This seasonal offering—produced for The Kick-About No.117—was directly inspired by my recent stay in an old French house, which often begins with the task of hoovering up cobwebs and their occupants, along with the occasional very large centipede. Afterwards, I sometimes think about the insides of the hoover—and all that might reside in there—then I stop thinking about it sharpish.
I’ve recently finished reading The Diaries of Mr Lucas: Notes from a Lost Gay Life, the real diaries of a closeted civil servant living in London in the ’50s and ’60s, and something of that found its way in here too—via Robert Bloch! I was also thinking about the likes of Kenneth Williams; obnoxious, brittle, tragic… his own diaries are obsessed with his ‘spastic colon’. For people of a certain generation, Williams epitomises ‘gay men’—and yet he appeared to hate himself for being gay—and found the thought of other gay men—and what they do to each other—disgusting. For my part, Williams always made my skin crawl—more so than any spider.
Meanwhile, the reason this short story rhymes is that I wanted to keep it campy and macabre—even though it ‘goes there’. I was going for an Alan Bennett-meets-Alfred Hitchcock vibe.
Special thanks to Janna Fox, who helped me out at the eleventh hour. Anyway, wishing you all a Happy Halloween—oh, and happy vacuuming too.”
Enjoy more short stories in
Red's Kingdom 
Leave a comment