the Bichon Frise seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts
to crawl through it, first via its anus and then latterly via its mouth,
and ultimately DEKAYDE was unable to make good with his claim
that he would climb through a dog in order to get away from a
brandished copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine; this was on the
fourth of February of the third year of experimentation, and I feel it
would be remiss if I didn’t mention that on that particular day I found
the following idiocy scrawled on the toilet wall beneath a poor felt tip
rendering of two jumbo jets engaged in oral sex (I have attempted to
transcribe it verbatim, including the appalling grammar, but as noted
in the title to this introduction, the period key is currently broken so I
have had to substitute exclamation points); AN AVERAGE
SEVENTY THOUSAND PEOPLE WILL USE ANY PARTICULAR
CUBICLE IN A PUBLIC RESTROOM INCLUDING THIS ONE!
WHILE IT IS TRUE THAT WHAT IS WRITTEN ON TOILET WALLS
IS THE PUREST FORM OF ART AS IT IS CREATED NEITHER
FOR MONETARY COMPENSATION OR RECOGNITION, THE
FACT THAT IT IS EPHEMERAL IS MORE RELEVANT FOR WHAT I
AM ABOUT TO PROPOSE, AS THERE WILL BE NO FUTURE
RECORD TO INDICATE TO OUR DESCENDENTS WHERE THE
BIZARRE “SUNGLASSES” BEHAVIOUR CAME FROM; IF
EVERYONE WHO READS THIS BEFORE IT IS CLEANED OFF
WERE TO STATE IN THEIR WILLS A DESIRE TO BE BURIED
WEARING SUNGLASSES, NOT ONLY WOULD OUR SKELETONS
LOOK COOL IN ETERNITY BUT FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGISTS
WILL BE COMPLETELY BAFFLED!; the Chihuahua seemed upset
at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through it, first via its anus and then
away from a brandished copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine (this
experiment was interrupted by a telephone call, during which the
caller asked a series of bizarre questions about snowmen, including
the following queries; is the word “snowman” gender neutral? Is it
possible to be reincarnated as a snowman? How do you defeat the
snowman boss in the third level of the video game Black Rainbow
Islands? Should I sharpen my snowman’s carrot nose so he can
defend himself against sexual rivals? Are snowmen good fathers?
Do snowmen skip breakfast? Where can I buy a snowman shaped
car? Do snowmen believe in God? Do snowmen believe in the God
of the scarecrows? Do snowmen go to scarecrow Hell? How safe
are snowmen on average? Is there a snowman boss on the third
level of the video game Black Rainbow Islands or did I make that up
in order to gain attention? Is my snowman happy? How can I please
my snowman? Should I make my snowman a bacon sandwich?
Could it turn out that my snowman is Jewish and my offer of a bacon
sandwich would be rejected on religious grounds? Is my boss
secretly a snowman? Do you know the secrets of all the snowmen? I
need to blackmail my snowman, could you give me some dirt on
him? Is my snowman straight? Does my snowman look fat in this?
Did you answer my question on whether the word “snowman” is
gender neutral? Can it be said that snowmen have a bouncy aroma?
Do snowmen dream of chilly sheep? If I put sunglasses on my
snowman, would that make him cool? What’s your favorite breed of
snowman? Are you going to eat that snowman? Who’s killing the
great snowmen of Europe? Et tu, snowman? If a snowman falls
alone in a forest, does anyone else want this bacon sandwich? Have
you ever been to an illegal snowman fight? Why are there so few
snowmen used as breakfast cereal mascots? Is there some element
within the breakfast cereal industry that is prejudiced against
snowmen? Is it because snowmen skip breakfast? Did you confirm
or deny that snowmen skip breakfast when I asked you earlier?
Would a snowman make a good breakfast cereal mascot for
Yokozuna Crunch, or would having a snowman on a box of sumo
wrestler themed cereal just be confusing? Who was that masked
snowman? Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of snowmen?);
the Shih-Tzu seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through
it, first via its anus and then latterly via its mouth, and ultimately
DEKAYDE was unable to make good with his claim that he would
climb through a dog in order to get away from a brandished copy of
the A Clockwork Aubergine, although this experiment was significant
in that DEKAYDE took at least seventy two percent longer in order to
try (and fail) and it was during this additional time I had the
opportunity to really examine the refreshment I had chosen for
myself (no experiment should ever be undertaken without
refreshment, you understand) as well as the conveyance in which it
was stored! I was drinking green tea from a white Satsuma
porcelain mug with black stripes! The black stripes ran in horizontal
bands around the mugs circumference! There were seven black
bands of alternating thickness, first thick and then thin and so on!
The swamp water green of the tea made for an interesting contrast
with the white interior of the mug! Regarding the mug in so much
detail made me wish I had a plain cake donut, or possibly a bagel;
per “rubber sheet geometry” there was very little difference in the
shape of either a mug or any snack food that had a hole in it, as the
number of holes any particular object had was the primary unit of
topological measurement! Hungry, I bit the handle off and crunched it
up; chewing through the porcelain reminded me of when I ate part of
the battlement of a castle; the Poodle seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s
mouth, and ultimately, even after liberally dousing himself in BBQ
sauce in order to make himself, a) more slippery, and as such more
likely to ease through the narrow confines of the poodle’s digestive
system, and b) tasty enough to be admitted into the poodle’s mouth
in the first place, DEKAYDE was unable to make good with his claim
brandished copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine; the Labrador
seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through it, first via its
anus and then latterly via its mouth, and ultimately DEKAYDE was
Aubergine; the Dalmatian seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to
copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine; the Chinese Crested seemed
upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through it, first via its anus
and then latterly via its mouth, and ultimately DEKAYDE was unable
to make good with his claim that he would climb through a dog in
order to get away from a brandished copy of the A Clockwork
Aubergine; the Pug seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl
through it, first via its anus and then latterly via its mouth, and
copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine; the English Sheepdog seemed
upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through it, first via its anus
and then latterly via its mouth, primarily as the constant attempts to
do so interfered with its career as mascot for a range of house
paints, and ultimately DEKAYDE was unable to make good with his
claim that he would climb through a dog in order to get away from a
brandished copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine; the Pit-bull seemed
pleased at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through it, first via its anus
and then latterly via its mouth, though ultimately DEKAYDE was
Aubergine; the Yorkshire Terrier seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s
mouth, and ultimately DEKAYDE was unable to make good with his
claim that he would climb through a dog in order to get away from a
brandished copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine; the Presa Canario
seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through it, first via its
anus and then latterly via its mouth, and ultimately DEKAYDE was
Aubergine; the Dachshund seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to
copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine; the Pekinese seemed upset at
DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl through it, first via its anus and then
German Shepard seemed upset at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl
through it, first via its anus and then latterly via its mouth -this upset
was surely compounded by the sad realization that the animal was
neither of German descent or ever held a job herding sheep, despite
the name of its breed- and ultimately DEKAYDE was unable to make
Great Dane seemed upset not only at DEKAYDE’s attempts to crawl
through it, first via its anus and then latterly via its mouth, but also
offered rhotacistic criticism of the experiment itself, as the
experiment interfered with the animal’s day job of solving mysteries,
and ultimately DEKAYDE was unable to make good with his claim
brandished copy of the A Clockwork Aubergine!
And thus ended ten years of painstaking work! The conclusion,
of course, is that DEKAYDE’s original statement that he would even
crawl through a dog to put space between himself and any nearby
copy of A Clockwork Aubergine was probably a colorful figure of
speech rather than a factual claim!
In summation, this foreword had very little to do with the words
it was supposed to be the fore part of!
THE PERIOD KEY ON MY KEYBOARD IS WORKING AGAIN
NOW, BUT I’VE JUST DISCOVERED THAT ADJACENT TO THE
EXCLAMATION MARK KEY THAT I WAS FORCED TO USE IS
THE ONE WITH QUOTE MARKS, AND I HAVE DECIDED TO
MAKE MORE USE OF IT
Introduction
THE most frequently asked question I am frequently asked

about A Clockwork Aubergine is, “This is a joke, right?” The second
most frequently asked question I am frequently asked about A
Clockwork Aubergine is, “Seriously, this is a joke, right?” Curiously
enough, these questions most frequently are asked one after the
other, usually with my denial of the first before the second is
proposed by the questioner. Other questions I have been asked
frequently about A Clockwork Aubergine include inquiries into its
meaning, most often coupled with the enquirer’s own pet theory and
a request to validate it. Questions I have not been asked frequently
have tended to be about snowmen, by which I mean I have been
asked quite a number of questions about them, but only once, all at
once, in a telephone phone call I had not been expecting (in addition
to those questions listed in my introduction, there were also such
enquiries as, “Aren’t snowmen just really cold scarecrows? Could I
market unflavoured ice-cream as Snowman Flavour? Would eating a
snowman count as a kind of ersatz cannibalism? Have you ever met
the four snowmen of the apocalypse? What do you mean the original
Biblical translation wasn’t “snowmen of the apocalypse” but referred
instead to elephants? Should snowmen be given the vote? Would
recognizing the civil rites of snowmen lead us down a slippery slope
to a society dominated by them, with a snowman for president? Is it
racist to harbour paranoid delusions about a race war between
snowmen and fleshmen? If all snowmen were brothers would you let
your daughter marry one? Have you ever watched snowman porn?
Zombies VS Snowmen; who would win? Ninjas VS Snowmen; who
would win? Gingerbreadmen VS Snowmen; who would win?
Ninjabreadmen VS Snowmen; who would win? Gingerdeadmen
A.K.A. Zombie Gingerbreadmen VS Snowmen; who would win?
Cereal Box Mascots VS Snowmen; who would win? My Aunt Fanny
VS Snowmen; who would win? Obese Cheerleaders VS Snowmen;
who would win? A Tyranosaurus-Sex-Machine VS Snowmen; who
would win? The God Emperor of Eggworld VS Snowmen; who would
win? Fingal O’Flahertie VS Snowmen; who would win? Masculine
Cosmic Apocalypse Monsters VS Snowmen; who would win? The
Motherfucker Superior VS Snowmen; who would win? Anti-
Snowmen VS Snowmen; who would win? Can snowmen squat!?”)
When people wish to interpret A Clockwork Aubergine I advise
them to remember the advice given when listening to music; that it is
just as important to listen to those notes which are not being played
as those which are. So it is with A Clockwork Aubergine, where it is
as important to read the words that are not used as those which are,
as it is mainly that the words which aren’t used that create the
sentences, paragraphs, descriptive passages, internal monologues,
attributed dialogue, character development, plot advancement, story
twists, and other narrative devices that the heart-breaking work of
staggering genius that is A Clockwork Aubergine is composed of; the
phrase “reading between the lines” is perhaps apt, a guide for any
serious student. As to answering that most frequently asked of
questions I must state that, no, A Clockwork Aubergine is not a joke:
jokes can be identified by the fact that they start with the words,
“Knock, knock” and usually end with an act of linguistic short change
whose subversion of expectations causes a mirth response.
Though I wish to refrain from providing any “meaning” of the
work -partly for fear of revealing “spoilers”- I would like to discuss my
feelings on one of the most widely discussed interpretations, and “lay
to rest” “one and for all” whether it is “correct”. Three years after A
Clockwork Aubergine’s original publication, “popular” music group
The Co)))elacanths released a concept album inspired by it,
called The Punchline, which stands as their “meditation” on the
meaning of A Clockwork Aubergine based in a repeated shibboleth
of, “This is a joke, right?” Far be it from me as “merely” the author of
the work to state how “embarrassed” I am on “their” behalf, but I
“feel” it “should” be “said” that if anything earlier “concept” albums
such as Vivisection of an Imaginary Menagerie, which follows the
quest of an obsessed anatomist to find an animal who has a single
internal organ in the shape of a crescent moon, and TILT Lilt, whose
“lyrics” are composed entirely of onomatopoetic renderings of
“pinball machine noises” by a choir of “Irishmen”, contains material
far more relevant to a correct deciphering of the text than anything in
the vinyl pressed abortion –or “record”- which was The Punchline. I
mean, really, “the author is dead” is all well and good, but there is
such a thing as “taking the piss”. The album conceives of a “bar” -a
sort of a public drinking establishment, much like an inn or a
speakeasy or a “pub”- which gradually, track by track as they are
introduced, fills up with the “racist” stereotypes of various
nationalities and sundry other unlikely types, such as “dumb”
blondes, road-crossing chickens, knock knocking doctor doctors, and
thousands of dead babies, until the entire “establishment” is full and
they all attempt to change a light bulb with “inevitable” apocalyptic
results. I ask you, what the “flying fuck at a rolling donut” does that
have to do with anything in A Clockwork Aubergine? It does “not”
relate to anything that I did “not” write in those unwritten portions
which form the meat of the text, or at the very least -granting The
Co)))elacanths “the benefit of the doubt”- I certainly do “not”
remember “not” writing anything of the sort. The closest correlation
between the content of A Clockwork Aubergine and The Punchline is
possibly a “throwaway” line on track forty two defining a snail as “a
booger wearing a helmet” and the unwritten fifth scene of the
unwritten sixteenth chapter of A Clockwork Aubergine in which the
protagonist is attempting to breed a species of snail which have
edible sugar shells in order to launch a business venture in which
these scooped out shells are marketed as a “funky” alternative to the
traditional “boring” coronet shaped ice cream cone.
So, let me state here “for the record” “once and for all”, that I
neither endorse the “meaning” of A Clockwork Aubergine as
interpreted by the “meditation” which is The Punchline, or “fully
understand” when to use quote marks.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THEY say that “no man is an island.” This statement is

