The Scribbled mess

On..... Readers.

2011-11-14T10:11:00.000-08:00

Reader.
You do me the honor of taking the time to cast your gaze over my few words.
Will you like them?
Will you think them apt?
Or do you snarl, curl your lip at them, think them trite, dull, unimaginative?
I'm sorry.
Its all I can offer you, these tiny slivers of me, laid bare for your approval. I can't even defend myself. If you read a line and see it as obtuse how can I explain myself? Show you that I meant it this way, that it was never my intention to offend or confuse or upset or make you shake your head at my naivety, my lack of prose, my inadequate use of a dictionary or thesaurus or correct grammar.
Can I grab you by the collar and show you that I only want to please?
Every time I write I give myself to you.
I open up my chest and pull out my heart so that you can peer at it.
It makes no difference to me whether you look at it with interest or disgust..... I'm just happy you came back.

There is no fiction.
Its me.
Its the people I've met, the places I've been, the stories I've read.
Sometimes its an almost true account, other times its what happened on the other side of that worm hole... The time I went left instead of right, said yes instead of no.

When you read these words is your right hand resting on a mouse? Finger nearest the thumb poised above the left button?
Do you have your chin resting on your left hand? Your elbow balanced on your desk. your face slack, uninterested?
I hope on the inside you're transported.
You read a little and maybe you see one sentence, one word that sparks a neuron, reminds you of a time, a place, a person, makes you blink and wonder "What ever happened to...?"

I hope you realise I die a little for you reader.
For you I continue to send out myself, open myself to ridicule, face the fear of my lack of ego.

For you dear reader I suffer.
I suffer willingly.

Untitled two

2011-11-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

She measured out her worth in bite sized chunks.

Little morsels that, although they brought instant gratification, never satisfied her, never sated that gnawing animal in her stomach, the one that writhed and growled and hissed “What are you?” Before answering itself with a rasping chuckle.

“Nothing.”

Was she from a broken home?

Did she live on one of the run down council estates, one of the dilapidated and dated streets in the sky?

Was her mother an alcoholic and her father unknown?

She sometimes wished that was the case.

Would It be easier to live with if she could endure, safe in the knowledge that there was no hope, no chance.

Her bedroom was comfortable.

The bed draped with a thick duvet, its cover marked in accents of yellow and teal the pillow cases matching, the sheets, smelt of conditioner and too long in the drier.

The faint strains of the radio drifted up the beige carped stairs, along the cream walls and slipped under her door. It was followed by the olfactory teasing of cooking. She couldn‘t yet tell what it was, but it was heavy, rich, comforting. Italian maybe, a slug of wine in the sauce. Her father would smile at her over the table, crack a joke about not telling anyone about the wine, allowing her a small glass with the grown ups.

She would smile and sip at the red as though in distasted, even though later she would no doubt be throwing back shots with Paul.

Tonight she wouldn‘t be joining them for dinner.

She pulled on tights and then followed them with jeans.

Standing up she worked a short skirt up her hips and then carefully tucked it inside her jeans. In the mirror her stomach now bulged. Slowly her hands worked out the lumps of fabric under the waistband until the skirt was invisible.

Satisfied, she slipped a hater neck on then topped it with a heavy shirt.

There was nothing she could do to hide her shoes but it didn‘t really matter.

“Sweetheart.” Her mothers mild admonishment is only play acting, she’s going through the motions of being the disproving parent, but she’s fooling neither of them. “Vi, Don’t you think they’re a little high.”

She looks down at her shoes and back up at her mothers badly hidden smile. “Not really.” She shrugs.

She hears the rustle of a newspaper and the far off voice of her father in the other room. “For Christ sake Liz, don’t go after the poor girl, her shoes are fine.” An earthy chuckle from the living room where he pretends to read the financial section but really only reads the TV listing’s.

Her shoes are not fine. They are heels, nearly 5 inches if you count the platform under the ball of her toes. Her jeans hide the worst of the shock factor though, covering all but the last inch of the heel.

Her mother thinks Vi is playing at being grown up, like the time she was eight and made up her face, bright blue eye shadow slicked on thick, red lipstick drawn on shakily till her naive pout resembled a clowns grimace.

There was a picture somewhere of this. Her serious face painted with a childish hand made her look, not cute and amusing like her parents thought.

No.

Vi had looked at that photo and thought she looked like a hooker. A 19^th century streetwalker, painted with heavy grease to hide pox scars, a make up consisting of chalk and mercury, beauty that would drive her mad if syphilis didn’t get her first.

Her parents thought she was being cute now.

She wasn’t.

“I’ll be at Sarah’s. I have my mobile.”

Vague sounds from the parents, ‘have a nice time’, ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t’, ‘see you on Sunday’.

The door shuts with a click, holding back the warmth inside.

For a moment Vi lets her hand rest on the door knob and wonders what would happen if she simply went back inside. Just opened the door and said she didn’t feel like going out. Her parents would probably only briefly acknowledge her return, would ask if she was hungry, would not pass comment when she said no.

Sometimes it would be nice is they could be unreasonable about something.

A sharp wind nipped at her fingers, at the nape of her neck where her shirt fell away, her hand gripped the door tighter and she nearly turned the handle.

The harsh sound of the heel of Paul’s hand hitting the horn made her jump.

Quickly Vi turned from the door and trotted down the path to the car that waited, dark and low slung, like a crouching dog, something with a low set head and broad shoulders, not a dog you would pat or scratch behind the ears or croon “Nice dog, good boy” to.

Inside the car it smells like fags and vodka, sex and mint.

She looks across to Paul and smiles.

