Written a couple of years ago by the very talent T Shirt prodigy Lucan Industries
Sadly not very productive these days but still worth a visit to check out his innovative and thought provoking designs.
This is the story but the original can be found here.
I was responsible for the Ralpph Steadman knock off.
100% Danny Nolan
DETOUR
Nolan stared back down the road, the bike’s dust trails disappeared quickly around the bend but the growl of the engine took longer to subside, he walked, unsure of his next move, to what passed for a kerb to avoid being cross-bred with another speeding bike. He was somewhere south of Arambol and the sun was setting fast through the palm trees to his west. A man walked past eating an onion as if it were an apple, nodding in Nolan’s vague direction, but it may have just been a twitch, Nolan started to whistle the theme tune to The Six Million Dollar Man, stuck his hands in the pockets of his dusty shorts and walked off the embankment the road monopolised and through the rice field to the beach.
As he reached the foot of the dunes he passed a hut, four individuals sat within, silently staring at the horizon, a chillum made it’s way around the group, ritualistically smoked without comment, music escaped from a small indian-made stereo wedged in the sand, any trace of the warm wholesome bass that the producer intended to deliver had been robbed by the 500 rupee sound system, but no one seemed to mind.
Nolan continued his route towards the shoreline, a Rajdoot coughed into life 50 yards ahead, the driver struggled to get the bike moving forward as it fishtailed in the soft sand, but eventually it bit and roared up the beach, past Nolan and on towards the road.
He reached the water and sat down amongst the thousands of dead bodies littering the coastline. The sun was just reaching the horizon, and was casting a pink light across the decaying corpses, glinting off fake jewellery and motionless watches. Nolan kicked a stray arm away from him to outstretch his own legs, then stared at the burning sphere and counted the seconds until it disappeared from view, wrinkling his nose involuntarily from the smell of rotting flesh.
When Helios had ridden his chariot over the horizon Nolan jumped to his feet and walked through the putrid human mass towards a makeshift bar. When he reached it’s entrance he kicked his sandals off and walked up onto the carpeted bamboo frame. He surveyed the other patrons, one man asleep on the floor, another old woman coveting a plate of rice and deeply engaged in conversation with someone who hadn’t turned up yet, and a twentysomething ponytailed man wearing only a cloth around his waist shouting something foreign into a cheap mobile. Nolan ordered a pint of vodka from the boy and, after selecting a table with a prominent view, settled back on a cheap, white plastic garden chair.
The boy returned with his drink, Nolan removed the unnecessary straw and tied a knot in it before throwing it onto the sand below. He then poured a third of the firewater onto a day old burn on his thigh before draining the rest in one mouthful. It scorched his throat, and burned his stomach, his eyes began to water and he laughed, noiselessly. Nolan turned to the man at the next table who was still busily barking orders into his phone, “Shut the fuck up” Nolan explained casually. The man stopped talking and looked at this red faced, watery-eyed newcomer, confusion dripping down his arrogant face. “Huh?” he unimpressively retorted. “I said, shut the fuck up” Nolan reasonably returned, then standing, slowly, he threw up over the man with the mobile, litres and litres of blood streaked, vodka saturated vomit, chunks of the last meal that had found it’s way into his stomach snagged in the man’s ponytail. Phone man stood sharply, yelling, pushed against his equally cheap chair, which folded under the pressure and both collapsed in a putrid mess on the floor. Nolan kicked the man’s phone away and then slowly, and not too steadily headed back to the entrance to retrieve his sandals.
cheers nolan
As he trailed his feet in the sand trying to locate his footwear, his eyes no longer being of much use, the boy appeared with a yard long, 3 inch thick piece of bamboo, and brought it down, squarely on top of his head, Nolan fell forward and broke his nose on the step, but it really didn’t matter, the bamboo had split his skull and blood was rapidly filling his corpus callosum, he had about a minute left to breathe. It hurt, incredibly, but the vodka numbed the worst of it. “Should have stayed on the bike” he thought to himself. Then he stopped thinking altogether.
At some point today became tomorrow, but no one really noticed.
