OFFAL - Liffy's Lament; Synopsis extracts

As far as life changing events go most people would have to admit that dying

would be pretty high up the list and that, in most instances, when a person

dies, that‟s it, life extinct, terminated, dead.

Imagine Liffy‟s surprise when, following his sudden and untimely death, he

discovered that there is in fact a subtle difference between „Died‟ and „Dead‟.

Dead is Defunct, Extinct and Decaying – Died is what you do before you‟re

dead; you‟re in a sort of limbo. You move around in the world of the living, even

though you‟ve died. Like ghosts with substance, the main difference being that

you‟re still real, walking, talking, breathing, bleeding; people can see you and

touch you. What they can‟t do is recognise you for who you were, and won‟t

remember you were there when you‟ve gone!

From his first encounter with his new boss, Tres Corolla, his relationship with

the real Father Christmas and his quest to rid the world of a SMEL, Liffy takes

us on a roller coaster ride of madness and mayhem, culminating somewhere

deep in the Yorkshire moors.

Offal - Liffys Lament is available on Amazon or via Facebook – If you enjoy please leave feedback, like

and share with friends etc.

“Very good - a sort of cross between Robert Rankin, Tom Holt and Terry Pratchett on speed..."

"The best way I can describe it is Discworld meets MiB. An excellent and very funny read from the very start. I'll

never consider death in the same way ever again. Roll on the sequels! "

“This book is fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good laugh, straight into the main plot

with original characters that cause chaos and mayhem wherever they go”.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/OFFAL-Liffys-/lament-Steve-Cowton-ebook/dp/B008GIMFRY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395406217&sr=8-1&keywords=steve+cowton






https://www.facebook.com/pages/Liffy-Dampwell/478976842191324

‘Aaah Jesus Shit!’ exclaimed Tres‘Ooops!’ gurgled Liffy, still trying to focus both eyes together, whilst tainting the air with some uncontrolled flatulence.‘Christ almighty fella,’ Whilst carefully extricating herself from Liffy’s uncontrollable limbs, and other bodily functions, Tres, somehow managed to use his groin as a leverage point, her knee applying steady, but excruciating pain to his genitals as she managed to push herself away, ‘Where did we find you? You’re a bleeding nightmare!’Feeling a sudden, compelling need to offer some words and gestures of apology, even though most of his anatomy was currently experiencing varying levels of pain, Liffy began to shuffle forwards once again. When Tres’s high heeled foot slammed, viciously, into the seat cushion, only inches from his already throbbing genitalia, his body decided enough was enough and stopped dead of its own accord.‘Do not move!’

Extract from - Offal - Liffys Lament available on Amazon

The main character Liffy Dampwell also has his own Facebook Page – please like and share with friends etc.

If you enjoy please leave feedback on the Amazon and / or Facebook sites











“A neat, medium sized man, looking pretty fit and carrying a briefcase that looked more like a school satchel, pushed his way past and strode into the room. Stopping in front of the desk, keeping his back to Liffy, he smoothed the creases out of his light cotton slacks, pulled his shirt sleeves neatly into place, repositioned his tie, then span suddenly around offering a toothy grin,‘Hewwo, sowwy, about that, swightwy iwwitating when you know somebody’s in, but they don’t answew the doow.’ Coughing slightly to clear his throat, he took a single, measured step forwards and stabbed his hand outwards straight from the shoulder,‘Evade Dribble, pweased to meet you too.’Liffy’s world was rapidly crumbling, but he took the offered hand and shook it somewhat half-heartedly. Stepping away from the grinning figure, wondering if smiling and grinning was a trademark of these strange people, he sank back into the armchair and dropped his head into his hands. Then sighed ‘Ooooh Shit’ very heavily.”











