dave weaver writer

Anarchy in the DK

2012-02-13T08:27:00.000-08:00

Scene one: A dark and gloomy corridor near the throneroom in Elsinore castle. Enter The Prince of Denmark, in dark and gloomy mood.

Hamlet: Fye, what a day! How long shall I continue to be accursed with mishap and misfortune? On Wednesday eve my good father is sudden taken from the bosom of his loving family, though I know not the how nor why of it. Then, not a few minutes ago as I mused to myself in private whilst practicing my swordplay, I near ran-through Polonius as he set about his seemingly never-ending task of testing the castle’s walls for condensation. Luck had it that a heavy curtain deflected my thrust and my swordtip merely grazed the good Court Chamberlain’s buttocks – a mercy since I would prefer not the retribution of his son Laertes, a swordsman far better than myself. Also his daughter, the fair Ophelia, has set a fire in my loins which only a rufferty-tufferty tipping will abate and I wish not to make a screwing-up of such happy circumstance. But stay, what sounds of discord break from yonder Hall? Can’st this woebegone week lay any lower in my estimation?

Hamlet enter’s the Great Hall where stewards are wrestling to the ground a sallow and crop-haired village youth. The young man has a wild-eyed countenance with spittle forming on his lips. His clothing is raggedy and pin-ed together. As his body jerks like a puppet his features arrange themselves in an angry sneer.

Hamlet: What go’eth on here? Who is this sallow and crop-haired youth and what manner his affliction?
Steward: Sire, the young man is bewitched. We found him in the town square singing like a loon. When we forebade his utterances he turned his words to treacherous forebodings concerning the state of our beloved country. Thus we have brought his person before your royal judgement.
Hamlet: Whither the alternatives?
Steward: The ducking stool if he is bewitched, the pire if he is bedevilled.
Hamlet: A great choice methinks not. Speak up boy, what makest thy soul so troubled that thee should thrash and wail? Let him alone so he may speak!
The boy: Behold, for I am the anti-christ!
Hamlet: Say you so? And in what form of devilry does this unlikely arrangement show itself to be manifest?
The boy: I am anarchy!
Hamlet: Thy dos’t not thyself any favour with such hasty words
The boy: I knowest not what I am in want of, still the getting of it shall be mine!
Hamlet: How can that be, child?
The boy: I seek to destroy all things, yay, even they who merely passeth me by shall know my wrath.
Hamlet: Such a tempestuous course seemeth far from just but I will humour your humors, out of sorts though they be. Speak on boy, tell us further of your diabolic plans.
The boy: Though I play the role of dogsbody I see a time soon to come where’st DK will fall into anarchy; the trafficing of goods halted, the merchants of the city cast down and all dreams of future commerse ruined. I will have my way in this. The best and rest will be of my usage, as will thine own ememies whom I shall join with to bring about thy despair. For this is the only way it can’st be.
Hamlet: Hmm, I see’st. But…
The boy: I disavow all anacronims of the state! I only knowest this is to be the DK, no foreign country nor tenancy, and I shall make an end of it before the evil corruption at its core poisons more than its King in his untimely death. I shall piss on it, destroy it, for all is anarchy, anarchy, anarchaaaakkk…!”

The boy falls to the ground, a sword in his back. A man steps forward from the shadows, puts his boot on the boy’s body and draws it out. He turns to Hamlet.

Claudius: Having trouble with the populace, My Lord Hamlet? You must show them a firm hand or they will become a rabble. Then where would we be?
Hamlet: Uncle Claudius! Heard you all of the boy’s babbling? A troubled fellow, yet his nonsense did begin to make a strange sense to my ears. I have been much troubled myself these past few days…
Claudius: Nonsense indeed! The ravings of a fool.
Hamlet: Yet what was that last part about poison? I did dimly begin to glimpse his meaning, but…
Claudius: Anyways, happenstance to more joyous matters my Lord! Your mother and I will be making an announcement of some importance at a banquet tonight. Will you honour us with your presence?
Hamlet: The youth’s ravings and my low disposition hath curdled my desire for merryment, Uncle. I do not think I…
Claudius: The Lady Ophelia will be in attendance.
Hamlet: Pray tell, what time did thou say’st it starteth? (Aside: Yet shall I think on these matters anon; place finger on’t I cannot, but I feel there may’st well be something Rotten in the state of Denmark…)

Endeth

'Friendly Planet' featured in 'The Sixty'

2011-04-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

'The Sixty', Andy Bigwood's new book of his fantastic science fiction illustrations features one of my short stories, 'Friendly Planet', amongst fifty-nine others accompanying and relating to its sixty stunning pictures.

You can purchase it from Amazon UK now:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sixty-Arts-

Andy-Bigwood/dp/

190773709X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302079855&sr=1-1

The Archangel and the White Hart

2011-02-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

Verulam Writers' Circle have just published their anthology 'The Archangel and the White Hart' edited by the estimable Mr Jonathan Pinnock. I have a few pieces in it and did the cover. Of course, being from the VWC everything inside is absolutely 'bril' and great value for money. You can buy it at 'Get Writing 2011' or from Lulu Publishing at the following link:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-archangel-and-the-white-hart/14723004

'Five Get A Life' in Blankpages 30

2011-01-04T05:07:00.000-08:00

My story of Enid Blyton's Famous Five: the adult years. Published in Blankmedia's Blankpages issue 30:

http://www.blankmediacollective.org/blankpages/issue_30

Jacey's Kingdom Cover

2010-12-21T05:26:00.000-08:00

This is my cover design for my unpublished novel 'Jacey's Kingdom'. Hopefully I'll have it finished and in a 'pitch-able' condition for February's 'Get Writing' event. I'd better get my skates on.

'prid&predj.txtd' in Blankpages 27

2010-12-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

My (somewhat abbreviated) take on Jane Austin's classic 'Prid&predj.txt' published in Blankpages issue 27, the Blankmedia webzine arts magazine:

http://www.blankmediacollective.org/blankpages/issue_27

'The Keeper of Lost Things' published by Kinglake

2010-12-10T08:02:00.000-08:00

My short story 'The Keeper of Lost Things' was published in Kinglake's Ten Modern Short Stories anthology. Available now from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kinglake-Book-Modern-Short-Stories/dp/1907690050/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291997072&sr=1-1-fkmr1

'Bed Monster' in Blankpages issue 25

2010-12-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

My story 'The Bed Monster' appeared in Issue 25 of 'Blankpages', Blankmedia's webzine arts magazine:

http://www.blankmediacollective.org/blankpages/issue_25

'Finding Uncle' in 'Vision'

2010-01-19T06:24:00.000-08:00

My short story 'Finding Uncle' is available with many other excellent stories in the Hertfordshire University short story anthology publication 'Vision', available to order through Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vision-Anthology-Winning-University-Hertfordshire/dp/1902806700/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291998415&sr=1-1-fkmr0

'Blow-up' in Shalla

2010-01-19T05:57:00.000-08:00

My short story 'Blow-up' is being published in the latest edition of 'Shalla Magazine' in the United States. Available now from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Mannequin-Walking-SHALLA-Magazine-5/dp/1449933386/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291999496&sr=1-4

The Bed-Monster

2010-01-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

It takes more than just a few hours to tidy away a life.

If Jennifer thought a couple of afternoon sessions at the old mock Tudor house would do the trick she was miles out in her calculations. Like some fatally under-budgeted engineering project the reality was wildly different from the plan. The place was a mess. She knew that of course from the regular monthly visits she’d been paying him over the last two years.

On long sunday afternoons as her father chased Freddy around the overgrown garden she would get down to the task of tidying the house she was born in; the piles of dirty clothes, the wine bottle empties, the old magazines and newspapers. Not the washing up though, he was always scrupulous about that – a good habit left over from national service. Apparently that didn’t extend to the hoover.

Freddy loved Grandad, especially Grandad the alien being from planet Compost Heap. He’d gladly taken on the task of entertaining the boy while she got on with it. As she watched them play, the alien making extra-terrestrial noises while Freddy screamed in delighted fear, it reminded Jennifer of the way her father would tease her, how he’d chase her at bedtime, the bed-monster coming after her as she ran shrieking into the upstairs darkness.

It had been the dirty piles of washing up that had tipped her off something was wrong. His strange actions recently; the loss of his dark little irony-free quirks and prejudices in vacuous silences. The occasional mumblings about strange events in his past, things never mentioned to her before.

They told Jennifer the long process of slipping away had begun.

Worried neighbours would beckon her into their hallways.

“He was knocking on people’s doors, the police came round.” Mrs Scott had told her.

So here she was, one Sunday afternoon in a chill October, stuffing his unwanted old clothes into plastic bags for the charity dump near the Supermarket. The last of the summer sun had long since vanished and with it Freddy’s whoops of joy from behind the rose bushes. She’d left her son at home with his dad these last few months. Gerry had always been too busy with his work to accompany them on their grandpa visits and now she needed to concentrate on sorting out her father’s things before his departure. Especially the papers kept in the old tin file underneath his bed. She knew what she’d find; the house deeds, ancient building society paying-in stubs, a ring of old keys, their significance long forgotten.

She pulled the tin out, holding her nose against the dust, but its own key was missing. As he dozed in the living room she found it at the back of a dresser drawer under a pile of rubbish.

There were other items in the tin as well, crinkled old green and brown envelopes and a few grainy pictures of her mother he’d kept, their Eastmancolour hues wine-tinged with age. There was even one of her parents together, his arm hugging protectively around her shoulders as they braved the wind on some nameless holiday promenade. He looked a bit drunk and they both seemed very young and happy.

It made her cry a little when she first saw it, picking it out to study it in the fading daylight. Yes, they were young, much younger than she was now, probably still ‘courting’ as her mother would have put it. It must have been before she was born – there was no sight of a pram. The reverse had ‘Bognor ‘61’ scribbled on it in faded biro; five years before their only child would arrive in the world.

What had they done in those five years? Where had they been?

She didn’t know.

And what had gone wrong after that, had ruined it all?

She didn’t know that, either. Her perhaps?

It wasn’t the sort of thing she could ever have asked her father and now it was too late.

Her parents had split up when she was still young. It was the summer of Uncle Bob’s farm, a big year in her life when everything had changed. But that summer had been marvellous even if she’d been a little afraid of Uncle Bob at first.

She remembered how her mother had taken her to one side at the school gates after she’d waved her friends goodbye and they’d all given each other over-dramatic hugs the way young girls do.

“You’re going to spend the holidays with Uncle Bob and Aunt Louise on their farm. We’re going down tomorrow so lots of packing tonight.”

“But I want to stay with you.”

“Daddy and I think that it might be a good idea, while we get ourselves sorted out. Don’t argue with me about it now, Jen. Just give it a chance.”

Her father had been in one of his sullen moods when they’d arrived home. After a few grunted enquiries about her holiday homework he’d gone to bed, leaving the two of them to get on with packing her little case with favourite t-shirts and jeans and two calico summer dresses her mother had bought as a surprise; one brown and one green. She could still see them, laid out on her bed in the little room with its Donny Osmond and Bay City Roller posters. They were like the envelopes she held in her hand now, the same colours and crumpled as if her mother had just bought them that afternoon, had just taken them out of the bag.

They’d left early the next morning but not before he’d picked her up to hug her goodbye. He was standing half-dressed at the window, looking down on their little green Hillman car (we’re taking the ‘Hillman’ her mother would say as opposed to her father’s huge Rover, making it sound like some strange family servant). She remembered the just-shaved smoothness of his face as he clung to her, the tangy chemical smell of his aftershave on it and where he’d wiped it on his chest, although she identified it as that only later in life.

At that time it was just Daddy’s smell.

“Have a nice time, poppet. Be good.”

His voice was softer now, and somehow sad. There was a wetness of tears on his cheek, transferred to hers so that she tasted their saltiness in her mouth.

“You’re always a good girl…”

That was the last time they’d been in the house together. She wouldn’t return there until after her mother had died and Freddy was born. Now her father would be going into a nursing home and the house sold to pay for the fees.

