“Do you remember… our games?” the old man struggled to speak. “I used to call you… Miss Fortune”.
On his first night at the casino, he was eager to play with the money his father gifted him. That’s when they first met. That night, as all nights that followed, she wore red: a slim-fit dress, high heels, and vibrant lipstick to match it. She was the goddess who joined them, mere people.
“Sure,” Miss Fortune replied, sitting beside his bed in the hospital. “And you were right.”
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Dimitri walked the beaten path from his small town in Hostre, to the familiar fields of grain that he’d admired since childhood. The fresh dew sat lackadaisically on a blade of grass; its slumber abruptly disturbed by the compression of Dimitri’s leather bound foot. His impact paled in comparison to the indelible impression bestowed upon the wider area. During the previous season, the land had been disturbed by heavy machinery, the earth turned over and upon itself, revealing the darker soil below.
“Big machines, operated by large men, led by those with gargantuan egos.” He pondered aloud.
His fixation upon his outer surroundings caused a momentary lapse in perception. Dimitri’s foot discovered a deep puddle, which had been considerately filled with fresh rainwater. His right foot and shin now completely submerged and subsequently sodden.
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This was it. I’d had my share of bad luck. After decades of caring for my ailing parents and alcoholic husband, then losing all of them, one by one, it was time to put myself first. Midlife, I decided, would be a new beginning. The mid-point of a novel, after all, isn’t the end of the story, but the moment the protagonist takes charge of their own destiny.
Where better to kick-start a change in fortune than Las Vegas?
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” Nina slurred, and we all clinked glasses.
“Don’t look now,” she shout-whispered into my ear. “Hot guys, by the Blackjack table.”
I cringed. “We’re old enough to be their mothers!”
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‘Find the killer of my daughter.’ Beauleigh Williams’ breath came in more pants than a filly at the Derby. ‘Where you gonna start?’
‘Motive,’ I replied. ‘Did she have any enemies?’
‘She had a boyfriend. He was my enemy. The rat wasn’t good
enough for her. He’s not good enough for a female rodent, come to that.’
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The cold autumn night was warmed up by the energy of people gathered for a party. There, Andrew thought his past was left behind.
A splash of light in the sky and a loud boom broke the night, and the Darkness came with it. Unnoticed among the crowd, casting shadows on itself on an enlightened street, a fully dark figure – Andrew felt it smile at him.
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“How was it?” Alfie screwed his eyes in concentration and anticipating the usual sotto voce response, leaned forward in his riser-recliner. He had declined the invite to the Council’s Annual Fireworks Display. Storm Ciarán was rolling in.
“Brilliant!; not the wash-out expected.” Fiona’s explosive response caught him unawares. Hovering on the remote (retaining maximum control over his environment was important), his hand reacted in a surprised tremor. The chair, rented courtesy of his son, responded to the manual “rise” command; Alfie slid to the floor, pinned under the strategically placed wheely frame, a gift from his daughter.
“Fuck Me… Save me from this hell.” On his back, glasses dislodged, Alfie surveyed the intricate cornicing and central rose of the “small lounge.” The tantalising mistiness of detail recalled to mind that entertainment he and his late wife had so enjoyed at the Couples Parties before any of the seven veils had been removed. Sporadic pyrotechnics of private parties continued outside; Roman Candles, Peonies, and Diadems were corralled in raindrops as they burst across the uncurtained picture window.
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It is notoriously difficult to swim through pancake batter, so Emmie settled for floating on her back. Her eyes opened briefly after a staccato rattle, followed by a piercing whistle, a loud bang and a cascade of spitting bright star fragments. A war must have started. Emmie was dimly conscious of being shot in the middle somewhere; blood everywhere, lots of pain. Best get back to the pancake batter. She re-submerged.
Her eyes crept open again on hearing voices.
‘She’s coming round. Are you OK love? It’s Mum here. You had us worried’
Emmie was pleased to hear this because she too was starting to be worried.
‘What’s the fighting about out there? I think there’s a bullet in my belly. It really hurts a lot and I keep falling into a thick lake. And…’
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A new message flashes. The little icon with her photo, all Bambi-eyes and dimples, sets his heart racing. And then there’s that other feeling. The one he shouldn’t have for someone her age. The one that twists his stomach and clamps his jaw tight.
