A place for people to come and read things that I, Joe Winchcombe, have written. Totally as simple as that.
May 18, 2012
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(via fuckyeahspringfield)
March 23, 2012
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(via fuckyeahspringfield)
March 3, 2012
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The Avengers | F.R.I.E.N.D.S AU
(idea by Jess)
So no one told you avenging was gonna be this way…
Brilliant.
February 10, 2012
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A short comedy film I made over the past few months, with the help and support of a very talented cast and crew. If you’re not doing anything in the next 09:32, I would definitely recommend it.
I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to comment/share/not do anything.
The password is ‘marriage’.
October 22, 2011
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The Christina Aguilera Chronicles - The One That is Thirteen
I went over to the prison on that cold morning after a quick jog around the block and a ham and asparagus croissant at Jimmy’s Bar and Grill, a place I usually pick up breakfast at without telling Booky, whose heart would definitely be crushed if he knew I frequented a Bar and Grill other than his.
I didn’t know whose names I was expecting to hear, if Christina actually planned on talking to me again. Thankfully she did, and I got more than I bargained for upon asking her about them.
“It’s complicated, as you can imagine” she began. “These guys have been after you for a while”. This news made my heart sink a little, but I continued to push her for more information in the suave, gentle fashion I had become known for, by her at least.
“I found out about it through James, my hairdresser. Years ago he was involved in a botched coke deal and he ended up doing some time, and whilst he did it, he made some connections. He was pretty much the bitch of the entire prison at one time or another, so he could get information from almost whomever he wanted after a little sweet talkin’. One of these connections was a guy named Iris Sharp, a tall, dark drink of water with hands like mallets. He wasn’t too high up in the game, but through him, James got friendly with a lot of the members of this gang that’re after you, in particular, the boss, a fella by the name of Gentleman Clam.”
“Gentleman Clam? Bit of a weird name for a boss man isn’t it?”
“I suppose so, yeah, but anyway. This Gentleman Clam was a bit of a music nut, pop in particular. He’d been collecting records for years – I think his Dad owned a store or something – and considered himself to be somewhat of an authority on the subject, as well as considering himself the strongest dude in town, which he pretty much was.
He came to a few of my shows when I was just starting out. The weird thing was, despite being Mr Big Shot in the drugs game, he would freeze up around celebrities when he met them, especially ones he was particularly fond of. And it just so happened that I was one of his favourites. I don’t remember it, but James told me that he used to wait around backstage for me, or outside the venue exit, hoping to get an autograph. Apparently he did it quite a lot, but I don’t really remember because he wasn’t all in my face like some of the other fans are. I’m guessing he would just be one of the guys hanging back, not making an effort to push through and generally being pretty quiet.”“So how does all of this relate to me? I don’t wanna interrupt your flow or anything but, it seems like you’re going off on a tangent here.”
“Will you just let me finish, just for like a second?” she barked.
“Yeah, yeah sorry.”“So, as I was saying, this Clam was a big fan of mine. As well as liking my music, James says he had/has a pretty big thing for me, like some intense romantic feelings”. As she said this, I had to force back a laugh. I could totally see why somebody would have such feelings for Chris, since I did myself. But the idea that a feared and well respected top dog of the underworld, the Cerberus of the drug game, was all mushy about her, was almost too much to resist. Luckily, she didn’t notice the laugh, (or if she did she didn’t say anything) and carried on spinning her yarn.
“He was really into me, and as well as wanting an autograph after the shows, James said he was hoping a conversation would somehow begin, a conversation which would eventually build to some dates that would eventually lead to a long, wonderful relationship with me.
I dunno if you remember, but when I was promoting Mi Reflejo, I did a gig in Boston and you drove me home when my driver didn’t show up. Clam was at the gig, and as per usual, he was waiting outside afterwards, hoping for a ticket to love town. Well, when he saw you and me leave the venue hand in hand, you kissing my neck as we scrambled into the car and drove away, he was heartbroken. The idea that somebody had come between me and him was like a bullet to his chest, and from that point on, he set about sorting you out. Despite his connections, for some reason it took him a while to figure out exactly who you were, and by the time he’d finally done it, we’d just started going through our divorce, so he called off the hit.