“The big eyebrows raised themselves to within spitting distance of the associated hairline,‘You really don’t know who I am – do you?’Liffy was getting a little more than irritated now,‘How many more times No No No No! I don’t know you! I’ve never met you before! You hide behind the door, sitting there in your big black boots, big red suit, big white beard and all that, spouting Ho Ho Ho! Just like bloody…San…ta……blood…y…..Claus.’ The eyes were sparkling, the cheeks rosy red and the whiskers failed to hide the biggest of grins, ‘Holy shit, are you trying to tell me that you are… ’‘Ho Ho Ho’ offered the voice a little more flippantly than intended ‘I prefer B B, that’s my actual initials, but hey, what the hell, call me whatever…. Good to meet you Liffy!’ a big hand was suddenly thrust forwards.”












“As he chanted so his voice grew louder until, at the end he was almost shouting, his voice echoing back off of the silent gravestones – which added greatly to the desired effect. Using some considerable force he brought both hands inwards and flung them downward to point at the ground between his feet. As he did so he released two smoke bombs, cleverly secreted within the sleeves of his anorak – at this point it is probably worth mentioning that the smoke bombs had come free with a second hand pyrotechnics kit he’d purchased off of a barrow at a Sunday Car Boot sale. There followed a fairly significant explosion, sufficient to extinguish all four candles, clear the area of those artefacts the Wich’s had carefully laid there and further decimate two of the neighbouring headstones. Bambi remained standing – just - his clothes, like those of the Wich’s behind him, were now dishevelled and sooty. His face was blackened and he coughed small puffs of greyish smoke.”









Nobody noticed a small blue sportscar nip out of the traffic and stop, rather sharply, just in front of the camper van.‘Let’s just calm down a little’ offered Bill, moving his head from side to side as if he were checking it was still attached. Then, touching his fingers to the end of his nose, checking for any signs of bleeding, he looked straight at Bernie ‘I’m sure we can sort this out.’‘Course we can, I’m going to arrest him, take him down the station…lock him in a cell…then kick the cr…here where’s my cap!’‘Cad somedody help be det up?’ asked Liffy.‘Ye gods’ offered Bill, sighing and looking at his watch…ten minutes to the end of his shift. ‘why don’t we just all calm down and…’At that particular moment in time Tres stepped around the camper door, dressed immaculately in a royal blue business suit, and smiled her sweetest smile.‘Hi boys, having fun?’















“The ghostly figure floated closer, up to the very edge of the jetty, its strange noises increasing in volume, sounding something like a wheezing old boiler which was fit to burst. The figure hunched over half turned towards the jetty then raised a wizened looking finger, pointing vaguely in Liffy’s direction. Liffy squeaked, desperately tried to manoeuvre Evade between the figure and himself, whilst B B ensured that he couldn’t escape back down the jetty.The figure made a final raucous, coughing noise, raised its arm a little higher, sneezed very loudly whilst bringing the hand quickly up to its nose,‘Aaah choo! Bollocks…’ the figure sniffed loudly, allowed the resultant mixture to gurgle in the back of its throat for a few seconds, then spat, loudly, over the side of the jetty and into the water. ‘…Bloody mist gets right down into your chest…’ another sneeze, another deep raucous cough followed by a splash as the resultant product was volleyed into the water, ‘…be the bloody death of me, it will.”












“This had been his first time, even though he was hundreds of years old, he had up until now, been a virgin. He had possessed plenty of people; in fact he’d almost lost count of how many, but never before had he been resident in a host when it had engaged in activities of a carnal nature. What’s more he had found the whole experience rather distasteful. All the huffing and puffing, writhing about, expending energy, getting all sweaty and sticky and then having to suffer his host collapsing with exhaustion onto the wet patch, there to remain until the early hours of the morning. Disgusting, and the smell, he’d half expected every cat in the neighbourhood to be scratching at the window by now.This had to stop, he would invoke one of the clause attached to the ‘granting of wishes’ procedure. There must be something along the lines of not being compelled to grant wishes that would, de facto, cause harm, physical, mental or emotional, to the person so granting the wish. If there wasn’t such a clause, there was now, if necessary he’d raise the paperwork when he eventually got back to the office, but as of now Clause one hundred thousand six hundred and ninety three, existed and could – nay would – be invoked forthwith.”