In her old bedroom there was little of the girl she’d left behind. The walls had been repainted magnolia with various pieces of cheap flatpack furniture crammed against them. It was a guest room now. She even found a dusty old black bra behind the wardrobe.

The bed was still her old one though. She’d felt an odd wave of disgust when she’d first seen it there; that he and some other woman had probably used it together. She put a hand on the headboard and pushed. It still squeaked.

She looked in the wardrobe for the first time. A few old dresses hung there forlornly, not her mother’s but petite creations with wide collars and padded shoulders. Young womens’ dresses, once fashionably expensive, now shabby.

There was something else as well, something tucked back in darkness on the top shelf. Stretching up to reach it she found a miniature version of the case she’d taken to Uncle Bob’s. She sat on the bed, unclicked the latches and tipped out the contents. Ribbons, Barbie dolls, a pin-cushion she’d made in Fabrics class, given to her father for some obscure reason.

And her old Scottie-dog toy.

That had led to a scene when they’d realised she’d left it behind, her mother refusing to go back for it even though they’d only gone a little way. “I can’t do this twice, Jen,” she’d shouted at a tearful daughter.

She smelt the mustiness of its nylon fur and under that, faint but still there, another familiar odour. She held the toy up to her nose.

It was a tangy, chemical smell.

Somewhere in her memory a thin vale fluttered in the breeze, and for a moment she caught a glimpse beyond. The sudden nausea made her run to the bathroom where she vomited into the sink.

Jennifer was due to pick him up at eleven o’clock on saturday morning. That would give Linda, the home-help from Social Services, time to bath him and make sure he’d eaten his breakfast. Jennifer had come to rely on this large cheerful woman; Her father was thinner and more fragile now than even a few months ago but he could still be a handful. And the bathing and dressing made her feel uncomfortable, as if she were doing it to a stranger.

There was something else as well.

For the past week she’d found herself unable to touch him.

Now she was sitting in her car in the wide circular driveway. She’d been there for a while staring passed the house through the wrought iron back gate to the roses bushes beyond. In the blurred colours of memory she saw her father chase Freddy around in the dappling sun of a past summer. Her mind went first to the little suitcase, then to the contents of the crinkled green envelopes in the tin file. This time she’d opened them and read the letters, warning her father of prosecution. Then she’d read the other ones from his lawyers.

The dream had come again last night, the old one she’d thought left behind with her childhood:

The bedroom door ajar, distilled streetlight from the corridor’s window framing the silhouette. A rustle of sheets then the sudden unexpected weight, pulling the mattress down and away so that she reached out a sleepy hand to grab hold. The tangy chemical smell in her nostrils as the bed-monster pushed itself towards her, Scotty-dog trapped between them as the nylon bristles entangled themselves in the matted hair of its chest. The disembodied hand, gently stroking her shoulder before slowly beginning its journey. And then the steady, rhythmical squeak of the headboard…

Linda’s voice from an upstairs window made Jennifer start. The slight impatience of the beckoning gesture made her almost jump out of the car, banging her knee on the door. The woman had made sure that his bags were already in the porch, so that Jennifer only had to load them into the vast boot of the 4x4. There didn’t seem to be enough of them, somehow. She’d expected more.

She unlocked the front door and pushed it open, but her feet refused to move any further. She stepped back into the driveway.

“Can you bring him down?” She shouted up at the window.

They drove through the new housing estate that would take them to the ring road and then quickly on to the nursing home. The town’s older area including Honeycombe Crescent, her father’s road, had been left behind on its fringes. Its solitary detached buildings with their awkward bay windows and cold stone-paved front gardens now felt like grey tombstones to Jennifer.

She and Gerry had a house like these new ones; bright, modest, semi-detached, semi-friendly with next door and the people across the road. They had two cars, good jobs, a cat and a mortgage. And a wonderful little boy. Everything was in its place, as it should be.

“Have I done something wrong, mummy?”

She heard the little girl’s voice in her head. It was the day they’d driven down to Uncle Bob’s farm; there had been no new estate then, no ring road. They’d had to drive through the middle of the old town, through the market day hustle. Her mother had got angry at the crowds and beeped the little car’s horn, making people stare round at them. She’d felt embarrassed. When mummy got angry it always seemed to be her fault. She tried to catch her eye but her mother stared ahead, unseeing.

“Mummy…?”

“I hate this fucking town!” She’d shouted it at the windscreen, the word hate emphasised so that the other terrible one she’d used was almost lost. Jennifer saw that she’d started crying. They’d been on the motorway for hours before her mother had spoken again as if nothing had happened.

“Shall we stop somewhere soon for our picnic, Jen?”

Jennifer knew what the bed-monster was, of course.

She’d always known really, even though she’d hidden it away between the folds of her memory, carefully covered with the bright new things of her life.

Uncle Bob and Auntie Louise had known as well. She’d seen it in their faces when they thought she wasn’t looking; on a pony ride, a day out at the beach. Or the village fair when she’d won a goldfish on the coconut shy, even though it hadn’t fallen down, and Uncle Bob had told the man to give it to her anyway. When he smiled at her it was in the back his eyes, and when she heard them talking downstairs as she was falling asleep she heard it in their voices. Not the slow, indistinct words but the sound of them. A heavy, flat sound, as if they were being forced to say them.

They’d known. So had her mother.

And so, at last she could admit to herself, had she.

“Sorry, Jen…”

So had she…

“Jen…?”

She felt his hand touch her knee.

She started from her reverie and slapped it away, then found herself carrying on the movement so that her palm was suddenly in his face, her fingernails gouging bloody furrows down his cheek. Her foot hit the brake and they both shot forward then snapped back into their seats as the 4x4 stalled and juddered to a halt.

There was a squeal of brakes from behind and she automatically tensed herself for a jolt that never came, the car swerving around them in a blast of horn and swearing.

Her father cringed away from her, pressing his back against the door frame with his fists up to his face as if to protect himself. His eyes were wide with uncomprehending fear.

Jennifer could smell the urine now, its sharp pungent odour filling the car. She saw the wetness spread outwards from his flannel trousers to the edges of the carseat then slowly drip onto the floor.

“Sorry, Jen…” He began to repeat the words again like a mantra.

He only stopped when she forced herself to slide across and put her arms around him, to tell him that it was alright, just a car, not the end of the world.

He was quiet for the rest of the journey.

Jennifer thought the girl at reception couldn’t be more than twenty. She seemed bright and friendly enough though as she gave Jennifer the forms and put big crosses where she had to sign.

“He had a little accident on the way here.” She explained.

“Oh dear, we’ll sought all that out when we get him up to his room. Has he hurt his cheek as well?”

“Moved when I was trying to shave him this morning.”

The girl looked at her steadily.

“We’ll get someone round to deal with that as well then, shall we?”

“Thank-you.”

“That’s no problem.” The girl replied with a tight little smile. She hadn’t believed her.

In the small neat room her father looked a shrunken figure as he sat on the bed. Jennifer read a magazine while two women bathed him and put him in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

When they left she took his hand. “Well, you’re alright now so I must be going. I’ve got to pick up Freddy from cubs.”

He looked up at her, and for a brief moment the milky bewilderment in his eyes seemed to clear.

“I’m sorry, Jen.”

“I told you, the car doesn’t matter.”

“Not the car…”

She felt her eyes suddenly prickle with tears. She couldn’t look at him but squeezed his hand and nodded.

“I’ll come and see you when I can.” She heard her own small voice but it was as if someone else was saying the words.

She found herself bending down to kiss the top of his head.

“Goodbye, daddy.”

Outside the day had grown darker, with a light rain begining to fall. Jennifer looked around absently at the carefully laid out lawns and tidy flowerbeds. She tried to find some residue of the anger that had been flowing inside her but it seemed to have finally drained away.

That was good.

It was like a poison anyway. She didn’t want to carry it around with her anymore, to pass it on to Freddy.

But the bed-monster lived inside her head now.

It would always be a part of her.

She got into her car and drove away down the long tree-lined driveway, without looking back.

pridandpredj.txtd

2010-01-19T04:52:00.000-08:00

going n.fld. wth sis -cm up wth me - b

cntry? lol! - d

vst. bennet hshld. 5 daughts 1 vr fit - mum sug ball at n.fld - b

w/e - d

havn fn? - e

nmu? - d

dance? - e

w/e - d

whats yr prb? - e

yr mum cmn - d

aytmtb? - e

1nce my gd opn. lst -lst fr gd - d

!! - e

hi! - e

hi! - w

u knw d? - e

d=bstd! - w

lol! gtg - e

b leav. n.fld! - j

sis flt. -cows! & d! - e

hi e! -nifoc - c

perv! - e

mar me e & kp yr hse - c

lol! - e

gtg see ldy cdb - c

w/e! - e

mar c lst wk - cl

pr u! - e

cm & sty @ c’s par & mt ldy cdb - cl

ok - e

d! why u here? - e

ldy cdb my aunt - d

lol! - e

cn we b frnds? - d

u hrt j! - e

was rht to do fr b afaic! - d

w says u bstd - e

w is bstd! - d

w/e! - e

lts vst pemb. e - unc&aunt

ok - e

tht u wrnt here! - e

pls mt my sis -cn we b frnds? - d

cid - e

wtf? lyd rn off wth w - e

w scrwd my sis! bstd! brb - d

wycm? - e

situ srtd -w mar lyd - d

u payd? - e

dnt tell yr dad - d

thanku! - e

wl u mar me j? - b

ok! - j

ws wrng abt evrth - ws stk-up prat! - d

aytmtb? - e

lv u! - d

ws wrng abt u 2 - e

? - d

lv u 2! - e

lts tell yr dad - d

ok! - e

Expenses

2010-01-19T04:48:00.000-08:00

The long queue of disgruntled men snaked around pillars, down marbled steps and out into the street. They’d been there for hours, shuffling forward gradually as one by one they disappeared into the dark inner sanctum of the temple.

“Next.” A little bald old man in a crumpled tunic with a face like dried parchment called out from the temple’s doorway.

A tall young chap with long straggly hair and a rather fetching goatee stepped passed him and into the cool of the antechamber beyond.

“At last! Its bloody hot out there you know.” He addressed the two men in long black robes and even longer black beards who sat at the table in the room’s far corner.

Without looking up one of them beckoned him forward.

“Surname and initial?”

The young man approached the table. “Christ, J. Er… will this take very long, only I’ve got a few appointments this afternoon…”

“Party?”

“Oh great, what’s the theme…?”

“What’s your party?”

“Oh sorry. Er, Christians.”

The larger of the two men rolled his eyes and followed a list of names with his finger.

He turned over three sheets of parchment as dry as an old man’s face before finding what he was looking for.

“Here we go. Christ, J. It says ‘Independent’ here.”

“Well I’ve only just got the lads together over the last couple of months.” Their inteviewee replied.

“Named it after yourself, then?” The man gave him an old fashioned look.

“I didn’t want to, but the guys insisted we needed a focal point.”

“Right. Anyway, do you know what all this is about?”

“Parking spaces, maybe…?”

The other man spoke up for the first time. “Expenses!”

“Oh. Right.” A worried expression flickered across the young man’s face.

“Our good friend the Roman governor’s been taking a long look at the committee’s expense claims for the past year, and he doesn’t like what he’s found.” The other continued. “He’s told us to clean it up sharpish.”

“Hmm-hmm.” Christ, J nodded.

“Once we’ve got it all sorted he wants to start his own scheme.”

“A Pilate Scheme perhaps…?”

“You’re the fourteenth twat this morning to crack that one, so don’t push it.” the second man told him grumpily. “Now, if we may continue?”

“Certainly, by all means.”

“Item one, this fishy business – four thousand to be precise. That’s one hell of a picnic.”

“We had a bit of a late rush, had to outsource. You know what its like with these constituency meetings, you have to extrapolate.”