When he heard I had moved back to town though, he assumed things between me and you had started up again, so he called James for a meeting to find out the truth. Obviously, James didn’t have a clue what was going on with us, even we didn’t, but this guy wouldn’t let him leave until he’d told him me and you were an item. I guess he never really got over his crush on me, and the possibility that something might happen between me and you enraged him so much that he wanted to go out and kill you again. I figure he made James say it so that, in his fucked up mind, he felt like he had justification to do some damage, and because he beat James within an inch of his life, he duly obliged with the justification”.“So, this is all because some nutjob had a thing for you and couldn’t have you? That’s why guys wanna kill me?”
“That’s my understanding, yeah”.
“Well…Jesus!” I said. “Hasn’t this guy ever heard of speed dating or whatever? What the fuck?!”
An announcement came over the P.A. to inform us visiting hours were over. Chris looked at me with sad eyes, eyes that told me she wanted to help me solve the crime, but knew she couldn’t. I gave her a warm smile and she returned it before getting up to leave.
I was now aware of who my assassin was, or at least who was directing him. I felt a curious mixture of anger, fear and excitement, and called Booky to talk things over.
October 21, 2011
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I admit, it’s been a while since I’ve seen any Winnie the Pooh, so I may have gotten some of the details wrong
October 11, 2011
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The Christina Aguilera Chronicles - The One before Thirteen
The swirls on my ceiling had never seemed more interesting as they did that night, bathed quite beautifully in the light of the big moon outside my window.
I couldn’t sleep, and looking directly up at the misshapen shapes was all I felt like doing at that moment. I wasn’t hungry enough to eat, I was all out of smokeables, and although there was a generous slug of whiskey in the glass on my dresser, I didn’t feel like drinking it. As I lied there, pretty much all I could think about was what Christina had told me today; how she wasn’t planning on killing me, but on killing my assassin. Of course she could be lying, but what she had also told me, about how she still loved me and always had done, made me think otherwise.
I was still looking at the swirls, and was now thinking about my own feelings for Christina. I was pretty sure I still felt the same way about her as she did about me, but part of me still wanted some convincing before I waltzed back into her life for good. I thought about the affairs I’d had. It wasn’t right, what I had done, but in a weird way, I slept with all of those beauties for her, and no one else. It was a way of constantly testing my love for her, and in another weird way, it worked. Whenever I was….engaged with these women, my head was always occupied with thoughts of her, and I always left those….engagements knowing that my real, true, honest-to-God love of my life was her. The only problem was, she couldn’t see that, and I became lazy in my attempts to express that love, which is why she filed for divorce and we split.
I thought it could work again though, despite expertly designed prison bars now being between us, and I think that even though she was legitimately pissed at me, deep down, she did too. I was ready to once again begin down the long road of love with her, but as soon as I had settled on that idea, new, different thoughts worked their way into my brain, thoughts about my killer.Since she knew that somebody was trying to kill me, and given her connections, I was guessing she knew exactly who it was, or at the very least, she had a good idea of who it could be.
Suddenly, Christina was back in my head. Happy, lovely thoughts of her and me together. Shopping hand in hand in Greenwich Village, taking a moonlit stroll along the Seine, doing another naked tandem skydive in the Caribbean.
It was 4:12 am, and the prison wouldn’t be allowing visitors until 9 at the earliest.
I stretched out fully before rolling back over and curling up into a little ball, snug as could be under the covers, my mind and my body content, at least for the time being.
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Joe Winchcombe has returned!
Apologies, loyal readers, for my lack of any new output lately. In two days it will be a whole month since I last posted anything, and for the fact that you have had to wait to read anything new, I am sorry. I have recently begun my third year of University, and whilst that is a pretty good excuse, it’s still not good enough. But, I digress…
My absurd story, The Christina Aguilera Chronicles, is back, and is soon to reach it’s climax. If you’ve followed the story up until now, then I thank you, and shall repay you with bounty in the form of a new chapter, and the promise that more are coming very soon. If you haven’t been following it, then you should know that I’m hurt, but I won’t be for long if you jump on the little bandwagon that could and start reading.