completely obvious, for if any man were found to be an island then
referring to them from that point onward as being a man rather than
an island would be confusing. If, however, the phrase “no man is an
island” is to be taken less as being literal and more as being some
sort of metaphor, then it begs the question whether men could
possibly be other metaphorical geographic features, such as No
Man’s Land. “No man is No Man’s Land” would seem to have as
equally validity as “no man is an island”, though in such a case
perhaps “No man is a No Man’s Land island” has even more equal
validity. Of course, this will all become irrelevant should it become
apparent that the phrase is actually “snowman is an island”, which
would be baffling to say the least. The following is a list of those
people and organizations I should acknowledge; Q.Q. Pril, Slamford
Butters, Yodel Noon, Pshaw Pfeiffer, Fo Vegetaria, N.L.Z. Sixtwo,
Actually Antarctic, Nobby “I want a word” Nobbys, the Alcoholic
Pizza Co., Soi Cowboy, Koh Samui, Intrinsically Safish, Winkle de
Klerk, Algonquin Tesco, Bartleby Tesco, Cluuj Tesco, Deadhead
Tesco, E. E. Tesco, Furious-George Tesco, Gnash Tesco, Heliotrope
Tesco, Ionesco Tesco, Jalapeno Tesco, Kakslauttanen “We had fast
dogs” Tesco, Lovecraft Tesco, Mevster “Whose coat is this jacket?”
Tesco, Nathaniel Tesco, Oppenheimer Tesco, Picatrix Tesco, Q’bert
“#!$?*!” Tesco, R.R. Tesco, $.$.$. Tesco, Tobin Tesco, Ursprach
Tesco, Ventricular Tesco, W.W.W. Tesco, Xavier Tesco IV, Yancy M.
Tesco, Zsa Zsa Tesco, Dr. Jeseuss, DEKAYDE, Co-col Zero,
Engelbert Braintreee, Bombeldax Chulo Pedro and Bombeldax Paya
Plata, Ambre Nectra, Erik Kartman, Google Brybgr, P.O.P. Khorne,
Brien O’Flann, Prof. Shock Proof, eleanor “lower case” pigfucker, the
Devil’s Baker’s Dozen AKA the Jury AKA the Monster with 144
Faces, Aloysius Papamargaritis, George Cauldron, Zuzzanah Zmith,
January Demo, I.O.U. Nothingforiatenothing, Seamus Eyebrows,
Patrick Joseph, the Caveat Emperor, Austin Baddesley, Butt
Canning, Crow Davies, Draper Eades, Ellerington “Ring Tone” Field,
F. Flemming George, “Damaged” Goods Hallas, Huntley Jackson,
Jones Kaskova, Knight Laird, Lipscombe McAllister, Moulton
Nancholas, Noble “Camel” Oakley, Rowley Sait, Wyeth Zambanini,
S.O.S. Lewinskiwalocizcrochoczki, Vivian Westward Ho!, F.U. Stein,
Roald McDahl, Lewis Carroll, Ward-Phillips Love, Godwin S. Loew,
Cal Gulliver, Scarlett Vixxen, John & Jane Doe, Sccin Booc,
Anonymous, Rose Madder, Hercules Parrot, Armitage Shanks,
Eddie Gnash, Cletus Gooch, Dahlia & Woody Lamore,
1010010010011100 1001110011010102001, Sherry Trifle, Eton
Mess, Knickerbocker Glory, Alfred E. Neutron, Aluminium
“Aluminum” Jack, Th’P’p’f’Ch’l’T’wn, the Smashed Crab sisters, Joan
of Aardvark, Ms. Ultra, Tissquo Kann, Pla Kapong Chang-Noi, Jism
Jeff, Northern “Well she said knowingly as she legged her wooden
throw in the air half a league on pi r squared over the rhododendron
bush” Andy, Windy Windscream, X.Y. Z. McMath, the Daily Llama,
Vimco Kompressor, Gore Box, Petey 2Thousand, Jorge Luis Borgia,
Joan of Noah’s Ark,
Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116
Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffvoralternwarengewissenhaftsch
aferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenv
onangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolftausendjah
resvorandieerscheinenwanderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgebrau
chlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischenstern
artigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplaneten
kreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevonverstandigmenschlichkeit
konntefortplanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemit
nichteinfurchtvorangreifenvonandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwis
chensternartigraum, Jank E-muil, Pound Coin, Q.C Styles, Bungle
Dropier, Wally Pendragon, Makro Arco, Cock A. Leekie, Psychedelia
Smith, Cerne “Nine & a ½ inches” Abbas, Penny Farthing, Sanders
Chicken, Run-Run Tayto, the Goat Footed Balloon Man, Lenny
Reifenstahl, Mark Skid, Aynal Randy, He Who Cannot Be Named for
Legal Reasons, Colonel Mustard-Gash, Kyoto Eros, Chip Chocolate,
I.T.S. Tenand-Six, Nemo omeN, Rass Adlock, Alane Sillytoe,
Iceberg “Dead Ahead” Phat, Des Troy, Joe King, Stephanie Queen,
Crash Test Danny, Mary Hellzapoppins, Shades Pigboy, Mornington
Crescent, Tikka Masala, Sag Aloo, Keema Naan, Molotov
Kalashnikov, S. Herman Tank, Tommy Gunn (and his brother Ben),
S.S.D.D. Bookkeeper, the Man Who Was T.F.I. Friday, Felonius
Monk, Simone de Beaver, Mrs. Superbus, Purduru
Kulu’pullu’wakok’ponk, Guppy Love, Oi-Oi Saveloy, Engelbert
Ramsbottom, Bo Ty, Stanislaw Golem, Roy G. Biv, Salmon Russki,
Hellor Highwater, Sheerluck Holmes, the Metrognome, H.E.D.
Foxtrot-Uniform-Charlie-Kilo, Lucretius Crescent, Phil Antropist,
Freedom Frites, O)))O)))nah O)))rinO)))cO))), Sundae Driver, S.
Irroco Z. Ephyr, Baron von Chickenpants, Corky “Inventor of the You
Should Be Fucking Ashamed Of Yourself Burger, a patty the size of
a hub cap with two pizzas for the bun” Rorschach, Greenham Gray,
Taul Pyler, Chay Rivers, S.K. Usetup, Rock “Hudson” Ayers, Harvard
“Gang” Wallbanger, Chip “Monk” Otle, Artie “Choke” Sianwell,
Methistophiles, Fritzl Fitzrovia-Fitzroy-Fitzgerald-fitzWilliam-
fitzRoger, Cottonmouth Joe, Bob A. Job, Johnny Pineappleseed,
Hieroglyphic Borscht, Pueblo Piss-asshole, Salivate Darling, Randy
Warthog, Yokel Oh-no, the Boy Who Cried ROFL, Farley Rusk,
Commodus the toilet emperor, Lance Boil, Ox-Blood Chesterfield,
K£sha, Bjork Mjollnir, the Kimono Dragon, M.K. Ultros, Ion Brew,
Tizer-Tizer Burning Bright, Frederick Kruger-rand, Jason
Forhe’sajollygoodfellow, Snark=Boojum, Lady “Free” Byrd, Jack D.
Ripper van Wimple, Misti Mourning, Albert Bridge, Elle Diablowjob,
Talana Hill, Vaal Krantz, Spion Kop, Bebington Kop, Mortenson Kop,
Popside Kop, R.U.A Kop, PC Bill Shankly, David Kopafeel, Edwin
Druid, Oliver Pissed, Olive the Other Reindeer, Raven Nevermore,
D.D. Boobs, Penn Umbra, Kip Kalmand, Carrie Onn, the Ellipsisters,
a Boy Called Pseudonym, Fuk Yu, S.N.A.F.U Fubar, Flaccid Cookie,
Nein Ink-kneels, Jimbo “Mumbo” Jumbo-Jett, Frank N. Goldstein,
Coo Clucks Clam, Thom Moth, Nelly “Pachydermatologist” Baby,
Eelectric Sitar, Lloyd of Llondon, T.D.S. Bore, Ed Poe, Walter
Kryptokronkite, Mick McMac, Golgotha Gogol, Cadbury Fry, the Man
with Feet of Clay and a Glass Jaw and a Heart of Gold and Brass
Knuckles, Donna Kebab, Nobody, A.E.I.O.U. Why, Ziggy Freud, the
Abdominal Snowman, P.G. Tips, Marchmellow Browne, Ihaza
Bucket, Jimmy Rustler, Z.X. Spectrum, Angelo Sin, Io “YOLO” Yo-yo,
Maris Piper, Waxy Buildup, Flaamammmmamaaaammmmaaa
Smith, 31381 Smith, Shithead Smith, Uranium Smith, Groke Smith,
Atkins Smith, Paleo Smith, G-Plan Smith, Balrog/M.Bison Smith,
Vega/Balrog Smith, Sagat Smith, M.Bison/Vega Smith, Always-I-
Want-To-Be-With-You-And-Make-Believe-With-You-And-Live-In-
Harmony-Harmony-Oh-Love Smith, S.W.A.L.K. Smith, K.I.S.S Smith,
B.B.B.Q. Smith, B.Y.O.B. Smith, April Smith, May Smith, June Smith,
Chocki Bicki, Wakeywakey Eggsandbakey, Lily Hammer, Grigori
Stumpf, Chop-Chop Whitten, Emmanuelle Kunt, Murphy Law, Mr.
GRENS, Wissard Sleef, Far-Out Man, Ur Cciv, Kabbages Kondoms,
Fruit N. Fibre, O. Quinto Beatle, Rimmington Job, the Badass
Mariachi Indian Takeaway, Hap Slappy, Mickey Dee, Tipper Vidal,
Portentious Pilot, WIKKID KIDD, Djinn Rummi, the Hamburglar
Helper, Grammar Hitler, Leppo Rutle, U. Wotm8, Mark of the “in the
belly of the” Bewilderbeest, Zeno Phobia, Minnie Oyl, Jack
McLantern, Chancre Soare, A.P.R. Representative, Stargazey Pye,
Major O’Cheese, Jackie O.M.G., Tin Lizzy, W.D. Fortean, Dutty
Boukman, Gok Wok, Cake Earthhead, Bob Andy, Pillo Ti, Paul
“They’ve put the price of everything in the vending machines up, I’m
going to call the company’s financial director about this and bitch”
White, Col. Flanders, Napoleon Mandela, Renc “Klix!” Xagon, Nicely
Donne, W.M. Skinned, Celeron Cenic, Dennis the Little Shit,
Bumblebeezlebub, John Donut, Prt’scr Sysrq, Mickey “Many a
mickle maketh a muckle” Mouth, Zoostorm Dvd, Dotty Mug,
T.Z.O.T.T.Z.O.F. Edition, Split Worn, Sharia LaRosBoeuf, P.M.
Produc, the Very Horny Caterpillar, Cornelius Spatchcock, Wally
Trolly, Pointyhead Windowlicker, Broomsgrove “Muumuu” Megan,
Spudulike (It’s exotic!), W.W.W Jacobs-Ladder, Trethake Tarot, Nick
the Goth & the Famous Fannellis, Polly Pot, Jude S. Carrot, Earnest
“Swordfish would be more effective if they had a chainsaw instead of
a sword” Howardsway, Dr Zeuzz, Skip Wotsit, Disco Frazzle,
W.W.G.G.D. Allin, Lax “What do you call a corpulent cop? A
potbellied pig!” Sore, The-Name-Means-No-Thing, T.X. Starkey,
Bimetal Plum, Erasurehead Press, Tik-Tok Tao, Hodge Podge, Harry
Keylime-Pye, Jean Pacman, Amistad Maudlin, @ticus, Cher Nobyl,
Parrotparrotparrot Eyes, Box Qty, Dr. Scooby Doolittle, Hanz Catsup,
Vimana Vindaloo, all the girls at Body-Fluid-Beautiful (including
Sticky Vicky, Juicy Lucy, Dot Snot, Sue Spew, the Piss Sisters
Amber and Nectar, and the Spunk Punk princess, Seed d’Licious),
Buddy Weiss, Maximillian Taste, N.O. Sugar, 330 Mle, Kasper Sky,
Baby “Beyreuth” Roof, Jimmy Dumps, Bob Slay, P.P. Skmno, Django
Djinni, Grimace Sardonicus, Guy Eggworld, Hello My Name Is
Indecipherable Scrawl, M.A.S.H. St. Edwards, Vortigern Rowena,
Bartleby the Simpson, Keanu Piano, Shea O’Shite, Gilbert
Grapefruit, Don “Kinky” Kong, Phillipe Clorque, Maxwell’s Silver
Hammer Demon, B.A.R. Chode, Wink Burgercannon, Barry
“Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon” Trotter, and an extra special thank
you to all the sumo wrestlers whose work I enjoy, particularly those
named after types and style of Japanese pottery and porcelain; to
my boys Agano, Bizen, Hagi, Haji, Haniwa, Imari, Jomon, Kakiemon,
Kamuiyaki, Karatsu, Kutani, Mino, Nerikomi, Onda, Otani, Raku,
Ryumonji, Satsuma, Seto, Shigaraki, Shino, Soma, Sue, Takatori,
Tamba, Tobe, Tokoname, Yokkaichi-Banko, and, last but not least,
the golem Kintsugi.
I dedicate this book to all those souls who discovered time
travel and then made the mistake of going back to dinosaur times
where, due to a series of unlikely accidents, they died and became
fossilized… thank you for being my paperweights.
A CLOCKWORK AUBERGINE
(with annotations)
over[1][2][3][4][5][6]
the[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]
lazy[21][22][23][24][25][26][27] brown[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]
dog[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]
the[48][49][50][51][52][53]
quick[54][55][56][57]
red[58][59][60][61][62]
fox[63][64][65][66][67][68]
j[69]umped[70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANY biography of Kevin Sweeney needs to start with an explanation of

his name. The simplest theory, and that held by most of both of the scholars
who have studied his work, is that his parents did not want him, and gave him
a dumb name as a constant reminder of that fact, a name which would get his
ass kicked all through school and any number of job resumes and hovercraft
license applications rejected at first glance.
“I got it from a magazine cover,” his father, Kevin Sweeney Sr. later
recalled, “In the maternity ward waiting room they had this stack of magazines,
and one of them was called ‘Kevin Sweeney Survivor’s Society Weekly
Report’. Turned out it was a weekly magazine of articles, think pieces, puff
pieces, interviews and such dedicated to helping people stuck with the name
‘Kevin Sweeney’ cope with having such a dumb name. That gave me the idea
to name my son something dumb, like Kevin Sweeney or something. Took me
a week to come up with the name.”
Why he was in the maternity ward waiting room is still unclear to this
day, as Kevin Sweeney was a home birth. The confusion apparently stemmed
from the fact that the home in question was not the family home but an old
people’s home where Mrs. Kevin Sweeney Sr. was working as a federal agent,
deep undercover to infiltrate a group of undercover federal double agents who
were working to infiltrate a hovercraft license forging ring, but owing to a
typographical error in their briefing reports had ended up at the wrong address.
It later emerged that the typographical error –the appearance of a rogue letter
‘S’- was one common to the fake hovercraft licenses flooding the market at the
time, pointing to the fact that the ringleader was working part-time at the
agency as a secretary to pay off student loans from attending community
college courses on how to forge hovercraft licenses. At the time, the local
community college was offering forty-seven such courses, even though the
numbers of hovercraft in the wild were on a rapid decline. It was a bleak time.
A conflicting theory over how Kevin Sweeney received his name largely
excludes any mention of his parents or hovercraft in favor of a convoluted web
of conspiracy theories that see the slogans of several popular breakfast cereal
mascots as coded messages or prophecies that ultimately have nothing to do
with Kevin Sweeney or how he came to receive such an unusual name as
“Kevin Sweeney”. Adherents of this conflicting opinion, of which there are
none, also continually misspell Kevin Sweeney’s name as “Kevin Sweeney”,
with a silent “$”. Which is also invisible.
A third theory is that Kevin Sweeney carved his name himself, having
whittled it down from a much larger name.
Having wasted most of the words allocated to writing a biography of
Kevin Sweeney over the minor matter of how he received the unusual name of
“Kevin Sweeney”, there isn’t much space left to recount the details of his life.
He spent thirty-two years as a bathroom chandelier installer who wrote semi-
autobiographically tales of social-realism in other people’s spare time, and
owned the world’s third largest collection of fossilized time travelers.
Author’s Notes
Holy shit, did you read all of that?

