Inside E-Book

William A. Pollard

• Herausgeber: Europa Edizioni
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

I know that you know that there is a lot going on inside your body.
Educated people, like professors, and doctors, and nurses, and teachers, and first aiders, and paramedics all have long, indescribable and sometimes unpronounceable names for the things that they think work inside you to keep you upright.
Names like Epididymis (that’s my favourite), and Oesophagus, and Duodenum.
The truth is, your anatomy and physiology are far more interesting than you think.

What you don’t realise is that there is a whole community of tiny workers managing your insides. A really, really tiny community of people with the singular purpose of keeping your anatomy and physiology working in first class condition. They’re happy looking after your insides… Until something goes wrong.

Born in Sheffield, in 1950, Bill is now retired and lives with Sheila, his wife of over fifty-four years.
In 1966, at the age of 15½, he joined the army and enjoyed many overseas postings, with tours in Northern Ireland, France, Cyprus, Kenya, Iran, Bermuda and the USA. 
He culminated his Army career in 1977 as an instructor.
Since leaving the army Bill has been employed as a television and film extra, a building surveyor, a lecturer, technical adviser to an insurer and, just prior to retirement, as a self employed health and safety consultant.
Bill is a published author and is also a published music composer and arranger.

Leseprobe

BUILD

UNIVERSES

William A. Pollard

INSIDE

Copyright © William A. Pollard 2024

The right of William A. Pollard to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication

may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,

copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to

this publication may be liable to criminal

prosecution and civil claims for damage.

© 2024 Europe Books| London

www.europebooks.co.uk | [email protected]

ISBN 9791220153065

First edition: September 2024

INSIDE

BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

MY ROGUE GENE

ISBN : 978-1-80074-296-3

Bill’s autobiography. Full of amusing anecdotes from his past, from the time he was born up to the time he left the army after twelve years service.

Olympia Publishers

Amazon Bookstore

MY GROWN-UP ROGUE GENE

ISBN: 978-1-80439-313-0

More nonsense from Bill’s rogue gene, now grown-up and still interfering with Bill’s life.

This is a sequel to My Rogue Gene, highlighting Bill’s life from the time he left the army to his life in civvy street and into retirement.

Olympia Publishers

Amazon Bookstore

BEHIND ROSE BORDERED WINDOWS

(Winner of the Golden Book Prize at the Rome Literary Awards, March 2024)

ISBN - 979-1-22014-338-7

William Colbert’s wife dies. Everyone is convinced her death was an accident, including William. He has inherited a country manor in a remote part of the country, but his new life is thrown into disarray when he witnesses distressing events through the windows of the five picture postcard cottages facing his new home... Nobody believes what he has seen, until the truth about his inheritance, and his wife, is revealed.

Europe Books

Amazon Bookstore

LUCKY, OR WHAT…?

ISBN: 979-1-22014-866-5

How many people, do you think, have just wished that they had more good luck in their lives? What you don’t realise is that the quicker you use up your good luck, the nearer you are to having a shed load of bad luck.

Playing an on-line game, eight finalists don’t know that if they lose the game, they die. Something else they don’t know is that if they win the game, they die.

Either way, they’re dead...

Europe Books

Amazon Bookstore

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My thanks to Marie Brewer.

Marie read, then re-read, then read again, my manuscript for this book to wheedle out my stupid errors and omissions. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to put together a relevant storyline.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 (Average Sid)

Chapter 2 (Incoming…!)

Chapter 3 (A rock and a hard place)

Chapter 4 (Excessive input of nourishment)

Chapter 5 (The manhole is full)

Chapter 6 (Rumble, rumble, clunk!)

Chapter 7 (Half a tooth)

Chapter 8 (Birds are really, really picky)

Chapter 9 (The beginning of a difficult journey)

Chapter 10 (Open the gates)

Chapter 11 (Moules Marinière… Mmmm)

Chapter 12 (…and the bugs multiplied)

Chapter 13 (Oooooh!)

Chapter 14 (What? Speak up)

Chapter 15 (Help! Let me in!)