So, without further a-do, enjoy the twelfth installment, and the rest if you’re one of those latecomers.
September 13, 2011
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The Christina Aguilera Chronicles - E.L.E.V.E.N.
“Angelo! Angelo are you still there? Say something man for cryin’ out loud!”
I was completely in shock. My whole body felt limp and I hadn’t moved for what felt like years, but was probably closer to nanoseconds.“Murphy! Answer your friend on the phone boy!”
“Yes, yes I’m still here Angelo. I’ll come right over.”I flipped the phone shut and put it back in my breast pocket, all in one fluid movement. Byron had finished his drink and was looking at me, sombrely. I felt like hugging him, and I guess that was because I knew that this might be the last time I would see him alive. Sure his mind was in good shape now, but I had no idea when I’d be back at his place, sharing a pitcher of Cuba Libre and talking about how baseball was no longer a gentleman’s game, even though I knew nothing about the sport. I wanted to hug him but I didn’t. Instead, I gave him a nod and a salute, not in that order, and started for the door.
Mr Byron was waiting for me at the main entrance and showed me out. As I walked out of the front door I was still hoping he’d turn me around and say “What’s up, doc?” but sadly, it was not to be. Instead he wished me luck and patted me on the back. I was glad to have his luck. I felt like I would need it.
I sprinted back to the airport and made my way to the ticket desk, sweaty and exhausted. I got an overpriced ticket for the next flight home and waited in the departure lounge nervous and curious. I didn’t know if she had been arrested on suspicion of my murder, on suspicion of my father’s murder, or if it was a different case altogether. Whatever the answer, I wasn’t gonna like it, and I could bet she wasn’t liking it too much either.
By the time I’d arrived back home it was getting late. I still had my mind on how I’d left Byron’s house much earlier than I had wanted to, even though there were much more pressing matters at hand. I still felt like I didn’t know where to turn with regards to my case, and hoped that this business with Christina might give me some clues. Unfortunately, visiting hours were closed by the time I’d gotten back, so I hit the hay after a light omelette and tried to get some rest ahead of a trip to the big house in the morning.
She was being held on a newly built, women-only prison on a small island just off the coast of Los Angeles. I had never visited a prison before, so to visit one on a boat in order to see my potentially murderous ex-wife was quite something, but if truth be told, the trip was fine, nice even. When I got off the boat and made my way up to the building, I felt calm and relaxed, which I had not seen coming. The architecture was really fantastic, and I spent a good ten minutes just marvelling at the design and slick construction that had gone into creating the prison before I remembered why I was there in the first place.
I sat down on a chair in front of a pane glass window, complete with a telephone so that I could talk to Chris. When she came out, she looked the sorriest she had ever looked, and I’d seen her a lot over the course of our lives, so that was really saying something. Her hair was a mess, the make-up she’d had on when they arrested her hadn’t been totally washed off and was pretty smudged, and her eyes looked red and sore, as if she’d been awake all night crying. Was this really a woman capable of murder, or was I just falling for her act?
“Hey. How ya holding up?”
“How do you think I’m doing?! I’m in jail Angelo, can’t you see that?! I look awful, I feel awful, and they’re accusing me of an awful crime I didn’t commit! Murder!”
I was about to tell her how the architecture wasn’t so awful, but luckily my brain kicked in and I was able to stop myself before my mouth sent her walking.
“So tell me what happened. They just busted in to your place and took you away?”
“Well, yeah, pretty much. I was just working on a song in my studio, finishing off some overdubs, and they stormed in, guns and sniffer dogs and everything! When I asked them what was going on, they told me they had evidence I’d bought a gun off these mobster guys, and that I’d spoken to them about killing somebody!”