Tres looked directly at Liffy, only for the briefest of moments but long enough for him to feel like shrinking closer to the ground, then she smiled and Liffy passed wind in responsive anticipation.Tres, quite nonchalantly for her, leaned her upper body forwards, which had the obvious effect of pushing the remainder of her backwards; making very firm contact with Blambo’spressing advantage. Blambo made a funny little noise in the back of his throat, attempted to move closer and take even more of an advantage. Tres, even more nonchalantly leaned even further forwards, stretched her arm backwards between her own legs, pointed Blambo’s own weapon upwards and fired twice. Accepted once would have been more than enough, but then she was feeling a little irritated.Blambo would have screamed – well wouldn’t you? – But the instant explosion of pain in between his legs far surpassed any requirement to do so. His face turned a very sickly green, his eyes bulged so far out its debatable whether they’ll ever go back and the contents of his stomach were violently expelled via his nose and mouth.












“Liffy was really worried now. He’d come to terms with having died and being a fool and all that. He’d even got over the shock of discovering that – even though he wasn’t technically dead – he could actually be killed all over again. He’d conquered his fear of water, survived being shot at, narrowly escaped being barbecued, had his face frozen to the floor, was currently being abused by a very helpful hunchback and now…he paused to take a quick breath…and now a group of very strange people, claiming to be from the FfIRM were having a very serious discussion with Father Christmas with the intention of shoving his farts back into his body. Even Liffy could only take so much; after all if his body had wanted to retain his noxious gases why go to all the trouble of expelling them in the first place.”









“Then it appeared, like a vision in the moonlight, purring quietly as it slid towards him.It came to rest, only inches from his knees, his mouth fell open and his brain struggled to find any intelligible means of describing what he saw – which was nothing new, but at this moment in time, even if he had been capable of intelligible speech this instance would have robbed him of it. The beast sat, squatted even, simmering on four wheels, it was black, in a greeny sort of way, with a shine that looked deep enough to swim in. At first glance it looked like a van, but that was seconds before it grabbed your eyes and dragged them into itself, forcing you to flow into its curves, ensuring that, whoever you were, you just had to take a second look. When you did you could see it for what it was, quite simply perfection, a dream. It sat and hugged the ground in front of him, seemingly sitting on the motoring equivalent of elephant’s feet, whilst two extremely shiny ivory tusk type side pipes allowed its emissions to burble quietly into the night”.















“Liffy’s tongue dangled out through his lips and slopped from side to side as Evade tried to shake the life out of his throat. Unsure of what else to do Liffy smiled through the saliva which had started frothing on his lips, leaned his head as far forward as he could and puked onto Evades hands. Evade instantly let go and did his level best to get as far away from Liffy as possible. He sort of semi jumped, scrambled and fell over backwards, picked himself up almost instantly, turned and fell over the passenger seat, which Liffy had discarded earlier, fell forwards, grabbed hold of B B’s legs and yanked him out of the window.B B came down with a bump, sat down heavily on top of Evade, belched, farted and blew little snotty bubbles out of his nose.‘Uughaw, aawgh!’ gurgled Evade as B B’s weight pressed down onto the back of his chest.‘Ho Ho Ho!’ offered B B, stretching his arms and flexing his fingers, ‘thought I was stuck there for a moment.”












“Liffy kept one hand on his privates and instinctively moved the other to cover his rear end, his eyes desperately trying to watch all seven circulars at once. Which was when he discovered a smallish piece of cloth, something like a little bag, seemingly tucked into the crease of his bottom. Making another quick check on the seven, he grasped hold of the bag and gave it a tug, gently, just in case. He felt something stringy like, pull up between his testicles and something similar tighten across the top of his groins.…are you ready Liffy Dampwell?’‘Eh…what…I…’ Liffy was still struggling with the stringy thing, ‘…be with you in a minute…start without me…I won’t mind!’Having finally twigged that the little bag wasn’t a cleverly designed sanitation device for incontinent men, but was actually one of those thong things, which he was wearing back to front, Liffy was still struggling to rearrange it without actually taking it off.”