Chapter 16 (The egg hotel)

Chapter 17 (Cough, cough, cough)

Chapter 18 (More oxygen)

Chapter 19 (The helpline)

Chapter 20 (A war)

Chapter 21 (Blackhead alert!)

Chapter 22 (Closed Comedones)

Chapter 23 (Party time)

Chapter 24 (Dizzy juice)

Chapter 25 (The party’s over - Nat King Cole, 1957)

Chapter 26 (Forgotten anything?)

Chapter 27 (Be prepared)

Chapter 28 (Oh, No!)

Chapter 29 (Situation critical)

Chapter 30 (It’s going to be a long night)

Chapter 31 (Brrr! It’s freezing)

Chapter 32 (Ouch!)

Chapter 33 (Sid’s repairs)

Chapter 34 (Let’s get fit)

Chapter 35 (Uh?)

Chapter 36 (Phew! Sweaty…)

Chapter 37 (A close call)

Chapter 38 (A blockage)

Chapter 39 (Wakey wakey)

Chapter 40 (Sleeeeep)

Chapter 41 (That’s what I said, sir)

Chapter 42 (So sad)

Chapter 43 (Oh dear…)

Chapter 44 (What’s that smell?)

Chapter 45 (Jump!)

Chapter 46 (It’s time, Sid…)

Epilogue

THE CAST

(in order of appearance)

OUTSIDE

Sidney (Sid) Smethers

Sara Smethers

Suzy Summers,

nee Smethers

Stan

Steve and Stella

Spencer

Sid’s dentist

Sahila

Siham

Saloua

Seth

Scott Smethers

Symone Smethers

Sean

Sandra

Pub landlord

Sergio and Sage

Salvatore

Sabine

Severo

Hospital nurse

Shane

Sonny Summers

Sunny Summers

Himself. Born 1987

Sid’s wife. Born 1987

Sid’s daughter. Born 2008.

Married to Sonny

Suzy’s ex-boyfriend

from her schooldays

Stan’s parents

Sara’s ex-boyfriend

from her schooldays

He’s got a pearly white smile,

with perfect teeth

Tangiers hotel receptionist.

A greedy bloke

Tangiers hotel chef.

Can be bribed

Tangiers doctor

Sid’s neighbour

Sid’s brother

Scott’s wife

Symone’s father

Spencer’s wife

Himself. Sean did a good deal

with him for Symone’s

wedding reception

Sid’s Italy holiday acquaintances

The Italy hotel’s manager

The Italy hotel’s receptionist

Italy’s search and rescue organiser

Herself

Sid’s personal trainer

Suzy’s husband

Suzy’s daughter

INSIDE

Brian, the brain manager

Lee, the lookout manager

Piers, the pump manager

Lee, the listening manager

Merv, the message wires &

ideas chip manager

Mick, the masher

Fred, the food shoveller

Kevin, the kitchen manager

Waste chute

Tim, the trapdoor manager

Wally, the wax manager

Daphne, the defence force manager

Ida

Billy, The big wrapping manager

Bella, the bellows manager

Manny, the metabolism

status manager

Fay, the filters manager

Max, the mechanics manager

Connor, the courier

and keep fit manager

Tommy, the

temperature manager

Nick, the nourishment manager

Theola, the

thermoregulators manager

Tony, the tank manager

Sienna, the sniffer & smell manager

aka the C.O.

(Commanding Officer)

aka the Eyes - not

to be confused with Lee,

the listening manager

aka the Heart

aka the Ears - not

to be confused with Lee,

the lookout manager

aka the Nerves

aka Mastication

aka the Throat - shovels

food into the chute

aka the Stomach

aka the Intestines - there’s

a manhole at the top

sealing the chute

from the kitchen

aka the Anal Sphincter

aka Ear wax

aka the Immune system

Daphne’s assistant

aka the Skin

aka the Lungs - she is

loud and pumps iron

aka the Liver - married to Fay

aka the Kidneys - married

to Manny

aka the Skeleton

Brian’s runner

Speaks for itself

aka the Blood supply

aka the sweat glands

aka the Bladder

aka the Nose

Reproduction Departments Inside

SID:

Axel, the aquarium manager

Blaire, the ballbag manager

Edgar, the Epididymis manager

Eddie, the exit chute manager

SARA:

Elsie, the egg production manager

Anita, the arrival lounge manager

Eva, the egg hotel manager

aka the Prostate

aka the Testes

Responsible for

categorisation & measuring of Sid’s tadpoles (aka Sperm)

aka the Vas Deferens & Urethra (Penis)

aka ovaries

aka the oviduct & fallopian tubes

aka Uterus

Prologue

Look in a mirror. What do you see?

Okay, I know that you see you, but look closer. Look into your eyes. Look up your nose. Look into your mouth.

Still can’t see any more than anyone else? That’s understandable. You see your eyes, and ears, and nose, and mouth and throat and stomach, and lots of other appendages that you ignore until one of them gets sick- then you ask yourself, “What’s going on inside my body?”

You might just have an innocent hang-over from last night’s partying. Perhaps you’re battling through something more troubling, like a vicious bout of the Tangier Trots, brought on by something you munched during last night’s partying.

Whatever it is that made you wonder what goes on inside you, let me dispel any ideas you may have that your bodily functions are being controlled by some biological, chemical, anatomical or physical reaction.

Doctors spend many years studying and remembering the size, shape, location, orientation and function of every organ closely packed inside your skeletal frame and conveniently covered by a waterproof coating we call our skin. Those years are also spent studying other, more noticeable stuff; your nails and hair and fingers and arms and legs and toes and feet and lots of other attachments that all require care and attention to keep them in tip-top condition. Even more years are taken up learning how to repair your body, both inside and out, when something goes wrong with it.

The truth is, your anatomy and physiology is far more interesting than you think.

The doctors and nurses have all learned their stuff from books with intricate pictures of your insides, showing where your heart and your kidneys and your intestines and your lungs and your stomach and your brain, and everything else, is located. They learn what they look like and what all these organs and bones and joints do to keep you upright.

Complex, eh? Not really, because what the doctors and nurses learn from books and lectures and endless homework sessions long into the night is only half right!

It’s true...

“Why?” I hear you ask.

Well, what you don’t realise is that there is a whole community of tiny workers managing your bodily functions. A really, really tiny community of people with the singular purpose of keeping your anatomy and physiology working in first class condition. They rarely go on strike for more pay because they don’t get paid. They don’t need money or credit cards or bank accounts, because they have everything they need inside you. They have food and somewhere to sleep and regular changes of clothes. So, for them, what’s the point of having money? No point at all. An absolutely useless commodity. They’re happy as they are… Until something goes wrong.

Okay, you still have kidneys, and a brain, and lungs, and a bladder and everything else that doctors and nurses learn about from their books, but I can assure you that a miniscule community of people are managing those anatomical assets. They shovel and pump and inflate and mix and clean and dispose of the rubbish - just like a colony of ants in their nest. A busy factory. Everything the same as what we, as grown-up humans, do. They watch where you’re going to make sure you don’t bump into things and they hear the noises that are being made outside their environment. But this colony never leaves its nest. The community is inside you for life. You were born with it and it grows with you.

Still not convinced?

Okay, read on and you will be persuaded.

Chapter 1

(Average Sid)

Before I delve deep inside your body, just remember one thing… All your organs are dependent on each other. If one system goes down you can bet your big toe that others will follow pretty quickly, unless you can help your inside community put right that which is wrong. Okay?

Okay.

I suppose that the logical place to start is with your brain.

Yes, you do have a brain, although I know one or two blokes whose brains consist of just two brain cells. As long as there is a spark between those two brain cells those blokes seem to function normally, but it doesn’t take much for them to adopt a tangential path away from normality - usually a few pints of beer…

Anyway, back to your brain.

Your brain detects and processes sensory information, activating bodily responses. Simply put, the brain regulates whole-body physiology, functions and movements. Your very own internal computer.