The man looked at another list. “Agreed entertainment budget for constituency meetings: two loaves, five fishes. You’ve extrapolated quite a bit there I’d say.”

The young man shrugged. “Can’t help being popular.”

“And what about all these other freebies claimed on behalf of your people: ‘leprosy ointment’, ‘speech therapy sessions’, ‘free eye tests’, ‘five packs of viagra to cure some bloke in Bethsaida’s impotency, an ‘Acme Rain-Making Device’, a ‘Water Into Wine Kit’, I could go on…”

The young man looked hurt. “They’re all perfectly accountable constituency expenses. I cleared them with the Expenses Committee.”

“If you’re refering that old fool who talks to his goat all day you might as well not have bothered; he’s kept no records or receipts, there’s never been an audit. The temple cat could have done a better job.”

“Well that’s not my fault! I only followed the rules.”

“Would they be the rules that say spend as much of other people’s dosh as you like to curry favour with the masses and get re-elected?”

Christ, J shrugged again.

“I remember you now.” The first man spoke up again. “You’re that prat who totaled the temple market a couple of week’s ago.”

“That was a peaceful one-man protest against Roman trade licencing laws, done in the form of dance. It was performance art.”

“It was certainly a bloody performance! You looked pissed to me.”

“I was in control at all times.” The young man replied.

“The centurion didn’t think so. You were damn lucky to get away with that diplomatic immunity schtick. We don’t want to rub them up the wrong way you know, we get a huge subsidy from Rome.”

“The people need to be free!” Christ, J told him, quite passionately.

“Yeah, yeah, they’re also quite keen on not starving to death as well. Its easy to say all that guff when you’re never going to be in government.”

“And another thing.” The second man stated. “You’ve claimed for tax allowance on a second home in Galilee then flipped it with a flat in your dad’s carpenter shop in Nazareth. You’ve got this Magdalene woman drawing a full allowance as your PA although her secretarial skills seem debateable and she lives miles away from Jerusalem. I’m afraid it all looks very dodgy to me. And what about this supper you’ve just put in for? The wine bill alone comes to over sixty bottles!”

“That’s the last time we’ll be doing anything like that, honestly.” The young man replied sheepishly. “It was a special occasion…”

The first man was starting to get angry. “You people, you think you can walk on water… You’re only in it for what you can get out of it!”

“That’s a fallacy!”

“No,” he hoiked a thumb at his colleague, “that’s a pharisee, and he’s preparing a special report for the governor on each and every one of you. So watch your step!”

He made a shooing motion with his hands. “That’s it. Next!”

As he exited Christ, J grabbed the shoulder of the next interviewee.

“Pete mate, just keep it to what we talked about in the restaurant last night OK? And if they ask you anything at all about me remember; deny, deny, deny…”

Abba-ration

2010-01-19T04:40:00.000-08:00

I first clapped eyes on her through the haze of cigarette smoke and hooker’s cheap perfume that was the downtown precinct room. It was a hot summer night, city of New York, and the guys and me were ready to hit the bars when they brought in the one dame I’d been trying to corner since the big split up went down all those years ago.

The two dudes in the gang, the masterminds, had already put themselves beyond prosecution by coming clean and admitting their crimes. They were currently out on parody. Their other accomplice, an Austrian broad, had long ago vanished.

But they weren’t the ones I wanted. It was her, the cool blue-eyed blonde who now sat before me tossing her perfectly ringleted hair as she looked around disdainfully at pimps and sossled drunks, the visitors from the streets.

She was the girl I’d put the all-points out on when I heard she was in town.

Not so much a girl now. I guess we’d all got a little older if no wiser. But as I stared into those angel eyes I realised I was still head over heals in love with her. I didn’t want her slipping through my fingers again.

Her sudden arrival had thrown me, though. I tried to gather my thoughts.

“Vy am I here, vot have I done?”

Her accent was just as thick as before. And just as sexy.

“All in good time.” I told her as she coughed nervously. “Hey, let me get you a drink of water, Lou…?”

My partner slouched over to us. “This the broad you been after all these years?”

“Stow it Louise and get the lady a drink.”

“Lady? Honey, does your mother know what you do for a living?”

“Ow dare you!” The blue eyes flashed angrily. She turned to me, rising halfway out of her seat. “Vot zort of game are you playing with me?”

“Oh, I think we all know the name of the game, hon.” Louise snorted back at her, “classy set-up like you must make three times the money Big Mama, Mia and the other girls make.”

“Lou…?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it!”

“I’m sorry about that.” I told her, but I could see it from Lou’s angle; the blue satin hotpants and white platform boots did her no favours in these surroundings.

She seemed to calm down. “Zo, vot is all zis about zen?”

I looked her straight in her pretty face. “I’m charging you with murder, lady, in the first.”

“Murder?”

“Murder of the English language. A number of hits in the seventies and eighties. You want I should go into details?”

She looked shaken, but brazened it out. “I vant to see your superior officer, now! You’re in big trouble, mister!”

“One of us sure is.” I replied, coolly.

“I demand to see your Super.”

“Trooper!” I yelled across at the cop on the desk having his supper. “Get me the Chief, pronto!” He put down his chicken tikka subway and picked up the phone.

“You’re crazy!” she continued, the baby-blues staring at me as if I was some kind of madman, “Should I laugh or cry about this? Why am I under attack now, after so long?”

“Its a crazy world, doll,” I replied, then before I could stop myself added bitterly, “you could have stuck to ditzy pop lyrics and corny cliches but no, you had to start singing about real life, real pain, real families breaking up watching their kids get hurt, lonely people out for cheap sex and money instead of meaningful long-term relationships, just gimme gimme gimme then so long. And then the self-loathing, the disillusion… lady, you broke people’s hearts.”

“Zounds like zomone broke yours, officer. Love isn’t easy I know, but you don’t have to go on and on and on about it. Why do you care anyway when all is said and done?

The ring ring of the phone cut short my reply. It was the Chief.

“What the hell you doing down there, detective? I told you that case was filed away years ago and you’re still putting out an APB on the suspect.”

“But Sir…”

“Statute of Limitations says its over. Get rid of her!”

I slowly put the phone down. Her face had a winner takes it all smile of triumph on it.

“I take it I’m free to go now, officer?”

I nodded, then couldn’t help myself; “I was wondering, perhaps me and you could get together for a drink sometime, put all this behind us…”

That did it. She sprang to feet, banged my desk and swore.

“There is no ****ing me, no ****ing you! Don’t you understand, you sad loser!”

She saw the look of pain on my face and relented.

“Look, I’m sorry, but you can’t just lay all your love on me.”

“But…” I stumbled.

“I am just a girl like all the rest, why take a chance on me?”

“I was doing ok the day before you came,” I told her, “now…”

“Now its time to move on.” She gave me a smile, the way old friends do, then turned to go.

“You don’t understand…” I said it to myself but she stopped, her back still turned, listening. “I hated pop music; I was a rockn’roller, a headbanging, heavy metal freak… but you, with your brittle voice and broken-hearted eyes, you tore me up inside. I’ve never told a soul before but you were the only thing that was ever real to me. You were my one, my only…”

“Abba-ration?” There was a faint laugh in her voice, and something else I couldn’t bear to hear; pity.

I turned away and she was gone.

“You still want this water?” It was Louise back again, but I couldn’t look at her. I just kept staring at the door.

“Thank you for the music, baby.” I whispered.

“Huh?”

“I said, I need a beer Lou! C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

Bog Girl

2010-01-19T04:35:00.000-08:00

Marion had spent the afternoon cleaning the caked mud off the bog girl. She was good at her work, the patient, methodical touch gently dabbing and caressing the bones, slowly working the brush’s soft bristles into the little nooks and crannies as the encrusted dirt gradually gave up its four millennia hold on the body.

She broke off from her labours for a few moments, stood back from the trestle table against the wall of the tent and stretched, thrusting her chest out with hands on hips and legs slightly shaky. Bending down for the last three hours had given her an aching back; something she’d had to grow used to on the various high profile field trips she’d taken part in after her first at Cambridge.

All part of the job, of course, and an important part. No amount of textbook theory could make up for the one minute detail missed ‘in the field’. An arrow point in a bone; the jagged slash marks of a knife; a prematurely bent spine, even the shape of the teeth could mean the difference between natural and suspicious, accident and murder.

This girl had been murdered. Ritually murdered.

There were several clues, obvious even to a person without Marion’s forensic skills. First, there was the knife thrust to her heart. The skin, mummified by cold and lack of oxygen, had a ragged hole torn through the chest where the weapon had been plunged, breaking several ribs in its downwards thrust. Most of the remaining skeleton had been dissolved by the peat’s acidity on the bone’s calcium phosphate. Then, the feet had been bound, the pulpy flesh of the ankles still fused together long after the rope tieing them had rotted away. Likewise, the hands. They were positioned behind the figure’s back underneath the body as the team carefully excavated the corpse, raising it out of its dank pit on a long board kept for the purpose. They’d found grave offerings nearby; water jugs and small carvings of animals and children, lain beside the victim to keep her company on her premature journey to the afterlife.

And it was a ‘she’, Marion had no doubts about that. It very nearly always was, especially in the British sites she’d attended since her graduation. If a man had been killed it was in a fight, over property or a woman perhaps, or as a traitor to the tribe in some way. In that case he was dispatched as swiftly as possible, on his feet or on his knees.

But never on his back.

Marion studied the slight figure in the diffuse light of the late afternoon. The teeth had told her the girl was pubescent, possibly no more than fourteen or fifteen, as had a cursory study of the petrified organs which also showed she had not borne children, a thing not to be taken for granted when dealing with ancient societies. Her expected lifespan would probably have been late thirties, even without her savagely assisted death.

The body had been well preserved in the peat bog, the upper torso still swathed in a wrap of skin turned hard and brittle. There were hints of stiffened cloth tucked under the arms and around the waist, a simple dress of some kind maybe, to heighten the image of the girl’s purity. If it was a crop blessing ceremony to appease the local gods this last detail would be all important.

A dull gemstone, possibly agate, had been found under the neck, another indication of ceremonial rite as the victim had no other indication of privilege. A typical hunter-gatherer, she appeared undernourished for her age, even allowing that the tribe she belonged to would probably be of a smaller build anyway.

So; small, poor and helpless she had been lain on some altar to await her fate. A bloody one. And Marion was pretty sure that alter had been built by a man.

Archaeology had seemed a dry, rather predictable course for her life to take; the dutiful recording of the minutiae of other’s lives, people long removed from this world, safe, distant figures she could have no emotional bond to apart from pure academic interest. It had been what she’d wanted.

But now, suddenly with this girl, she felt different. Perhaps she knew a little too much about such things now, more than a normal person had a right to know. The past was a violent place, but impersonally so.

Wasn’t that the case?

Marion moved around the table carefully until she stood above the girl’s head. The light from this angle seemed to caress the shiny skin, giving the nose and high cheek bones a metallic, almost heroic quality. From above, just for an instant, the face seemed to be actually smiling at her.

On impulse, Marion placed a hand each side of the small head and bent down. Her lips brushed the corpse’s forehead.

“Sleep well, little one. And dream of me.”

She caught herself and straightened with a jerk. It was not like her to act like this; she must be more tired than she realised. She was supposed to be in charge, if anyone had seen her…

But she still allowed herself a smile as she left the tent.

The woman crying to herself in the huddled little group was Aran’s mother. The others had eaten nothing of the meal she’d lain before them although it would be their last all together as a family.

Aran had been chosen.

The old men muttered impatiently to themselves outside. Soon they would enter in their ceremonial furs to tell them it was time.

Aran’s father’s head was bowed to hide his pain, for a daughter should not see her father cry. The girl wore the same desperate smile she’d practiced since the Day of Choosing, when the old men had made their decision. It was not unexpected, at least to Aran.