“Tess had no time to react, retort or anything. No sooner had the bloody spittle settled on Bambi’s chin, than a glittering cloud of swirling blue mist appeared above his head, hovered for a moment then dropped downwards to cover him entirely. Tess’s eyes goggled, her nostrils flared, her mouth fell open and her moustache fought against being sucked off of her top lip. She was agog, totally and completely amazed, her knees trembled and her bladder decided to send its contents splashing onto her shoes. The mist settled around Bambi for little less than a second before it started to swirl around him, increasing its speed until it was a whirling mass of glittering blueness. Then it stopped just as quickly, if not quicker, than it had started. Not only did it stop, but it stopped then instantly disappeared, leaving Bambi kneeling where he had been when it had arrived. Only now he sparkled with brightness, every thing about him had the twinkle of newness and his injuries had all disappeared.Jumping to his feet he stepped towards Tess, deftly avoiding the puddle that dampened her feet and reached out to pluck the wooden wand from out of her hand.”












“A little light went on somewhere inside Liffy’s fuddled head – vague recollections of flashing lights, flushing toilets and flying balloons. He opened both eyes, felt around both above and below himself then said,‘Frank? BB? That you?’B B moaned, passed more wind and rolled off of him, whilst Frank tried to elbow him in the goolies whilst adamantly protesting that “He wasn’t that type of bloke” and insisting that he climb off of him straight away.They came apart quite quickly, each rolling aside then sitting with their backs resting against different sides of the basket. They remained like this for an few long moments, not talking, just staring and rubbing whichever parts of their anatomy seemed to hurt the most. Finally Frank looked up and across at the other two, sniffed heavily, then asked,‘Anybody know where we are?”












Tres span quickly back towards her, realised she was trying to get away so, throwing all caution, decorum and composure to the wind screamed, ‘Get back here you Wich!’ and threw herself across the short space between them, like a Tom Cat onto a sure thing. She landed fully on Deedies back, legs spreading as wide as her skirt would allow, arms wrapping tightly around her chest and throat. Deedie, being already in mid stumble, could do little other than continue with her forward momentum, bringing both of them crashing down across Ruby. Sadly for Deedie and as a direct result of how the others had fallen, this brought her head, face first, into direct conflict with the current position of Velma’s backside. Thus any resultant cursing which Deedie almost certainly was offering was sufficiently mumbled enough to render it fairly incomprehensible.Velma stirred a little, moaned and turned over onto her back. Deedie, realising the sudden danger she might be in, tried to go with her but found herself unable to move, due to Tres being clamped onto her back with one hand rummaging around in her bra. As such Velma completed her turn opening her legs slightly as she went causing Deedies head to disappear underneath her skirt. Deedie suddenly enraged by the whole fiasco started bucking around like a rabid bull at a Rodeo, with Tres clinging on for dear life, yet still managing to continue to rummage in her brassiere.












‘For Christ sake you pimply little twerp, stop whinging and do something positive!’‘Wike what, I’m tied to the bwoody twee, upside down, naked, covered in bwoody jam, about to get stung to death an, and you want me to do something positive.’‘You’re not about to get stung to death, trust me.’‘Shouldn’t have twied to cwimb the bwoody twee. Towd you, didn’t I teww you? Don’t twy and cwimb the bwoody twee – did you wisten, did you bawws!’‘I think I’m getting one of my headaches.’‘That’ww be the bwood, it wuns down to youw head, aftew a while you get a sort of whooshing noise in youw eaws, then you weally do get headache, wet me teww you!’B B sighed, a very long, very heavy, very loud sigh. He had known this would only end in tears. That little thing in the back of most men’s minds, you know that thing called common sense, it had told him it wouldn’t work. Did he listen? No, but then I’ll wager neither would you have done. Pumped up with testosterone and fired up on adrenaline, he’d ignored all those little quirky reasons for not climbing the tree and gone straight ahead and tried to climb it. After all it didn’t look like that difficult a tree to climb, what’s more he had a certain reputation for climbing on rooftops and up chimneys so how difficult could one little tree be.












