As Clare put her key in the lock, a sense of foreboding overcame her. She slowly turned it and pushed the door wide open. Her flat was in disarray. Everything she owned seemed to be scattered all over the floor. As her knees collapsed, she grasped the doorframe as her body slid down to the floor.
Without bothering to get back up, she phoned the police.
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If you ask me, you can’t beat a good pilgrimage for a leisurely outing offering structure and purpose. It is a bit like the Ramblers but with fewer hills.
Maybe we can agree that what’s needed for a good pilgrimage is a common destination and plenty of people to talk to along the way. Yes, alright, a decent pair of shoes, maybe an umbrella, a level of hardship and precarious access to toilets and food all help with the authenticity. Shared purpose or religious intent are sometimes valuable in holding things together.
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It was the talk of the office. When the number missing reached 15, Robert as Lead-Informant knew decisive remedial action was needed to ensure the Department’s survival. It would not be easy to persuade The Council to employ an intergalactic military psychic. In times of austerity for the masses, how could such fiscal extravagance be justified? Fortunately, Supreme Commander Shand of Joint Forces was an ally. Anything that affected the continuity and security of the Colonisation Expansion Programme would naturally silence the naysayers.
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I feel the air in the room change suddenly, like the slightest breath of a breeze on a summer’s day. The candle flames flicker briefly, almost imperceptibly.
He’s here. Soft, silent, catlike, he crosses the floor, and I pretend to ignore him, pretend he’s not there. After all, I’m not expecting anyone today, least of all him, who I sent off to The Great War many months ago.
He’d promised to come back, in that way that young soldiers often do, filling the hearts of those they leave behind with love and hope. Hope that, sadly, is all too often dashed on the rocks with a letter from whichever Government minister it is these days who’s happy to send others out to die, whilst he sits in restaurants with carefully curated menus spending public funds.
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Kelleher was struggling to remember. He’d been walking for ages. Days? There’d been a wide river, a bridge, cars strewn across it, some in flames. Or had he dreamt that? There’d been towns, wrecked, as if a colossal foot had stamped on them. Fields, miles of them, just cinders. And his brain had just kept saying: go west.
Was he in shock? He’d hunger pangs, felt as numb as a corpse, and his mouth was dry, aching for a drop of water. And now before him a road with a line of stationary lorries, some kind of building, and the sea. Was it a ferry port?
At the entrance was a gaggle of humanity: fearful eyes, pinched faces, everybody seemingly distracted. Was that how he looked?
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Friday afternoon and Billy Thomas was daydreaming of all the things he and the gang had to do over the weekend. He was jerked back to reality by a piece of chalk hitting him squarely on the forehead. Mr. Jenkins was bellowing at him, ”Pay attention boy. ”
A knocking at the door and a head poked around. A groan rippled around the class. It was Nitty Nora who had come to look for nits; always bad news. No one wanted the pink note telling their parents they had nits.
One by one they trudged into the hall for inspection. Nearly all of the class had pink notes. Disaster! Nora came into class declaring an epidemic and sent them all home. The boys huddled together, scratching as they walked, knowing their plans would come to nothing, each knowing what the weekend held.
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The wind howls around the hospital towers. I squint through the rain, and for a moment the birds overhead look like tiny witches on broomsticks, swooping unpredictably in all directions.
‘Meadowside Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit,’ a sign announces. Like everything else up here, it is wonky, madness seeping into any semblance of order.
I shudder. I need to get Emily out of here.
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Reluctantly I made my way to bed. I ask you, bed at 8.00 at my age, how archaic is that? My mother believed in the outdated style of nurturing, feed, bath and bed. My sister tried to reason with her, explaining that that was meant for infants, not young people of our ages. That was the last time I ever protested at having to go to bed, listen carefully and I’ll let you in on my eternal secret.
That night I drifted off to sleep quickly, a wonderful sense of peace washed over me as I realised that I was leaving my body and slowly floating, towards another dimension. Soon I approached the impressive entrance marked “visitors only”. I glided calmly through the gates and was reassured by a silent and gleaming white world full of serene souls where all communication was done by a sophisticated means of telepathy. As I navigated around my new world, I saw that the central square was where souls went to find answers from the wise and knowledgeable. Elders to our worldly problems. Eventually I was brave enough to approach them and unburden the secret of my sister Gails’ behaviour, only to be told that it was too late. She was obsessed with fire, given the chance she would set fire to anything. Matches, lighters all had to be hidden from her, which was very difficult because both my parents were regular smokers. Gail was a very sad and confused soul, resenting me. I was the youngest child and her nemesis; she was constantly accusing me of stealing our parents love and attention.
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“Hey Harv!” a voice boomed as a foot kicked the front door “I’ve got a hog sized keg! You got a few mugs?!”
Harvey groaned, knowing that yes, tonight was the night.
His better half was visiting her mother, taking with her their two little ones. Weekends like these, Harvey got some quiet “me time” which usually meant falling asleep on the sofa. Good enough for him, but since he had mentioned the free weekend to his old college buddy Jules, the man had insisted on coming over.
“Hello Jules,” Harvey thinly smiled as he answered the front door.
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The knock was singular, but loud and resonant. The knock employed by people familiar with visiting the unsuspecting. Craig put down the London Literary Review and padded barefoot to the door of his SA1 apartment.
“Who is it?”
“Mister Hutchens? Police. Can I have a word?”