It was curious how the Chosen always seemed to be a young female, not a brave warrior or an old man. Particularly one who was pretty (she knew that from the attention the young men gave her) and held her head up a little too high in the tribe. Who sometimes questioned what she was told to think, and chose her own way not that of her sisters. Such thoughts in the hearing of the old men and their priests had sealed her fate beyond any intervention her father could provide.

The choice was seen to be random of course; a complicated affair constructed to show how the god’s themselves favoured Aran above all others. For her family’s future in the tribe she had accepted it, only crying out her rage to the moon deep in the woods where no-one else would hear.

“Sister, O sister! Why must I be the one? Have you deserted me?”

Aran felt herself a child of the moon.

If only she had been born with the placid nature of her father, or the forbearance of her mother. She loved them both and wait patiently for them in the next world, but their character’s were not like her’s. They could never understand why she had spoken out against the priests and the elders, those ancient men with shinning heads, dull minds and stone hearts.

It was later in the evening now.

The senior women of the village bathed Aran and combed her dark knotted hair again and again until it was smooth and to their liking. Then they placed winter flowers in it. They dressed her in a simple white shift, slid amulets of precious stones onto her arms and a thick necklace of gold and silver around her neck.

These treasures would Aran’s for a few hours till the break of dawn. Next year they would be another’s.

As the priests led her at the head the throng moving out of the village Aran’s mind travelled back to her Joining Time of the last summer, to the dance of womanhood with the other girls of her age. But that life was over. She saw her friends now as ghosts moving into the fading light of her memory where she could not follow.

As the sputtering torches picked out a narrow path on the hillside she looked back at the dark valley as a lazy curl of smoke twisted into the night.

One last view of her home.

Her feet stumbled for a moment and a priest’s arm grasped roughly at her wrist. She was precious to them now, at last.

Too soon the Tall Stones rose up above them. As a child Aran had been taught that to be the Chosen One was a great honour, that the tribe’s purest blood must be offered to them each year or the harvest would fail. Now her keen mind thought this a lie, and she knew her father’s did as well.

She knew inside her that he would have given his own life for hers.

The crowd stirred.

One of the priests took Aran’s hand and led her out to the centre of the stone circle as the tribe formed a ring around the edges. Though could identify all their faces in the torchlight, each now seemed transformed into something less than human. As she walked she felt her bladder release itself in fear, the cold wetness stinging her legs. She looked at the priest but his face remained impassive. There was a low baying sound she thought was wolves before realising it was coming from the people in front of her, men and women she had known all her life.

The priest motioned her to lie down on the stone slab in the circle’s centre. He tied her legs together and her hands behind her back.

It was almost dawn. He began to chant as the crowd fell silent.

Then, as Aran looked up into the old man’s face, another appeared at his shoulder. This was a kind and friendly face. A woman’s. It bent down towards her. Gentle fingers touched her cheek. Tender lips placed a kiss on her forehead with the lightness of a feather.

Aran gazed in wonder as the image faded, then she understood. It was sister moon, come at the last to take Aran with her to her kingdom.

She was afraid no more.

She looked up at the priest again, into his weak old eyes. She knew now that her own were young and strong, and as cold as gemstones.

They were defiant.

As the first rays of the sun burst above her head and burned her deathbed gold she saw the glint of the knife in the air.

And arched her back to embrace it.

And Oh So Far Away

2010-01-19T04:13:00.000-08:00

The woman in the pale blue trouser suit walked over to the picture window and stared out at the familiar LA skyline. She always stayed here when they had work to do, and although he’d promised her the day off before their flight, somehow they’d still found themselves back in that long low room with its soundproofed walls and all the parafinalia of the recording studio.

“Just the overdubs honey, it won’t take more than an hour, two at most.”

But it had been six in the end. That was OK though, she wanted to get it right as much as he did, maybe even more. She always felt at home in that room, safe, in charge of herself. He’d tell her what he wanted her to do and they’d try a few things out, she’d say her point of view and he’d listen and they’d try it again. Sometimes they hit the spot with the first take although, she reminded herself, that rarely happened these days.

These days it was all far too serious. These days perfection came slower, and harder.

It wasn’t like when they started out, listening excitedly to the playbacks though their cans, the old pro’s behind the mixing desks nodding sagely with disbelieving grins on their faces.

“This is the real thing man! Immaculate as a diamond; flawless, beautiful.

That’s what those faces told them.

“Could it really be so easy?” they’d ask themselves in careful, steady voices, afraid that to shout out what they really felt would break the spell. “Could just making music really be this much fun?”

Not that it wasn’t hard work. But hard work never hurt anyone, right?

The woman shielded her eyes against the harsh west coast sun as it tipped across the horizon and burnished the offices and apartment blocks below to a mellow gold. She hadn’t slept much, had tossed and turned exhausted but too wired to sleep, still electrified by the evening’s long session. Now that edge had been blunted and her body told her to rest, but there could be no rest. Soon the taxi would be there and she’d be off to LAX and Tokyo; the meet and greet, the interviews, the soundchecks and the shows, night after night, perfect in every detail with never a slip of the grinning mask she hid behind like a frightened child. A fat and ugly one.

She’d tried to tell him that. Or had she?

Not really, she guessed. Not in actual words because they’d always been a barrier between them.

Ironic really, when it was words that had really got them where they were; the beautiful lyrics that ripped her soul apart as she sung them, the smooth glittering plains of the diamond that splintered as they touched her heart. Yes they were beautiful, but cold and lonely; a self-imposed exile’s excuse for never having lived a life. No wonder she took them inside herself so eagerly like sympathetic old friends.

“You were right.” They’d tell her, even as they formed themselves in her throat. “You knew that life was going to be like this didn’t you? There’s no reason to any of it, no ultimate point. There is only self-awareness and work. Know yourself and work hard. Hard work never hurt anyone.”

He’d never realised that of course, how could he? He had the dream. It had all come so easily for him from the get-go and she’d willed herself to be right there by his side, ready to get it for him. It was the way she’d been brought up. Not the money or the houses or the cars, though that was nice. Not even the praise, because that was kinda nice as well but sometimes it just got in the way of the music. No, he just wanted to get it right.

“I can do that for you Hon, I can get it as right as it can ever be. Just don’t put me out front that’s all, don’t put me in that place because then they’ll get to see too much. They’ll see right through me.”

But he didn’t get it, none of them did, so she had to retreat even further back inside herself, shrink away from everyone to the place she felt safe.

The grinning fool would cover for her.

It was on autopilot now anyway until the ballards, and then she’d have to step in again, rip the clown mask away and sing those terrible, terrifying words. It was what she got paid for; to go one more time to that small dark room at the top of the house that no-one else ever visited and stare into its moon-lit mirror; to see herself, not gaunt and panda-eyed but the chubby little middle-classed kid from Connecticut long ago and oh so far away, the all-American girl next door who only ever wanted the white picket-fenced deal she’d been promised by the TV re-runs, with the cute guy who’d marry her and love her and tell her she looked just fine – who’d lie to her.

But that was just in the mirror, and as the last words of the song faded away so would the image until he would find that little room and flick on the light switch and she’d see the sunken cheeks and anvil chin staring straight back at her again.

“This is who you really are.” The image would open its thin lips and whisper seductively to her. “Safe, in control, they can’t hurt you anymore. My, with a little more self-discipline you could even look normal…”

The sun was up now and people were starting to line the sidewalks, grey summer suits and pastel-shaded dresses pressing passed each other to get into subways and onto busses, yellow cabs jostling each other for parking spaces, a limousine she recognised being waved into its birth directly in front of the hotel’s awning by two white-gloved attendants. The record company never left anything to chance.

A few minutes later the phone rang and she picked up her gloves and handbag. There was a subdued knock at the door as the bell-boy entered for her bags. She walked over and tipped him, smiled and signed the piece of paper he almost dropped with shaking hands, then turned and went back to the window again.

How easy it would have been, she suddenly realised as she stared down at the brightly coloured ants below. How easy to have made it all stop. It hadn’t even occurred to her till that moment; after all, why would she possibly want to do that? They had everything they’d ever wanted now.

She pushed her sunglasses down over her eyes and stared out unseeing at the city one more time.

So this is what it was like to be on top of the world.

Getting Rid of Suki

2010-01-19T03:41:00.000-08:00

“I hate doing this!” Haruma said the words under her breath as she pushed the mop in angry stabs at the pale green linoleum floor. “We’re not children anymore. Its so undignified!”

“Now, now.”

“But they’ve got no right to make us. We’ll all be at university soon and we’re still having to behave like drudges. Other people’s parents have written to the school about it. Their kids don’t have to do all this shit so why didn’t mine do the same? I told mum I hated it!”

“Its only for a few more days…”

“I can’t wait, Suki! Will you come with me?”

“I think that maybe I…”

“Please say you’ll come. I know I going to fail. I need you there with me. Please…”

“Alright…”

“Haruma? Are you OK?”

Hina and Akiko were staring at her. They wore the same regulation dark blue sailor-styled tops and skirts as Haruma, although Akiko’s skirt was a good deal shorter than the others.

In the evenings, after school, they were as different in appearance and character as friends could possibly be. Hina was the shy one, her finely-honed little frame usually dressed in modest rather dull long skirts and ill-fitting jumpers. She even turned up in her tracksuit sometimes after one of her various never-ending sport sessions, much to Haruma and Akiko’s amusement and frustration.

“How we ever going to meet any good looking boys with you dressed like that? You’re not in the Olympics yet girl!”

But it was always said good-naturedly. Hina was a natural athlete and you had to make allowances for that. She was the only one of the little group with real god-given talent, apart from Suki of course.

Akiko was something else entirely. Tall for a Japanese, even by present day standards, she was all curves and legs, her body seemingly in a continual fight to free itself from the confines of the tight mini-skirts and even tighter daft-sloganed t-shirts she loved. On their evenings out in the city’s downtown clubs Akiko sported giant bangle earings, hello kitty bows and flourescent high heels. Hina, an alice band and sneekers and herself a strange self-conscious hi-brid of both.

And then there was Suki of course. Until now Haruma had always seen herself as the neutron these three disparate quarks spun around; the power that held their unlikely fellowship all together; not-sporty, not-glamour girl, not…Suki. No, she was the science geek. And like any self-respecting physicist she was reluctant to part with such a perfectly formulated equation. Not yet, anyway.

“Haruma?” Akiko spoke again. Hina looked at her with a little knot of worry creasing her bronzed brow. She held her own mop with a light touch as if ready to throw it javelin-like into one of the classrooms or use it to pole-vault into the quad out of an open window. Akiko slouched against hers like it was her last-dance partner for the evening.

Haruma looked over at them both and refocussed. “Fine, I’m just dandy. Apart from this stupid mop in my hands and the fact I’m going to find out that I’ve failed my entrance exam on Tuesday I feel brilliant.”

“You’re not going to fail.” Akiko’s voice was a little too adament to carry the conviction she’d obviously wished it to. “They’ll take everything into consideration. And even if they don’t you’ll still walk it babe. You’re our very own Albert Swiztser.”

“Einstein! O ha ha, very funny!” Akiko always managed to get her going. She sometimes felt that the girl actually spent time revising the subject just so she could catch her out.

“No seriously though.”

“It’s nothing.” A crowd of first year’s raced down the corridor towards them, slaloming around the three girls as if any contact would lose them points. Akiko kicked a lazy foot at the pants of the last one. “I’ll be OK when I get out of this damn place.”

“Won’t we all.”

“You’ll make it, Haruma.” Hina’s soft voice spoke up for the first time. “We’ve all had a rough time of it, especially you.” She looked away from Haruma, down at the suds-covered lino. “I still cry sometimes when I’m trying to get to sleep. I try to think positive but its not easy…” Akiko moved to put an arm round her. Haruma noticed the tall girl’s eyes were shiny but her words were as strong as ever.

“Haruma’s going to do fine, we all are. We have to.”

“Hina’s so sweet!” Whispered Suki. Haruma nodded.

“Haruma?”

