Early Books work

FADE INTO FOCUS, FOCUS INTO FADE

SKEWARD IMAGES

A NATION IN FLAMES

                                          By Nick Armbrister

Early Books

FIRING THOSE ROUNDS OFF

Feel the recoil of the fifty calibre in your gut as the Messerschmitts dart past,

you hit or miss, this is a game of Russian roulette. You’re a gunner in a B-17

shooting shells off to save your soul, kill the Nazi cunts!

You’re a gunner in a Huey gunship blasting the Vietcong – it’s you or them.

The recoil of your gun makes you violently happy as you scythe Charlie down.

You want to rape Dantes’ mistress against the recoil, all those tracers

cutting through the night. Just like July the Fourth.

Heavy calibre bullets mince your guts and wreck your plane, so the wise man says

don’t get in my way or else you’ll pay the price.

MISSILE LAUNCH

Radar lock on, a growl in your ear means the missile sees the Mig,

now a 6 g’s turn and press the tit, see the Sidewinder dart towards the

enemy. For this is his time to die, his seconds tick away like so many

grains of sand in the hour glass.

As the solid fuel rocket motor speeds the missile to Mach 3 the Mig,

your Mig, flies for his life. A crazy turn into range seals his fate,

g-force building up, horizon tumbling madly, this time he gives it his best.

Will American or Russian technology win or lose? Will a pilot and plane die?

The Mig defeats the missile in his life-saving gamble but two more are on the way.

Only his faith in an outlawed God can save him now.

 

AROUND THE CHIMNEY

Three Messerschmitts fly in formation on this tragic day in Germany’s history,

they’re in formation so fragile and so deadly.

Then the Mustangs strike, fast and without warning. Left and right the wingmen go;

a fuel tank explodes and its jettisoned, saving both pilot and plane.

Deadly chase is now on; lower and lower the 109 and Mustang go, pilot skill counts,

so close to the ground, all that speed. Over the village the 109 hurtles, turning on its wing,

fifty feet above the brewery chimney, four g’s in this gut-wrenching turn.

Then the Mustang’s guns strike home, mortal hit. A third of an aileron flies off the 109.

Flicking upside down, will he die? With so much coolness he flies his plane upwards,

inverted flight, gaining height.

Mustang pilot sees this and waits to claim his kill. With German coolness, the 109

rolls upright and the chase continues – for a while. Force landing his damaged the plane,

the kraut is beaten but alive, skilful and lucky.

TEMPEST PILOT

The world’s best low level piston engine fighter plane flew low and fast with 21-year-old John Andrew at the controls. He was chasing the 190’s over open country.

He had got two and now the third was nearly his when he hit a tree with his wing.

He bailed out of the speeding and tumbling plane with God on his side, alive!

His chute opened and then he was on the ground,

his plane coming down like a fuckin’

meteor in the French churchyard demolishing half the church.

In a dreamlike haze he pulled himself off the ground with nothing but cuts and

Bruises, then passed out.

When he awoke he was in a soft bed with a beautiful young girl gazing deeply at him,

She was called Louisa and in an instant both had fallen in love in the blink of an eye.

So in three weeks John from London, Tempest pilot, had married Louisa, French peasant girl, in the remains of the shattered church where his broken plane lay.

This is one wartime love story, so true and one of hope. Out of the ashes comes re-birth. Wise men say, always fall in love in war.

BRIGHT NIGHT

Maybe this time we’ll succeed and get it right,

maybe this time all of the bad things will be out of sight,

maybe this time man won’t bicker and fight,

maybe this time our star will rise and shine ever so bright,

maybe this time our love will survive the next time tonight,

maybe this time our friendship will climb to a new height,

maybe this time I won’t run because of my own fright,

I hope this time we all do it because it’s all right.

FEE MAILS

What a thing they are, these fee mails who are like nothing else!

They are one of life’s little quirks that becomes lodged

inside your head,

like a thorn in your eye.