He raises an eyebrow back and swings the car away from the curb, glancing at Vi occasionally as she sheds her shirt and jeans.

She used to like the way he looked at her, now she gets a small knot of fear in her stomach whenever he does.

Paul’s eyes are small, set far back in his face, they flit from the road to her thighs, even though she’s pulled the skirt down as far as it will go.

He used to talk to her.

When they first started going out he would drive them out to one of the parks in the city and they would walk for hours, hold hands, lean against trees and kiss.

He’d call her beautiful and make her laugh. He’d stroke her hair and hold her close and she thought she was in love.

Vi wondered if he parents would have a fit if they knew how old he was. Twenty seven, twelve years older. Not so much older in the long run she told herself. Not at all, there were nine years between her parents but…..

She glanced at him.

His face was set now.

“Where we going?”

“Matt’s maybe.”

Nothing more. They always hung out in flats, bed sits. The didn’t walk together anymore.

Things changed the night he didn’t take her home on time.

She remembered being in his car and the seats being laid back.

Paul on top of her kissing her. The windows steamed up so that the street light filtered through bathing them in sick light.

Unlike before he had her pinned so that she could barely move, his kisses were urgent and his hands rough, pushed up between her legs.

She squirmed, tried to sit up but he grabbed her hand and pushed it against the front of his jeans.

Vi had frozen.

Had shook.

“You want it?” His breath was hot on her ear, he moved his hips and ground against her fingers.

“Yes.” She whispered.”… But not yet.”

He had glared at her. She remembered that most of all, how his eyes had glowed orange like an animals and how she had felt waves of anger rolling off him.

In one swift move he had released her and started the car, driving off even while she struggled to put her seat up.

He had driven around in silence and for the first time Vi was truly frightened.

It was like something had broken between them but she didn’t know how to fix it. Maybe if she’d been older…. But she didn’t want to dwell on that. Better to say nothing than to show her age by whining at him like a child.

Paul said nothing as they finally drew up at her house, not even when she stepped out of the car.

Vi had sobbed into her pillow that night.

One part of her relived that he hadn’t forced her, the other terrified that this was the end, that he’d dump her, that she was too young, too immature.

He Didn’t answer his phone or return her texts for three days, then finally he called her.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was tinny, the reception bad.

“No. I’m sorry, really. Paul…. I really want to but…”

“It’s just I really like you, when I’m around you…” He pauses and for a moment and Vi thinks he’s been cut off. “…. It’s hard to control myself.”

She feels a thrill ripple though her stomach.

How much power does she have over him? That she can make him lose control around her.

“Can I see you tonight?”

“Yes. I’m sorry Paul, really, I think…”

“I’ll pick you up at eight alright?”

She’d agreed and now she didn’t feel worried anymore, all thoughts of the last time they’d been together gone, all she could focus on was how he said she made him feel, how much of a sway she held over him.

Wrapping her arms about her she hugged herself close and decided she’d be Ok, it would only bring them closer.

Matt lived on the top floor of a run down tower on an estate she’d never seen in the daylight.

Groups of small children, no more than seven or eight years old, roamed the estate, throwing bottles at wall’s, each other, passers by.

Paul had parked the car away from here so they had to walk through the courtyards.

A bottle smashed at their feet and Paul picked up the neck and threw it back.

“Fucking cunt!” One of the kids screeched back over his shoulder as they ran.

Paul took Vi by the elbow and leg her none too gently away.

He’d picked her up and kissed her softly as she got in the car.

She looked at him with new eyes, saw how he struggled to keep a lid on his desire and she felt like a goddess.

For the first time ever he took her out for something to eat. Only a burger, only a little café, but it was so nice, so normal, like they were a real couple, not just pretending.

After they had walked hand in hand to a flat.

“It’s John’s. He’s not here. Said we could crash for a few hours.”

She knew what he wanted and now she wanted to let him have it, to have her.

The bed smelled of stale sweat, takeaway food.

Paul started out slowly, tender, lay her back on the bed and undressed her with care.

But it didn’t last.

He pinned her arms to the bed and crushed her lips with his.

Vi didn’t have time to say no, to slow him down, to say anything.

She tried to tell herself that he had mistaken her cries of pain for cries of pleasure. Convinced herself that it was only a misunderstanding.

After she had lain in a daze while he mumbled into her neck, She was beautiful, so beautiful.

But she didn’t feel beautiful, only battered and raw, hulled out.

Like he’d taken something from her, physically ripped something from her body.

Paul started to snore and she bit down hard on her lip, pushed the tears back furiously, why was she upset?

Wasn’t this what she wanted? He hadn’t made her have sex with him, hadn’t forced himself on her. He was her boyfriend for gods sake.

Slipping out of the bed and taking her clothes with her to the bathroom she shut and locked the door, leaning for a moment against the cool veneer, her back sticky with dried sweat.

The mirror was over the hand basin and lifting her head she could see herself staring back.

Where’s the Goddess now?

Dark circles under her eyes, hair tangled, matted at the back with friction, livid spot like bruises on her upper arms where he had gripped her tight.

Was this what she had wanted.

Vi took a deep breath, pushing past the catch in her throat.

This was what she wanted. This was how it was. Time to stop being a child and acting like a scared rabbit.

Did she really want Paul to think of her as a kid?

He was calling from the bedroom.

She went to him and tried to stop shaking.

Matt had lit up as they walked through the door and immediately passed the joint to Vi, smiling at her as she sucked on it, making the tip glow coal red before handing it back with a stifled cough.

Paul was no longer at her side but was instead sitting on the sofa with a blond girl, sitting close enough that their thighs touched.