I suppose I should explain myself. The kind of stuff I generally write is
the more linear, plot based bizarro, rather than the absurdist end of the genre.
But I like the absurdist stuff. I like annotations, too. A Clockwork Aubergine is
the result. It’s also deeply satirical; at one point it was called Vinegars Stroke,
as, after having read an annotated copy of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, it
occurred to me that work was just the old Irish scamp having a seventeen-year
wank, and that all the scholarly work that has been written about it is just folks
joining in the world’s longest literary circle-jerk.
(“The vinegar strokes” is a peculiar English expression for those last
desperate tugs during a bout of self-love, just before one’s John Thomas
pukes people porridge/population paste. It get’s the name from the faces
pulled, as if you’ve just downed a shot of vinegar. Just thought I’d clarify that.)
[1] Possible alternative words that could have been placed here
according to various draft versions of A Clockwork Aubergine are;
above, more, ended, finished, done, completed, concluded,
terminated, above
[2] As they say in the micro-nation of Ubu, “Any book contains
all books... as long as it’s really, really, really long, like, infinitely long.
And what is a book if not a sort of sandwich, the pages slices of
bread spread with the butter of words, generously filled with
meaning? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will
never hurt me, unless they’re in a really big book which you use to
beat me, or maybe give me paper cuts with the edge of the pages. In
short, a book is a wad of toilet paper that someone has wiped their
soul.”
[3] The following is a rough translation from the Eggworld
language which this unwritten section has (not?) been written in:
It was a Thursday when I woke up in this dimension. I had
gone to bed Wednesday night and, sometime between falling asleep
and waking, I had left my dimension and arrived here.
I woke and I just knew I was in the wrong dimension.
Everything looked the same, my bed sheets of Egyptian cotton with
a three hundred thread count, the bullet with my name on it in my
bedside drawer, but I knew that somehow, I had traded places with
this dimension’s version of me. I guess I’m talking about alternate
realities.
I got showered and dressed for work as normal. The soap I
prefer was in the shower, the soap I remember my father smelling
like. Everything in the bathroom looked exactly the same as in my
own bathroom, from the soap to the chandelier. In the mirror, I
looked the same.
Downstairs I made breakfast. On a business trip to England I
got used to eating steak and afterbirth pudding with marmalade. The
marmalade jar was empty. Just the same as in my dimension; this
dimension’s version of me had also failed to buy more after vowing
to at yesterday’s failed breakfast.
I left for work.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but if you woke up in another
dimension that looked just like yours, what would you do? I had to go
with the idea that I had the same job here as I did in my reality. Who
knew how long I’d be stuck here? I might swap back with the other
version of me at any time, and I thought it was like borrowing
someone’s steam powered potato peeler. You don’t junk another
man’s steam powered potato peeler when he loans it to you, right?
So, I went about the day like I was supposed to be here, doing
my job as a Software Interfacing Hardware Quality Assurance
Control Officer.
You’re wondering how I was so certain I had swapped realities
when everything seemed exactly the same, right? Well, the only way
I can explain it is like this. Every day you get wake and sit on the
same toilet to shit, same old familiar toilet. Then one morning you go
and sit on that toilet and the seat is warm, like someone else was
just sitting there.
And get this; you live alone.
This dimension felt like a warm toilet seat. Familiar but wrong.
And, what’s worse, you swear there shouldn’t be a chandelier in your
bathroom, even though you know that makes no sense.
If it ever happens to you, trust me, you’ll get what I mean.
I went about my job testing keyboards, in an office exactly like
my own, saw the same colleague’s faces as I was used to seeing on
complete strangers, and kept a lunch appointment I hadn’t made the
day before.
Naturally I kept an eye out for any details that would prove that
I was in the wrong dimension. I scanned the adverts on the sides of
hovercrafts, but they were for products I knew the radio jingles for. It
was an overcast day, but I kept an eye on the cloud cover and when
it broke the sky was the blue I had grown up with.
This looking-for-telling-details was a fairly casual thing until I
woke up the next day, Friday, and realized I was still in the wrong
dimension. Subconsciously, I must have believed I would be
returned to my own locality within the space-time continuum whilst I
slept, but this had not happened.
I went through the usual routines of the day, but kept a closer
eye on the details. I made more of an effort to find even one small
difference. In sci-fi movies, alternate realities were always wildly
different, but I knew that in an infinite multiverse a lot of them were
going to be the same. All I wanted was a sign that proved I was in
the wrong place.
It felt uncomfortable being here. Like a pair of gloves one size
too big. I didn’t quite fit.
That first weekend there, I went to the library. I researched
things which I knew and checked them. The names of all twelve
difference drummers for The Co)))elacanths over the years. The
names of trans-Vulcanian bodies. Potato chip flavors popular in
1958. Celebrity genocides. I checked the prophecies in a dog-eared
copy of This Things I Believe: The Amazon Argyle Predicts the
Future. I listed all the junk that I knew and the details all matched
what I was reading. I read a potted history of WWVI and it checked
with what movies had taught me.
So, nothing amiss at the library.
I took a break and rang my favorite pizza place, noting that the
phone number was the same in this dimension as in my own. No
sooner had I hung up then the phone began ringing, and when I
answered it somebody asked me a bunch of stupid questions about
snowmen.
The pizza arrived. The miniature robots on it cheered when
they saw me.
Nothing amiss with the pizza place, then.
The next week I went to work like it was completely normal and
waited for the weekend. Then I went back to my research.
I did the same the week after.
This went on for three months.
Then I found the difference. After that I felt better, and decided
that seeing as though I was stuck in this dimension for the
foreseeable future I might as well treat it as my own.
The difference was that in this dimension all the names of
great Native Americans in history who were named after unicorns in
mine are named after entirely different quadrupeds. Now all I have to
do is to get through life without referring to the battle of the Greasy
Grass River and I’ll be fine; you see, a side effect of me ever hearing
the name of Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull instead of Crazy Sparkles
Fantastic and Sitting Rainbow Glitters is blinding fits of apathy and a
tendency to lie about being from an alternative dimension.
[4] A theory put forward by desert island discographer Man
See-You-Next-Thursday (not to be confused with the Man Who Was

T.F.I. Friday) about the following unwritten dialogue claims that the
initial letter of each word, taken together, spells out a formal proof of
the Marucci-Chigurh Conjecture. This is seen as a co-incidence,
particularly in light of the fact that treating the rest of A Clockwork
Aubergine in the same way reveals that two thirds of it repeatedly
state the chemical formula for bilierubin, an enzyme found in the
human gut responsible for the color of shit. Oddly, when treated as
an acrostic, this same dialogue passage spells out the time and date
of your death, and precisely how we will kill you.
[5] Emphasis added. If nothing else this clears up one of the
more collapsible mysteries concerning what was seen emerging
from the Pluung Hole; namely, that it came in nine pieces. How swift!
How silent! How?
[6] From an interview with the author; “We had lunch at a pizza
place where all the pizzas were named after Luis Bunuel films. Then
we bought a tank. It was surplus from some war I never heard of.
The tank did not last long. Never ever did. Lack of warmth. Glass
bubbles weighed us down. Pressed down upon us. We had dinner at
a different pizza place. This pizza place did not have a cute gimmick
like naming their pizza’s after Luis Bunuel films. This made the
pizza’s taste different, or maybe it was the different toppings that
caused this.”
[7] Definite article.
[8] For clarification; following the cancellation of his popular
Saturday morning kid’s show, which was essentially a series of

segues between poorly animated pseudo-adverts targeted at the
most impressionistic of all demographic groups, Mr. Argyle vanished
from public life for a while, to eventually reappear after a five year
hiatus as “The Amazing Argyle”, a self-proclaimed prophet whose
predictions for future world events were available in inexpensive and
poorly edited paperback form, called This Things I Believe: The
Amazon [sic] Argyle Predicts the Future.
When pressed for details, The Amazing Argyle revealed that
following his fall from fame he had embarked on an odyssey of
spiritual self-discovery, which seemed to consist mainly various of
forms of substance-abuse and the frequenting of go-go bars. It was
in one such bar in Encino, The Lap-Dance Saloon, after a small
amount of unpleasantness regarding “sticky fingers; she had these
pasties like little sunflowers, what would you do?” that The Amazing
Argyle received several head, neck, spine, thumb, knee cap and
metatarsal injuries, in addition to his mystical third eye being
accidentally popped like a zit, allowing the Cosmic Awareness to
flow directly into his brain. It was during his convalescence that The
Amazing Argyle dictated the predictions he had for the future.
Unfortunately, no-one came to visit him in the hospital so he had
been dictating to thin air, but claimed to recall “the meat and
potatoes” of his visions.
The following are a selection of predictions from This Things I
Believe:
September 12th, 3012: Final internet meme fades from popular
public conscious; the upward march of civilization resumes. Millions
are killed.
March 15th, 3012: Using genetic engineering, hovercraft
brought back from extinction. Millions are killed.
December 25th, 3014: Tiny Pacific island of Ubu declares its
independence and renames itself China. Economy thrives thanks to
flood of falsely delivered mail. Millions die.
February 2nd, 3015: First keyboards with logical
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQR$TUVWXYZ lay-out goes on sale.
Keyboards later withdrawn after initial users, familiar with the
traditional QWERTY set-up, accidentally type out long forgotten dark
incantations and summon forth the dread legions of the devil-god
Th’Pp’f’Chl’Twn. Millions are killed.
May 4th, 3016: Rainbows are patented. Leprechauns -
previously moonlighting as the little guys in the walk, do not walk
signs at crosswalks- sue. Millions die.
26th June, 3017: Loch Ness Monster revealed to be giant
merman doing the backstroke with an erection. Millions are killed.
January13th, 3018: Existence of leprechauns proven. Their
union calls a strike. Millions die.
June 26th, 3018: The Messiah appears, is ignored. Millions
die.
November 7th, 3018: Alien contact is confirmed as giant
intergalactic worms attempt to communicate with trains of the
London Underground Tube network. Aliens leave after failing to woo
slutty trains. Millions die.
Coronary 1st, 3018: New month invented to cope with sudden
flood of interesting events. Millions are killed.
February 31st, 3020: Inter-racial union between snowmen and
scarecrows made legal after “Jim Scarecrow” laws are passed.
Millions kill.
August 9th, 3021: Messiah tries for third time, fails again.
Millions resurrect, then are killed.
July 30th, 3023: Improved “black” rainbows released.
Existence of Eggworld revealed. Millions are killed.
May 1st, 3023: That shit for brains bouncer from The Lap
Dance Saloon is officially declared “Biggest Shit for Brains” in
history; his skeleton is dug up and turned into a giant marionette
made to enact a xylophone musical specially commissioned for the
event in which he proclaims the greatness of The Amazing Argyle,
whilst all his genetic descendants are ritually drowned in mercury.
Millions die.
April 3rd, 3026: Problem of dictionaries falling over when
placed upright on shelves resolved by world leaders agreeing to
invent hundreds of words from Q through Z to balance otherwise
front heavy tomes. Millions are killed.
April 4th, 3026: Due to poorly written sub-clauses in “Jim
Scarecrow” laws, army drafted in to retroactively enforce bizarre
ruling that chandeliers must be installed in bathrooms. Worldwide
riots ensue. Millions kill or are killed.
October 22nd, 3030: Cannibal holocaust; millions of cannibals
killed in extermination camps. Survivors plan celebratory feast.
Obesity epidemic of near cheerleader proportions. Millions diet.
November 16th, 3032: Well-known mondegreens incarnate as
corporeal entities and rampage across the earth. Civilization
collapses. Millions are killed.
The accuracy of The Amazing Argyle’s predictions is hard to
gauge thanks to two factors. The first is that he gets them so far
ahead in time that no-one alive today will be around to verify them.
The second, and possibly more important factor, is that at least half
of all the predictions in This Things I Believe have already happened.
In an interview when pressed on this point, The Amazing Argyle
pointed out that time is circular, and in an effort to make the analogy
that time is a circle shaped suggested that it was “round, y’know, like
a sunflower.”
“Stuff that we did as cavemen we’ll be doing again in the
future,” he clarified. “Trends and fashions repeat themselves, y’know,
and when we become cavemen again after civilization collapses
we’ll probably still end up going to the same movies and stuff, only
we’ll be painting them on cave walls again.”
This Things I Believe is now available from outlets everywhere.
[9] The author has stated before that, much in the way it is
important to listen to the notes not played when attending to music

as those notes actually used, so when reading A Clockwork
Aubergine is it necessary to pay close attention to the words
unwritten as well as those that actually made it onto the page. In this
unwritten section –colloquially referred to as “The Burning Giraffe of
God, Part XXXVII” after its most enigmatic protagonist- we approach
some of the biggest themes of the whole text, and to carefully
unpack the core symbolism here it is important to keep in mind the
key phrase or shibboleth used as a Greek chorus throughout;
“_________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
__
“_________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________
“_________________________________________________
__________________”
(Emphasis added; note the astonishing alliteration and
allusions to the universal myth-figure of the Birthday Monster.)
[10] This of course points towards the view of history as being a
cross between a Mexican stand-off and a conga line, where each

successive generation has a gun held to their head by the previous,
forcing them ever onward at the behest of whoever is behind them.
The first cause argument would require that there be somebody right
at the very back of the line who is imposing their will upon all the
others by virtue of the fact that they are not under threat of cranial
ventilation; but what do they want? As is the case in any hostage
situation, we all falsely believe that simply abiding by the instructions
of the hostage-taker we will make it out of our predicament alive.
Wrong!
[11] Perhaps a play upon the traditional folk wisdom; “In the
future our most important natural resource / Will be brainless

toddlers the size of elephants / Whose collapsed skulls can be
ridden in like chariots / Collective noun; a bunch.”
[12] All hobbies are pointless attempts to fill the void known as a
lifetime. It was therefore not unnatural that there should be a surge

of public opinion that an award should be presented annually to the
person who could demonstrate that their hobby was the most
pointless. So was born the annual Wasted Days Award, sponsored
by the Ashbury de la Zouch Beverage Company.
The bookmakers held their breath as that year’s list of
nominees was announced, three names in contention for the award.
Previous winners had included a young lady who attempted to
collect one example of every plastic object it was possible to cram
into a peacock, a man who provoked people to think about skeletons
by playing the xylophone just out of sight or by shouting
“SKELETONS” at them, and a sunflower squeezer, so expectations
were high.
First was perennial favorite but long term loser Metric Comb,
dictator of the micro-nation of Ubu. His hobby consisted of collecting
all known data, references, statistics and press releases related to
his extensive list of cereal box mascots that nobody remembered.
He tended to consistently place as a nominee not for his obsessive
attention to pointless minutiae –indeed, wasn’t that the single
defining characteristic of any hobbyist?- which meant siphoning
governmental funds from his country’s public health care in order to
double, triple, and quadruple check the fictional biographies of such
non-entities as Whitey Whale, Sophie Sphinx, Pinky the Hedgehog,
Eliot Elbow, Zebedee Zyvvzya, Godzilla the Hun, the Onomatopoeia
Triumvirate -Crunch, Munch, and Ow Fuck I Bit The Inside Of My
Cheek- and Herbert Hovercraft, but instead thanks to his meticulous
and dogmatic approach to the ultimate criteria that defined his
encyclopedic knowledge of corporate invented breakfast food shills;
that nobody remembered them. After exhaustively compiling every
known piece of data, Metric Comb would only then go about the
process of ascertaining whether his roster of colorful characters
specially designed to sell sugar crusted silo floor sweepings to
impressionable youths were in fact fondly remembered by anybody
who survived their childhood diet. This involved shanghaiing most of
his nation’s impoverished citizens to cold call random people around
the world and ask them if they remembered any of the names on the
list of collected and believed forgotten mascots. If even a single
person claimed to have even the vaguest recollection, that name
was dropped.
When pressed for what he believed his chances were for
winning the Wasted Days Award, dictator Metric Comb said, “How
did you get into my private quarters? Is this a coup?”
The next strong contender for the award was a newcomer,
Miss 27734, a high-ranking priestess in the doomsday cult known as
the Church of the Immaculate Abortion. Though the cult believed its
divine mission was to perform early terminations to assist the whole
of mankind through the Buddhist cycle of birth and re-birth (thus
speeding species wide enlightenment) a certain amount of leisure
time was allotted each member per day, and it was in this free time
that Miss 27734 pursued her hobby of filling school exercise books
with strings of the letter “S”, laboriously written one at a time.
Unfortunately, Miss 27734 had to be dismissed from the running
when, after careful examination of her extensive collection of filled
exercise books, there was discovered an instance where the letter S
was in fact a dollar sign. To quote from the offending passage;
“SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS$SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.”
This instance of frivolity naturally meant that she could no
longer be consider as a contender, not if she couldn’t take her own
pointless hobby seriously, and so she was left with the irony that her
unfortunate lapse was discovered, by sheer coincidence, in the
27734th exercise book that was checked.
The third contender, and by far the most controversial name,
was a scarecrow called Ratbags. Pundits and wags alike hotly
discussed the very first scarecrow ever nominated as having
possibly the most pointless hobby in the world, but as there was no
rule stipulating that scarecrows were ineligible, the borderline racist
furor eventually simmered down so that Ratbags’ hobby could be
considered on its own merits of how much of a waste of time and just
plain stupid it was.
He won of course, when he revealed that he collected movies.
The reason he won had less to do with the mundane nature of
such a hobby than to do with what movies he collected; eschewing
the common habits of collecting by genre, director, or actor, Ratbags
had decided instead to make a complete collection of the I Kill You to
Death films, a task so impossible, so hopeless, that it had never
even been conceived before, a fact which scientists later theorized
had not been possible before Ratbags, as a scarecrow with a
scarecrow’s mind, had formulated the idea, it seemed as though the
sheer scale of the task was so vast that the human brain had no
facility for imagining it, and, in fact, when first encountered by the
members of the awards committee the very notion of collecting every
title from the series actually caused brain storms in two of them, and
a complete psychotic break in a third.
Ratbags collection was impressive, but naturally far from being
complete; notable examples (whose titles have been translated and
modernized from the original languages they were written in) found
amongst the scrolls, inscribed clay tablets, folios, video tapes, and
sundry other methods of conveying narratives invented by Homo
Sapiens, include I Kill You to Death: The Oozing, I Kill You to Death:
Shibboleth of the Insane, I Kill You to Death: Curse of the Unicorn, I
Kill You to Death: Creepy Clown Puppets, I Kill You to Death: The
Swiss Army Chainsaw Massacre, I Kill You to Death: Curse of the
Robot Unicorn, I Kill You to Death: Walpurgisnacht!, I Kill You to
Death: Stab, Slash, Hack, I Kill You to Death: Revenge of the Curse
of the Robot Unicorn, I Kill You to Death: Chop Shop, I Kill You to
Death: Reluctant Organ Donor, I Kill You to Death: Return of the
Revenge of the Robot Unicorn, I Kill You to Death: Drowned in the
Blood of Millions, I Kill You to Death: Killed to Death, I Kill You to
Death: The Night of the Attack of the Bride of the Horror of the Dawn
of the Return of the Revenge of the Robot Unicorns VS Nazi
Sasquatches, Part Three... The Musical! EXXXtreme Edition
Directors Cut.
And so, for having a hobby that involved trying to collect
examples of every movie in the I Kill You to Death horror franchise –
the exact number of which was reckoned to number in the millions,
as the franchise has been running since before recorded history
began; some of the earliest movies have been found painted onto
Neolithic cave walls- Ratbags became the first scarecrow to ever win
the Wasted Days award.
Shortly afterward he was condemned to scarecrow Hell.
The moral here is, life is precious, so live everyday as if it’s
your last (and one day, you’ll be right.)
[13] This section appears to be a collection of graffiti taken from a
bathroom wall. Ignoring the nonsense about art and dressing