“I’m agreeing with you, Akiko. You’re right, Hina. We all have to think positive from now on. Let’s get on with this stupid floor. I want to go out clubing tonight and forget about it all. To hell with Uni! If I don’t get in I’ll still always have you guys to annoy me. En garde!”

“Toché!” Shouted Akiko and Hina in unison, and the three of them danced around the corridor in a mop swordfight until the principle came out of his office down the hallway to tell them to stop acting like first years. And they all giggled at him.

“I don’t think I’ve done it, Suki.” Haruma was making her way along the side of the quad beneath the pealing green tin covered walkways. She was on her way to see Oonishi san for the last time, to thank her maths teacher for his patience with her. “I told you that you’d get it eventually,” he’d tell her, and she’d smile and clap and give a little bow, and pray that she hadn’t let him down, that she had indeed eventually ‘got it’ when she’d needed it most; in that damned exam!

“I know that you have.” Suki told her softly.

“You don’t know anything of the sort. You were useless at ordinary maths, never mind Advanced. You couldn’t even work out your pool score without my help!”

“That’s unkind. True, but unkind.”

Haruma heard Suki’s sudden laughter in the overcast March air and just for a moment thought she might even see a trace of it curling around the edges of the walkway roof like a haze of sunbeams escaping back to the sky.

“Will you come with me this afternoon?” Haruma tried not to make it sound like pleading.

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Hmmm, you did. But if you didn’t want to…” Haruma paused. “I dreampt about you again last night.” She said the words quietly. Nobody in the quad would hear her above the rat-a-tat of the rain, and most of the other school leavers from her year had escaped the downpour to rush back into the square cream-coloured buildings.

“I told you to stop doing that.”

“I know, but we’d been out to that club in Shinjuku, the first one we all went to together. The old ‘gang of four’. It just felt so weird… We talked about you all night. It was the first time we’d really done that you know, since…”

“Don’t remind me…”

Harumi felt the other sigh. She stopped walking and waited for her to continue. Eventually, she couldn’t resist.

“What was it like, Suki?”

“You’ve asked me that before.” There was a warning note in Suki’s voice.

“‘Painful’ isn’t really an answer.”

“Well its the only one you’re going to get. Why don’t you try it yourself if you’re so damn curious?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” But Suki was gone. Haruma could always tell straight away. She clutched the present she’d brought for Oonishi san to her chest and ran across to the nearest doorway, skipping the puddles that lay in islands across the grey concrete.

She found the young teacher in the main Maths classroom surrounded by a gaggle of school leavers promising ‘cross their hearts’ they’d keep in touch. All four of her friends had harboured not so secret crushes on their handsome sensei at some time. Haruma was the only one of the little group to go on to study Advanced Math though, and now she considered him a good friend.

“Haruma!” He waved to her through the crowd and came over to where she stood hesitantly in the doorway. “How are you? Nervous? Its this afternoon isn’t it?”

She nodded. “I’m OK. I just wanted to give you this and say thank-you for everything.”

He took the present but kept looking at her. “Thank-you, that’s very kind. Are you really OK?”

“Not really.” She felt tears prick her eyes and blinked them back self-consciously. Not now, in front of him. This was meant to be a fun day.

“Do you still think about it. Sorry, stupid question! Of course you do.”

Haruma suddenly saw Suki in her mind; “I passed Haruma, I passed, I got in!” Suki’s scholarship exam for the Tokyo Music Conservatoire, taken early as the winter began to fade, before all the others would have the chance of shaping their futures. Suki had always been different from them, special, talented, more than talented; exceptional. It had come so easy to her it seemed, but only Haruma and the others in the gang of four knew the hard work she put in. Now, dancing in front of her, joyful, blissfully unaware of her surroundings, she took a clumsy step backwards, perhaps the only clumsy thing that Haruma had ever seen her do…

She remembered the famous American actor’s giant face on the side of the bus. She would never be able to watch his films again, she knew that as an automatic fact even as she was turning to run after the big silver bullet-shaped machine that was dragging Suki along the road then underneath it. She hated him, even if his name always slipped her memory. Nothing else did.

“I’m sorry, I have to go and check my results now. I really just wanted to say… y’know. Thanks for helping me.” She bowed to him, a hand up to her mouth. “Arigato Sensei!”

She turned in confusion and fled.

Tokyo University was a big place. Haruma had got lost twice just trying to find the information desk. When she finally did the woman in the neat grey suit left her not much the wiser.

“Back down the main corridor, turn right then left twice, I think, and up the stairs. The Physics Department is on your right. No left. You’ll see the sign. The list will be on the notice board along the far wall, next to the Department Head’s office, or if not there a little further down by the labs. Anyway, ask one of the administrative staff when you get there.” She turned away from Haruma to muddle up someone else.

“Silly cow!” Hissed Suki in her ear.

“Now, now.”

“Now, now, silly cow!” Suki replied with a giggle. “God, I think I must be more nervous than you.”

“Impossible. I’m crapping myself!”

“What a charming image.”

“You know what I mean. Oh Suki, If I screw this up my parents will kill me.”

“No they won’t.”

“Well I’ll kill me!” There was silence in the high-ceilinged main hall as the other students wandered around her trying to find out where to go to receive their fate.

“Suki…?”

A long pause. “Let’s go then, shall we?”

Haruma started down the way she’d been pointed.

She found the lists where the woman had said they’d be, stuck to the wall-long notice board with bright colour-code pins defining their various departments. Physics/Maths was brown, a crisp A4 sheet with about forty names making up two regimented columns. She traced it with an agitated finger before realising halfway down the first that it was in alphabetical order. She hadn’t seen her name. Of course she hadn’t; Watanabe!

Haruma shut her eyes. Someone knocked her elbow but she refused to open them. She could walk away now and never know, leave the country for some far off exotic place never to return. She would always wonder if she’d passed, never have to give up the delusion that she’d turned down Tokyo University for the life of a bohemian traveller, never have to… Oh to hell with it!

Haruma screwed her fists up and opened her eyes. She focussed on the last two names in the second column; J. WAKAMI, H. WATANABE. Her. Her name. It was there. She’d passed. She’d been accepted. She was going to Tokyo University!

“Knew you’d make it.”

“I’m in Suki!”

“I know.”

“But I’m actually in!”

Silence, inside her head a silence. Not the thoughts about Uni and the next few years, they were whirring around her consciousness like angry dragonflys, each demanding her individual attention, each with their own set of doubts and problems and catastrophic scenarios. She shut the door on them and stepped outside. Haruma was in a bright sunny meadow; in the distance the city’s grey skyline hung suspended in the heat haze. There were no rain clouds here, no cold March winds to make her shiver. It was summertime, the summer she’d first met Suki, the day they went on that long hike to the countryside, just for the hell of it.

“We’re here again, Suki.”

“Yes.”

“Because?”

“Because I want to tell you something.”

“And what if I don’t want to hear?”

“You have to hear it, Haruma. You have to listen. You’ve got to get rid of me Haruma, you’ve got to let me go. I’ve waited until now and now’s the time. Do it now or I’ll stay forever. You don’t want that.”

“How do you know what I want!”

“I know you. You’re going somewhere Haruma, you always were. Don’t let me hold you back anymore.”

“Suki don’t…”

But she saw her friend now, ringed by sunlight, a young figure both Suki and not Suki anymore, walking slowly away from her down through the meadow grasslands to the chequerwork of little fields beyond. The figure stopped for a moment at their edge, seemed to turn and wave back to her, then ran with strides ever lengthening until the day swallowed it up.

She was finally alone.

She found Hina and Akiko sitting on the steps outside the University waiting for her. Haruma wiped her face with her sleeve before walking down to them. She took her time, so that they only noticed her presence when she was almost on top of them.

“Haruma! Oh love, never mind.” Akiko’s voice was soothing, her eyes full of sympathy. Hina’s face wore its worried expression. She reached out a hand to touch Haruma’s.

Haruma nodded at Akiko.

“What?”

She nodded again.

“Yes? You passed? You passed! Bloody hell, you lucky cow!

“I don’t know if I’m ready for it all yet, though.” She told them. “Maybe I should do a gap year…”

And they both hit her at exactly the same time.

From my half-completed novel, 'Flowerchain', a collection of linked stories set in modern day Japan, whereby a minor character in one chapter becomes a major character in the next.

Almighty Designer

2010-01-19T03:09:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth gazed through the wide kitchen window into the middle distance of tall white-boarded houses surrounded by white picket fences, set adrift on a sea of perfect lawns. Outside each sat a large shiny Dodge or Chevy with the occasional Mitsubishi jeep making an apologetic appearance. Their own GM people carrier sat parked up close, its side door still open from the afternoon school run although the wheelchair’s lifting ramp had been slid back inside.

It was a bright metallic green with a white stripe – Josh’s choice.

A beautiful late afternoon had followed on from an even more beautiful day in late summer; balmy and bright with only the slightest breeze to jangle the garage doors and ruffle the basketball nets hanging from their hoops. Kids were shrieking nearby, balls bouncing on concrete driveways and model cars trundled across tarmac.

Whatever it said in the papers about the cities, here felt safe.

“Why did Mr Carmichael say dad’s wrong, mom?”

She pretended not to hear her son’s question until he repeated it, spinning himself around to face her.

“I don’t think he meant to say your father was wrong, Josh. Perhaps he meant some of the details were…” she struggled to find the right words and settled on “…different.”

“But he said dad was wrong. He got totally pissed about it. Said he didn’t want to hear anymore of that claptrap in his classroom, especially from me. He actually went this kinda red colour, it was really weird.”

Carmichael had no right to say such things, Elizabeth thought, especially to someone else’s kid. She made a mental note to bring it up at the next schoolboard’s meeting, hell, she’d get Dan to have a word with them. Her understanding was that the new teaching policy had all but been agreed, that it would be in place for this term. It was outrageous that some of the staff, the older more cussed ones, were still dragging their feet. Dan would have to remind them of their pension arrangements with the County Education Board; he wasn’t a governor for nothing.

“Your teacher shouldn’t have spoken to you like that, but then like so many people he’s ignorant of the true facts of the matter.”

She heard her voice take on its prim tone as she said the words and almost bit her lip to stop herself saying any more. She hated sounding like this to Josh, but the old man had got her riled.

“You do understand, don’t you honey?”

The boy nodded, but then half turned away from her, looking out through the window at the clattering joyful din from the street.

She wondered what he was thinking. She always wondered with Josh.

“We did dinosaurs in natural history class last week. And cavemen too. It wasn’t like you and dad said, though.” Josh continued looking away, not meeting her eyes. “It was different. Different times.”

“We’ve explained that to you, haven’t we. Its all in your book, remember?” Elizabeth looked around for the group’s little book with the panda on the cover. She hadn’t seen it lately and it wasn’t in Josh’s room anymore.

“Josh, the world is a wonderful place, isn’t it? Don’t you think?”

“I guess so…” He still wouldn’t look at her.

“But you don’t think it got to be this wonderful by accident, do you? All the different plants and animals and the brilliant fish in the seas, they didn’t just happen willy-nilly. How could they? Nature didn’t do all this on her own without a plan or a design. She needed God’s help, God’s design. Life’s beautiful diversity couldn’t be left to just chance, it had to be grown and nourished, directed…”

She sounded hectoring now and Josh just sat there with his back turned.

He usually got straight down to his homework when they came home but today he seemed different; pensive and de-motivated. That damn Carmichael! She had a mind to go right back to the school now and have it out with him! But that would mean leaving Josh on his own, and she never liked doing that. He hated her fussing around, all eight year old’s do, but if anything happened while she was gone, even to a neighbours, she could never have explained why she hadn’t been there to Dan. Or to herself.

“Its the ball-game tonight.” Josh told her.

Now he did look around and his eyes seemed somehow accusatory, Elizabeth thought. Or maybe she imagined they did. Like the time she found him at the foot of the stairs when he was little, big blue eyes staring up at her from below a freckled frown, as if it had been her fault. Not Dan’s, just her’s. Sometimes, even now, she couldn’t bare to look at him.