Matt had taken her coat and was now steering her to an armchair.

The joint was in her hand again and this time she didn’t cough, but held the smoke in her lungs until her head felt light and the world started to close in on her.

Slowly she blew the smoke out of her nose and let her head rest on the back of the chair, her eyes never leaving the blond girl.

She looked older than Vi, maybe already in her twenties. Her mouth was too big and her nose turned up more than it should if it was to be considered pretty, the roots on top of her head where dark in contrast to the bleached tresses.

Vi felt the chair moving and gripped the arms tight.

Her stomach flipped like she was on a rollercoaster. That lazy flop that made her body tingle.

Rooms spinning.

Paul’s hand on the blonds thigh.

She’d never felt like this on pot before.

Matt’s face is too close, his eyes bugging, his smile cavernous.

“You Ok baby? You Ok? Huh?”

His voice is slow, elongated, far away.

Vi swallows hard and Matt is laughing , looking back at Paul and the blond and she see’s they are laughing too.

The blond stands up and stumbles over to the chair, setting herself on the arm. She laughing and snorting, pulling the hem of her skirt up so that her lack of underwear is obvious.

Vi tries to rise out the chair but the room spins and the blonds hand in on her shoulder. She feels hair tickling her shoulder and turns her head to find the blonds lips meeting her own. Tries to pull away but doesn’t have the strength. The blonds lips feel greasy, her mouth tastes like rancid fat and old smoke. She gags but the blond has her hair gripped in her long nailed fingers.

Somewhere to the side Paul, or maybe Matt, is laughing.

There’s a hand pulling at the top of her halter neck and Vi tries to bring a hand up to stop them.

She wonders, distantly, if there was more than pot in the joint, but its too late now. The edges blur, the volume is dimmed.

She sleeps.

The sleep is not deep or complete but rather the light sleep of one who is dozing on the sofa with the TV still on.

Everything filters through as though dripped through a veil. A laugh becomes a birds cry in her dream. Its harsh, almost bark like. Its wings flap against her face and she raises her arms to shield herself. Claws dig into her, force their was through her skin. She fights the birds, cries out as they slash at her, then as she falls deeper into her sleep the birds take flight across the empty, blood stained landscape.

The flat is quiet.

Vi lifts her head off the bed and brings her hand to her mouth to wipe away the string of spittle that hung between lips and sheet.

Her head thumps hard and she blinks at the pale morning light that seeps through the curtains.

There’s heavy, rattling snoring coming from the other side of the bed.

Vi pushes herself up, fighting the wave of nausea that hits her.

The blond is lying across the foot of the bed, its her snores Vi can hear. Her limbs are spread, over tanned arms and legs thrown about so that she looked less like a woman and more like a toddler who had been so tired that she had fallen asleep before getting into bed properly.

Vi is naked.

Moving deliberately she pushes herself off the bed, slithering to the floor quietly, curling up on the threadbare carpet, gathering herself, wrapping her arms around her chest tightly. For long seconds she doesn’t know who she is, where she is, then as her fingers grip her upper arms it all comes back.

The girl on the bed snorts loudly and rolls over, exposing a livid purple bruise on her chest.

Sitting up, Vi see’s a tripod in the corner of the room, there’s no camera, but there doesn’t have to be, she knows what a tripods for.

She can’t see her clothes.

Stiffly, on shaking legs, she stands and shuffles from the room.

The flat is silent except for the blonds snores. If Matt and Paul are here they sleep silently.

Vi takes a large fleece jacket from a coat hook and pulls it on, then barefoot and shivering she lets herself out.

The light was defused through a slick of mist that covered the estate like a corpses shroud.

The slap of her bare feet against the rain soaked concrete echoed off the buildings, making it sound like she was being followed, and the mist clung to her face and beaded on the fleece like tiny translucent pearls.

A shadow moved in the gloom and for a second Vi was afraid, then she simply let her shoulders slump. What was she afraid of? Being raped? Being murdered?

She felt dead already.

The pattering of feet made her look up in time to see the dogs appear.

Large, bull headed, long legged and muscular like prize fighters, their smooth brindle coats shone with vitality, their eyes pulled her in with their intelligence and warmth.

Vi watched them pad towards her, frozen to the spot she wondered if they would attack, certainly they could easily fell her, take her apart as effortlessly as lion would a small gazelle.

The first dog reached her and nuzzled into her hand, pushing his reassuringly solid head against her fingers, happily huffing for attention.

With cautious movements Vi scratched the dog behind his ear, even smiled a little as his back leg began to twitch with pleasure.

Now the second dog was demanding attention from her other hand and she gave it, grateful to the heat coming off the huge dogs, her feet blue with cold, the fleece covering her only half way down her thighs.

“They like you.”

The girl had appeared out of the gloom and now stood in front of her smiling. She seemed younger than Vi. Shorter anyway, much more of the child about her than herself. She couldn‘t help but wonder why such a slight girl was walking two such powerful dogs.

“They don’t like just anyone you know.” The girls eyes seemed to glow with a cold intensity that made Vi’s ears ring.

Despite the cold the girl only wore shorts and a vest, topped with a long trench coat, like she’d stolen her clothes from a dressing up box. The boots she wore made her feet look big. Glancing at the toes Vi saw dark stains ingrained in the leather, splatters that faded up the top of the boots, a few spots on her pale thin legs.

She met the girls eyes, they narrowed with amusement.

“Blood.” Vi whispered.

“It’s not yours.” The girl whispered back. “And its not innocent. It does not concern you.” She reached out a hand and touched Vi’s cheek tenderly. “What did they do to you?”