corpses with sunglasses, it reads thus:
In America, people who breed with their blood relatives and
enjoy torturing animals, are called hillbillies. In Europe, they are
called the aristocracy.
Suicide is a crime? What the hell are the police going to do, let
you rot in prison?
Necrophiliac blowjob = skullbuggery
Hate getting out from under those cozy covers to go pee on a
cold night? Simple, only HALF fill your water bottle going to bed. No
more getting up to pee, and it also warms the bottle up again.
“And when you stare for a long time into an abyss, the abyss
stares back into you.” …then you both feel weird and the whole
situation is super awkward.
Different Islamic denominations? Sunni & Shia. Popular 70s
entertainers? Sonny & Cher. The Matrix is getting lazy with its
copy/paste work.
Why things are so messed up; “God does not play dice with
the universe.” Einstein “Shit, snake eyes.” God
Been trying to write a joke about masturbating too much, but
I’ve come up empty-handed.
Cryogenics facilities are just deep freezers for the cannibals
who will rule the post-apocalyptic Earth.
Are vampires an ethnic minority?
“Duck & cover” was only ever a polite way of saying “Kiss your
ass goodbye.”
Jobs for gingerbread men; mushroom lumberjack, LEGO hod
carrier...
Sarcasm is a WONDERFUL rhetorical device.
Satan is God’s imaginary friend. As a child will blame Mr.
Pookie for a broken lamp, so He can say of atrocities, “That wasn’t
me.”
Deus Exorcist; one who drives out the Divine. When you want
to wank without guardian angels watching, who ya gonna call?
COMPROMISE; definition; a situation in which nobody gets
what they want. Example; civilization.
If at first you don’t succeed, working the glory hole probably
isn’t your life’s calling.
“YOLO… LOL J/K” Buddha
Recipe for a love potion; alcohol.
Mix pig DNA with snake DNA to get guilt-free bacon every
month.
When Shakespeare wrote of “the last syllable of recorded time”
I’m pretty sure the syllable was FUUUUUUUUUU…
I scream, you scream, we all scream for existence is suffering.
Life is a joke. “The Aristocrats” to be precise.
I can’t believe that Koala Kola isn’t a thing in Australia. The
marketing practically writes itself.
Nuclear weapons/Chekov’s Gun on global stage/The future is
bright…
My imaginary friend killed himself with an overdose of
placebos.
A human is only a sock puppet’s way of making more sock
puppets.
Bars should serve shots in water pistols, then we could play
White Russian Roulette.
STOP! Hammer time/in the name of love/collaborate and listen
(please delete as appropriate to your current situation.)
Hipster Jeffrey Dahmer in the zombie apocalypse: "I was
eating people before it was cool.”
Partner unhappy with your dull sex life? Ask if they fancy trying
necrophilia, then kill yourself.
Mercy is for the weak, deep discounts on electronic goods are
for the strong, so my top tip for getting those Black Friday bargains;
discard your humanity, it’ll only hold you back.
Smegma = frottage frais.
Want to know which of your kids you subconsciously favour?
Set fire to the house and see who you save first.
If I had a penny for every cliché I’ve heard, I could buy all the
tea in China.
Mermaids can’t have sex, but they can give you a blowhole
job.
A car crash is a cannibal’s lobster; hard to get open, delicious
inside.
[14] As I was typing up my notes I found a book of Post-It notes,
and I used them to make a little flick book, you know what I mean,
where you draw pictures on different pages and then flick through
the pad quickly to make a rough little animation. I was quite pleased
with the results, but as this is a serious academic discussion of a
canonical piece of Western literature I have decided that instead of
reproducing my cool little animation, I would convert it into first
person prose form and reproduce it here:
This morning I was dangling over the bubbling methane of a
Vulcanian volcano, this afternoon I was tied to a rail track as the 3:15
ghost train hurtled towards me, and this evening I’ve got
appointments to be ensnared in half a dozen deadly and highly
contrived death traps, all because of my unhealthy fixation with a
cartoon ostrich. Once I was an itinerant fruit picker…
That fucking ostrich.
It’s a particular episode of the cult show Parsley, Sage,
Rosemary & Chyme, a regular fixture of Mr. Argyle’s Animation
Assault Hour in which the junkie triplets and their wisecracking
sentient digestive system sidekick, ever looking to make some fast
money, have hit upon the genius plan of making foie gras, but
replacing the goose with an ostrich. They reason bigger bird, bigger
liver, bigger profits to be made torturing it to death by force feeding it.
And... well, watching Rosemary massage the long, thick throat of the
bird, easing food in its gullet in long, firm, sensual strokes, gets me
hot.
That was why I had locked myself away in the houses’ fallout
shelter for a little quality time away from my cousins, when the
unlikely series of events that lead to every human on earth gaining
superpowers occurred. Because force feeding an ostrich until its fat-
bloated liver gave out made me want grab a couple pairs of socks
and abuse myself to the point of being red raw.
When the weirdly glowing, DNA altering meteors rained down
from the heavens to impact close to rural population centers, whose
inhabitants couldn’t help but go and investigate and get a little too
close? I was masturbating.
When the plagues of radioactive animals and insects, from
armadillos to lady bugs, swarmed the cities, biting and stinging
everyone, fucking with their bloodwork? I was masturbating.
When the batches of toxic waste contaminated popular brand
name soda, selling more than a billion cans a year, were cracked
open by millions of thirsty consumers worldwide, thus accidentally
altering their genetic structures? I was masturbating.
Not to mention the cosmic rays combined with unusual local
sunspot activity at the time of a full eclipse. That got the rest of the
humanity, all except me, deep in a fallout shelter designed to
withstand nothing short of destruction at the atomic level, a remnant
of a time when my house was the religious commune of a doomsday
cult. Irony, huh?
It was one hell of a Thanksgiving.
The first I knew of any changes was when I emerged from the
fallout shelter to see a lot of folks out doors engaging in the annual
turkey autopsy, but I only really cottoned on that something was
amiss when I realized that some were moving faster than speeding
bullets or leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
“Fucking weird,” I mused, letting myself into the house. I guess
still being in the aftermath of a six sock ‘baiting bender numbed me
to how weird it was to see people flying and shooting lasers out of
their eyes.
My cousin Garden was in the kitchen, squatting on the curling
linoleum. Every worktop and most of the floor space was taken up
with cups and glasses, jelly jars, vases, pet food dishes, anything
that could hold a liquid. All filled with liquids. Different liquids. Fizzy
liquids, blue liquids, steaming liquids.
“Hey Garden,” I said. “Umm, are you going number one?”
She nodded, still squatting, one hand braced on her knee, the
other up under her muumuu.
“Uh huh, it’s my super power,” she said.
“Right,” I said.
She made a strained noise, and then sighed pleasurably,
standing up and pulling her hand out from under her clothes to
reveal her holding a beer bottle. She took a sip, swilled it around her
mouth, swallowed, and then beamed.
“Maple syrup,” she said, “with a hint of bacon!”
“Come again?”
“It’s my super power,” she explained. “I can pee any liquid I
can imagine! I can pee used bath water, whiskey, soy sauce, five
kinds of BBQ sauce, unicorn tears, chainsaw oil, semen...” She
pointed at a scorched hole in the hole, the edges still smoking.
“Sulfuric acid!”
“Since when did you get super powers?” I asked.
She looked at me like I had just cut a gorilla with a mezzaluna,
her expression enough to convey the complexity of confusion
someone might have felt at attempting to use a tool commonly used
to divide pizza into slices to injure an ape.
“What? Don’t you know? Wait... where have you been for the
past eleven hours?” she asked.
I told her, and then she told me about the series of unlikely,
world altering events that had taken place whilst I was hunkered in
the fallout shelter masturbating over images of an ostrich being force
fed.
The next couple days were misery for me. Everywhere I went I
was reminded that I was the only man on earth who did not have
super powers.
My cousin Garage had super extendable toes. He could check
if the bath water was cool enough to bathe in without leaving the TV
room, and he kept ding dong ditching me from across the street. My
cousin Garrett could command the loyalty of fresh water creatures.
And other people could fly, or had super strength, or time travel.
The worst part, though, was that I was out of work. After all,
who needs an itinerant fruit picker -my career choice in high school-
when one man could pick every papaya, peanut, and pak-choy in the
state in less than twenty minutes thanks to having super speed?
I tried getting other work, mind. I’m no slacker. But every
menial sub-minimum wage job going could be done by one super
powered freak or another, without even breaking a sweat; in fact, it
was starting to look like the world was heading for utopia, as all labor
became a breeze, freeing up unbelievable amounts of leisure time
resulting in everyone being able to live more fulfilling lives freed of
the yoke of work, and international conflicts were resolved in laser
beam and ice breath battles that resulted in the indestructible
politicians involved coming to stale mates. With nothing to do I
started drinking, but couldn’t work my way to full blown alcoholism
before Garden refused to keep topping me off with single malt.
So, seeing that there was no place for me in this brave new
partially irradiated world, I decide to kill myself.
Except…
Whenever I jumped from a national monument intending to
become the toppings of my own personal pavement pizza, there was
always a costumed freak there to catch me. Whenever I tried to blow
my brains out with an antique dueling pistol, a masked avenger was
there in time to catch the bullet just as it grazed my lips... and every
single one of those bullets had someone else’s name on them.
Whenever I tried to cut my wrists with a steam powered potato
peeler, or drown myself in brand name soda, or even –God help me-
commit suicide by coastguard, there was always some super hero
on hand to save my life just in the nick of time.
Gradually I realized what was happening; I was the only
normal person in the world, and thus the only one capable of ever
being in danger. Which meant I had a marketable skill. After all,
nobody could live out the fantasy of being a superhero unless there
was somebody to save, right?
Once I was an itinerant fruit picker; now I’m the whole world’s
damsel in distress.
It’s a living.
[15] The unwritten parts of A Clockwork Aubergine were not
written on a wide and curious collection of different surfaces in a

curious and wide collection of media; the preceding three chapters
were unwritten mainly on the wall of a toilet in a nu-humor go-go bar,
alongside some curious instructions on arranging to be buried
wearing sunglasses.
[16] This entire section of A Clockwork Aubergine is presented
(or, to be more accurate, isn’t, as it is as unwritten as roughly ninety

nine percent of the rest of the text) in the form of American Sign
Language presented by crudely drawn stick figures clearly modelled
after the AIGA developed DOT Pictograms. As stick figures do not
have hands or fingers, exactly what they are trying to convey is open
to interpretation, so the following text must be absorbed in context of
the fact that it is probably completely wrong:
Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack looked out at her audience,
looked out at the gentling rippling sea of faces, and felt the one thing
she had always craved; acceptance. At last, she felt like she
belonged, as all these people had turned out to see her, to listen to
her, to welcome her into their ranks.
She was due to give a talk about her new book, but now she
saw there were celebrities like the God-Emperor of Eggworld, as well
as several big-name coast-guards, seated amongst her fellow
academics and her palms grew greasy with jitters.
The lights were on her, spotting her on the podium center
stage. It was show time. Time to earn her much sought after place
amongst the meta-tribe.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “First I want to
thank you all for coming to this little presentation that marks the
debut of my latest academic text, The Wild Boy of Robot Unicorn
Valley. The book is the result of my research into the life, discovery,
and subsequent notoriety of the eponymous subject...”
A heckler screamed, “If you’re so fucking clever, why don’t you
know his name?”
Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack squinted against the hard
spot lights.
“I said ‘eponymous’ not ‘anonymous’ sir,” she explained.
“Abuse withdrawn,” screamed the heckler.
Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack resumed her prepared talk.
“The story of feral boy of the title, now known as Adam, is well
known, but not so well known that the facts haven’t been open to
wild embellishment. The bare facts are simple; Adam, as a baby,
was left behind by his parents on a visit to the Robot Unicorn Valley
amusement park. One of the primary attractions of the park is the
costumed actors who roam the grounds to entertain and provide
photo opportunities for guests, these costumed actors portraying the
various characters from the popular Saturday morning cartoon series
My Robot Unicorn. The baby Adam was found by these actors at the
end of one working day and it was decided that they would raise the
child as their own, without ever informing him that they were in fact
human beings wearing costumes and that the park was not the
entire world. The motivation for why they did so was later given, after
the death toll was tallied, as simply, quote, ‘for shits and giggles’ end
quote.”
Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack cleared her throat and went
on.
“And so, Adam was raised in secret, after park hours, by
colorful anthropomorphic cartoon characters, unaware that
underneath their exterior robotic unicorn forms they looked very, very
different. Which is why he was driven completely insane on his
eighteenth birthday when his apparent family removed their heads to
reveal what they really were. It would be enough to fracture anyone’s
mind.”
Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack went on to explain that feral
children were a staple of folklore worldwide, children raised by wild
animals, by wolves, ultra-masculine cosmic apocalyptic monsters, or
sentient snot-slugs (she nodded to the God-Emperor of Eggworld.)
Even her own Native American traditions spoke of children being
raised by coyotes, buffaloes, and ears of corn.
“Which we call maize,” the doctor explained.
The heckler screamed, “You’re an Injun?”
“We prefer a more racially sensitive term, but yes,” explained
Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack.
The heckler screamed, “Sure don’t look like no red skin!”
That hurt; Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack was adopted, but
her parents had tried their best to make her feel as fully proud of the
rich heritage and awesome cheekbones of her native kin as if she
truly were blood.
“I was raised, from my earliest infancy, in all the ways of my
people,” she said.
The heckler screamed, “So that explains your stupid name!”
Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack averred that, yes, she had
acquired her name the usual way, by being carried, as an infant, to a
sizable body of water, and then being named after the first thing she
gazed upon.
“My family just happened to live near a nudist beach for
retirees,” she said. “But we seem to have wandered away from the
subject at hand. One may wonder how feral children come to find
themselves as pack members of an entirely different species, but it is
not so hard to conceive. We, like so many other mammals, are social
creatures. We desire to belong, we yearn to be accepted, whether by
fellow fans of popular music acts such as The Co)))elacanths, or
members of the same doomsday cult.”
Heads were nodding. She felt a surge in her heart, a warm
welling up.
“In my book, I hope to present a sympathetic view of Adam’s
plight. Not that I wish to excuse what happened after he
reprogrammed the park’s animatronic dummies into unstoppable
killing machines, but merely wish to present him as a tragic figure. I
hope that my book will make people think, for after all, who here
among us can imagine how it must have felt for that poor young
man, who had believed his entire life that he lived with a herd of
robot unicorns, only to have his entire reality ripped from under him?
I ask you, who can know how it felt?”
Dr. Ankle-Brushing-Scrotal-Sack let that sink in for a moment.
Then the heckler screamed, “Why don’t you tell us?”
And, as one, every member of the audience began to pull their
heads off.
[17] “...Neapolitan Snowmen studded the dessert desert island
like tastier versions of those big-ass statues on Halloween Island. It

is called Halloween Island, isn’t it? Fuck it, close enough.” A beautiful
piece of unwritten prose, this is generally credited with being the first
unwritten literary reference to the Neapolitan Snowman, a dessert
made from three scoops of ice cream –chocolate, strawberry, and
vanilla- stacked one atop the other with an ice cream cone nose and
glace cherry eyes. That the first trandsdimensional species humanity
made contact with happened to physically resemble this fictional dish
was deemed a coincidence, and not even a very good one as they
tended to have a scoop of blue moon flavor rather than chocolate,
though occasionally there were mutants who were tiger tail or oyster
flavor instead.
[18] You can disguise sugar cubes by marking them with black
dots and claiming they are dice, though the reverse is not true! The
fact that coloring the dots on dice white fails to disguise them as
sugar cubes is one of the most enduring mysteries of our epoch.
[19] Seeing as though this entire passage is rendered in the
style of Neolithic cave art, I offer the following interpretation:

