Ghost Writers on the Fly

DELUDED CUSTODIANS CHALLENGE. JULY 2025.

Ghost Writers on the Fly

“Seeers Coruptioes Shrie”. Exactly. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

“Feta Festival”. By the author with Ai.

a smillew a day keeps the doctor awayThe judge returned to read the verdict.

I looked around the courtroom to see a sea of overcoats, large sunglasses and pork pie hats. Fellow Deluded Custodians, I assumed, all going incognito in a predictable and cliched fashion.

I was sitting with Ann James.

“What’s with the lame costumes, again?”

“If Smillew Rahcuef wins this case, it’s essential that he doesn’t pull off an iconic photo opportunity on the courtroom steps. He’s enough of a smug bastard already, but an image of him pumping his fist in the air, shouting “winning” while the Deluded Custodians beleagueredly shuffle out of the courtroom would be the final humiliation.”

“Is that Lizzie Lizard Brain up the back? She’s really struggling to get her blue locks under the hat.”

“Regardless of the verdict, have you been reading the captions on Smillew Cam? Excellent vocabulary with some razor sharp editing, there is no way Smillew is writing these himself. His ghost writer must be here, keep your eyes out for a signal.”

The judge began to speak.

“In the case of Smillew Corporation vs The Deluded Custodians Co-op, I rule that what the hell is a co-op anyway? Candid pics of naked, chocolate ice cream smeared writers trying to come up with a synonym for soufflé are legitimate social commentary. It’s literally in the constitution, folks. Case dismissed, Smillew Cam lives!”

I could have blinked and missed it, but the sign was clear. The ghost writer was Mrs Jackson. That fact she wasn’t in disguise should have been the giveaway.

We returned to DC HQ, discussing whether beleagueredly was a real word and discovering that my soufflé had failed to rise.

“Since Smillew Cam decimated our earnings, this place has become a dump. We also need a new oven.”

We were unable to escape the inescapable conclusion; Mrs Jackson wasn’t only spying on us, she was using the salacious tidbits of our chocolate-smeared existence to help Smillew Cam go viral. Now that we’d lost the court case, there was only one thing left to do. Mrs Jackson was going down.

We search DC HQ and discovered way more hidden cameras than we were expecting. That’s a lot of hole drilling, no wonder the structure was feeling unstable.

“This is the plan. First, we disconnect all the cameras, flicking off the secret server in roof space should do the trick. Make it look like an accident. Mrs Jackson will then come sneaking around to switch it back on. This is where part two comes in. We set up the most outrageous scene possible, constructed from cardboard cutouts, then just as Mrs Jackson posts it on Smillew Cam, we release the spoilers, proving the image is fake. Mrs Jackson cancelled, deleted, shadow banned and generally squished into an unfortunate stain, while Deluded Custodians go viral, earning enough for a new coat of paint and an operational oven.”

That night, Mrs Jackson crept into Deluded Custodians HQ, desperate to get here salacious shenanigans up and running again. The court case had generated huge interest in Smillew Cam, yet with no new posts, the natives were getting restless.

“Once the world sees what those Deluded Custodians are getting up to in The Secret Room, they will be doomed.”

By next morning, all the cardboard cutouts were in place, ready to switch the lights on. When the lights did come on, it was shocking. All the Deluded Custodians were there, smearing themselves with feta and chocolate ice cream, searching their minds for synonyms that didn’t exist, and finally, worshipping at the most elaborate Smillew Shrine the world had ever seen. It was an image that would destroy their last shreds of credibility instantly.

Mrs Jackson had it posted within minutes, with its frenzied virality creating a fierce flashmob comment vortex that was soon marauding all over the Deluded Custodians feed, maliciously mocking their mediocre misadventures. The Deluded Custodians were all gathered at the other secret location, ready to drop the anti-viral nuke.

“Hold it! Hold it! The moment Smillew wades in with a predictable and cowardly insult, detonate the time line disinfectant.”

And there it was. Only eight characters with questionable spelling, a sure sign Smillew had written it himself.

“Loozers!”

I hit send. For a moment, the entire internet was stopped dead in its tracks. The stillness soon become a storm.

The backlash was fierce and fast. Smillew Cam, and by extension, Smillew himself, saw their authentic authenticity evaporate within seconds, faster than a mendacious mandarin calling ‘fake news’.

He got Mrs Jackson on the phone, hurling incendiary inventive with such force that shortly thereafter, Mrs Jackson spontaneously combusted. He had in fact killed his darling, prompting an existential crisis as to whether he was William Faulkner or Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. There was only one thing for it, a cover up.

In typically avoidant fashion, he got his grandma to write it for him:

[embed]Disappearing Mrs. Jackson For her good — of course.medium.com

The Deluded Custodians, following their reversing fortunates, pooled their coffee tips and unanimously decided to paint the HQ “None More Black” is honour of Nigel Tufnel, while unintentionally pinpointing the origins of the black mirror:

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You have just passed another Deluded Custodians challenge, this time, the Third Anniversary special. Being the third anniversary and all, I was hoping to go for something different. That opportunity arrived in the form of Patrick Eades whose excellent entry made me feel that I should probably kill him instead. Then R. Klemek also had an excellent entry. I couldn’t kill them all. Well, maybe I could and if I did, it would have been very affectionately, in a form similar the Martin Scorsese treatment developed by King Missile. That might have to wait until the Fifth Anniversary:

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I’m sure there’s a list of their entries around somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. Here, check out some Smillew Shrines instead:

[embed]The “Deluded Custodians One Year Anniversary Fiesta”: Casting Call to be filmed en Calzoncillos, Nevadamedium.com