Killing Kimberly Keller
Bees, Drugs, and Friendship.
A novel I am currently halfway through writing.
Set against today's backdrop of a UK with a callous immigration policy, this absurdist black comedy negotiates the world of hedonism, morality, and purpose, through the eyes of various characters all trying to 'figure it out'.
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Here is the opening. I hope you enjoy.
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THE PRE-BIT
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The body’s limbs swayed limply in the wind.
Fleshy punching bags.
Pip, stood atop a step ladder, atop a buoy, atop the English Channel, untied the noose around the neck.
The sea was particularly restless today. Two of his colleagues tightly held the ladder down against the buoy, keen to not let their Captain fall prey to Poseidon’s chop.
Salt water sprayed into his eyes as he finally loosened the knot. He noticed it was a Bowline knot.
Nice.
With the help of the other officers, they lowered the body into the lifeboat. It was heavier than anticipated.
They appeared very much dead, yet their fashion sense was much deader.
Pip had seen some poorly dressed cadavers in his time, but this one took the biscuit.
They were wearing yellow flip flops and checkered pyjama bottoms for goodness sake.
If Pip was ever made to hang himself, he would wear a crash helmet, a buoyancy aid and a cricket box.
And his Torquay United shin pads of course.
Not for stylistic purposes, obviously. More for the irony in caring about personal safety whilst being suspended from a rope.
At least that way he might get one final laugh out of his fiancé before her inevitable depression set in. She was such a fan of irony.
Don’t worry Lu, I wouldn’t do that to you.
Pip prepared to check the vitals, even though there was little point. This person looked very dead.
If they weren’t dead, which they almost certainly were, you could bet they were fucking freezing, and even more fucking miserable.
He noticed a scroll of paper, pink, by the look of it, inside a small glass bottle tied around the body’s neck.
The other coast guards exchanged confused looks as Pip climbed down the ladder, off the buoy, and back into the lifeboat.
After all, this was a case of the rarest order. People didn’t hang themselves in the channel: they drowned.
Greg
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Upset and confused, he stumbled up the stairs. Consulting with emotions was rarely a walk in the park, yet this particular meeting felt like he'd run forty three laps naked round Hampstead Heath, whilst being audibly heckled by its local population of muntjac deer. Greg was, to say the least, vulnerable. Vulnerable, and extremely high on instant coffees from the public library cafe. He ran a hand across his newly shaven head.
Experiencing loss was a part of life, he recognised that. Loss, as far as his life went, was synonymous to breathing. However, the spontaneity of the event had stripped him down to his core. It was too harsh to comprehend. He missed Emily. Tears trickled delicately down the cheekbones he was so proud of, gently splashing onto his collar bone; inevitably, it would be another sulky evening. One out of the top three key figures in his life was no longer a key figure in his life. Turning the key, Greg stifled in another river of tears, took a deep breath, and entered, praying that he wouldn't bump into Mrs Romano in the hallway. He certainly wasn't in the mood for a chat this second, after all she wasn’t one of the ninetee- wait now eighteen key figures in his life.
Plus, he didn't need any more of her (admittedly) delicious focaccia, his bread bin was full enough already. Greg skulked across the landing, tiptoed past Mrs Romano's peach tinted door, and unlocked his flat. 162A Spring Gardens had never felt more barren, despite the ridiculous amounts of Italian home-baked goods flocking the kitchen counter. If only there was still someone to share it with.
Well, other than Lukas. And Professor Merivel; he’d bring that lunatic a healthy portion tomorrow in return for some extra dissertation credit.
Was the professor more of an olive and feta type man, or a did he favour focaccia of the sun dried tomato variety?
Better take both.
As he walked up the stairs all Greg could think was three hours in a smack and most probably semen-ridden public library, and alas, no creative inspiration for my masters degree.
The all too familiar bristle of the outrageously large spider plant brushed against his coat as he squished through the threshold, the overflowing shopping bags in hand doing whatever they could to not permit him entry to his own kitchen; they dragged against either side of the landing, scraping off more paintwork. Greg was too immersed in self-pity to care. He just wanted to dice up an onion, weep involuntarily at its potency, make a hearty portion of spaghetti bolognese, and continue not starting his dissertation. The thought of commencing such an arduous task would of course cause him more tears than dicing an onion ever could. How the human eye, the most complex and intricately designed part of his body could be defeated by an odorous little round bulb, Greg did not know. He was a post-graduate anthropology student after all, not a horticulturalist. Nor an optician. This did not matter; his stomach lurched. It was time to finalise his idea before the coffee shop meeting with his tutor in the morning.
Greg's ideas were currently narrowed down to 'something to do with people', which he assumed to be a little broad, or, 'a study into why Lukas Wolff had changed profession from part-time barista/aspiring pro-skateboarder, into an unofficial beekeeper.
His flatmate's recent obsession with bee preservation was, to be blunt, fucking annoying.
It wasn't Lukas' incessant ramblings about the importance of bees that frustrated him, nor the fact he couldn't enter his best friend's bedroom without fear of being stung.
What irritated Greg were the butterfly nets Lukas had installed in the doorways of both the kitchen, the lounge, and in his own bedroom, in order to create 'bee-free zones'. Although, just imagining the mortified expression of his landlord, on the inevitable discovery that one of his tenants had a literal beehive inside his room did bring a reluctant smirk to his face.
He unloaded his shopping and searched for the pasta.
Where are you?
He grabbed his favourite kitchen knife and tore open the bag, stomach rumbling louder than Lukas' insect ridden bedroom.
Where are you, my carby friend?
Spaghetti bolognese minus the spaghetti simply would not do. Spaghetti was half of the dish’s identity, it was in the name.
It was this precise moment he heard a banging coming from Lukas’ room.
That Neanderthal.
This usually meant his friend was trashing his skateboard, enraged that he couldn’t perfect a new trick (in the square two-metres of floor space his bedroom had to offer.)
It wasn't that Lukas was weird, just a bit, well, mental. He was ninety nine percent Dionysian; his remaining one percent Apollonian tendencies were reserved for making money through, quite frankly, ridiculous schemes.
As soon as Emily was out of the picture Lukas had turned their flat into a war zone. Yes, they now lived in D-Day Omaha Beach, but with more Berlin techno themed parties and bees. As best friends go, he was not one. He was, just not a good one.
He exuded chaos at a molecular level, even more so than Greg.
A tall boy, with the physique of a whippet that someone had thought to cover in tattoos, Greg had always envied his best friend’s height. He wanted Lukas’ extra inch and a half, in the same way Lukas probably envied his own football ability and intellect and-
Okay, simmer down narcissus.
His own physique was slim, satisfactory, and much more uncanine. Unlike a dog, Lukas had a shaved head (which now appeared completely bald due to his naturally very fair hair colour), an eyebrow piercing, and a knack for saying the wrong things. Neither him nor Greg had grown up knowing their birth-mothers, a similarity they had bonded over in freshers week with drunken pride- like the vain pair of circus-freaks they were.
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