He was pitching whilst the others listened.
“So, wrap your minds around this...”
“I’m already in love with this project!”
“...a horror movie...”
“Love it!”
“Pass.”
“Pass.”
“...with deaths and shit. And a by the numbers slasher plot.”
“So? What’s the angle?”
“It’s a franchise, the next big thing, cultural icon making.”
“Love it.”
“Listening.”
“Pass to quarterback.”
“I say hockey mask and machete and bam! you guys know
who I’m talking about. Or stripy sweater and knives on the glove,
bam bam! That kind of impact, gentlemen.”
“Love, love, love.”
“Interesting.”
“...do not collect two hundred dollars.”
“Our bad guy? Our bad guy, check this shit, our bad guy;
beekeepers veil and a Swiss Army Chainsaw. Y’see, with the Swiss
Army Chainsaw he can use a different, deadly attachment in every
movie! There’s our hook! Throw in a couple of possessed
hovercrafts and an assload of demonic board games...”
“I’m liking this, I can see this happening. And the bee keeper’s
veil? What’s the deal with that, what’s the backstory?”
“All the good scary masks have been used.”
“I just came a little. I swear to god; you know when you sneeze
and a booger ends up hanging outta your nose until you sniff it back
up? That just happened. In my chinos. With my dick. And my
semen.”
“What’s it called?”
“I Kill You to Death.”
“Okay, do I have to be ‘that guy’? Really? Fine, I’ll do it, I’ll be
that guy, I’ll ask the question; which fast food franchise are you cross
marketing with? The Alcoholic Pizza Company…?”
“Chief Cochise’s Chokenon Chicken.”
“So, free toys given away in their Happy Hunting Ground
Meals?”
“Yup, replica recreations of all of the unlikely things that the
killer uses to dispatch the horny teenagers who visit the cursed
apiary.”
“I’m in.”
“Me too.”
“Gentlemen, I think we have a franchise!”
The cavemen had, of course, been speaking in a language
which mostly consisted of grunts and the word “ug”, but that was the
gist of their meeting.
[20] Here is an example of an annoying attempt by A Clockwork
Aubergine to break into a story, with characters and scenes and

dialogue and other such bourgeois and dated contrivances of fiction.
Luckily the writer saw what was happening and exterminated the
emerging plot with a dose of post-post-post-post-post-post-post-
post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-
post-post-post-post-post-post modernism. Or whatever.
[21] Possible alternative words that could have been placed
here according to various different draft versions of A Clockwork
Aubergine are; indolent, idle, lethargic, languid, sluggish, slothful
[22] A personal interjection: I remember the first time I read this
part. By the end I was openly crying, like a medium sized baby, tears
coming out of my tear ducts, because my pizza had arrived and it
wasn’t what I asked for. Really, an omelette made with bicep muscle
is a terrible topping for a pizza, why would I have ordered it? Short
answer, I hadn’t, which was what I tried to explain to the delivery guy,
using examples of many other terrible choices for pizza topping, any
of which should have caused them to pause and question whether
anybody would have ordered such a repulsive pie. Amongst the
other theoretical unlikely toppings I listed for him were; toothbrush
bristles, doom, coconut, more coconut, and mini pizzas (topping a
pizza with mini pizzas? That would be cannibalistic food incest.)
[23] It’s this particular passage -which some scholars have
dubbed the “Protevangelium” of the work- that is credited with

inspiring the discovery of the vestigial tentacle that all humans have
growing from their left temples, or at least the acknowledgement of
the fact that every human being born throughout history was well
aware of the fact that they had this extra, useless appendage
growing from a prominent place on their skull, and that in an
unspoken rule that crossed every boundary of culture throughout
history nobody had ever brought the matter up; the breaking of this
most ancient taboo is now of course celebrated each dawn by every
member of the human race whip-cracking their head tentacle twice
towards New Sodom. As all this is completely untrue, however, the
fact that the “Protevangelium” remains unwritten seems appropriate.
[24] This seems to be an autobiographical interlude into the
main untext, though at first is easily mistake for gibberish, as it is

unwritten entirely backwards. Held up to a mirror to reverse it, the
text doesn’t read as follows:
It’s all about supply and demand. And midgets.
My chosen choice of occupation has its germ in an incident in
my childhood in which a unicorn bit off my ear. I was on a picnic with
my family. We were in a little glade in a great forest, sat out on a
checked rug eating egg salad. The unicorn had crept up on us and
the first I knew of its presence was the pain and a wet crunch. I think
it only wanted to play, and was trying to gain my attention, but the
net result was that it clipped off my left ear.
After shooting the animal, my father, a practical man,
determined that the distance to the nearest hospital was a problem.
My ear would be quite dead before we got there. To keep it alive so it
could be reattached later, my father cut my thigh and stitched the ear
to the wound. The blood supply kept it healthy until we made it to the
hospital.
It was many years later that I would recall this incident when
first learning of the illegal international trade in organs.
Human organs are an item in high demand across the world,
which is strange considering how many people are alive. Basic
economic theory would suggest that the sheer number of organs in
the world would decrease their value, but the extreme reluctance
that people have in relinquishing them has meant the opposite is
true.
At the time, I was working in a topless bar called The Lap
Dance Saloon to pay off the student loans incurred gaining my
degree in whale biology. I learned of the illegal organ trade from a
colleague of mine who was paying her way through med school with
a lucrative act involving those little plastic widgets that stop the pizza
box lid mashing the pie, and subsequent research proved that what
she had said was true.
As I studied the matter, I isolated several flaws in the business
model used by the organized crime syndicates who held a monopoly
in the trade. They all related to transportation; the only method of
moving organs was packing them on ice. Very clumsy. The goods
had to be moved at extreme speed and were subject to being
damaged or even stolen in transit by ninja cannibals. Further, it was
inefficient, because the goods had to be moved straight from the
donor to the recipient, so only one set of eyeballs or a single heart
was moved at once.
Everyone knows that working in bulk quantities yields higher
returns, but the nature of the goods in question seemed to preclude
this possibility. And then one night as I stripped for the pleasure of a
bachelor party of midgets I remembered the day the unicorn bit my
ear off.
I constructed a business model that very night on the back of a
dollar from an alternate dimension’s USA that a patron had stuffed in
my garter. Using this, I pitched my idea to my fellow strippers,
including the med school student with the little-plastic-pizza-saving-
widgets act, whose practical participation would be crucial. And so
our smuggling cartel was born.
The beauty of the scheme wasn’t the fact that the risk was
minimal -those who smuggle drugs are subject to cavity searches,
but none of us who had donor hearts, kidneys, and digestive tracts
(a lot of digestive tracts) temporarily implanted into our breasts were
ever subjected to internal examination- but rested instead on the
epiphany I had whilst stripping for the bachelor party.
Midgets -or, if you want to be politically correct, “leprechauns”-
make a handsome living playing extras in Hollywood fantasy epics in
between shifts in walk/don’t walk signs, and because they are so
much smaller than regular sized people it is possible to fit a lot more
of their organs into one’s tits.
The side effect of shitting from my nipples can be a pain,
though.
Whatever.
It’s a living.
[25] As practical a plan as sawing your bathtub in half to save
on water bills. You could also save on water bills by only bathing in
brand name soda, although this may blow your monthly budget for
brand name soda.
[26] Meaning of course that one or more of the following
statements about it must be true, that it was; 1) As pointless as a wet

vest frottoir contest; 2) As pointless as a bullet proof vest frottoir
protest; C) Ass pointilist ass a sparklands vest frottoir spelling test.
[27] This is the start of the famous unwritten passage in which
the cipher-character of Tightass Aynrandronicus decides to simply
make up a bunch of new words that will rhyme with “orange.”

Aubergine are; chocolate, coffee, tan, ochre, russet, brunette,
auburn, tanned, sunburnt, bronzed
[29] One of the alternative words which could have been placed
here, “ochre” only appears in a single draft of A Clockwork

Aubergine, the so-called “Coelacanth & Chips” manuscript, whose
existence has been disputed by scholars since the beginning of
academic study of A Clockwork Aubergine owing to the fact that the
only evidence for its existence is this footnote.
[30] One of the longest and most contentious matters of debate
concerning A Clockwork Aubergine is the matter of what genre it

belongs to. Possible pigeon-holes proposed include; paranormal
romance, wuxia, sci-fi, black comedy, noir, Western (Spaghetti, acid,
etc.), political thriller, picaresco, farce, Class S, various sub-genres
of ‘punk (cyberpunk, biopunk, nanopunk, clockpunk, steampunk,
dieselpunk, atompunk, paeleopunk, monkpunk, splatterpunk,
seapunk, hunkypunk, rainbowpunk), giallo, Southern gothic, magic
realism, kaiju, sword and sorcery, various sub-genres of ‘sploitation
(blaxsploitation, nunsploitation, Nazisploitation, snowmansploitation),
Soviet realism, shenmo, mash-up, whodunnit, Bildungsroman a clef,
various sub-genres of ‘ade (Harlequinade, Robinsonade, Edisonade,
de Sadeade. Joan of Arcade), and GangBangsian fantasy.
Complicating this issue (complicated in the first place by many of
these suggested genre placements being proposed by authorities
who have never even read or heard of A Clockwork Aubergine) is a
small but vocal group of academics who maintain that the book is not
even a work of literature, but is rather in fact a manifesto, destruction
manual, grimoire, or the takeaway menu from a ropey Thai place.
[31] Considering the number of references to it in this section, it
may be useful to provide the following information about the

Mornington Crescent album for context:
Album: Mornington Crescent
Artists: The Co)))elacanths
Record Label: Ashby de la Zouch Records
TRACK LISTt:
I ...You Have To Start Again
II. Set Up the Board, Find the Dice, Invoke Choronzon
III. Roll 3 Sixes
IIII. Do Not Pass GoD
V. Sacrifice One Virgin or Lose a Turn
VI. Get Out of Jail Free (Tarot) Card
VII. It Was the Fallen Angel, In the Seventh Circle, With the
Athame Attachment of the Swiss Army Chainsaw
VIII. Sympathy for The Sore Loser
IX. If You Play This Backwards...
NOTES:
The pre-post-prog-drone musical group The Co)))elacanths
first concept album, Mornington Crescent, was viewed by critics as a
strange rock opera that revolved around the bizarrely specific sub-
genre of horror that involved demonic board games, though the
game seemed to merely rip off Monopoly. The legendary project
followed their legendary Shooting Fish in a Barrel of Monkeys &
Other Mixed Metaphors Tour, under the guidance of legendary
producer Reuben Goldberg, with album artwork by the semi-mythical
Nazi artist The Thule, and has gone on to garner praise and scorn in
unequal amounts, lauded in some quarters for its innovative
approach to ripping off Monopoly, and reviled in others for being
“audible bilge”.
Many fans of the album have tried to sync it with golden age
Hollywood movies in order to see if there are any significant
correlations, but so far have yielded nothing more intriguing than the
fact that the lyrics for the album’s hidden track, “Credits for I Kill You
To Death: Massacre on 34th Street” , are a word for word match for
the credits to the motion picture I Kill You To Death: Yes Virgin
Sacrifice, There Is A Satan Claus, neither one of which movies in the
extensive I Kill You to Death franchise utilized the trope of a demonic
board game, even though at least four entries in the series had such
games as central plot points.
Stylistically, the album’s signature use of the hurdy-gurdy
helped to prevent it being classified as any sort of sub-genre of
metal, be it speed, death, black, hair, thrash, or heavy, whilst the
songs copied wholesale from albums by other artists ensured that it
would be entangled in lengthy and expensive copyright lawsuits for
decades after anybody gave a shit. The album is of particular note to
students of popular culture for the oft-quoted, ironic use of the lyrics,
“No, I’m still getting too much feedback, let’s try that again” in
numerous films, plays, novels, and soccer terrace chants, even after
the band admitted in later years that the infamous line was in fact an
accidentally recorded instruction from the studio engineer.
[32] Is this a reference to Blackpool? The definite article is
certainly used often enough in the short story