The curtains are drawn, as always. His secrets fester like bacteria in the stale air, seeping into the furniture. They clutter every surface, filthy as the plates that litter his room. He cannot risk them spreading beyond the confines of this house. Not like they did in the old neighbourhood.
These new neighbours seem friendly. They posted that ‘Welcome’ note through his door, with the link to the community Facebook group. That’s where the fireworks display was advertised. And where he found the laughably easy to access local youth chatroom. Honestly, this lot could do with some internet safety training.
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Dad,
If you see this, just know that I held down the fort for as long as I could.
I scrunched up the letter in my hand, letting it squeeze through the gaps between my fingers. He’d been gone so long I wasn’t sure he was coming back, and my hope was draining. I decided to look after the shop while he went out for more supplies, although I doubted there was much left outside for us.
The shop, once bustling and filled with guests every fifth of November, was now empty, with only me and a few mice that scuttled from corner to corner for any sign of food. Its rich history cemented those bricks together, lived in the floors and lived in me.
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The locals of East Hardwick made a habit of not burning a certain Catholic terrorist come the fifth of November as expected, but instead set alight whomever they disliked.
Mrs. Monks burnt a copy of her cheating husband, Charlie Lanker burnt a dummy modelled after his schoolteacher, who in turn set alight a many headed hydrae, bearing the faces of her worst students.
On this Guy Fawks night, Kevin Warick had built, a perfect likeness of the dreadful Mr. Samuel Linklater, down to that self-impressed, almost snarling smile.
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Watkins, a whole platoon in a single body, clumsily barged open the door. The committee room became a lot more crowded with his entrance. ‘They can’t deliver today,’ he said.
Davies, his face communion wafer white, said, ‘Why not?’
‘Strike at the depot.’
‘For the best,’ said Jones.
‘This is going to be a success!’ Davies insisted.
‘It’s meant to be a do to celebrate Phil’s passing, for god’s sake.’ Jones sat up aggressively in his chair. ‘Why do we need bloody fireworks?’
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While the world waited for Armageddon with tightly clenched fists, tear-stained faces, and racing thoughts, Sir Michael Peckham waited for morning.
He glanced at the silent smart-slab sitting insouciantly on his bedside table. It said “02:14 – 5 Nov” on its face, but it was the things it wasn’t saying he was most interested in. He wanted it to ring and not to. A conflict of such breadth it seemed analogous to the sabre rattling provided nightly on the talking head shows. The hawks and the doves making cases for greater or lesser annihilation.
For two weeks, the world stood on a precipice, while his world sank into the abyss.
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I met Dai on Fabian Way
He had a flask, tea he’d say
Quick he moved, his purpose grim
Did not stop, they were after him
Who they were, I could not see.
And when I did, they were after me.
Across the bridge, up Castle Way
Lord above, too late to pray.
Out in front, a shadow rode.
On a bike, with a cursed load.
Saint Andere, but nor for hire.
A dreadful stare, and spat hell fire.
Down the hill, towards the sea.
Smelt their breath, near Anna Quay.
I will no lie, no perjury
There at last, Marina Surgery.
The wait was long, that much was true.
We were many, the doctors few.
Dr Faustus and Dr Soul
Annual check-ups were never dull.
Apologies to Shelley!
As the bell rang young Billy Thomas barged his way out. Racing off he headed into the woods above the school Megan’s words echoing in his head: ”I’m sorry Billy we can’t be friends anymore.”
She had just walked away from him.
Gasping for breath he threw himself onto the floor. What had he done? He and Megan had been like brother and sister. They had played together for as long as Billy could remember.
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“I don’t fear death,” said Polypherous, “I fear not being able to say something original about it.”
As he sauntered across the freshly blackened road, its newly laid tar still odorous, to Quinit’s bakery on the corner of Beach Street, where the paving stones were still reddened by the blood of martyrs, and overflowing flowers in iron baskets bedecking the sills of tiny apartments filled with shouting boat-wives, hung like curtains, affording cool in the midday heat, he turned to Archegoron walking alongside, and asked him, “Do you fear death, Arch?”
Continue readingThe Krill Bay Mysteries: chapter 1.
Brian knew a good deal about Eric’s life story from the first research interview. What he didn’t know was that Eric’s life (but definitely not his story) was going to reach its final destination in one hour and thirty minutes. Nor did Brian know that Eric’s account of his past in the next forty-five minutes would contain (if anyone cared to listen and adequately interpret) the answer to why he died. This, the second interview, began at 2:30 pm Eastern Time in a small room in Krill Bay’s large central library.