“Oh, I didn’t know. Did you want to go honey, only dad will be home soon and I have to get dinner started. But after that we could all go down and sit in the bleachers, if you wanted to.”

“No. Not really.” Josh paused and turned his head back then in a smaller voice, more to himself than her, said “They’ve started laughing at me.”

Elizabeth felt a tingle of shock, then a fist grabbing at her heart. If this had to happen, then why when he was still so young? She knew children could be cruel, but she’d hoped…

That damn school should have tried a lot harder to prevent this sought of situation! They’d told her they would, that she could trust them.

She felt tears prick her eyes. “Baby, its not your fault. They’ve got no call to say anything to you. None of us can help the way God made us…”

He turned and looked up at her again, jerking his head in a sudden spasm of anger. And that look…

“Its not this!” He spat the words out at her as if they were something he couldn’t bare to taste in his mouth. “They’re fine with this, always have been. Its the other thing! They laugh at me when I tell them about it, about you and dad and the group. They say you’re all crazy!”

Elizabeth recoiled. She’d never heard him like this before.

“They don’t understand, Josh. They’ve been told nothing but lies all their lives by the scientists and they don’t understand God’s simple truth. And… and I don’t like to hear you talk this way to me!”

“Mr Carmichael says life depends on ‘survival of the fittest’.” Josh said the words like a mantra. “He says only the strong live and the weak ‘perish’, he says that’s how we all got here, that’s the way it happened.”

“Mr Carmichael’s a liar, Josh! God love’s us all. He does! He designed the whole universe and everything in it with his love!”

“Then he must have been a pretty crappy designer!”

She tried to put her arms around him but he spun away from her, one of the wheels rolling over her toes as he pushed the rims downward with frenetic angry movements.

She heard his bedroom door slam.

Elizabeth stood in the kitchen for a few moments, shaking, then moved to make herself a coffee. She poured the boiling water slowly and sat down at the table but didn’t drink, just held the mug between her palms. The heat was somehow soothing as she stared out at the kid across the street riding his skateboard up and over and down the kerb, again and again.

The next few years were going to be difficult ones, she knew that.

But with God’s help they’d all come through.

Read out at 'Tales of the Decongested' writer's club at Foyle's Bookshop, London, and subsequently published on their webzine.

Outpost

2010-01-19T02:54:00.000-08:00

"There, did you see that one?" My colleague’s voice, excited, wired. Colleague, not buddy. None of us exactly bonded on that mission, despite our mutual respect for one another.

"Mike?" Our leader sounded as steady as always, but I could hear the tone of agitation beneath the surface. It said 'stop screwing around and concentrate. We get one shot, so don't flip out on me.' He was a friendly enough guy, but a blank personality-wise. That was the way he liked it, and I respected that.

But our pilot?

Well Buzz needed something more from him, some kind of emotional connection maybe that he couldn't give. They were poles apart and I was slap bang in the middle, the conduit for their two diametrically opposed personalities.

And yet funny enough I was the one staying behind; the level headed one, the innocuous, even unimaginative plodder. I just hoped they wouldn’t piss each other off too much down there.

"Mike, see anything? His voice came again in my headphones.

"Negative that." I replied. "What do they look like?" Trying to build a bridge, keep the team as one not three. It was getting kinda tiresome.

"Didn't you see the flashes? Portside, they seemed pretty near but that could have been an illusion. Sun flares, maybe... I caught them out of the corner of my eye like before. They were so bright..."

"Let's get on the ball..." Neil told him.

And then it was time to go. When it finally came to it everything seemed to happen so quick; one moment we were checking the orbital data with Houston, the next they were in the Lunar Module, flying alongside Columbia while I did one final visual check that everything was OK.

"You're looking fine, Eagle, apart from the fact you're upside down."

"Somebody's upside down!" Neil’s voice sounded relaxed now, the little joke an indication that the tension of our last minutes together had been put aside as both men prepared for business.

With a burst of thrusters I moved away from them as they began their descent. "Keep talking to me, guys." I told them.

Then I listened, second-hand, to the drama that followed: the over-shoot, the last minute change of landing site to Tranquillity Base, the ten seconds left of fuel in the LM's tanks after they’d coaxed the collection of matchstick metal and foil that was Eagle lander down onto the dead surface below.

Everybody knows about that.

But not this. You won't find this on the Discovery channel or in any best-selling memoir, not even mine. The only place for this is inside my head.

And now I'm telling you.

I'm falling into the moon's dark shadow for the first time. It's like a giant wall of negativity about to consume the tiny silver cylinder of the command module. And then, more suddenly than I'd realised, I'm inside its depths. The ball of dust and rock below me is no more than a silhouette, a black hole blocking out the stars behind.

And the Earth.

It has disappeared into the darkness below me, and I am truly alone. This will last for forty-five minutes of my two hour orbit. I will repeat it another twenty-nine times before Columbia rendezvous' with Eagle again and we all head for home. The first will seem like an eternity, the second slightly less, but every time I swing around into that gaping shadow to be swallowed whole like some minnow inside the belly of a whale I'll feel the same frisson of fear, followed almost instantaneously by a sensation of unique loneliness only five other men will know.

And wonderment. That's what takes over and stops you going insane. I am here, my back turned to Earth, before me the stars; undimmed by atmosphere, like bright jewels I can reach out and pocket. Just me and them. No-one else can see me, or hear me cry out, or understand what I'm thinking or feeling, because for these forty-five minutes I am one with the cosmos and it with me.

I am the farthest man out but I am no longer lonely. I am exulted.

I was exulted. Before I knew...

When I got the nod that I'd be the first command module pilot involved in a lunar landing some wag at Houston said I'd be the loneliest man since Adam. I guess the image stuck in the public consciousness. It's kinda what I became famous for afterwards, the guy who stayed behind, the one that didn't drop the sixty-nine miles down to the surface, who didn't walk on the moon.

People said it as if it was something to regret, but that was my job and I'd accepted that right from the off. I was the one who would have to come back alone if we screwed up, the one who'd have to see the girls, to tell them how I'd left their husbands behind to die on a cold dead rock hundreds of thousands of miles from home.

I'd survive it all somehow, but the finger would be pointed at me for the rest of my life -- the one that came back alone. If I could face the prospect of that, I could face missing the moon.

Was I scared? I'd have been a fool if I wasn't, but it was a rational fear; a fire banked down by calculation and projection, procedure and protocol, by little moments of concentration and decision. If I didn't do this, and this, followed by this, we'd most probably die. If I could handle those extreme moments the fear would recede, at least for a while.

But now I was cast adrift with little to do but wait. And gradually, like an assassin creeping towards me through the shadows, I felt that fear return.

It was on the twenty-seventh lunar orbit, three from the final one, when it happened. I was asleep, but then something awoke me. My eyes were still shut but there was a pressure on them of intense light.

I'd been dreaming, I think of Pat and me on the 'Strip' in Las Vegas of all places. That's why the lights confused me for a few seconds; that they might still be a residual part of the dream. But when I opened my eyes they were still there, dancing in the CM's tiny windows like fireflies around a campfire, but there was nothing but the darkness of space around them. And they were so bright, like iridescent flashes of magnesium burning into nothing then sparking again, but that couldn't be because there was no oxygen for them to burn in. The next moment they were somehow inside the craft, hanging in the air before me, all around me, joining together until everything was brilliant white and I had to shut my eyes, but I could still see the CM's cabin in x-ray.

I couldn't turn away, couldn't hide because it was everywhere, and I felt like my brain would short-out with the sheer energy of it.

I began to feel nauseous. I felt a wave of intense, nameless emotion overtake me, then something else, a kind of connection. And I heard voices, voices older than time itself. I don't know how to describe it in physical terms, it went beyond that. But it was real, and forty years later when I'm talking to you its still the realist thing I've ever known.

-- They said that they came from before the darkness, that we could still see their light but they were gone now. They said that the darkness never stops growing; that it would find us too. That we their children were all that was left, their last outpost.

And that they loved us...

Six hours later I'm re-docking with Eagle. Everything goes according to plan. Three days after that we're careering through the Earth's atmosphere at 24,000 miles an hour before our three giant red and white 'chutes open and we drift down into the ocean and a hero's welcome.

But a part of my mind will never come home now. It's still wandering somewhere up there in the cosmos with the voices of ghosts echoing through it like a one-way conversation on a telephone.

I smile at my kids, and their kids, and I laugh and do the stuff I need to fill up the rest of my life, but inside I'm still wondering what it was all about.

And when the darkness will come.

Published on 'Aphelion' science fiction webzine October 2009

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/sections/editorial.html

Finding Uncle

2010-01-19T01:48:00.000-08:00

The museum was dark and empty. Now it was just him and old man Sato until the cleaners arrived the next morning, and after them, the day-time staff. As they briskly took up their positions around the fadingly sixties concrete building Junichi Kamada would be on his way home.

He would be snoring loudly when the large glass entrance doors were being unlocked to allow the public passed the pretty girls with their pert grey uniforms, polite smiles and guidebooks.

He’d been working there as nightwatchman for the last three weeks. His father, a successful businessman in Hiroshima’s financial district, profoundly approved of his son’s vacation job, in fact it had been his idea. Deciding to pander no longer to his only son’s various scrapes with his Suzuki GTX, he’d arranged a means for the boy to pay for them himself. His old school chum, now General Manager of the Peace Memorial Museum, would help him out, especially now with the new exhibit. The item was in all the media; “New Excavations Find Blast Shadow Wall Intact.” His son needed to learn some humility and respect, Kamada mused.

So five nights a week, instead of his usual tour of the city’s more fashionable clubs and bars with his wealthy young friends, Junichi headed grumpily along the concrete pathways and finely manicured lawns of the Peace Park. He vaguely remembered it from the junior school outings they’d all had go on; the international peace statue festooned with paper cranes in the summertime, the eternal flame under its U-shaped dome, and the museum, now somehow slightly smaller and more weather-worn than he remembered it.

As usual he gave a small sigh of bored resignation as he pulled open the staff entrance door.

This night was like all the others. Mr Sato, the old duffer who shared his watch, was stomping around loudly somewhere in the upstairs galleries checking the windows, despite the computerised alarm.

Mr Sato didn’t trust computers. Silly old fool, thought Junichi.

The noise took him unaware at first. It seemed to drift along the downstairs corridor towards him as if a distant echo had lost it’s way amongst the various display cases gleaming in the moonlight. Then, when it finally broke the stillness of the night, he still wasn’t quite sure it was actually there. The same thing had happened the previous evening, to the extent that he’d actually got up from his chair to investigate.

He’d found nothing of course.

Now it seemed louder though, more distinct. It sounded human, the high pitched note trapped inside it maybe that of a small child crying. More likely the wind, he told himself irritably, but that meant a window was open somewhere on the ground floor, despite the lack of anything blinking on the bank of monitor screens he lounged in front of.

He searched them one by one for the source but saw nothing moving other than old man Sato upstairs unnecessarily fiddling with one of the door locks.

“Shit!” he thought. He’d just rolled a nice fat joint, already his third of the night. As usual, it was making him feel slow and lazy.

Should he call Sato on his two-way to take a look? He knew the guy hated his guts the first time they’d spoken; thought him a pampered little shit, taking somebody else’s job just for pocket money. Someone like him, probably. Junichi didn’t care about that; they’d never speak to each other outside this place. No sense in antagonising him though; he needed to bribe the old guy to cover for him while he slipped out to the Metro Club that weekend.

He’d have to go and look himself.

Halfway along the ground floor corridor it came again, and this time it seemed to make a bee-line especially for him. Piercing his ear like a red-hot needle it shot through his head.

He cried out in pain and there was immediate silence. Junichi’s eyes watered as he staggered against the nearest wall. His head swum dizzily. Standing uncertainly in the darkness, flashlight flickering across shadowy images of death and destruction, he knew sudden fear.