collection Blackpuddlians, whose stories are set entirely in
Blackpool, a city that the author had never visited or heard of. Truly
the city is the main character of these pieces, being variously
described as “a dead land octopus (one of those spindly ones that
spin webs, I forget their technical name)”, “a hard place”, “stringy”,
“the city of hovercrafts”, “arranged by smell”, “swollen with the blood
of pineapples; you know, juice, I’m saying its swollen with pineapple
juice. Oh for the love of god, now I want a pineapple jelly donut”,
”rugose”, “acrid”, “tight as two coats of paint”, “a burning waist-coat”,
“the fox mask that all ducks wear”, “pinched”, “coiled”, “sunny side
up”, “blown apart”, “obtuse”, “obscure”, “obscene”, “groin grabbingly
transcendent”, “a pick ‘n’ mix or potpourri”, “like the aftertaste of
desecrated coconut and possessed cheese”, “aserose”, and “packed
into a good quality, sturdy, double wall cardboard transit box, marked
with country of origin, part number, order number, stock number, and
description.”
[33] I’ve run out of room on my flash drive, so I’m going to write
this story in these footnotes and cut/paste it into a new file when I get
a new memory stick. Big memo to self, remember to remove the
following before sending these footnotes to the publisher:
Draper Stop chewed on the first slice of pizza, ignoring his
meal’s request to do shots, and scanned his notebook. He picked up
his pen and scratched through the letters WAG.
There was no pizza called a WAG. He’d just asked for one and
been told that there was no such thing, and to cover his
embarrassment he had ordered the Original. He’d try the next guess
on his list when he finished this pie.
“Just one for the road, huh fella?” said the pizza.
Draper Stop weighed close to five hundred pounds and had an
IQ that was off the chart. One of these stats was the indirect
consequence of the other.
RHIP. Draper had a good feeling about that one.
He grabbed another slice, effectively silencing the pizza by
removing its lower jaw. It gurgled at him.
Living food was fairly new; ever since a Jewish housewife had
decided to make her gingerbread men more interesting by using
golem magic to animate them, the trend for all singing and dancing
meals had gotten out of hand.
Draper Stop had once worked as a science man. His goal in
life had been to discover a cure for death. But nihilism had finally
caught him and now he was writing a book about all the items that
were on the secret menu at the Alcoholic Pizza Company’s many
franchises. When pressed by random strangers as to what he was
doing, he told them that he was working hard to get nominated for
the Wasted Days Award.
In addition to his Original, he had ordered a small brand name
soda. On the cup was a picture of a circle with a slice missing from it;
this was the public icon of the chain, the Alcoholic Pizza from the
classic video game of the same name. Draper Stop had fond
memories of playing the game in his youth, piloting the alcoholic
pizza around a small maze, gobbling hangover pills whilst being
chased by four ghosts, representing delirium tremens.
One of Draper’s rolls of fat chose this moment of quiet
nostalgia to ease itself over his groaning waistband, like a whale
breaching. People kept stopping to ask him if he was a cheerleader
because of these rolls of fat.
His notebook contained his research so far; his method of
research was to head to the counter and guess at the name of
pizza’s that may be on the secret menu. Not that there was much of
a secret about it; the Alcoholic Pizza Company was famous for only
having one type of pie “officially” on its menu, the Original, but
everyone knew that every franchise had pre-set secret menus which
could be ordered by name.
Draper Stop was attempting to make a complete list of all
these pizza types by guessing the names. He knew he could always
ask other patrons, but that would not have been original research, so
he did not. He simply went to the counter, made a guess at a pizza
name, and when he was wrong and feeling foolish he’d order an
Original. When he finished it, he would try again.
This was why he was so fat. His intelligence caused him to be
embarrassed if he was ever wrong. What was worse, because of his
nihilism he knew it didn’t matter, but he still went red when wrong.
Licking sauce from his fingers he idly leafed through his
notebook. He had discovered a few items from the secret menu, a
few successful guesses. He was currently working his way through
acronyms used by the US Marines, though the topping combinations
did not seem to have any relevance to the pizza’s names.
SSDD; tomato sauce, cheese, diseased liver, sunflowers,
French Canadian beans, steam powered potatoes.
CBRN; tomato sauce, cheese, diseased liver, a race of
miniature self-aware robots who wanted to be eaten in accordance
with their obscure religious beliefs.
HMMW; BBQ sauce, cheese, diseased liver, failed kidneys,
artificial avocado, dolphin (not red), finely diced mega-masculine
cosmic apocalyptic monster.
Under these, he had doodled himself dressed as a breakfast
cereal mascot.
Nihilism had fully claimed Draper Stop; why bother searching
for a cure to death when, because nothing had any intrinsic
meaning, all activities were thus equally invalid?
Draper had created a new way of divining the future using
those little plastic deals they put on pizzas to stop the lid from caving
in. He figured if people could use yarrow stalks or tea leaves then
any kind of waste could reveal whatever pointless activity came next.
He cast a handful of the little plastic deals and reached for another
slice of pizza.
The way they fell predicted that the restaurant was about to be
sprayed with tracer fire discharged from a passing sports utility
vehicle by a Marine suffering PTSD.
Draper shrugged, and moments later took a bullet in the face.
The bullet read “DRAPER STOP.”
[34]This character, though relatively minor even in the sub-sub-
plot she appears in, would go on to head her very own franchise –
including official merchandise such as lunch-boxes, breakfast cereal,
Birthday Monster protective totems, etc- when she was spun-off into
the Saturday morning cartoon show Florence & the Infernal-
Combustion Engyne. Though only two episodes of the show were
aired on the Mr Agyle Animation Assault Hour show before it was
pulled from the schedule for being –according to the shows
producers- “far from the dismally insipid vision we had for it”,
persistant rumors to this day suggest that it was in fact axed due to
the extremely pornographic nature of the second episode, in which
Florence and her hellish robot are called on to investigate spooky
goings on at their local chain of the “Body Fluids Beautiful” franchise
of nu-humor fetish strip clubs.
[35] For some reason, following this unwritten section there
appears (or would appear, if it had been written) a product recall

notice, as are usually found taken out as full-page adverts in national
newspapers:
PRODUCT RECALL ON ALL “THIRTEEN” BRAND
CARBONATED SOFT DRINK WITH VEGETABLE EXTRACTS
WITH SUGARS.
It is with utmost concern that the Ashby de la Zouch Beverage
Co. is immediately recalling all cans of its recently released new
product, “Thirteen”, which we billed as being the unluckiest low
calorie soft drink in the world. In case there is any confusion
amongst the populace about exactly which low calorie soft drink is
being recalled we should like to take a moment to do a quick review
of our recent advertising campaign in support of its recent launch.
“Thirteen” was the latest in a string of overhyped carbonated
beverages released by the Ashby de la Zouch Beverage Co. in an
attempt to control an even larger part of the market than we already
dominate, effectively trying to develop a worldwide monopoly. Our
most recent marketing research had shown that things such as
flavor, refreshment factor, health concerns, ingredient sourcing and
human rights abuses had no impact on a jaded public whatsoever,
and that only eternal novelty could shake loose the grasp of the
average Joe from his cash. Further research into this anomaly lead
us to conclude that because the average Joe subsists on a media
diet rich in disaster, war, mass murder, and atrocity, that only
something of a negative spin would be enough to rouse even the
most fleeting interest. Thus, “Thirteen”, the unluckiest low calorie soft
drink in the world was formulated.
In order to whip up a frenzy for our product, the advertising
campaign commenced months before the due release date. You
remember the early spot ads; “THIRSTY? THIRTEEN!” Didn’t leave
the average Joe much to go on, but got them talking. Then we
introduced the “THIRST TEEN”, a spotty adolescent forever given to
walking under ladders, stepping on cracks, breaking mirrors, spilling
salt... and all of the whacky adventures that followed that inevitably
resulted in his gruesome demise.
And then the day came around in which we bribed several
politicians to rename “Friday the Thirteenth” as “Friday the
THIRSTeenth” and made it a national holiday as we unleashed our
product upon the maddened public.
That was two weeks ago, and now we are ordering a product
recall because we have violated the truth in advertising law. Put
simply, “Thirteen” is not the unluckiest drink in the world, due to a
design flaw not with the beverage itself, but the packaging.
We don’t wish to panic the public, but felt it was wise to give a
few examples of the miracles that have befallen people whilst using
our faulty product; they include a man who, whilst enjoying a can of
“Thirteen” on his morning commute to work, survived a multi-lane
mass hovercraft crash in which seven hundred and seventy seven
people died with him as the sole survivor; a woman who was
attacked by the twelve serial killers known as the Jury and survived
thanks to unprecedented mass spontaneous human combustion; a
safari tourist who survived being mauled by a herd of wild masculine
cosmic apocalyptic monsters; and a radiologist who told an audience
of Mexican wrestling fans that their favorite sport might not be real,
and yet still retains the use of his face.
If miracles such as these should happen to befall you, please
consult the anti-pope of your nearest Satanic temple for advice on
appropriate blood sacrifices to appease the wrath of They Who Shall
Not Be Named For Legal Reasons.
As already stated, please note that there is nothing wrong with
the beverage itself. It is only carbonated water with chemical
sweeteners and a splash of vegetable extract for coloring. The fault
lies with the packaging of the product itself, the handy 330ml cans it
is dispensed in. In order to make a perfunctory gesture of being eco-
conscious, an early decision was made to make the cans from
recycled metal. Unfortunately, our suppliers neglected to tell us that
they had made a deal with a nationwide chain of glue factories to
collect scrap leftover from rendering, and so a large percentage of
unicorn shoes were smelted for “Thirteen” can casings, resulting in a
sudden sky-rocketing in the luck of whoever happened to ingest
micro-fine particles of the metal, following the usual oxidizing effect
of canned carbonated beverages.
We at Ashby de la Zouch Beverage Co. are heartily sorry, and
wish to extend our unlimited apologies to our shareholders.
[36] The most popular arcade game of this period was Steeple
Fighter 2. What was most efficient about this game wasn’t that
player’s animated avatars of national stereotypes to bludgeon one
another with parts of churches, but the sheer meridian it percolated,
as well as demonstrating a lack of understanding what some words
mean.
[37] As Coolbear said of that time, “He kept buying puppets. An
investment, he said. Planned to fund his retirement by selling them

when they appreciated in value. I told him, stop, you’re thinking of
comic books. Then came the great puppet drought. Fucker cashed
out big style.”
[38] This passage is troublesome owing to the vast amount of
argot, slang, and archaic colloquialisms used, as well as the

incredibly foul language (apparently referring to the reader’s
extended family engaging in a wide and detailed number of sexual
acts with one another) that has no seeming bearing on the rough
narrative that can be established. Shorn of these distractions and
edited into reasonable English, it reads as follows:
This morning a wisecracking masculine cosmic apocalyptic
monster...
My father made us join a cult whose chief dogma was that
cartoon shows were the afterlife. After death, everyone would be re-
born into springy, indestructible, anthropomorphic animal bodies; bad
people would spend an eternity of re-runs having anvils dropped on
them, whilst good people got to make sardonic comments to camera
about the situation. The cult preached that these frequents breaks in
the fourth wall were communications from lost loved ones, even if
they were rather obtuse and coded. If an alligator in a funny hat
made a double entendre then we knew that Uncle Bryce was telling
us his missing will was down the back of the couch, or if a panda
with a Bronx accent made a sight gag, then our parasitic twin, who
didn’t survive the separation, was saying hello. Religious services
took place on Saturday mornings, studying the sacred dispensations
of the Mr. Argyle Animation Assault Hour.
Anyone else would have believed it was a scam when they
asked us to hand over our life’s savings. Their pupils were suddenly
replaced with dollar signs as dad signed the paperwork. But dad
always was a sucker for Hollywood fads, and if his favorite C-list
celebrities all jumped off a cliff he’d be right behind the herd of
straight-to-video lemmings; we’d only just avoided dying along with
the rest of the Court Card Cabal, who had been promised
reincarnation in the form of playing cards, as by the time my dad
found out his favorite BBQ sauce spokesman had joined up the cult
had already waded out into a swimming pool full of liquid mercury in
order to “transform”...
The cult made additional income from mining bullets, or rather,
selling mined bullets with the names of people from the phone book,
who would be subsequently contacted and offered the bullet “with
your name on it” as an insurance policy; the theory that owning the
bullet “with your name on it” meant that you couldn’t be shot to death
was put to test by having cult members volunteer for a public
demonstration. They would all pick up guns filled with bullets with
other people’s names on them, and then they would shoot
themselves in the head. My dad heard that the guy who played the
beekeeper in the latest I Kill You to Death movie had signed up, as
well as the CEO of the Ashby de la Zouch Beverage Co., and...
This morning a wisecracking masculine cosmic apocalyptic
monster made a terrible pun...
...and I miss him too.
[39] The reason dragons have scales is because, from an
evolutionary point of view, a layer of French Canadian Bean soup

wouldn’t offer much protection. Unless it were a mile thick.
here according to various draft versions of A Clockwork Aubergine

are; afflict, plague, trouble, bother, beleaguer, harass, vex
[41] The exact breed of the dog has been one of the most hotly
debated subjects in academia, with various theories put forth over

the years identifying it as an Alsatian, Rottweiler, Doberman
Pinscher, Bichon Frise, Chihuahua, Shih-Tzu, Poodle, Labrador,
Dalmatian, Chinese Crested, Pug, English Sheepdog, Pit-bull,
Yorkshire Terrier, Presa Canario, Dachshund, Pekinese, German
Shepard, and even a Great Dane.
[42] Here the author employs a Snow Man Argument, which is
like a Straw Man Argument, but slightly more snow man shaped.
[43] This unwritten section appears to be the author’s answers
to the questions presented on FORM C33H36N4O6: APPLICATION

FOR LICENSE TO KILL YOURSELF (SPECIFICALLY VIA STEAM
POWERED POTATO PEELER, DROWNING IN BRAND NAME
SODA, OR SUICIDE-BY-COASTGUARD) For reference, the
questions are given below;
Q1. If you were stranded on a desert island, what five brands
of BBQ sauce would you fantasize about? Please provide evidence
for your conclusions.
Q2. If you were in a room with a child rapist, a whale biologist,
a scarecrow, and a slightly fatter child rapist, and had a gun with only
two bullets in it, would your answers to the previous question vary
significantly? Please answer while keeping in mind that the second
child rapist isn’t overweight, only slightly fatter than the first. (The
bullets are both John Doe rounds.)
Q3. Oh really? Please provide an artistic rendering of a mega-
masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster with your explanation.
Q4. Are you going to eat that last slice of pizza?
Q5. Consider the following scenario; bad things happen to
people who sit under trees -Isaac Newton formulating the theory of
gravity thanks to being bashed on the bean by a plummeting fruit, or
the Buddha attaining enlightenment as he squatted to poop in the
woods- and you happen to find yourself sitting under a tree, because
it’s Christmas time and your dad is drunk and horny and hunting all
over the house for you, but he’ll never think to look for you UNDER
HERE... given such a scenario, do you believe that by parading
around in your pajamas (the ones depicting a cartoon show that your
five year old self is particularly fond of) you were more or less
ASKING FOR IT? Your answer must not refer to robots or unicorns.
Q6. This space intentionally left blank. To tease and tempt
you. Go on, doodle a picture of yourself dressed as a breakfast
cereal mascot. I fucking dare you.
Q7. If you had all the gold in Fort Knox, would you buy all the
tea in China, thus cornering the world market in tea, artificially
inflating the price of that commodity and so making a substantial
profit with which to fund a lifestyle to which a European monarch of
yesteryear would have been accustomed? Please provide
circumstantial evidence.
Q8. Go on, I double dare you.
Q9. Did you know that the whale is not really a fish?
Q9(b). Do you wish to apply for a license to kill yourself?
Yes/No.
[44] The following is a rough translation of this passage (give or
take several paragraphs, as judging how much is unwritten in not an

exact science):
Though he would later be able to rationalize many of the
aspects of his night-time epiphany, the central notion of the dream
colored his every waking hour afterward. The color was the peculiar
shade of red that dolphins would be if they were red.
First in his dream there was a mild pressure at his midsection,
as if a pygmy masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster were laying
across it. He would later rationalize this as the fact that his pet
pygmy masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster tended to wait on his
stomach in an effort to catch his last breath, and had done so for a
number of years, but in the dream this mild pressure at his mid-
section was in fact revealed to be caused by his leaning over a
balustrade.
Next, he became aware that his animated hands (the cause of
their animation would be the third revelation) hurt like a mad bastard.
Like two mad bastards in fact, because he had two hands, and each
hurt like a mad bastard. In the morning light, he would be able to
equate this dream pain with the waking fact that it was his time of the
month, and his stigmata was at its worst. But in his dream. the
source of pain was, in fact, caused by the fact his tendons had been
ripped out, and ascended from the mlaps of his hands upward, like in
the Indian rope trick, only instead of ropes his tendons were rising,
and he wasn’t Indian.
He was transfixed by this sight for some time, but yet he could
only stare at his mlaps and not lift his eyes up to trace the ascent of
his tendons. Mlaps; this was what he called the backs of his hands,
his mildly rebellious nature causing him to give them an appropriate
name and call his palms the front of his hands. This peculiarity of
naming his anatomy in rebellion of convention had so far in his life
been the cause of three divorces, one of which being his own.
The third revelation came swiftly, the revelation of why his
animated hands were so animated, and that revelation came about
when he looked down over the balustrade to see, far below, a jerking
figure. Having studied the award jerkiness of the jerky figure he
came to conclude that it was, in fact, a marionette and that his
animated hands were the source of its animated jerkiness.
But that was not all that was below him, beneath his hands. At
first, he had believed that the marionette was stood upon a sort of
stage, but now he realized that it was in fact stood on some sort of
gantry with a balustrade in front of it, and that if he looked hard
enough down beyond that he realized that the marionette he was
jerkily animating was in its own turn animating in a jerky fashion its
own marionette. And that beyond that...
Which was when he realized how familiar each of the receding,
receding figures was, and as each of them turned its head to gaze
up above it, so too he began to turn his head, following the ascent of
his own ripped out tendons to see...
At this point he awoke with a shout, a shout that consisted of
the words “BBQ sauce”, and found himself with a very angry,
catapulted pygmy masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster glaring
from the foot of the bed.
That was the dream that colored his every waking hour
afterward, colored those hours the shade of red that dolphins would
be if they were red. But it was the third revelation that most worried
him; having rationalized his dream impressions with those of real
waking facts, such as his death watch keeping masculine cosmic
apocalyptic monster and stigmata, the third revelation of his
puppetry... where had that come from?
He presented a popular Saturday morning kid’s show (whose
demographic covered boys, girls, and scarecrows from age four to
nine) in which he portrayed the part of “Mr. Argyle”, a genial woolen
fellow who introduced cartoons. Mr. Argyle’s Animation Assault Hour
was a smash hit across a broad demographic.
But.... he asked himself as he pulled out his erection before
each show.
But... he asked himself as he unrolled Mr. Argyle down the
length of his thirteen-inch reproductive organ.
But... he asked himself as he shoved Mr. Argyle through the
glory hole that acted as a makeshift back drop for the popular
Saturday morning kid’s show whose demographic covered boys,
girls, and scarecrows from age four to nine.
But...
He was a SOCK puppeteer.
Which was exactly when he felt a hard pressure on his rectum.
[45]“The most dangerous game” is an evocative phrase unused
throughout the unwritten parts of A Clockwork Aubergine, but few