Craig slid the door chain into place and opened the door. A large man in a short-sleeve shirt showing thick muscular arms and a tooth to tattoo ratio of one-to-one stood in the hallway.
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Nestling deeper into her bedding Valentina sighed pleasantly tired. It had been a busy day but she was sure the end of her journey was at hand.
She remembered the stories her mother had captivated them with as babies. Ivan the terrible was a folk hero to them. Fighting for the territory around them, often returning bloodied from battle: that was her great grandfather. Romance of how he met his wife in the tunnels they inhabited, love at first sight – so her mother told them. How he fought for her hand, paying a heavy price, losing territory but Ivan was elated to have his beloved Sasha by his side.
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Finally, I type them. There’s a feeling of closure, of melancholy, of… what? Is bereftness a word? One for me to look up in the battered dictionary that sits on the shelves upstairs, still preferred over search engines. There’s an immutability to a printed definition, far more difficult for every copy to be edited in one go by one individual. It’s the same reason I still buy paperbacks – for me a story should stand of its time, faults and all.
Speaking of stories, I’ve clearly not finished with the novel I’ve just written; there’s my beta readers to look over it, and doubtless a myriad of corrections. I’ve got to go back and check the timelines and continuity. Make sure that everything adds up.
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“That’s,” Mrs Lupin said in her soothing tone, “the end.”
Five faces of varying comprehension looked up from their slender copies of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, rewritten for the under fifteens. One kid was interested, two were indifferent, another was confused, and the last was… well…
This classroom was nick-named the Retard Ward, or Spaz Town by the normal kids, and to be sure, some pupils were hopeless. Jake Mears, for instance. Fourteen years old but already in trouble with the police for hot-wiring a motorbike.
Other kids were struggling with Asperger’s or dyslexia, and a few were… not that bright. They’d probably slide through the school system to start work at the local firestone factory because who else would take them?
Continue readinga tale foretold. ‘The crowd’s on the pitch. They think it’s all over. It is now.’
Touch, a so missing after trauma, so they tell us, and so I must consider you know don’t you too my mind latched on to but was it ever anything else. and indeed There is something to be said that our contemporary lives invest too much into being ‘happy,, by showering ourselves with happy smiles and emojis that become addictive self smugness of, of well of loony-bin Reality Shows for a start, making us believe that is all there is to life. and STOP us imagining alternatives. and well is writing and engaging with it – literary fiction that is – does this. So, am I here writing this to resolve and maybe dissolve lies I have told myself.? Can I then ‘face up.’, create my and your better life. Give us integrity, enabling skills, perhaps like literary devices, eh Joe?
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I hadn’t meant to do it. I guess I’d just had enough.
Looking back over the years we were married, it’s hard to pinpoint when it all started. He’d always been a bit of a moaner, it’s just that I didn’t know that he would turn into a professional one.
Nothing was ever really good enough for him. That included anything and everybody. He could find fault where there was none.
I really don’t know why I went along with it for all those years. I suppose I thought I could change him, eventually bring him around to my point of view. I was wrong.
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A blur of trees framed his crumpled reflection. Pete turned away from the window as the coach stopped.
“Jamie!”
“Hey Pete.”
Jamie buffeted along the aisle and crab-walked a lanky frame into seats 4A and B in front.
“A bit iffy at one point. Paypal not going through, Visa card not in the usual place. Found it here.” With a jagged inhalation he patted his back pocket. “Hadn’t eaten in 10 hours; must have put it back after Pret. Real fuck of a journey altogether. Still, made it in the end.”
Jamie passed a paper tissue over his dewing brow and dripping end of nose.
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It will be a parting gift. Something to remind him of “us.”
Clouds skid across the darkening September sky, nudged along by an insistent wind. “It’s time,” it seems to hiss as it whistles around the rooftops.
The swallows have heard it too. They gather on the telephone line overhead, their slit-throats lined up and their tails criss-crossing in different directions like scissors, ready to cut ties.
It’s a time for bursting out of the summer haze into vivid autumn colour and activity. A time for new starts and sowing seeds. I prepare the soil, loosening and enriching it.
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Thursday the 21st of April, my 6th birthday. A day indelibly etched on my brain. It was the day that I received 2 tickets to go to the circus with my friend Susan.
On the morning of that momentous day I was bubbling with anticipation at what my gift would be. My curiosity was soon satisfied when I opened my birthday card and discovered the tickets.
That was the beginning of an arduous but long and exciting journey that led me all over the world.
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That time in the quays when his da had gone to the toilet. O’ Flaherty, his smirk as big as the froth on his stout, had put his hand on his knee, then moved it higher to his genitals. Keegan had had the sense to stand up and follow his father.
‘Full bladder, son?’
Keegan told the old man what had happened. The latter’s face became hard, dark like the exterior of Kilmainham jail. ‘And him a priest!’ On returning, he said, ‘There’ll be no more welcome in our house for that bastard.’
Now Keegan was the sole mourner at his burial. Why had he come?
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Phil tugged at his beard and grinned at Jim, who sat to his right cradling his Epiphone. “You know, I think I ought to stand up for this.”
“Stand up, stand up for Jebsus,” warbled Jim, “you do what’s right, Phil. Just make it good. INTRODUCING mister Phil McSnorty on the vocal banjo.”
“What’s a vocal banjo, Jim?” Greg – dark eyes and darker demeanour.
“It’s like a Jew’s Harp, only with very little harp and not much Jew.”
“Okay, are we rolling, Graham?”
Graham Jimson gave a thumbs up from the control booth.
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