Vi only shook her head and sunk to her haunches, putting an arm around each dog and leaning heavily on them. They stood like rocks, allowing her rest on them, their breath hot on her face, their solid bodies warming her.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t… I can’t…”

The girl shook her head.

“You have a choice. There’s always a choice. What do you want?”

Vi started to cry.

Through all of this she had never uttered a sound, shed not one tear, but now she sobbed and buried her face into the nearest dogs shoulder.

“I want to go home. I want to go home but I can‘t.”

“Why not?“

“He’ll find me, he’ll tell my parents what I did.”

The girl was laughing and Vi looked up at her in shock, momentarily angry that she was pouring her heart out and this child was finding it funny.

“He’s already forgotten you.” She pointed behind them and Vi saw Paul walking towards them, hands stuffed in his pockets, cigarette hanging from his lips.

She shrank back as he got closer, waited for him to see her, for his eyes to widen and then narrow in anger, but it never came.

Instead he walked straight past them, his eyes barely registering her.

Vi shot a look at the girl who simply grinned and said “Forgotten.” then stood up.

“Go home girl. You’ve woken up. Go home before you sleep again.” She saw Vi staring after Paul as he walked through the mist. “In the end they find me.” The girl whispered, her grin fading, her eyes steely.

Vi Didn’t wait to find out what she meant by that. She turned from the girl and ran into the morning light.

On.......... Books and Movie.

2011-10-22T02:06:00.000-07:00

I am super excited about the movie adaptation of Lional Shrivers Book "We need to talk about Kevin."

I first heard about the book when Radio 4 abridged it as their "book at bedtime". The resigned tones of the reader had me hooked with horror and I actually went out and bought the book first hand (a biggie for me, I'm a 2nd hand junkie.)

Readers seem to be split into two camps so far as Shrivers protagonist, Eva, is concerned. There are those who dismiss her as cold, un loving, selfish and then there are those (myself included) who see a portion of themselves, magnified, in her.
There are few parents who haven't had a child in their care who, for a few hours, (or days, or weeks) has seemed like an alien creature, a being we can't make happy or content or even understand in the tiniest way.
The runaway train feeling of losing control is perfect in the book.
You know whats going to happen, but the momentum carries you faster and faster until you just have to grip tight and make it till the end, with still a few gasp inducing revelations to kick you in the last few pages.

So you can understand my anxiety, even while excited, at seeing this book in movie form.
The book works on a letters format, Eva writing down their life to her husband, Franklin, trying to work out on paper where it went wrong with raising Kevin, their life, their family.
I'm curious to see how much the story changes by not having that voice, by making the story so much more visual than narrative.

Its very rare that I find a movie of a book I love that I also love.
Maybe that says more about the books I read than the movie makers.
Recently I watched Peter Jackson's adaptation of "The Lovely Bones", A book, in my opinion, which showed a fresh perspective on the well trod "child murder" path. I loved the dreamy feeling of the book inter cut with the harsher reality of a family trying to cope with the aftermath.
Disappointingly though I felt the movie was rushed, running through the whole story in a matter of weeks rather than the years in which the novel passed.
Key moments were lost because of this and I was left with a feeling of irritation that what could have been a great movie was rendered almost impotent.

As I love movies as much as books, this anomaly always irks me.
My own feeling is that a full length novel rarely makes for a good movie.
Movie makers want your bum on a seat for a little over 90 minutes, but to shoot a whole book, would mean a good five or six hours of viewing!
The best adaptations I've seen have been based on short stories or novellas.
Think "The Shawshank redemption" or "Brokeback Mountain", both amazing heartfelt movies, both shot almost scene for scene, word for word, both less than around 40'000 words.

A style of novel suited to movie adaptation would have little dialogue and lots of description. A camera can pan across a landscape or a room in a few minutes and show you what it took the author ten pages to describe.

Anyway here are a few movies I thought worked beautifully on the big screen ..... and some that really really didn't.

The Good

One: Brokeback Mountain. Written by Annie Proulx (From the book of short stories Close Range:Wyoming stories)

Two: The Shawshank Redemtion. From The Stephen King book of novellas Different Seasons.

Three: A Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess's ground breaking short novel.

The Bad

Blade Runner: Beloved by many as a great movie, Ridly Scotts adaptation was so loosely based on the Phillip K Dick novel that it bore little relation to it at all. Left me cold.

Two: Jurassic Park. So disappointed when I watched the movie, the book was richer and changing key characters is always shifts the balance of the original story.

Three: Rinu (Ring). Now I LIKED the movie, mainly because the Japanese get how to make a scary film, but after reading the book I was disappointed. Key character changes and a more shallow telling of the book meant that they missed out on a more seminal and possibly scarier movie.

The Ugly

The Stand. Stephen Kings epic novel turned into a few hours of disjointed pap. Such a shame.

So.

Agree? Disagree? Have anything to add?

Hit the comments button, don't be shy.

On.... Not Blogging

2011-10-18T03:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry.
Yeah, sorry, haven't posted for a while, so busy!!

In fact *drum roll* there's light at the end of the tunnel so far as "Zombies" is concerned. My lovely co-writer, Hollie, is working on the FINAL part of draft two, which means that soon SOON we can run through for the final polish and then ladies and gentlemen we will have an honest to goodness NOVEL on our hands!

So while she's been doing that I've been adding another extra couple of chapters in a dead space (try nearly 10'000 words of "ooh I'll just add a wee bit there) and now I'm busily breaking the whole manuscript into chapters and parts for easy editing.

Busy, but exciting times!