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Steve sat back with a hearty sigh.
“I,” he said, “don’t have an answer. Don’t have any inspiration either. The series is finished. This was a guaranteed BAFTA winner; the camerawork’s exquisite, for once the animals mostly behaved, the narration… well, I don’t need to add anything there, the man’s a legend. There’s just that one little problem, and I…”
“I know,” Jennifer interrupted. “This isn’t a disaster quite yet, but it’s close. So, what are you going to do? I mean, we can’t have titles with no music, let alone that footage… which you’re right, is beautiful, and kudos to the team for it… but you’ve got some budget left, yeah?”
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Lorenzo had booked the local pub, boasting to a few hopefuls that they’d win “oh fifty quid” and have the attention of a hundred people when they performed.
The worst thing that could happen was that they’d be laughed at, although this crowd tended to look away in embarrassment when a no-talent embarrassed themselves.
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Click, click, click of the invigilator’s hard-soled shoes on the gymnasium floor. Bob’s head full of clicks and empty of ideas. Cursing Philip Rees for their back row antics in maths. Both sending notes to Amanda in the front row, while on the board algebra was explained one last time. The clicks louder as the invigilator approaches, and then silent, as she looks down with a smile at the blank answer page in front of him, pristine as freshly fallen snow. Phillip in town with Amanda watching Star Wars. London Calling, lost in the supermarket, heart of glass, and the years pass. The sound of shock and awe on the news, the territorial trumpeting of ducks on Regent’s Park lake, Theseus nearby proclaiming his greatness from the Open Air Theatre, and then silence, as Titania sleeps, and dusk falls over London. Tick, tick, he waits 59 seconds for the next tick. Tick and he waits again. He looks away and looks back at the question. It hasn’t changed. He writes a paragraph, tears it up, writes the same paragraph again and tears it up. He waits for the tick. The sound of muffled traffic along the Strand, the tick louder than ever. Trisha, the environmental lawyer from Boston, queuing for the photocopier in the basement. Standing behind her with blank sheets of paper turned downwards. The clunk, clunk, clunk of the copier. Spending the next morning in the queue, getting to the front and starting again, front to back, back to front, more reliable than the machine, which splutters to a halt. Just as she steps out of the lift. Sitting together in the pub, her dark hair draped over an unfamiliar pint of bitter, Simply the Best on the jukebox, old guys in the corner looking on with grumpy or wistful eyes. Book marking that moment in time and portending the future. Decades pass. His grandmother wheezing, pouring him a tot of whisky in her toothbrush mug from her secret bottle that all the nurses know about, asking him if he thinks she will get better. Telling her she will outlive them all. The ensign draped on her coffin, the sound of Santa Maria sung in a beautiful soprano, the priest hurrying after the secular congregant who has pocketed the host as a souvenir. The silence of her room. The whisky bottle gone. Years pass. The gentle snore of his wife. The day time sound of his neighbour playing Bach on the piano. It could be worse, he thinks. Drugs parties, feuds, not fugues, the acid sound of blame. Then one night, another sound. Not from next door, but upstairs. And so it begins. Months pass and the past unravels. The present vanishes. A box there in the middle of the room. He peers into see if hope still resides there. Something at the bottom stirs. The sound of wings flapping. It circles the room twice and then out through the open door. He looks again into the box. It’s now pitch black. Like a black hole which allows no light to escape and sucks in all around it. Pitch black and bottomless.
He strokes the canvas. With his eyes closed, and with a gentle enough touch, he can almost convince himself that he is feeling her skin, petal-soft, beneath his fingers. How he misses the feel of her. He can look at photos, listen to recordings, smell her perfume. But the sensation of his skin on hers, that can never be revisited. He swallows the lump in his throat.
In front of him, a meticulously mixed palette of colours – her colours, matched to the exact shade of her eyes, skin, lips and hair – glistens in the hazy garage light. It is as though she is here, all the parts of her, just waiting to be put back together. The thought brings him comfort. She has not gone, not really. Not when she can be re-created again and again, each time a greater likeness. If he just keeps going, perhaps he can conjure her back from the dead. He wields his paintbrush like a magic wand. A super-power, that’s what this is. This artistic gift of his. Dare he say it, he’s a God of sorts, if you really think about it.
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