Now look at him – what with spell-checker switched on he can write with the best of them. His various professions have all involved writing, but only in the field of scientific endeavour. So it stands to reason that, when he comes home from a hard day of typing, he likes to relax in front of the computer for yet more typing. The difference is that at home – writing means fiction.

By way of illustration, here is a short, short story. As you will see, he still has trouble with ssspelling.

The eyes of the dragon

I was content to sleep on, content in my dreams and the knowledge that the gold that I lay upon was ssssafe, untouchable as long as I breathed. I would have posed no threat to mankind had I been left to ssslumber. But no, it’s the gold you ssssee.

Mankind has a predilection for the ssstuff that almost exceeds my own, and does them far from good. For me it is an essssential part of my existence, a sssoporific, without which I cannot sssleep. But for men it causes every kind of hardship.

There I was, purring away, dreaming dreams of far off times, of monsters and great battles between peoples who have ceased to exist – nay, even the memory of the people has ceased to exist, except in my own timeless mind. When my third eye, the one in the middle of my forehead that remains open at all times; Third Eye detected something moving in one of the archways on the seventh level. Things that move are not to do so without my say, I say. Ssso Third Eye says to Sssecond Eye, he says –

‘Wake up you sssluggard, we have company.’ Yesss I know it sounds peculiar, eyes talking to one another and all, but bear with me.

‘Wake up, I sssay,’ it said. Sssecond eye opened... bang, like a double shotted canon broadside, and many times more deadly. We dragons pride ourselves on the damage and mayhem we can cause by the fiery glance of Ssssecond Eye. And mine was ever so deadly. The glance fell on the dust entombed shadowed alcoves. The glance wrought fire so fierce that the pillars of stone turned to rivers of molten rock. 

But it only provoked my enemies. Every entrance and archway that surrounded my lair filled with running crouching figures, men with guns and lights, ferocious red lights that blinded Third Eye, and sought out Second Eye. They woke up First Eye, the eye that had not tasted this world since the Roman legions wandered off the face of the Earth. First Eye also has a power, a different power to Ssssecond Eye, you might say an opposing power. First Eye sucks the heat out of everything it sets its gaze upon, sucks out every last milli-curie of heat from a living being. It turns raging rivers into ice in less time than it takes to fart.

It was a momentous fight, a battle that children will read about as if it were more myth than truth. All my enemies were atomised, but I suffered also. Both First and Sssecond Eye received wounds, while Third Eye was utterly destroyed. I close my eyes now to sooth the pain, and I listen...I listen to those that follow. My power is almost gone. I cannot win another fight. And they will come, they will have more power than before, and I will relinquish my hold on life... at last. It has been foretold – men will tread upon my lifeless form, and the gold, such immense wealth, shall ruin mankind. Their days will number just sssix more than my own, before the final battle commences – and that battle shall only csssease when no man remains alive.