Add to that real life getting in the way, working on my own personal projects and running about winter-ising the croft ... ugh... snow soon... And you can see why I've not been here.

So, how exciting!!

Hands up who wants to read the book!

OK, not all at once, calm down....

On..... a little smile.

2011-10-12T03:51:00.000-07:00

Just because I love shizz like this, and I love the sunny optimistic view of the imminent zombie apocalypse. Spent yesterday thrashing out an edit on the Zombie book, was hard going and a late finish but when I come across a pic like this it makes me smile and remember why I love it so

On..... Clouds

2011-10-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

Currently I'm sidelined from running with, I'll have you know, a genuine SPORTS injury *proud glow*.
Obviously this sucks.
I'm relegated to cycling, Pilate's and walking, and I can't even walk to fast or over uneven ground at the moment, very frustrating.
But there are, as always, good points.
You see, when I run I run seriously.
I put my head down and turn the i-pod on and concentrate on moving my legs and breathing...... Ah. Breathing. Very important. As an asthmatic I have to pay a lot of attention to what my lungs are doing and make an effort to breath well otherwise I'm liable to pass out half way through from lack of oxygen.
But that's by the by.
The trouble is that when I run I don't really noticed anything, so I was pleased that I was walking the dogs today when I came across something beautiful.
There's a storm heading in and looking across to the south there was blue sky, to the north an oppressive grey cloud bank.
Nothing unusual yet.
As the cloud took form and spread across the blue it took on the most amazing shapes I'd ever seen.
My first thoughts were "Goddamnit! Why don't I have my camera with me!"
The I sensibly realised that with a) a crappy camera, and b)My nonexistent photography skills, I would never have done it justice, could never have picked out the subtle changes in density, colour and form.
So instead I just watched it.
What did it look like?
Imagine you're in a glass bottomed aeroplane flying over somewhere like Tepuis.
There's these amazing structures of rock that's been blasted over time by wind and rain until they resemble beautiful smooth abstract carvings. Now imagine each of these carvings has a long finger that stretches out behind it for miles before merging into one mass.
Now notice the colours.
Every shade of grey and blue, black and white, purple in places.
So yeah.
Would have missed that.
Pretty cool right?

The Hunt

2011-10-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

Another from the urban tales/myths stories. had a huge amount of fun with this.

Devin drew back his hand and Jordan flinched, screwing up her eyes and grimacing, waiting for the slap that would come, back handed, although not with the hand he wore his ring on, he didn’t want her scared.

The slap never came.

He smiled, enjoying the fact that she was now smart enough that he only had to threaten her. Hitting was effective but no one wanted a girl covered in bruises.

Instead he brought his hand round to the side of her face, caressing it, feeling her shiver under his touch.

“Why’d you have to make me so angry? Eh?” He sighed, moving his hand around the back of her head and pulling her not so gently towards him. “All you had to do was be nice to him. Was that took much to ask? I mean so little to you that you won’t do me this one little favour?”

She whimpers as he takes her face in both his large hands, looks away from him like a cowed dog.

“Devin. He wanted me to….”

He cut her off with a shake, once, hard, her teeth clicked together and she moaned.

“Jordan. Baby. Lets not kid ourselves eh? You’ve been around the block, its just a favour, nothing kinky, nothing dirty just, be nice to him.”

“But…. “

“You want us to finish is that it?”

“No!”

“Then do this. For me.” He kisses her, almost tenderly and feels her melt against him, half sobbing, half laughing. He knows her type. Understands that as far as she’s concerned, Devin is treating her like a princess, that this is the best she’s ever been treated. It won’t be long before she’s working for him properly, but for now he’s her boyfriend, her protector and she’s doing him a favour.

Just this once.

He takes her face in his hands gently this time and rubs a thumb under her eyes, wiping away the tears.

“On you go then. I’ll pick you up at twelve alright?”

She nods twice and tries to smile at him. Devin does his best not to grimace. Jordan used to be pretty, but now her cheeks were hollow, her eyes bulged from their sockets, her skin was bad, sprayed with acne.

He pushes her away and she turns and totters off towards the waiting car, her thin, white legs shining as the streetlights reflected the rain from the pavement onto her.

Devin lit up while he watched her hesitate at the car door.

“Get in you stupid bitch.” He muttered.

With a final glance back at him she slid into the car and it drew swiftly away as soon as she shut the door.

The girl was gone. Devin immediately pushed her from his mind, he had no interest in knowing what happened next. His only concern was that they’d push it too far. It would be inconvenient to have to sort out a corpse.

Devin had parked his car down the street and now he pulled the collar of his shirt up and strode through the rain.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out.

“Devin. Mate. You free?”

“What. Now?”

“Yeah. Can you get over to my place?”

“For fucks sake Chris. Not really. I’m on the other side of the heath, take fucking hours to get through traffic to your end.”

“Aw mate its important. Izzy brought the money over, but she said there was a problem. She wants to hand it over to you.”

“Fuck man!”

Devin swapped ears and sucked on his cigarette until a long column of ash fell from the end and hissed quietly on the damp pavement.

“Look. Leave the car man. Quicker to just go through the park yeah?”

“Maybe. Shit, this better be worth is Chris. I have to pick Jordan up in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, yeah. No worries, catch you in about twenty right?”

Devin sighed and stuffed the phone back in his pocket and turned on his heels to head to the park.

He skirted through an estate, the towers loomed over the courtyards like grey monolithic trees. In the distance he heard kids fucking about, further still the whoop of a single siren, a warning. He wasn’t worried about cops tonight. He was clean.

Ahead of him walked a young couple.