realize that it refers to a variant of chess played with pieces carved
from uranium; not only is exposure to high levels of radiation bad for
the player’s health, there is also the risk of capturing so many of your
opponent’s pieces that critical mass is reached and the game ends
in a loud tie.
[46] An autobiographical interlude:
I wasn’t much worried when the continent sized faces of

breakfast cereal mascots began to appear in the night sky, as I had
just taken on the job of God of the scarecrows and had my hands full
with administrative duties; it turns out scarecrows are by nature
atheists, so I spent most of my time condemning them to scarecrow
Hell.
What most worried people about the dead eyed cartoon animal
faces above was the constant, nearly inaudible rustling sound that
seemed to come from some place beyond them. People whispered
about how the mascots were all killed during the Brand Name Soda
Wars, after the fighting had spilled over into nearby advertising
campaigns; the rustling was their revenge, so people said.
I had found the job advert in my morning paper, nestled
between the numerous product recalls of defective consumer goods.
The ad was pretty much to the point; “Position Open: God of
Scarecrows. Flexible Rates, Health, Dental.” There was a phone
number to call, which I did, and had a surprisingly brief interview with
a whispery voice that sounded like the breeze in a wheat field.
“Hi, I’m calling about the job.”
“Name?”
“Hex Keyset.”
“Mr. Keyset, if you could be any animal, would it be a whale?”
“No.”
“Did you know whales aren’t actually fish?”
“I did.”
Truth be told, I didn’t know what a whale was, but I didn’t want
to sound dumb by admitting it.
“So, what animal would you be?”
“A bear. Definitely a bear.”
“Favorite fruit flavor?”
“Uh, boysenberry.”
I was told I had the job. I was given an address and told to be
there Monday morning, eight sharp.
That was on Friday, so to reward myself I took a weekend
camping trip. I only call it camping when people ask me; what I do
when I head into the woods is pretend to be a bear. It’s my hobby. I
think I got the job because of my honesty. I really would like to be a
bear. So, after a weekend eating out of campsite garbage cans and
sleeping naked under a sky full of dead eyed, rustling breakfast
mascots I headed back to civilization to take up my new duties.
The job was, as I said, mostly about condemning unbelieving
scarecrows to burn in Hell. The good thing about scarecrow theology
is that, being made entirely out of straw, their suffering isn’t exactly
eternal. Still, I felt bad whenever a baby scarecrow died and I sent it
to the flames; the way I saw it, even if scarecrows are naturally
atheistic, the little ones never technically got the chance to grow up
and renounce me, so I didn’t see why they had to burn.
The job had perks. I had a secretary who I got to nail. She was
very likely the largest human being who ever lived (she definitely
must have won the “Most Obese Cheerleader” award in high school)
who sang wordless songs as I fucked the only hole I could find on
her body, which was on the top of her head; the only downside was
she had a superstitious fear of the letter “s”, and so had had it
removed from the keyboard she used. But I got all the cereal I could
want, but I don’t like cereal so I just used to dig around in the box for
the free prize, and by the end of my first month I’d collected enough
hard plastic figurines to choke an entire grade school.
I was so busy with my work condemning scarecrows, fucking
my titanic secretary, and my weekends of being a bear that I never
noticed that the rustling beyond the cartoon mascots faces was
growing louder. Not until it was too late.
One Saturday night I crept out of the woods in search of food.
Anthropomorphic animal faces watched from above as I rummaged
in my neighbor’s garbage cans. My neighbor hated me doing this,
but he never put the lids on, so of course I couldn’t resist. I feasted
on the crusts of a boozy takeaway pizza and licked boysenberry jelly
from slivers of a smashed jar. I was trying not to make too much
racket, but when my neighbor’s kitchen light came on and I froze the
sound of rustling continued. At first I thought it had to have been the
sound from the sky, but then I realized it was behind me, and I slowly
turned around.
Hundreds of smoking, singed, and smoldering scarecrows had
come out of the woods and were staring at me. Their dead eyes
were all turned upwards, to the night sky full of colorful, grinning
monkeys and lemurs and mega-masculine cosmic apocalyptic
monsters.
Then a burlap fist plunged from above, snatched me up, and
everything got weird.
I’ve had time -and do have time; I have eternity- to work out all
the connections, but I’ve had to finally conclude that I was just in the
wrong place at the wrong time, answering that advert I found.
I mean...
Scarecrows guard fields, don’t they? Fields full of wheat, fields
full of corn. And what do those fields of wheat and corn get turned
into? Breakfast cereal.
The dead mascots were just a cover, and I was just a patsy, as
the Great Scarecrow Lord crawled across space, his straw rustling,
rustling as he came, came to save his chosen people from their evil
oppressor...
And so, this is my reward, to stare with dead eyes from
thousands of boxes of Boysenberry Bear Bits, to watch families of
happy scarecrows sitting down to a complete breakfast, to be
discarded when empty to decompose in thousands of garbage cans,
staring up with rotting eyes at an empty, silent sky.
It’s a living.
[47] Roughly translated:
Paradise on earth -an end to overpopulation via the deaths of

all evil people everywhere, and the cumulative effects this brought,
such as the even redistribution of wealth and resources- was brought
about thanks to an epiphany had by one Worry Knorr on a
Wednesday morning as he sat at home in the dark watching movies
to pass the time until his shift at the artificial avocado factory began,
artificial avocado’s having become popular two months earlier when
the deforestation of the entire planet had finally been accomplished.
The movies that Knorr was watching were of the slasher horror
variety -including a number of entries from the epoch spanning I Kill
You to Death franchise- whose regular cycles of high-octane hyper
violence were designed to induce a quasi-coma in the viewer, thus
rendering them highly suggestible to planted subliminal mnemonic
devices. Knorr had gotten through a half dozen movies and was
primed with any number of mental Trojan horses when the epiphany
struck.
He noticed the Movie Gun Phenomenon.
When the bad guys shot at the good guys, he realized, they
invariably missed, no matter how close or simple the shot... yet when
the good guys returned fire, the bullets unerringly ventilated their
intended targets. Knorr suddenly realized that the world would be a
much better place if guns in the real world were designed like their
celluloid counterparts; as it stood, the way he saw it, the whole
business of having a weapon which indiscriminately blasted holes in
whomever it was pointed at was a fundamental error of logic.
Knorr double checked his reasoning with pen and paper -paper
harvested from the last tree ever- then sat doodling a picture of
himself dressed as a breakfast cereal mascot before remembering
what he was supposed to be doing, grabbed the nearest phone,
discarded it upon discovering it was a novelty item full of candy and
thus of no use for making telephone calls, grabbed the nearest
working phone, and called all the world leaders to tell them his
epiphany.
From all four corners of the earth came the sounds of palms
slapping into foreheads accompanied by the words, “Duh, of course!
Why didn’t I see that?”, though the dialect these words were
delivered in varied. Within a week, every gun in the world was
recalled and redesigned so that they would only shoot bad guys,
never the good guys.
But simply jury rigging every weapon worldwide was not what
brought about global utopia of course. The next step on the road to
Heaven on earth was taken by a persecution lawyer arguing a
complicated masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster rustling case
between discount safari parks in Nevada; this lawyer, one Ford
Fiesta III, successfully argued that Big Bob’s Bargain Savannah
Adventure & 99 Cent Water Park was guilty of stealing an entire herd
of pygmy mega-masculine cosmic apocalyptic monsters -which,
being pygmy sized version of mega-masculine cosmic apocalyptic
monsters are roughly the same size as regular masculine cosmic
apocalyptic monsters- from Crazy Adolf’s I Can’t Believe I’m Not in
Africa! Experience by walking over to the defense’s table, pulling out
a .45 loaded with hollow points, and shooting Big Bob in the fucking
face six times. On the basis that half the jury ended up covered in a
mixture of sticky memories, personality quirks, and subliminally
planted mnemonic devices, thus proving who the bad guy must have
been, they voted guilty, and the judge awarded Crazy Adolf
compensation for the loss of his pygmy mega-masculine cosmic
apocalyptic monsters.
Precedent set, criminal trials across the country were
considerably sped up. This practice quickly spread across the world.
It wasn’t long, of course, before the maxim of prevention rather
than cure was touted; Miranda rights were jettisoned as unnecessary
red tape, and the unofficial policy that the police had used
successfully in the nation’s poorer, more racially diverse
neighborhoods of shooting first and not bothering to ask questions at
all, was adopted wholesale. A few voices were raised in protest,
arguing that maybe there weren’t nearly as many bad guys in the
world as the corpse mountains growing outside every major
population center might suggest, but the suspicions of decent
ordinary trigger happy cops were soon confirmed that these voices
belonged to bad guys whose crimes were so devious that no
evidence for them could be found.
The penultimate step towards a perfect world was taken when
someone in the Parliament of the United Kingdom suggested that
“bad eggs” could be “nipped in the bud” by introducing semi-
automatics into maternity wards; badness, after all, must be inherent,
so soon the traditional smack on the fanny that newborns receive as
their introduction to this world was replaced with hot lead, and the
little bastards never got the chance to grow to adulthood and
become menaces to a rapidly shrinking society. The traditional
severing of the umbilical cord being replaced by emptying a clip into
the fontanel was quickly embraced by all new fathers, and the only
smoke to be sniffed in the air was no longer redolent of cigars but
gunpowder.
It wasn’t long before the next, and last, logical step was to be
taken, largely prompted by the sky rocketing cost of killing bad guys
one by one –a doomsday cult lead coup in Madagascar that resulted
in the chainsaw-suppository execution of the entire government,
ended with a painting of dogs playing pinball being installed as
President-for-Life, whose apparent first and only proclamation to the
drug addled cult that worshiped it was to nationalize the country’s
bullet mines, thus forcing the price up to a point where simple
ordinance became more valuable than gold plated diamonds served
on a bed of shredded blue chip stock certificates- but also because
blowing stuff up is just plain fun; Governments worldwide finally
agreed collectively to take on the bad guys in one final stand, and so
took to prepping the whole world’s nuclear arsenal to only kill bad
guys...
…which was when the pygmy mega-masculine cosmic
apocalyptic monsters -released into the wild following a string of
discount safari parks going bankrupt in a chain reaction of lawsuits
and counter-suits- having become addicted to human flesh after
foraging in the corpse mountains owing to a complete lack of trees to
feed upon, made their move and wiped out every last man, woman,
and artificial avocado factory worker.
The picked clean bones of Homo Sapiens finally rest together
under the sun in perfect biological equality.
[48] Definite article.
[49] A similar idea becomes the leit motif erikson of the author’s
poetry collection Pommes Pennepeach, created by cutting up a

cookbook and reassembling the words at random to create such
poems as “Word Salad” and “French Canadian Bean Soup”. As most
or some or none will remember it was ill received at the time of its
release, one critic complaining that it had given him “Bayesian food
poisoning” which had left him with a severe case of the “alphashits”
or logorrhoea.
[50] This makes the reader recall the author’s first ever
reference to A Clockwork Aubergine, when he told an off-duty

seeing-eye dog; “Yesterday I wrote two syllables—the first I have
since the final ‘I’m amazed there isn’t a brand name soda in Australia
called Koala Kola, the advertising copy practically writes itself,’
of Useless. Having found a trunk of a redwood tree and charred one
end in a bonfire of the insanities, with some difficulty I copied them
out in a large handwriting on a cliff face of white chalk so that I could
read them. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris
nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in
reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla
pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in
culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum, the Italians say.
But I don’t speak a word of the lingo so what it means is a complete
mystery to me.” The dog’s owner chased off the rascal author before
he could explain further.
[51]A curious passage that brings to mind old contest tie-
breakers which would ask entrants to explain in fifteen words or less
why they enjoyed the product produced by the contest promoter. In
the case of this passage, the product in question is apparently some
sort of enamelled nimbus, and a blank space has been left for the
reader to leave their response of “no less then seventy-two thousand
words and two emoticons, including title.”
[52] Providing evidence for the theory championed by
Gabriel/Gabrielle Casson-Graves that A Clockwork Aubergine is in

fact a synopsis of the entirety of the I Kill You to Death movie
franchise, from its beginning during the Paleolithic era right up until
its eventual conclusion in the post-Holocene world ruled by the food-
golems.
[53] An autobiographical interlude:
ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA... THREE

When I was a kid, people would ask me what I wanted to be.
Everyone thought I’d follow in the family footsteps and become a
coastguard. Their reactions when I told them that I wanted to be a
hovercraft varied from sniggering to guffawing, but now, thanks to
extensive surgery, I’ve had the last laugh.

Aubergine are; rapid, fast, speedy, swift, nippy, sudden, immediate,
instant, prompt, abrupt, brief, short, cursory, fleeting, momentary,
passing, transient, clever, bright, sharp-witted, shrewd, astute, smart,
intelligent, adroit, lively, sprightly, vivacious, spry, nimble, agile.
[55]
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
???????????????????????????????!???????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
???????????????????????????????????????????????????
[56] Apparently the recipe for a kind of desert consisting of a
mile thick layer of marshmallow flavored ice cream topped with a
skim of neon blue gelatin (or possibly French Canadian Bean Soup.)
The translation for the name of this desert, roughly, reads “after
dinner course for persons/human creatures who do not like
marshmallow and wish to confront/defeat this not-like by aversion
therapy.”
[57] “O cereal eating clown-snake, I’ll never leave you alone
again!”