This is an important job, yes? So it is labour intensive. With millions of miles of wiring (you call this wiring your nerves), regulation of body movements, muscle control and lots of other functions to manage, you cannot survive without your brain unless, of course, you are in the two brain cell league of idiots previously mentioned.

Brian, the brain manager, knows this and he has a staff of forty or fifty tiny operatives sat in front of their PC consoles, busily tapping away on their keyboards to control all the anatomical and physiological functions of your body. They continually monitor the thirty computer servers that communicate with the other departments inside you.

*

Outside, Sidney Smethers - Sid to his mates - is an average type of guy. He is the subject of my exploration of your insides.

Everything about him is average. He got average marks from the exams he took during an average education. He’s got average intelligence, and an average height and weight - and an average physique. He has average eyesight and he is far from handsome because he has an average face, with average features and average ears protruding from his average sized head. During PT, at school, he was always chosen in the middle of the choosing sessions. Never first choice because he wasn’t good enough, but then, never last choice because he was better than the losers. Just average at sport. His style of clothes is average. Not loud and colourful but, again, not plain and boring. Just average.

Sid is so average he is almost invisible. In fact, so invisible that you might miss him if he was standing on a box and waving at you with a big flag from the middle of a field, even though he is the only person in that field.

Like I said - an average type of guy.

He lives in an average semi-detached house situated on an average estate with his wife Sara.

Now, Sara is far from average.

She is gorgeous. She has a gorgeous figure that is coveted by almost every woman she meets. She’s got a film-star face, she spends a lot of time making her gorgeous hair just right to please Sid, and she wears clothes that complement her bright, sunny, outgoing personality.

Sid is the envy of all his friends and acquaintances because Sara is so gorgeous. There isn’t any one of Sid’s mates who wouldn’t swap their present wife for Sara. Quite what she saw in Sid when they first met is anybody’s guess, but they both worship each other and neither would let anything come between them.

Anyway, we’re going to look at Sid’s community of really, really tiny people.

It is tea time at Sid’s House and he has decided to give his beautiful Sara a night off, from cooking, by getting a take-away meal from his local Chinese take-away shop. He returned home with two plastic bags containing trays of pre-cooked roasted duck breast with ginger sauce, egg fried rice, chow mein, aromatic king prawn stir fry, pan fried scallops, six sticks of pork satay and two crunch spring rolls. For dessert he took home a bowl of sherry trifle and two large cream-filled eclairs.

For Sara, he got a couple of crispy pancakes with some egg fried rice and a small yogurt…

Watching Sid tuck into his take-away, Sara decided to remind him about the folly of gorging on so much high cholesterol stuff. She never nags Sid, but sometimes he just needs a gentle reminder that his present healthy condition will not last forever.

“You do realise that you’re going to have a heart attack after eating all that fatty food, don’t you?”

“Nah. This is just a snack,” smiled Sid.

“Okay, have it your way,” she sighed. “I hope you’re not expecting me to visit you in hospital with tubes entering every orifice you have. You know I don’t like hospitals.”

“I won’t be going to hospital soon,” he replied, trying to appease Sara’s concern, at the same time stuffing a King Prawn into his mouth.

“Can I have that in writing?” she asked. “Talking of which, have you renewed your life insurance policy? I’m going to need some help paying off the mortgage.”

“Don’t worry,” Sid smiled. “I’ve got a few years in me before you’ll need that.”

I wonder if Sid knew what was actually going on inside…

Chapter 2

(Incoming…!)

Most people ignore their eyes… Until they get something in one of them. This could be a fleck of mascara, or an eye lash, or some dust, or somebody’s angry finger.