The boy was tall, hunched over in the rain, ignoring his companion.

Devin appraised the girl.

Small, young, good hair, full lips. He marked her, they’re so easy to lure away from their teenage boyfriends at that age.

The girl turned her head and smiled at Devin, her eyes locking onto his. Her teeth looked too big for her mouth.

Something primordial stirred in him and he felt the tiny hairs on his arms and neck rise in fear. Then she looked away and he let his breath out in a single hard pant, like he’d been holding it.

Shuddering he stopped and watched them walk into one of the towers, watched the dark entrance swallow them up.

He felt ill, like he was on the beginning of a bad trip, that slightly detached feeling of not being able to balance. Aware of this disorientation, Devin started to jog through the estate, hoping the motion would clear his head, and only started walking again when he reached the entrance to the park.

Three hundred acres of heath and woodland slap bang in the middle of the city. There was little peaceful about it though, especially at night, the bushes rustled as people hid themselves, drugs, sex, whatever. Around the edges of the park the wildlife was strictly urban.

Devin pushed deeper into the park, sticking to the main path, he knew that it would take him straight through to the other side. It was taking longer than he thought though, he was going to be late for Jordan.

Angrily he pulled out the phone and started to dial.

No network coverage.

Fuck.

The lighting was less the further in to the park he went. In the distance he could see the orange glow of the other side so he headed for that, tried to ignore the closed in feeling as the trees either side of him grew denser.

Devin stumbled and glanced down.

The track was narrower, the edging had gone, letting the grass and weeds start to encroach. Confused, he stopped and turned, looking around him and trying not to panic.

The path behind him was gone.

Silence filled the air, Devin could no longer hear the hum of traffic or the distance shouts from the estates.

What the fuck.

He stood straighter, took a deep breath.

Its just the park that’s all.

He laughed a little to himself. City boy, can’t even handle this much greenery, fresh air? Bollocks.

Glancing down the path he saw the faint glow of street lights. Confidently he strode towards them.

It seemed like he was walking for ages, but in reality it was probably only a few minutes. The going was hard, the path was gone, branches scratched at his face, caught his clothes, he fell twice, once heavily, landing on his side and lying there winded for a moment, almost on the verge of panic.

All the time he kept his eye on the light ahead, pushed on, raising his arms to protect his face, swearing that when he got to Chris’s he was going to hit him in the fucking face.

Hard.

Devin crashed out of the trees and into a clearing.

He was where the lights were, but they weren’t street lights.

A few hundred yards away was what looked like a large private house, with topiary, manicured lawns and a fountain.

It was the fountain that was throwing the light.

The bottom was up lit, so that the stone fish that spurted water from their mouths were lit up from underneath, making their backs black and their bellies almost marble white.

For a moment Devin just stood perfectly still.

He was sure there wasn’t a house in this park, certainly not one this big, but then what did he know? He‘d never been in this far, had only skirted around the edges of it.

Laughter made him prick his ears up.

It was soft, girlish.

Someone else was laughing, and again, another voice joined them.

The distant sound of splashing was coming from the other side of the fountain and Devin found himself pulled towards it, curious.

Quietly he skirted around the fountain, keeping in the shadows of the trees, letting them cover him.

On the opposite side of the fountain were four girls.

Devin held his breath.

They were splashing in the water, oblivious of the rain.

Totally naked.

Their hair was long and fell in wet slabs across their bare shoulders, each one looked like the last, luminous beautiful children, their laughter ringing sweetly in the damp air.

Devin fumbled with his phone, everything else forgotten, and put it on the video setting, his hands shaking, he tried to hold the phone steady so he could record this moment.

Nearby a dog set up barking.

The girls ignored it. They splashed at each other, squealing, giggling.

“Jesus.” Devin whispered, moving closer, trying to get a better shot, all thoughts of getting to Chris’s gone.

The barking was closer now, harsh, contained. Not the frantic yapping of a small dog or the angry bellows of a large dog, it was measured, controlled, less barking and more of a signal.

Devin stuffed the phone back in his pocket and stood up straight, looking about him.

The splashing had stopped.

Turning to look at the fountain again he saw the girls were all stood watching him, their eyes large and curious, their mouths smiling. None of them moved to cover their nakedness and this inexplicably frightened him. Had they screeched and their hands flown to cover their breasts he would have laughed and then been on his way, but the cool detachment with which they regarded him made a block of ice form in his guts.

From around the left of the fountain padded a dog.

It raised its stub snout and sniffed at the air before sitting down on the gravel.

Devin started to move backwards, slowly.

Another dog, identical to the first came around from the right, it also sat, its eyes trained on him.

He girls paid no attention to the dogs, only watched Devin, their eyes so large and fathomless that he was frightened to look, but could not tear his gaze away. He was afraid of falling into the wet pools of their eyes, he’d fall in and never get out again.

Around the fountain walked another girl.

Barely older than the bathers, still in her teens, but with a presence that suggested she was older than the earth itself. Unlike the others, she was dressed, a vest top and shorts topped with a long raincoat that flapped slightly around her ankles, heavy boots graced her feet. Her hair, which was dirty blond, was cut short, just below her ears, it framed her face, making her look young and stern.

He shook as she stopped, her eyes blazed with cold fire, she did not smile.

Crouching down she caressed the ear of one of the dogs, its bull head pushing against her hand in delight, its muscular body quivering.

Devin tried to turn but his feet felt glued to the floor, all his senses screamed at him to run, but he could not.

She turned her terrible gaze on him and he felt his bladder weaken.

“You should not be here.” Her voice cut through the rain soaked night, entered his head, filled his body.