Aubergine are; crimson, scarlet, ruby, burgundy, cherry.
[59] Another autobiographical interlude (assuming the author
has multiple personalities):

My job title is Software Interfacing Hardware Quality
Assurance Control Officer. My job is to test computer keyboards.
I know that sounds simple, but it isn’t. We’re all highly trained.
Quality control is a science from start to finish.
Every single keyboard has to be tested. There’s a team of a
thousand of us. Every day, ten thousand keyboards are delivered to
our department. All of these need to be tested in a completely
random fashion. It has to be random to assure that at no point in the
supply chain is there any collusion between our suppliers and each
of us quality control officers.
So, each of those ten thousand keyboards has a unique serial
identification code attached to it, like C33H36N4O6. Each code is
entered into the central command module which randomly allocates
one hundred codes to each of us control officers. We then collect
each keyboard that has one of the allocated codes attached to it and
return to our work station.
There are strict regulations as to what we may keep at our
work stations; we are allowed one personal item, strictly tasteful, and
may only eat or drink from a set list of pre-approved brand name
foods and drinks. My personal item is a picture of my wife taken in
her last year of high school, the day she received her “Most Obese
Cheerleader” award.
The process for testing the quality of each keyboard is the
same. A keyboard is selected on a whim, which allows us to exercise
our creative sides. Then we activate a random number generator.
The number generated randomly is matched to a sheet of graph
paper printed off fresh each morning. The graph is scatter plotted
with different amounts of time, anything from one second to one
hour. The randomly generated number is matched to the assigned
plotted time, and that is the length of time the keyboard is to be
tested for.
The keyboard is then connected to our work station, a simple
word processor.
This is where our training comes in.
Each of us has been trained for no less than three weeks on
the exact method of typing out a given phrase to a set time, no more
or less than one key stroke every two seconds. The phrase is typed
out with just one finger, and the phrase itself is designed to
accommodate every single letter of the alphabet. The phrase?
This is what we type out;
THE LAZY BROWN DOG JUMPED OVER THE QUICK RED
FOX.
Just that, nothing else. That is was what we type out, one letter
every two seconds with one finger for a randomly determined
amount of time. When the randomly determined amount of time is
finished we save what we have typed and the results are
electronically sent to another department to be studied. Whether the
keyboard passes our fails, we don’t know. Our job is just to perform
our given function, no more and no less.
We do not type SSDDCBRNHMMW. We type only that single
phrase we are taught from day one.
The workday is over when all one hundred randomly assigned
keyboards have been tested. Because the length of time spent
working on each one is random the workday can sometimes be over
by lunch. Other days I haven’t left until the next morning; I’ve made it
as far as my car before having to turn around and head back to
work.
I’ve heard that one of us got so far behind in his workload that
his wife had him declared legally dead. I’ve heard of another who
retired before his 21st birthday. I’m not sure I believe either of those
stories though. I’ve also heard that once somebody typed something
other than THE LAZY BROWN DOG JUMPED OVER THE QUICK
RED FOX. I heard they typed something that made sense. I don’t
know about that though. I just punch in each morning with my
packed lunch of pre-approved brand name artificial avocado filled
sandwiches sandwiches, plug in my music (today is The
Co)))elacanths’ classic Incarnating Mondegreens double album) and
do my job.
It’s a living.
[60] Of course. But when asked to explain or elaborate on his
work, the author’s responses have tended to be terse to the point of

only being three words long; on Blackpuddlians, ”About fried blood”;
on A Poor Trait of the Anarchist as a Hangman, ”Title too long”;
on Useless, “A hyphen missing”; on Pommes Pennepeach, ”So very
hungry”; and on A Clockwork Aubergine; “There’s the rub.”
[61] Is this appropriate, or apropos of nothing? If the latter –
which is to say, that it is an unattributed quote of nihilist Greek

philosopher Apropos of Nothing (420BC-360BC)- than this footnote
should have capitalized his name in the first instance.
[62] Coincidentally, supervillains believe in a Heaven that they
call the Archipelego of Evil, or in one particular belief system, the

Black Rainbow Islands. Every supervillain would get their own secret
island base, but it is part of a chain so that they don’t lose the close
sense of community.

Aubergine are; deceive, trick, hoodwink, bamboozle, outwit, fool,
confuse, baffle, muddle, puzzle, perplex, flummox, stump
[64] Translation:
At the gun show we were finally able to show off our greatest,
most deadly, and just plain awesome new firearm; a gun that fires
chainsaws!
Not that development was easy.
Having created the ammunition for the weapon (super cute
teeny weeny little chainsaws) we discovered the first major problem.
Projectiles need something to make them move, to get them to whiz
out of the barrel towards whatever has pissed you off. Initially, we
tried traditional methods of gunpowder and ignition, but discovered
that the teeny weeny little gas tanks of the chainsaws –specially
crafted for us by the Swiss Army- had a habit of exploding, causing a
chain reaction in the magazine that killed researchers.
Human cost of the project to this point; 6 researchers (finely
shredded.)
It took a number of months and a rare flash of inspiration
engendered by watching a cartoon sit-com about an orthodox
caveman family whose everyday household appliances made use of
wise cracking pre-historic animals for their moving parts before a
breakthrough was made. A breeding program was set up using DNA
from frozen mammoths to fertilize pygmy elephants, and then
following a course of selective inbreeding –lessons learned from
making pygmy masculine cosmic apocalyptic monsters-
miniaturization was achieved in which teeny-weeny woolly
pachyderms were ready to be trained to blow the chainsaws out of
their trunks like blow darts.
Human cost of the project to this point; 6 researchers, 2 animal
trainers (victims of a teeny-weeny stampede.)
The next obvious design flaw had to do with the ammunition
again. Whilst everyone agreed that a gun that shoots chainsaws was
super awesome, we had overlooked the fact that if the chainsaws
themselves were not revved up and whirring away, then our tiny, tiny
little mammoths might as well be shooting toasters, bread makers,
and other blunt consumer items. What we needed was for some way
to get the chainsaws started just before the mammoths spat them
out. The idea of breeding teeny weeny cave men in much the same
way we had solved the delivery problem was voted down as
unethical.
I am proud to say at this point it was my own little spark of
genius that got the project moving again. It was at the weekend and I
had gone into the city to buy an irregular trouser suit when, crossing
the road, I happened to glance up to see if the little guys in the
walk/do not walk sign were indicating if I should have been. And
boom! There was our answer, and no need for unethical breeding
programs! Seeing as though there were already a race of teeny-
weeny men all we had to do was make a proposition to their
leprechaun union, and finally we had our method of starting the
chainsaws before the mammoths spat them out. Synchronizing the
two was a piece of cake after the previous technical issues; the
trigger was linked to electrodes attached to each of their testicles,
both the teeny-weeny men and the mammoths, so both sprang into
action at once.
Human cost of the project to this point; 6 researchers, 2 animal
trainers, 27734 global citizens (road deaths; we only recruited the
red leprechauns.)
Still, when we unveiled our creation at the gun show, we all
knew it had been worth it.
[65] An example of the author’s obsession with using fox
symbolism in his work, although a very mild obsession as he only

appears to have referred to foxes twice in his entire life.
[66] Yes, but how far does it go in justifying such a false start on
the vissicitude thus far displayed, or at least villyfying said

vissicitude? (And by vissicitude we of course refer to the previously
circular “vicious attitude.”)
[67] The whale biologist delivered the following lecture in
multiple languages invented by various presidential assassins...

which is to say, the languages were invented by presidents who had
once been assassins. Amongst the languages was President
Hinckley’s proposed tongue of Pig-Ursprach. The suit he wore had a
stain on the left lapel. The stain looked like it could have been
caused by a store brand of BBQ sauce, but as the suit was, in color,
a peculiar shade of red, it was hardly noticeable.
“A whale is not actually a fish, it’s a source of whale juice.
“A whale is not actually a fish, it is, according to some book
called the Bible, a ‘great’ fish (‘great’ here meaning large or
immense, rather than being an extremely good thing.)
“A whale is not actually a fish, it is the key plot point in a dense
symbolist tome of the 19th century.
“A whale is not actually a fish, it is an ordinance for a whale-a-
pault.
“A whale is not actually a fish, it is a convenient place to keep
one’s harpoons.
“A whale is not actually a fish, it’s a pun in the punch line to the
joke ‘Where do you weigh a whale?’
“A whale is not actually a fish, it is merely a convenient way for
God to teach King Sulemani some humility.
“A whale is not actually a fish, it’s a member of the same family
group as porpoises and dolphins (which aren’t red.)
“A whale is not actually a fish, it is a ‘Royal Fish’ according to
the laws of the United Kingdom, classified as such alongside
sturgeons, porpoises, and dolphins, the law declaring that when
such oceanic beasts are caught, they automatically become the
property of the monarch of the United Kingdom as part of his or her
royal prerogative.
“A wahle is not actually a fish, it’s a typo.
“A whale is not actually a fish, it is a source of sustenance for
the genus Osedax.
“A whale is not actually a fish, but goddamn, it sure looks like
one.
“A whale is not really a fish, it’s a mammal, like mega-
masculine cosmic apocalyptic monsters.
“A whale is not actually a fish, but the plural can be used as a
pun in confusing the whopping sea beasts with a Gaelic country
under the rule of the United Kingdom, thus ensuring hilarity.
“A whale is not actually a fish, is it?
“A whale is not actually a fish, it is the primary source of
income for whalers.
“A whale is not actually a fish, it’s a titanic colony of highly
specialized single cell organisms co-operating with each other in
order to create more versions of themselves, though they
themselves are merely a means to an end for the mindless
replication of DNA.
“A whale is not a fish, it’s Jonah’s mobile home.
“Brief summary of the proceeding; if it looks like a fish, swims
like a fish, and for all intents and purposes is quite plainly a fish, if
common sense metaphorically screams in various invented
languages that ‘THIS IS A FISH’, then it probably is anything but.”
A student in the third row stood up and shot himself in a bid to
impress an obese cheerleader, failing to realize that they rarely
attend lectures on whale biology.
[68] As far as this passage goes, the last word probably lies in a
comment that Siddo Eagleslime made in a private letter to the Vulgar

People of Eggworld; “I blame you for the moonlit sky, and for making
me feel as tight as two coats of paint. Conditions and exclusions
apply within.”
[69] In an early draft of A Clockwork Aubergine (the “McMac”
draft found amidst the papers of the St. Maggotfucka collection

housed at the University of Dot-dot-dash-dot-dash-dash-dot-dash-
dot-dot City) the letter ‘j’ was written as large as a sumo wrestler.
The significance of this oversized consonant has fueled speculation
for thirty-seven minutes.
here according to various draft versions of A Clockwork Aubergine
are; bounded, leaped, hopped, skipped, soared, shot, flew, jigged,
hurdled, sprang, capered, vaulted, started, jerked, flinched, recoiled
[71] Note the lack of the letter “s” in A Clockwork Aubergine. If
needs be the symbol $ could have been substituted and nobody

would have noticed, assuming that the reason the letter does not
occur was down to the typewriter upon which A Clockwork
Aubergine was composed happened to be missing that key, and not
because the writer had by intention avoided using it.
[72] After this followed a disastrous attempt at revitalizing the
tourist industry around Scotland’s Loch Ness by “upgrading” the

monster. It was believed that the public were bored with the type of
dinosaur said to haunt the Loch, and so the old Plesiosaur style
cryptid was replaced with a freshly grown Tyrannosaurus Rex. The
process by which the new monster was cloned is fully detailed in the
brochure, but the short explanation is that it was “reverse
engineered” from a sample of blood. Where did the blood of a beast
that lived 65 million years ago come from? From a vampire
Tyrannosaurus Rex of course; vampires are immortal, and so it
survived the asteroid strike that wiped out ninety percent of the
terrestrial life of the time. The only problem with the new monster is
one familiar to anyone who has ever “reverse” engineered
something, that is, that more often than not you end up with the
opposite of what you wanted. Which explains why the Loch Ness
Monster Mk.2 has a tiny pathetic body and absolutely enormous
arms. But if all of that was not true –was, in fact, just something I
typed whilst bored at my day job- another theory has been put
forward that the Loch Ness monster may be an undiscovered
species of camel. The animal’s unique body type makes it a perfect
candidate, though biologists have pointed out that as the familiar
camels of Egypt adopted their humps to better blend in with the
pyramids –a wonderful piece of natural camouflage- it seems
unlikely this could have happened in the highlands of Scotland,
lacking pyramids as they do. Another theory about the identity of
Nessie revolves around the much maligned pseudo-science of the
“aquatic ape theory”. The theory states that at some point in its
evolution homo sapiens lived in a semi-aquatic environment, and
that some of the peculiarly anatomical features it has now developed
because of this period of time (hairlessness, sub-cutaneous fat,
enlarged brain capacity, conscious breath control, etc. are all
features shared by other mammals that spend a significant amount
of time immersed, such as hippos.) Wilder proponents of the aquatic
ape theory posit that there was a genetic schism in which part of the
population became more land borne and evolved into the humanity
we know and hate today, whilst another part adapted further to the
water and became the creatures of myth we called “mermaids”.
Nessie, according to this view, is simply a freshwater merman of
gigantic proportions doing the backstroke with an erection.
[73] One of the most famous aspects of A Clockwork Aubergine
is the cyclical nature of the text, that upon reaching the end the
whole thing revolves back to the start in a seemingly endless loop.
This has led some academics -certainly those with a bouncy aroma-
to posit the theory that A Clockwork Aubergine is in fact one of the
“circles” of Hell, found outside the main topography of the infernal
regions. The reality of the situation is that the book’s first typesetter
had been drinking on the job, and the horrific blunder of bifurcating
the text and then sticking its ends together wasn’t noticed until
decades after its initial publication.
[74] Rumour has it that a single copy of A Clockwork
Aubergine’s initial print run was bound in human skin; this has
become known as the “Do Not Resuscitate” edition, owing to a
prominent tattoo.
[75] As noted in one academic paper published before the fact
in the Sokal Review (second guessing the issue and then using too
many long words for the lay person to follow being standard
academic procedure to hide both lack of knowledge and
understanding, if not downright giving oneself license to write any old
cobblers); “Apropos of ennui, is affusion possible if the paradigm is
crenellated? Before riposting such an embuillent shibboleth in hues
of sclera, contemplation of refulgent fulgurite is perhaps recondite,
even germane,” if I may quote a certain somebody!
[76] As the old Eggworld saying goes, “When a strong wind
blows, all grass becomes italicised.”

[77] A final note; the title, A Clockwork Aubergine, is a play on
the title of the classic novel, A Clockwork Tangerine.

[78]

A Clockwork Aubergine

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A Clockwork Aubergine

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A CLOCKWORK AUBERGINE

BLACK RAINBOWS PRESS

Copyright © 2018 Kevin Sweeney

Black Rainbows Press

“...with the laconic swagger of an early pre-menstrual Q.Q.Pril

“... words... genius… book… praise... can’t… breathe...”

“Whilst reading A Clockwork Aubergine I was painted with

“If proto-Vorticist enfant terrible Tobermory K. Funn and

“...worshipped a god whose earthly incarnation was said to

“After I had finished reading... A Clockwork Aubergine I found

“I enjoyed A Clockwork Aubergine a lot more than when the

“Take three cups of abstruse metaphors, a quart of spoiled

“A Clockwork Aubergine reads like someone battered a

“Like a Norwegian forest cat staring with desire at a layered

“One of the most important books written on the subject, in

“...like an existential road map scribbled on onion skin and then

“Arousing; a wet nightmare.”

“This book - this collection of squid-fear splattered slices of

“I once met a woman whose toes were each as big as a sumo

“Is A Clockwork Aubergine a missive, a mission statement, a

“I would describe A Clockwork Aubergine in one word, albeit a

“After finishing A Clockwork Aubergine for the first time my

“...miraculous and... astonishing paragraphs... shocking, A

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a feldspar enthusiast from the

“...using the various letters in the Alphabet as well as the

“I have a piece of advice I would like to give anyone who is

“Once, I set my hand to writing the Great American Novel™.

“[A Clockwork Aubergine is the very bestest book ever wrote

“Seven thumbs up!”

“Before I read A Clockwork Aubergine I would call people -

“...travelled through time to hunt the deadliest game of all...

“Having eye-eaten this sandwich of alphabets, my life is so

“Words cannot convey the experience of reading A Clockwork

“Before attempting this book the reader needs to be aware of

“A slanting of the standard deterministic corpus, or the

I THINK the simplest way of summing up what A Clockwork

THE most frequently asked question I am frequently asked

THEY say that “no man is an island.” This statement is

ANY biography of Kevin Sweeney needs to start with an explanation of

Holy shit, did you read all of that?

See-You-Next-Thursday (not to be confused with the Man Who Was

Saturday morning kid’s show, which was essentially a series of

important to listen to the notes not played when attending to music

cross between a Mexican stand-off and a conga line, where each

future our most important natural resource / Will be brainless

lifetime. It was therefore not unnatural that there should be a surge

bathroom wall. Ignoring the nonsense about art and dressing

written on a wide and curious collection of different surfaces in a

(or, to be more accurate, isn’t, as it is as unwritten as roughly ninety

like tastier versions of those big-ass statues on Halloween Island. It

style of Neolithic cave art, I offer the following interpretation:

Aubergine to break into a story, with characters and scenes and

dubbed the “Protevangelium” of the work- that is credited with

main untext, though at first is easily mistake for gibberish, as it is

statements about it must be true, that it was; 1) As pointless as a wet

here according to various different draft versions of A Clockwork

here, “ochre” only appears in a single draft of A Clockwork

concerning A Clockwork Aubergine is the matter of what genre it

may be useful to provide the following information about the

certainly used often enough in the short story

appears (or would appear, if it had been written) a product recall

investment, he said. Planned to fund his retirement by selling them

argot, slang, and archaic colloquialisms used, as well as the

evolutionary point of view, a layer of French Canadian Bean soup