Believe it, or not, your eyes are not as incredibly complex as the professionals would like you to think. They will try to persuade you that there is stuff called Vitreous Humour, and Macula, and Choroid, and Retina, and all sorts of other stuff inside your eyes that merit long passages and colourful pictures in textbooks. Not so…

Inside Sid, Lee, the lookout manager - not to be confused with Lee, the listening manager - sits in front of a PC console that is attached to a pair of huge binoculars inside each one of Sid’s eyeballs. From here he controls the direction and focus of both of Sid’s eyes. From his lookout station Lee keeps watch on where Sid is going, and what his hands and feet are doing, and what other people are doing, and how far away that lamp post is, and where the puddles of water are and how incredibly fast that bus is travelling towards him as he crosses the road. In fact, anything that is likely to have any kind of effect on Sid’s forward facing, vertical status. From Sid’s perspective, vertical is good. Unless, that is, he is on the cusp of falling asleep or he can feel Sara’s roving hand interrupting his thoughts of tomorrow’s breakfast as he slides into dreamland...

Lee transmits his observation status to Brian, the brain manager, to enable Brian to make the important decisions about Sid’s movements, and he also copies the data to other parts of Sid’s body to keep the managers of those parts updated on events appertaining to Sid’s environment.

When Sid poured the contents of the take-away trays onto a plate for his tea Lee sat up, his eyes wide at the enormity of Sid’s meal.

Hurriedly picking up his microphone he made an emergency announcement over the Tannoy system to all departments.

“This is an emergency announcement to all departments. INCOMING! All departments prepare for an excessive input of nourishment…”

Piers, the pump (aka heart) manager, opened the taps on the barrels of Adrenalin, kept in the Adrenal store for such events, to regulate Sid’s cardiac output. He worried that he may not have a sufficient supply of Adrenalin to activate an anticipated rapid acceleration of Sid’s pump beat and maintain its speed, brought on by an overload of excessive nourishment...

*

Outside, Sid happily tucked into his feast, not knowing about the flurry of activity inside him as he chatted about nothing in particular to Sara.

One thing he did notice, however, was a slight increase in his heart rate as he munched through his enormous meal. Bump, bump, bump, bump, Sid’s heart banged against his ribs in protest at the extra work Piers, the pump manager, had made it do. Sid thought nothing of the increased work that Piers had initiated…

Suzy, Sid’s daughter, is a precocious young girl. We’ll come back to Suzy much later, when she gets a blackhead, but she gets her good looks and intelligence from Sara and she is able to wrap Sid around her little finger any time she likes.

“Mum?”

“Yes, pet?” answered Sara.

“Can I stay over at Stan’s house tonight?”

“Why?”

Now, Sara knows precisely why Suzy wants to stay over at Stan’s house tonight. Suzy is, after all, a ‘woman of the world’, as she likes to think of herself, even though she has never been any further than Margate. Sara knows that Steve and Stella, Stan’s parents, are away on a long weekend in some far off balmy climate, sipping fluorescent looking drinks while they sat at a bar on the beach - and Stan will be on his own while they are away. Sara is also aware of what teenagers do when their parents can’t see what they are up to. Parents are always keen to interrupt any ‘goings on’ that should not be going on, aren’t they? Sara remembered that she was once a young sixteen year old herself, and she had some good memories of Spencer, a class friend from her own schooldays, and herself rolling about in a hay barn. Sid doesn’t know about Spencer ‘cos he’s never asked.

Suzy thought up a good reason.

“Well, we’ve got a lot of homework tonight and I don’t think you would like me to walk home when it’s late, would you?”

“No, that’s true. I can come and pick you up when you’re ready.”

There was a pause for some more thought from Suzy, during which Sara thought to herself ‘Homework, my arse. The only homework they’ll be doing is playing mummies and daddies…’

Suzy proffered a contrived response. “I’m sure you won’t want to be disturbed from your film tonight. Can I, Mum? Can I?”

“I don’t know, Suzy. I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, mum. It’ll be too late, soon. There’ll be no point in going and I won’t get a good mark for my homework if Stan doesn’t help me.”

Then Suzy had a flash of inspiration.

“Anyway, this homework is a joint project so I won’t be able to finish it without Stan ‘cos he’s the partner chosen for me by my teacher. Can I?”

Turning to Sid, Suzy pleaded, “Can I, Dad? Can I?. Pleeeeease.”

Sid had been listening to this conversation…