Almost gently this time, it crept up on him again; a distant unwavering note of childlike despair that began to float in his head like a gas, permeating his senses until he could think of nothing else. Whatever it was he had to find it now. Find it and turn it off.

Without knowing how, Junichi found himself in the Special Exhibits room. And there in front of him was the wall.

Feeling across for the light switch he remembered they’d all been turned off at the mains. He threw the powerful torch beam around the room in an agitated motion, keen to be out again. It lit up pictures of the wall’s excavation, then a tall glass display case half full of various dusty objects found on the site nearby, before finally settling on the wall itself.

Junichi had seen the wall before, when Sato had given him a bad-tempered tour of the building on his first night. It was just a cracked slab of rotting grey cement smelling of soot and decay. Some pieces had been forced back together by small metal bars and rivets, in other areas loose chunks had been placed carefully on top of each other to build up the rest. It had been meticulously done with a thin glass screen placed in front of the whole tottery edifice to make sure it remained in place.

There were markings on the front of the wall; two different sized human shadows etched strangely into the rough surface by the bomb’s light flash. The smaller one looked like a child’s, hunched down and kneeling as if in hiding.

The wailing in his head seemed to rise and resonate as Junichi slowly approached the wall. Now the child-shaped shadow was swimming in the torch’s beam. It seemed almost alive, as if it belonged to a real person hunched down on the floor in front of him.

Before he realised what he was doing, Junichi reached out a hand.

He felt the cool of the glass for an instant before a rougher texture prickled his skin. It was coarse, flaky cement against it now, and it was hot. He let out a little stammer of surprise and trained the torchlight on his hand. It was resting flat on top of the glass, fingers splayed outwards, but the tips of them still felt like they were burning.

He tried to pull them away but couldn’t. They felt glued to the glass. The heat grew less, or his perhaps his skin got used to it. Now the crying had stopped as well.

“It must be cramp or a muscle spasm,” he reasoned. “Or maybe I’m just more stoned than I realised. OK, c’mon, let go and stand up in three. One, two…”

“Who’s there?”

A small, tremulous voice. Had he really heard it? He glanced over his shoulder waving the torch at the empty room. His hand was still stuck to the glass. It still felt like hot dust against his skin.

“Is that you, Mr Sato?” he called out, under his breath murmuring “stupid old sod…” If this was one of the old man’s tricks he’d kill him!

“Its me…”

The answer formed itself in his mind and he knew instantly that it was not Sato. It was a child’s voice, whispered in his ear.

He flung himself backwards sprawling on the parquet floor, the wall above shuddering behind the glass as if it would fall on him. He felt cold sweat, shirt sticking icily to his back. The torch had been flung away and still rolled slowly in the darkness picking out snapshots of light, throwing the elongated shadows of the display case’s contents across the ceiling.

Junichi got up and grabbed the torch, then slowly walked back. Crouching down on his haunches again, after a moment’s hesitation he put out a hand. It somehow never occurred to him to leave the room.

Again the sucking connection. The heat and dust on his fingertips. Then…

“Is that you, Uncle?”

He was going mad.

“Who…what…?” Junichi’s tongue froze in his mouth. He gave a dry gulp and tried again.

“Where…are you? What do you want?”

No-one would believe this.

Because it wasn’t happening.

But something was.

“Uncle, I’m stuck under the stones. My skin hurts…” the voice sounded small and pathetic. But not as scared as Junichi had first believed.

“I’m not your uncle.”

What was he saying? Who was he talking to, himself? But he felt a connection inside his head. It was like the crying again, only this time gentler, softer; a sudden two-way flow of emotion that made his skin tingle, his breath catch in his throat. There was someone, something out there and it had found him, chosen him.

“Uncle Kazuo?”

“I’m not him. Who are you?”

“I’m Taro. Where’s Uncle Kazuo? He was in the cellar with me before the bang.”

“What bang, kid”

“The big bang, just now. And the light. Are you a spirit?”

Junichi ripped his hand away so fast it felt like he’d left a layer of flesh behind on the glass. Why was he doing this? Its not real, he told himself. If he wasn’t so stoned right now he’d either be running through the building screaming, or cursing his inflamed imagination. But he was just sitting there, talking to a wall. To a kid who didn’t exist.

“Where have you gone…?” The edge of naked despair caught him off-guard. It sliced through a nerve somewhere deep inside him. Whatever it was he couldn’t leave it now. His fingers gently touched the glass again.

“I’m here, kid. Tell me what happened to you.”

“Are you a family spirit?” The voice had momentarily lost it’s fear, replaced by a child’s sense of wonder.

“Am I a what?”

“A ghost. Uncle Kazuo says our family spirits live in the cellar. That’s where they go to when they die.”

“OK then, I’m…Uncle Junichi.”

“Are you a ghost, Uncle?”

“Look kid, where’s your Uncle Kazuo now?” He glanced up at the taller adult shadow on the wall above. “What happened to him…Taro?”

“I think the wall fell on him. He was looking for me. He wanted to take me to school, but they bully me everyday, the big boys, so I was hiding from him. When the big bang came the wall fell down. I can’t hear him anymore.” The thing was crying again. Small and muted, it grated inside Junichi’s head like a rusty gate swinging in the wind. He had to stop that sound.

“How old are you, kid?”

“Six.” stifled sobs.

“Where’s your mum?”

“She’s working at her office in the city.”

“And…your dad?”

A pause, then “He’s away fighting.”

“Fighting?”

“Fighting the Americans.”

Did it, he, mean fighting with the Americans, in Afghanistan perhaps, or the Gulf, Iraq? He’d said a bang, a big bang. A gas explosion, maybe? Or a terrorist bomb, like those crazies in the Tokyo subway a few year’s ago? But that had been gas, hadn’t it? And the kid had said a bang, a really big bang, almost like… like… Shit!” Junichi thought. “Holy shit! – its, he’s…”

“Uncle…?”

“Taro, have you done dates at school yet? Can you tell Uncle what today’s date is? Try and tell me.”

“That’s easy, Uncle. Its August the sixth.”

“What year, Taro? What’s the year?”

“What do you mean, Uncle? Don’t you have years where you are?”

“Just tell me, kid!”

“Its 1945 Uncle.”

Junichi realised two things at the exactly same time. He was sweating again – icy droplets sliding down his back – and his arm ached, held up at it’s unnatural angle. He suddenly found it difficult to remember a time when he wasn’t crouched down on the floor with his fingers spread on the glass partition. His body convulsed in a shiver he hardly noticed. His mind raced, like an engine gunned almost beyond endurance. The real world, his world, had receded to a small pin-prick of light somewhere out on the horizon. He was no longer part of it.

He was in a collapsed cellar with a scared, hurt little boy who was going to die, horribly. Unless he got out.

“Taro, tell me if you can move. Can you move the stuff around you out of the way?”

“I can move my legs a bit, and my hands. There’s stones on my tummy though.” The voice sounded weaker now. He’s getting tired, Junichi thought, and the radiation… There isn’t much time left.

“Try to move your hands down to lift them off, but do it gently. Don’t move anything else till I say.”

Junichi tried to remember the internet article about the wall. It had been discovered on the west side of the city, nearly three miles from the hypocentre over the ruined A-bomb dome. He still had a chance.

A long pause, then “I got them off Uncle.”

“Good boy. Now try to slowly turn around onto your stomach. When you’ve done that try to dig out the stuff above your head. Do it slowly, try to use something hard nearby to push the stones away.”

“I’ve got my toy fire engine with me, Uncle. Shall I use that?”

“Yeah, kid. Use it to dig, but be careful. We don’t want any more rocks falling on your head.”

Junichi felt his limbs begin to ache as if he was pushing the stones away himself. A claustrophobic vision of the caved-in cellar invaded his mind and he was there; flint edges stinging his hands, tearing his fingernails, ripping open the naked flesh on his arms. Phantom dust caught in the back of his throat as he began to gulp for air, lung’s empty of everything but the smothering soot and brickdust. Then suddenly, when it was almost too late, he felt a draft of cooling air hit his face and flow smoothly down inside him.

The boy must have broken out. He was nearly free, nearly away from him. It would soon be too late to stop him.

“Taro, you still there? Listen kid, when you get out the world’s gonna look like a different place. There’s bad stuff in the air you mustn’t breathe. If you’re near the river get some cloth, anything you can find, and get it wet, then put it over your head. Keep going out of the city, don’t go back looking for your mum. She’ll come and get you later. Just walk to the fields outside and someone there’ll help you find her.”

For a few moments he thought that the boy had gone, then his a small voice came again.

“Uncle, I’m nearly out but I can’t see anything…” It was thin and distant now, moving away from Junichi as if into a another land where he couldn’t follow.

“Taro?”

Then just a faint whisper, falling though the air; “It’s all gone Uncle; the city, its all gone…”

The sudden slab of white light across Junichi’s eyes made him cringe in shock, snapping his head back. As he ripped his hand away from the glass to cover them an electric jolt coursed through him. He lost control of his bladder then, feeling the warmth on the inside of his thighs.

Through shaking fingers he saw the figure of old man Sato peering down at him, and behind, the Museum’s General Manager. He looked tired and befuddled, as if he’d just been pulled out of his bed. The white room was fully lit now but it’s tiny square windows told him it was still night outside.

He felt Sato grab a piece of his uniform and jerk him to his feet.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Wha…?”

“Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you for hours!”

He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t form the words properly.

“I…I’ve been here…”

“You weren’t here half an hour ago when we searched the place!”

“Mr Sato, would you come over here a minute please. Would you care to explain this?” Sato joined the General Manager at the display cabinet and they both looked down at something Junichi couldn’t see.

Then they both turned to look at him.

“I have to warn you, Mr Kamada. Stealing from the museum is a serious offence and will be prosecuted.”

Junichi walked shakily across the room to them and looked through the glass door to where his boss was pointing. Just visible in the light dust was a rectangular shape left by a missing object.

The General Manager stared at him and Junichi could see now that he was angry. Very angry.

But his voice was still ominously quiet.

“Where is it, Mr Kamada?” He asked him simply.

“What have you done with the toy?”

The hesitant knock on the front door was almost missed by Junichi’s father as he rushed to finish his coffee. Luckily, Mrs Kamada had heard it as she came down the stairs.

“I’ll get it,” she shouted to him as she passed by the kitchen, but her husband had joined her by the time she was turning the latch. He was late for work and didn’t need any more diversions right now. He’d deal with whoever it was faster than his wife would.

A thin old man stood in front of them in a smart blue blazer, wisps of white hair half-covering a balding head. His face was lined in wrinkles, especially around the eyes, but those eyes were as bright as shiny grapes and the wrinkles were arranged in a benign grin. His right hand was tightly clasped around a bulky object in a plastic bag

“Ah, I’m sorry to trouble you, but does Junichi Kamada live here?”

Kamada senior groaned inwardly. They’d had nothing but trouble since the story appeared in the paper last week. Why did the boy have to blurt out his ridiculous story to his old friend the museum General Manager within earshot of that Sato character? The press must have picked it up from him. Kamada hoped he’d got a good price for it. It had made him a laughing stock in the city, and ruined his son’s immediate career prospects, whatever those had been!

And of course he’d lost his job at the museum.

“Why can’t you leave the boy alone?” He asked the old guy bruskly.

“Oh, I see what you think. No, I’m not from the media. I’ve been looking for your son for years, or someone like him,” the old man added mysteriously, “and after I read his story in the papers I knew that I’d finally found him. I have something for him, you see.”

“Oh god!” Kamada thought to himself tiredly. “Another nutter crawling out of the woodwork.” The boy didn’t deserve this. He’d changed considerably since the incident, hadn’t been out clubbing once and had barely left his room for the last week or so. Whatever breakdown he’d had in that place had effected him so badly his mother had even considered psychiatric counciling. Kamada thought that might only make matters worse, but hadn’t said so.

“My son is too upset by events to see anyone at the moment.”