I couldn’t decide what to say at that point, so I just came out and told her, there and then.“Look, I don’t mean to take sides here Chris, but I know that they’re telling the truth. I saw you the other night, on your front steps, buying a gun off some shady lookin’ dudes and laughing like a crazy person. I felt bad spying on you at first, but now I know what you’re up to, I feel fine, I feel justified and vindicated. You were trying to murder me, weren’t you?! You hired a goon to shoot me at my place the other night and when it went wrong, my Dad got killed, so you invited me to your show and bought a gun yourself, ready to fuck me up big time, either by your hand or somebody else’s. Now am I onto a winner here or ain’t I, huh?!”
It was hard to keep that down to a quiet, threatening tone in the company of all those other inmates and guards, but I had done it. I felt confident, like I had solved the case and figured things out, once and for all. She looked at me then looked down at the floor. I had spat her up and chewed her out, and she knew it just like I did.“I bet you feel pretty proud of yourself, huh?” she said, still avoiding my gaze. I nodded and smirked, feeling pretty proud like she’d suggested.
“Well you shouldn’t. You’re an idiot, Angelo.”
My smirk vanished then. I looked at her as if to tell her I needed more information, and she duly obliged, albeit angrily.“You honestly think I want to kill you, Angelo? As hard as it may be for you to believe, I am still in love with you. In fact, it’s safe to say that….well, I never stopped being in love with you, even after you treated me like crap all those years! You cheated on me, more and more with every passing year and yet, I didn’t care! I guess I was a fool, and still am. You wanna know the truth Angelo? I did buy a gun. And yeah, I did plan to murder somebody with it. But it wasn’t you. It was the person who wants to kill you!”
And with that, she got up, kicked back her chair and stormed off out of the room, her phone hanging off the hook and leaving a horrible beeping noise in my ear as I watched her leave.
September 9, 2011
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The Christina Aguilera Chronicles - The Big 1 0
We touched down in West Virginia at about two in the afternoon. I hadn’t eaten on the plane, having almost thrown up after taking a sniff of the lasagna they’d brought round, so my first thought was to get some food.
Unfortunately, Byron’s restaurant was forced to close down after he filed for bankruptcy about two years ago, the outlandish outlay for ingredients not being met by the intake from customers, so I just grabbed a tuna sandwich from a nearby convenience store and headed towards his house. It wasn’t too far from the airport, so thankfully I didn’t need to cough up for a cab, and was able to enjoy the beauty of the great city of Charleston. I hadn’t been here since my last visit, over ten years ago, and the place looked completely different to how it did in my memory. Somehow though, I felt at ease in amongst all the bewildering new architecture and the lack of familiar faces, like that guy who kept screaming pleasantries at everyone outside Capital High School, or that woman and her dog who did a delightful song-and-dance number on my first visit, and who always put on a show whenever they next saw me in town.
I walked up the long, deceptively wide steps to Byron’s front door and knocked the knocker, still in the shape of a ram’s head as it always had been. I waited a while but was eventually greeted by a short, rather old man, who introduced himself as Mr Byron. I wasn’t sure if that was his actual name or if Byron was up to his old tricks again, but I followed him in regardless. The man had a pleasant voice not unlike Mel Blanc, and as we walked through the house’s gargantuan hallway, I smiled as I thought about my favourite Warner Bros. cartoons, and how whether or not this Mr Byron would do some impressions if I asked.
The smile soon dropped from my face though when I was confronted by the man I had come to see. Sat in a wheelchair way at the back of his study, a fedora on his head and a blanket over his knees, sat Mr Byron Leftfield, looking a lot thinner than when I had last seen him. Unfortunately, despite his lack of weight, he did not look well. His face was rather wrinkly, his beard long and thick, and his general demeanour was one of a gentleman not in the prime of life. Mr Byron walked with me all the way up to his wheelchair before bowing and heading for the door. The fedora was low over his eyes, and as I was not seated, he spent the first twenty seconds of our meeting staring at my midriff, and possibly lower.