He whimpered.

She turned to the other dog who squatted and urinated in submission as she bent to favour it with a touch.

“Do you know me?”

Devin shook his head.

The girls in the fountain giggled into their hands.

“You should know me. All your kind meet me in the end.” She smiled now, but it was cruel, too knowing. “In the end you all find me.”

“I don’t know you.” Devin managed to push the words out of his mouth. There was none of the bully in his voice now though, it was meek, careful.

She laughed and turned to the girls who stretched out their hands to touch their mistress as she walked past them, their lips parted as they sighed at her fingers grazing theirs, their eyes became more well like, seeming to absorb all the light around in their rapturous state.

“I’m their protector, the girls. All of them. But you know that don’t you.”

He nodded.

Somewhere on a base, almost animal, level he knew her.

“So it begins.” She drew a bow from the folds of her coat and placed an arrow lightly to it. “You may run now.” She said quietly.

He ran.

There was no reasonable thought process, all he felt was fear, there wasn’t time to work out why he was afraid.

Devin crashed through the trees, ignoring the path, desperate to get out of the park and back onto the streets, he knew if he could just get his feet back on concrete he’d be safe.

Behind him he heard the soft but quick sounds of paws as the dogs followed their quarry, deeper into the trees, silent, they gave no tongue as they stuck to his scent.

Devin’s heart pounded and his lungs burned as he finally found the path and sprinted down it, back towards the estate.

As he began to recognise the park he let out a sob of relief, he could see the entrance and putting his head down he willed his legs faster.

An arrow flew through the air landing at his feet, making him stumble. Recovering himself he took off to the left still running.

Another arrow missed his foot by a bare fraction and he turned slightly left again.

She’s playing with me!

He was horrified at the thought. He had no doubt that if she wanted to she could run him through at will.

No.

She wanted her fun first.

Wanted the hunt.

There was nothing left to do but run, even though he was steadily moving back into the park.

Devin crashed into the trees again, found a light track through them and ran, pumping his arms like pistons, barely noticing the pain in his chest. It had been a long time since he’d had to run from anyone, he’d grown soft, weak.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw something flash through the trees, he turned his head slightly and saw her keeping pace with him, her coat fanned out behind her like a banner, her upper body erect, her bow held low, at her side with both hands. She was laughing, not at him, but with pure joy.

The sight of her head thrown back, her childish shrieks of laughter, made him find reserves he never knew he had.

He pulled ahead of her, his hands up at his face, protecting him from the slashing branches.

Over the sound of his ragged breath he hears rusting and the snapping of twigs under foot either side of him. The dogs are pacing him. They make no sound. No growl or bay or even pant, they only keep at his side, silent black wraths in the woodland.

He knows its over, that he can’t keep running forever, but his feet won’t stop, can’t stop, his will was broken but his body worked on automatic, used the cocktail of adrenaline to keep him going.

There’s light ahead.

He puts in a final spurt, moves away from the dogs, sprints towards the light in the hope that he’s reached the other side of the park.

Pushing through the trees he fell to the floor, his hands found concrete and he sobbed like a baby, his breath pulled from his lungs only with the hugest of efforts.

He lay for what seemed like hours, his hands pressed into the hard floor, the smell of grass and dirt up his nose, his whole body shaking as muscles cramped and cooled.

Finally he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Devin. Get up Devin.”

She was crouched down in front of him, her face was flushed with pleasure and she smiled, but Devin only moaned in fear.

She snapped up from her heels as he staggered upright.

He was back at the fountain.

The dogs lay motionless either side of him, like statues carved from meat.

She was touching his arm, he wanted more than anything to recoil, but he couldn‘t. “Look.” She pointed to the fountain.

The four girls were still there and now there was a fifth.

She stood on the gravel, naked as the others, but skinny, pale, hunched over.

“Jordan.” He breathed, watching as she hugged herself, thin arms wrapped around her almost flat chest, her bony knees clenched together.

“With her last breath she called me. I brought her here. She’ll be safe now.”

“Called you?”

“They all do. The abused, the broken. They call to me… All of them.” She grips his shoulder and he yelps. It feels like her fingers have pushed through his skin. “Do you have any idea what that’s like? To feel them inside you for eternity? The girls, all of them, from the moment my brother rose for the first time and shone on the earth and for all time after…. I have them all, inside me. It burns.”

Devin falls to his knees as she tightens her grip.

Jordan is being coaxed over to the fountain by the girls, they lean towards her and hold out their hands and she stumbles and sidles to them. She’s ashamed, feels she doesn’t deserve to be there, but they coo and cajole and finally she takes the hand of the girl nearest and steps up into the water.

He watches her fill out, as though he’s watching a time laps video. Her breasts swell and her stomach puffs out softly, her cheeks round and her legs lose their twig like fragility.

She glows, her hair sparkles in the lights, she opens her mouth and laughs.

“Beautiful.” He whispers.

“Always. She’ll live with me now. No more pain, no more abuse. She’s come home.” She turns to Devin and pulls him up. “You ran well. But I can’t allow you to leave. You know that don’t you.”

She takes his chin in her hand and forces him to look her in the eye. He trembles at her face.

Her eyes glow red, but are cold. If the girls in the fountain have eyes like wells, her eyes are bottomless wells dug in some arctic wasteland.

“I won‘t kill you. In fact I’ll set you free, for a price.”

He can hardly bare to look in those terrible eyes, but she holds his head firmly.

“A kiss, and you may go.”

He blinks comically. “A kiss?”

“Yes. One kiss and you are free.”

The girls are giggling, screaming at each other as they splash about happily in the water.