“I see…” The old man stared off into space for a moment or so as Kamada shuffled his feet impatiently. “Yes, of course he is. Then I won’t take up anymore of your time. But please give him this.”

He slowly opened the plastic bag and pulled out a rusty and very old looking child’s toy. Kamada thought it looked like a fire engine.

He made no move to take it but the old man looked up at him from the step below with a sad, almost beseeching smile. “Please…”

The harsh morning sunshine was on his face now, and Kamada could plainly see more than just wrinkles in the parchment-like skin. The mottled scars picked him out as one of the old city’s survivors. There can’t be many left of them now, he thought. He took the toy from the old man’s outstretched hands.

“And please tell your son thank-you.”

“Who shall I say…?”

“Tell him Taro chun says thank-you. Thank-you Uncle.”

Kamada turned to show his wife the toy. When he turned back the old man was already walking quickly away down the street. For a moment the sun lit up his white hair like a halo, then he’d reached the main road and vanished into the crowds of commuters on the packed sidewalks.

Kamada turned back inside and slowly shut the door.

Published in 'Visions', Hertfordshire University's anthology of short stories. Available through Amazon UK

Blow-up

2010-01-19T01:43:00.000-08:00

I looked up at Markham as he stood before me, stocky frame half leaning against the corner of my desk as he moved bits and pieces of office ephemera around on it. He picked up the picture of my daughter Helene and turned it round to look at it. I felt the same sense of implied threat about the man that I always did; although his voice would have sounded soft and perfectly reasonable to a stranger’s ears, I could hear the menace in it.

“Really doctor, it is part of your remit. I can’t see what you’re complaining about, we’re paying you good money to look after the staffs’ physical and mental well-being.”

“As I said to the Chairman, Mr Markham, I don’t feel qualified to treat this man. Even after a cursory examination I can tell he’s had a complete psychotic breakdown. He belongs in a hospital for long-term treatment and evaluation. I can’t do much for him here.”

“Of course, doctor, and the company will be taking care of all that. But first we need to find out what happened to him, why he went crazy like that. As Head of Security its my job to find answers.”

“Crazy’s a rather pejorative term, don’t you think?” I asked him.

“Cut the crap, doctor. He shot out of that room like a man possessed. Next minute he’s in sick bay slashing at his wrists with a scalpel, howling like a dog. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It took five men to sedate him. I want to know why he suddenly flipped and I want to know fast. I have to file a credible accident report within three days or we could lose our safety licence and with that our insurance cover. We’d have to close down the plant and I won’t let that happen, understand?”

“You can’t rush these things, Markham!” The man was beginning to anger me. He obviously didn’t give a shit about Payne’s condition; it was all about money and nothing else.

He looked at me steadily. “You’ve got three days, doctor. Use them wisely.”

“Where would you like us to begin, Eric?” I asked.

Payne lay prone on the couch in my surgery. I’d given his self-inflicted wounds a fresh dressing after cleaning them as thoroughly as I could with the limited resources available.

Primus Disposal was at best a middleweight company compared to the world’s giants in the rapidly growing field of nuclear waste matter transference, an extremely lucrative off-shoot of the failed matter transference tests of the late 2040’s that saw the dream of human teleportation come to a sticky end. ‘Fear one moment, gone the next’ was our catchline as we dematerialised our little bundles of spent nuclear fuel rods from our lead lined bunker and popped them back into existence somewhere on the outer rim of Jupiter’s undeniable gravitational pull; the ultimate waste disposal furnace. Capitalised just enough to provide the basic equipment for the job, there was little to spare for such frills as medical back-up at Primus. Stuck out in the Mojave desert in the centre of a two hundred mile ‘cock-up’ zone, they’d only had to pass basic safety procedures to gain their license. I wasn’t particularly convinced about those either, but Recovering alcoholics can’t afford to be too choosy.

My patient just lay there staring up at the ceiling so I repeated the question.

“Begin what, doc? Nothing wrong with me.”

“You tried to slash your wrists, Eric. You attacked the nurse when she attempted to prevent you. You could easily have died from blood loss and shock. That’s not nothing.”

“Yeah?” He turned his head to focus on me.

He was a large guy with an ex-sportsman’s body run to middle-age soft but with a ripple of still powerful muscle beneath. I wouldn’t have wanted to tangle with him and guiltily gave silent thanks I’d been in another part of the complex when he’d crashed through into sick-bay. My nurse was still recovering although he’d done nothing more than slap her away a couple of times. He didn’t seem like a typical violent psychotic and I could find no history of mental instability.

Nevertheless, here he was.

“Don’t you remember your actions? It was only last night.”

“Doc, I woke up this morning in the company lock-up. They told me I’d gone ape, that I’d attacked a nurse and other shit. I must have tied one on at the Black Hole," (the company bar), "but I don’t remember. What can I tell you? Is the girl alright?”

“She’s doing ok.”

He looked relieved. “I’m no saint but I don’t hit women…”

“Eric?” His eye’s had glazed over for a moment. Something in his face changed, as if a half-memory had just tracked its way across his mind before he could grab hold. His eye’s widened.

“Eric? You ok?”

He shook his head like a dog trying to lose a wasp. “Fine doc, I’m just fine. Look, the company will dock the damages from my wagepacket. I’m sorry for all the shit I put you guys through, if you’ll just sign me off I’ll get back to my shift now.”

“The company have suspended you Eric – on full pay.” I added as he raised his hands in protest. “They want me to get to the bottom of all this. Want us to, I should say. Help me, ok?”

He looked up at me and for a second I saw real unfathomable fear then his expression relaxed.

“Guess you’re the doc, doc.”

I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Guess I am.”

The sessions with Eric weren’t going well. This was our third one, it was the afternoon of the day before Markham’s deadline and I’d got virtually nowhere. The man himself had lost his cool detachment by now and was actually beginning to threaten me with dismissal or worse if I failed to come up with anything more concrete.

Regarding getting to the core of my patient’s psyche I’d got fuck-all. Regarding discovery of what had made him flip, ‘undergo an intense episode of psychotic self-hatred and physical mutilation’ as I’d written up in my casenotes but it still meant flip, I’d got fuck-all minus. I know that’s not exactly a technical term but it just about summed up our progress.

What I did get from him was a bucket-load of survivor guilt, a classic case of blaming himself for something he’d done in the past that had reflected badly on the lives of others. He gave himself away with sudden switches in his attitude towards me, one moment helpful and agreeable, the next hostile and accusative, telling me to ‘fuck-off you overpaid quack, go to hell, you’ll never understand what’s it like to be me…”

I’d ask him what he meant and there’d be more swearing but the anger would be turned into vicious self-loathing crossed with hatred for everyone and everything in the world. I even tried hypnosis (I’d taken a course in my sober days) but the reaction to my probing became so violent that I had to stop. I needed a new drug I’d read about coming on the market recently, something that would keep him deep enough for me to control him and still maintain, even amplify, the lucidity of his thoughts.

I told Markham what I wanted and he somehow got it delivered to our outpost six hours later. Now I was ready to try my last shot.

“I’m going to give you a little something to help both of us, Eric.” I said as I showed him the syringe. “I won’t lie to you, the tests done on this procedure have so far proved inconclusive and its yet to receive a full safety clearance.”

“In other words, its dodgy.”

I nodded, not meeting his eyes.

He looked up at the ceiling again, his favourite stance in our sessions. “Pump it in, Doc. You know I’m starting to feel like I’m kinda dead anyway so…” His words drifted off into drowsiness as he went under.

“Eric? Eric, we’ve found you’ve got the clap.” That’s a little test I like to do, works a helluva lot better than counting down from ten.

Nothing. OK, here we go then. “Eric, can you hear my voice?”

“Doc?” Voice slurred but attentive. Good.

“Eric, I want to take you back to tuesday night, two nights ago. You’re in the disposal bay with Brad Thompson and Johnny Milwarski. Consignment…,” I looked at my notes, “X487B is ready for shipment. Its 9.34 pm. All systems are on-line and ready to go. You’ve…” I studied the notes again hurriedly – I still couldn’t get my head around all this technical crap, “‘charged the particles with electromagnetic impulses’ and ‘centred the field dynamics’,” (whatever that meant). “You’re ready to send.”

He took a moment then in a faint but steady voice, “I am ready to send. Check.”

“Take me through what happens next, Eric.” I mentally crossed my fingers.

“Hold it!” His mouth opened as if he was shouting the words but just a small sound came out.

“What’s wrong, Eric?” My voice.

“I got an arc. Power down, Brad. Let’s re-procedure guys.”

He was silent for a few seconds then spoke again.

“No we can’t do that. Because its illegal and because we were damn lucky to get away with it the first time.”

Pause.

“Yeah, well fuck your pool tournament.”

Pause.

OK, OK, for christ’s sake give me a break! But I gotta take a reading first. No, with the handheld. Because we only go if its low. Yeah, I do know I’m a fucking poet.”

Pause.

“I’m walking over now, OK?”

Pause.

“Its way too high guys. I guess you’re just gonna have to… what was… its arcing again man… I don’t like the look of this fuck…AAAAAAGH!”

He shot bolt upright, both hands covering his face as if against some kind of intense heat, and continued to scream at the top of his lungs until I pushed the tranquliser needle into his arm and gave him a dose big enough to fell a horse. As he lay down again and began to slip into unconsciousness a hand suddenly shot up to grab my arm. With an intense effort he pulled himself up until his mouth was against my ear.

His words were the merest whisper. “I am the killer of worlds doc, the killer of worlds…”

“There was no explosion.” Markham’s voice was steady but his eyes dared me to challenge him.

““But everything points to one. He saw something, felt something for Christ’s sake! Just for that one second he went somewhere terrible. I saw it in his eyes.”

“Well the other two guys didn’t notice a thing. One moment he’s standing at the entrance to the bunker, the next he’s running around like a crazy man. Have you seen any burns on the man, any sign of physical damage apart from that trick with the scalpel and a few bruises the guards dolled out when they held him down?”

“No, but he said…”

“Well then. I’ll be expecting your report to conclude that he developed psychosis through job related stress and to recommend that he be retired from the company. We’ll give him a full redundancy package.” Markham turned to leave.

“Payne told me it arced.”

He paused. “That’s not what the official report of the incident will say.”

“What do Thompson and Milwarski say?”

“They’ll be leaving too. We’ll have a new back-up crew ready to start on Monday.”

He turned back to me and gave me that cold smile he kept for those who should shut up before they say too much. “Its all under control, Doctor. You’ve done a good job, thank-you for your persistence in the matter.”

“What happen’s when it arcs? What’s the big secret? You can tell me, Markham. I probably won’t have a clue what you’re on about anyway.”

He gave me a shrewd look then closed the door with the tip of his shoe. “There’s a theory that if the electromagnetic wave is compromised, if it ‘arc’s’ for instance, it can duplicate itself in the same spacetime leading to a… ‘reaction’.”

“What reaction?”

“Universal laws make that impossible,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me, “so inflation takes place, just as it did when the universe originally began.”

“And what in the hell’s ‘inflation’?”

“A parallel, doctor. It creates a parallel.” He saw my jaw drop and smiled again, this time almost apologetically. “Its just a theory, doctor, and I’m just a humble security man. I wouldn’t know the detail of such things. Maybe you should ask our friend Eric – the one who survived, that is. And doctor, if you mention this conversation to anyone outside this room…” Markham glanced across at Helene’s picture on my desk then back at me. “Well, I think we understand each other.”

I nodded and he left.

I filed my report and went back to the daily round of bar-brawl cuts and bruises, ‘work-related injuries’ and general treatment for stress, impotence and depression that is the company doctor’s lot.

Eric didn’t come and say goodbye and I never saw him again. I often thought about his last words to me though.

Killer of worlds…

That’s one helluva lot of survivor guilt.

Published on 'Aphelion' science fiction webzine November 2009:

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/sections/editorial.html

And about to appear in the latest edition of 'Shalla Magazine'