Finally, he drew his head back, clocked my face and gave me a wink. That was when I knew he was still there, at least in some form. He clutched at a chair that was next to him, a plush, velvety number, and tried with all his might to drag it towards me. I helped him once I could see he was struggling and sat down on it, facing him in his wheel bound throne.
“Hello sir” I said, kicking things off.
“Good afternoon, Murphy” came the reply. I was pleased to hear his voice was still mostly intact, even if the rest of him wasn’t.“I’m sorry to see you’re not looking so well. I was foolishly hoping time wouldn’t have ravaged your appearance, but alas, she has.”
“Yes, time is a cruel whore indeed. I am no longer the robust man-about-town I once was, but in my mind, I am exactly the same as when I helped you solve your last case.”
“Oh yeah, the rabbit mystery. I had totally forgotten about that!”
“Well, at least one of us still has a good memory” he said. He laughed what began as a hearty laugh, but it soon broke off into a coughing fit, evidence that his years of smoking like a tourist in Amsterdam had finally caught up with him.“I’ll crack on with the real reason I’m here, Byron. I don’t know if your psychic powers are still what they were, in which case, I’m sorry to be repeating myself, but there’s a bounty on my head. My Dad came to visit me recently, and not long before he was murdered in my apartment, he told me somebody wanted to kill me, somebody that both he and I know or knew, depending on how you look at it. I have a feeling it’s Christina, since I saw her the other night buying a gun from a bunch of shady looking misfits at her estate, just after she’d invited me to a show of hers next Saturday, the place she probably plans to kill me. Also, I’ve been getting a series of cryptic messages, and—”
“Slow down, slow down boy! I may not be losing my mind but I still need time to take everything in, especially when it’s as twisted as the stuff you’re telling me!”
“Sorry” I murmured. As bizarre as it sounds, I hadn’t realised he didn’t know any of this. With all of my other cases, I had come to Byron early on and fed him information as I myself received it. I guess I hadn’t done that this time because I thought I could handle it myself. I had been wrong.
“So what else makes you think Christina did it? Forgive me if I don’t think the reasons you’ve given me so far are all that concrete.”
“Well, I hurt her an awful lot during our marriage. I cheated on her a stupid amount of times, with all sortsa women, and when she found out, she became depressed for a long time, a recluse even! I can’t think of anybody else with a connection to both me and my Dad who would want this conclusion.”“Well, I suppose you do make a convincing argument, but she can’t be the only person you’ve wronged in that town of yours, or even elsewhere! Think long and hard Angelo, who else could want you asleep and underground?”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried that already?! I came to you because I was all out of ideas, not because I jumped straight to the first conclusion I could think of!”
With that, I was out of my seat, sweat running, hands shaking. It was the angriest I’d been in a while, and I guess all these mixed emotions running through me must’ve been bubbling up. Byron shot me a look which suggested I should sit down this instant, so I did. We were on the same level at this point in our relationship, but I still never disobeyed certain orders.
“Now look boy. I may not have much time left on this planet, and I don’t wish to spend it fighting with a renegade who’s flying off the handle like you are. Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
Again, I did what he said.“Right, now as I was saying, I don’t think you’ve got this case as wrapped up as you think you have. It all seems too easy to me, and if you remember your training, a case is never as simple as you think it is, so I’m ruling Christina out as the murderer here, and I suggest you do the same. I’ve met that woman, Angelo, both with you and without you, and I know for a fact that she does not want you dead. What you saw with her and the gun, that has to be something else.”
Just then, my phone rang. I didn’t wanna keep Byron waiting, but when he saw me look down at my vibrating pocket, he began fixing himself a drink, so I took that as a sign I could answer the call.“Angelo, it’s Booky. Listen, you need to come down here, now.”
“Booky I’m in West Virginia, it’s not that simple.”
I heard Booky take in a breath before he next spoke. “I hear what’cha saying, but believe me, you need to get down here now. It’s Christina.”
“What about her?”
“…she’s been arrested, on suspicion of murder.”