Employing one of her best ever withering looks, Deedie stepped away from the others to stand directly in front of Velma. Velma smiled coyly, pointed to her breast and offered, ‘S’ stuck, honest.’‘Tart!’ spat Deedie reaching out to rip the badge off of Velma’s blouse, ‘sort your bloody self out!’‘Ouch!’ whined Velma as Deedie tossed the badge back to her and turned back towards the others, ‘you caught my skin!’ ‘Bugger your skin.’ Muttered Phoney, followed almost instantly by Mittsy muttering, ‘I’d have slapped her, I would.’ This in turn was followed just as quickly by Ruby mumbling hopefully, ‘We could slap her now?’ with Tonia adding; ‘Now there’s a thought.’‘Just bloody try it!’ scowled Velma, still rubbing her chest.‘Yeah!’ said Mittsy fronting up to her, as in throwing her shoulders back, chest out and trying to sound tough. ‘I’ve a good mind to paint nail varnish on your nipples, then watch as it dries and constricts…ha!’The other Wich’s, including Velma, paused momentarily and collectively stared at Mittsy, each presenting one of those, “You’ll do what?” type of looks. Feeling a little uncomfortable Mittsy simple shrugged, traced a line on the ground with the big toe on her left foot and muttered, ‘Was only an idea.’


























For the briefest of moments Bambi was ecstatic, taking a great lungful of air, he wriggled away from Liffy, climbed onto his knees, threw his head back and proclaimed his relief and whatever else to the skies above. Which meant he didn’t see Tres as she came thundering into the circle hotly pursued by Evade, who was just as hotly pursued by the swarm of angry wasps. Always being one to recognise an opportunity when it presented itself and bearing in mind that Bambi was directly in her line of flight, Tres lunged forward and struck Bambi directly in the solar plexus with the side of her right foot. As he lurched suddenly and somewhat noisily forwards, she twisted around behind him, grabbed the end of his anorak hood, wrenched it upwards and spread it open almost in the same instant.Almost as an afterthought she managed to stick her foot out sufficiently enough to catch Evade as he flew past, pitching him forwards and sending him tumbling towards Liffy. Bambi didn’t have time to be surprised sick or anything else by any of this. As his eyes bulged and his tongue stretched outwards, Tres physically heaved him half off of his knees by means of his hood, caught all but the odd one or two of the angry wasps, whipped the hood forwards and down over his face, quickly pulled the lanyards around behind his head and tied them as tight as she could.




















Holding the wand up she gazed momentarily along the slightly twisted length of darkened wood her eyes coming to rest, longingly on the carving of a horned goats head surmounted by a snake. Allowing her smile to linger she lifted her right hand and anointed the carving with the ball of energy contained within its palm. Instantly the wand burst into life, torrents of energy flowing out from the snakes mouth down over the goats head, through the twists of wood and onto her hand. There they wormed their way deep under the skin of her fingers sending surges of visible ripples pulsing up her arm. As the power flowed through her, her whole body began to shake, her skin began to pale, her fingers stretched and nails darkened. She turned then to face towards the centre of the circle, her face became drawn and hollowed, her lips darkened and stretched and her eyes deep and yellow.‘Now here me!’ she shrieked.Asteroth, Acham and Liffy all turned to look in her direction. Liffy felt suddenly sick at the sight of her, Acham desperately tried to extract his hands from out of Liffy’s pockets and Asteroth simply stared directly towards her and muttered, “Oh Bugger.’









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OFFAL - Liffy's Lament; Synopsis extracts