On Day 2 of NaPoWriMo, the site
offered a mythological prompt. As I have Scandinavian heritage I
decided I'd look up a few Norse myths and modernise one that caught my eye.
The
Norse battleground of Manchester's Market St,
steaming
with the breath of a thousand consumer warriors.
Heimdallr
swaggers, swigs Jim Beam and honey, sways.
Scarf-less,
he bears his name, calligraphic on his neck
and
grabs his crotch, taunting Loki
a rival
gang hoodrat.
Heimdallr's
quest: the retrieval of stolen treasures-
the
Elizabeth Duke chain around Loki's neck.
Under
the Arndale Food Court,
a
burning bridge of neon and junk food,
the two
soldiers face off.
Loki
walks into his trap.
Heimdallr,
gold teeth blinding his opponent,
Stepmums:
9, real mum: unknown,
throws
down his hoodie to the floor of the cobbled arena.
They
charge, warring, medallion fisted.
As Loki
swings, Heimdallr morphs,
fattens,
slumps. He is a seal. A seal.
The
shoppers stop and gaze. The buskers cease their strumming.
Even the
mime artists break their pose.
Heimdallr's
teeth dig into Loki's tail,
who in
turn swings, bludgeoning,
spraying
blood over the Three store's mobile broadband deals.
The
shoppers- the chav paparazzi- stop and huddle,
phones
raised like swords before battle.
The
sex-starved bible preachers finally fall silent,
PCSOs
clutch their shoulder radios, but relay no messages.
Heimdallr
stumbles, reaches for stability,
clutches
the chain from Loki's neck and snaps it off,
severing
an artery.
The
entrance to Boots: spattered in Norse blood,
an arc
of red whipping over the accident claims salesmen,
finally
silencing them.
With his
last heartbeat, Heimdallr lunges,
falls on
Loki, mouth first, his broad shoulders
weighing
in behind his teeth, rupturing his Nordic throat.
And as
their spirits rise over the blocky Viking settlement of Manchester,
This
tale will not be held in ancient Nordic scriptures,
not
stored behind glass on frayed excavated canvas,
but in
the news feeds of a million Facebook accounts,
an
eight-figure-view Youtube video,
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