But they certainly catch your eye and a whole lot more.

There’s the old saying

“You cant live with ’em and you cant live without ’em.”

I suppose it’s true that when your marriage crashes

after a one night stand, do you blame yourself or the fee mails?

You have one nice chick and want another.

Are these fee mails really man’s ruin?

A BIT OF ME

Find it so hard to believe that this is life I live is really all mine,

all mine with the good and the bad.

My past is a crazy mixture of black and whites all turned to grey,

memories of youth focus and fade like an old film, always moving.

The girls I have had have left their mark, some not of the devil

but a notch down.

A few still leave me breathless, teasing me with memories

frighteningly real.

Wouldn’t it be mad if I could go back and be 17

and say “Don’t do that” with a 29-year-old’s knowledge.

I often feel cheated by life, losing friends before their time,

of girls betraying me, making the wrong career move,

learning the hard way. This is life’s message:

“Nick do it right first time, avoid all the pain and shit!”

FULFILMENT

I travel to the spiritual world and leave my heavy body behind.

I look down through a veil of haze upon our planet from so far away,

yet I am so near. I see places of holy, spiritual and magical power all

sparkling like silver pinpricks of light upon her surface.

Our earth is a huge living entity full of her inhabitants who mostly

don’t see the power life. I ascend the physical world to become a

spirit, to feel the true love and emotional fulfilment of those that

have been before, for our stay on earth is but a brief one – soon we shall

join our ancestors in summer land. There I will be forever one with my

soulmate.

Jian shut the terminal down and repeated his visual checks on each of the thirty-five tubes. Each was fine. He randomly opened another terminal on launcher number seven and cycled the system. Again it checked out. Walking over to his two colleagues, Boss and Jano, Jian talked in a hushed voice. “The weapon systems check out. All we have to do is wait. Then we will launch and be the new conquerors of our troubled land. May God be with us…”

Two hours later as the moon reached her peak, launch time came upon the group. A fact, nothing more, a game of numbers in the man-made world of time, a countdown to a new battle to follow the ones of the past. The internal clock silently reached zero and the three men watched from a dug out position, nothing more than a metre and a half ditch with earth piled up at the top. If one of the warheads went off the hole would provide no protection whatsoever, even with a neutron bomb. They killed with intense radiation but a nuclear explosion had to take place to unleash the deadly gamma rays. Jian watched the main control screen that showed each launcher and individual weapon – thirty-six yellow blobs with green icons next to them. Jian watched the left group of launchers with fibre optic laser viewing optics. Boss watched the other group with a similar device.

“Everything’s fine here, Jian.” 

“You tally up on your lot Boss?” Jian whispered.

“Okay on this side, not even a bug moving,” Boss replied. How are the readouts, Jian, any anomalies or problems?”

“Everything is sorted here, thirty seconds to go,” Jian replied. “I’d turn your specs down to the lowest setting if I were you. You don’t want flash blinding.” 

The pair’s extra sensitive night vision equipment would adjust automatically to any bright flash or light, so any change would be automatic, a factor that Jian didn’t trust. He was not keen on machines, whence his constant checking of the systems and his refusal to use the night glasses. The countdown reached zero. At first nothing happened, at least not visually but in the microcircuits, commands were sent to ignite the launch motors and arm the warheads. In a glare of crude yellow light, first one and then another rocket speared forth into the night, the pop of the seals being broken lost in the rockets’ roar. Jian had to close his eyes at the brightness. It was an impressive sight, he had to admit. What would the sight resemble on the receiving end when thirty-six missiles detonated at thirty-six separate pre-programmed targets? He wished he could see each one as it happened. Sadly that was impossible because his side, the Twenty Sixth, had lost all of their spy satellites to the Stone Collectors’ beam weapons. It was a bonus getting these nuclear missiles so cheap from the Iranian Superpower Block at such a cheap price. Even such outdated technology was still much prized by either side today and anyone with enough credit could get hold of them.