He nods. Anything to get away from her grip, her eyes.

She leans forwards and stands on tip toe to kiss him. Her lips are like fire and ice, they burn but he crushes his into her, feels her tongue dart between his teeth, small and nimble, he feels her arms around his neck and find himself embracing her, weeping while he does.

He pulls her close and falls into the wells at last.

Stepping back She regards the small buck standing before her.

His ears, big and broad like leaves, flick back and forth nervously. His nose twitches and his eyes, huge and comical, wide, all seeing, dart about the clearing.

The dogs raise their heads. One of them gently huffs, then lays its head back on its paws.

The deer starts to one side then changes his mind and bounds off in the opposite direction, disappearing into the trees like a ghost.

She calls the dogs to her and as they arrive, fawning at her feet she smiles at the thought of the hunts yet to come.

Untitled

2011-09-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

This is one of a series of stories I'm writing at the moment. The plan is to put together a book of urban tales/myths. So I'm sharing this one as I think it sets the general tone, although it IS a raw draft and will change no doubt on a final edit, but anyway, enjoy.

“Can you take Nan her pills?.”

Rory considered the possibility of saying no, of pulling a face and whining about being in the middle of his game.

Reload.

Aim.

Fire.

“I picked them up and then forgot to drop them in on the way home.” His Mum was standing to the side of him, shaking the paper bag, making the pills inside their plastic bottles rattle like mini maracas.

He glanced up and tried not to wince at her face.

Pale and drawn didn’t cover it.

She was working two jobs, in a few hours she’d be leaving for her night shift.

Deep down though he was conscientious and she knew it. This was just an elaborate ritual they went through every time she asked him to do something. A simple, but necessary dance they performed to save face.

With an elaborate sigh he chucked the console at his little brother who’d been sat next to him watching Rory shoot Zombies. Greedily he snatched it up and started the game again.

“Thanks darlin’.” She smiled at him as he took the bag, but he didn’t smile back, only put his buds in and pulled his hood over his head. “Wear a coat, its raining.”

Rory ignored her.

His one act of defiance.

Hunching his shoulders he stuffed his hands in his pockets, the bag of pills fitting neatly into the oversized pouch at the front of his hoodie.

Head down, he jogged down the steps, six flights from their flat to the street below, his footfalls echoing off the concrete. From behind the doors crept the smells of other people. Their dinners cooking, their washing powder, their sweat and rubbish, rank vodka and shit.

He wrinkled his nose and pushed on.

Every so often he caught snatches of noise, conversation, crying baby, mostly TV though, the tinny false laughter cutting through the wet air like fingernails on a blackboard.

Leaving the building he leant forwards to meet the rain, his trainers soaking up water as he moved purposefully across the greasy, wet courtyard.

The streets were deserted, Rory was the only person moving, the red of his hoodie like a bloom in the dark as he moved under the street lamps, it flared and dulled with the light so that when he walked through shadow he looked like a dirty blood stain.

Although he had the buds in his ears they were only for show, he kept his music off. Only an idiot would walk around here voluntarily deaf. He liked to know what was going on around him, to hear the squeak of trainers running through the streets and work out of he should step aside or not, or the revving of a dirt bike some prick had decided to run up and down the corridors in the tower.

Dulling the senses seemed like madness.

Rory wanted all of his to be sharp.

Needed them to be.

The rain made everything shimmer slightly, gave the grimy street an almost other worldly glow, the traffic noise was dulled to a distant whoosh, but smaller sounds were amplified until he could almost imagine he could hear bugs scuttling in the darker corners behind wheelie bins.

The tiny needles of water hit the ground fast, sending up a spray that made it look like he was walking through a fine mist, from a distance he looked almost like he was floating.

He could hear shouting. It came closer and Rory stopped to work out where it was coming from.

Carefully he stepped into a doorway and into the shadows, then waited as half a dozen kids ran by, followed by about four guys.

They where laughing, throwing insults casually over their shoulders, the guys weren’t.

Rory caught a glimpse of something one of the guys hands that shone as it caught the light.

A knife maybe.

Not his problem.

Stupid fucking kids.

“What did they do?”

Rory leapt back, nearly falling over his feet.

“Fuck!”

The girl who had whispered in his ear smiled crookedly, almost laughing.

He grabbed at his chest as though his heart was going to jackhammer right out of him. How had she got behind him like that?

Then he realised. She must have crept out of the door behind him.

Standing up right and taking a deep breath he looked at her properly.

She was young, maybe fourteen, slight, still a girl. She had long dark hair that sat loosely on her shoulders, large hoop earrings that pulled on her lobes and a smear of red lipstick painted on with inexperience.

Basically she looked like all the other girls round here, he thought contemptuously.

She cocked her head at him and studied him back.

Her eyes seemed to glow in the orange streetlight, then she lifted her head and they were brown again.

Rory glared at her and then turned and walked purposefully towards his Nan’s tower block.

“Wait.”

She was at his side, so quick and quiet. Her accent was rolling, Polish maybe, so many Poles living on the estate.

He carried on walking.

“Please.” She grabbed at his sleeve and he glanced down at her small hand. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

Rory frowned and pulled his arm away from her. “I wasn‘t scared.”

“No. That is not what I meant to say. I was hiding from the boys, like you.”

“I wasn’t hiding.”

The girl was quiet then. She trotted alongside him, the top of her head barely level with his shoulder.

“Can I walk with you?”

Rory glanced down at her upturned face. Like all the girls he’d seen around here she was skittish as a rabbit when she wasn‘t posturing. They dressed like whores then worried that someone would treat them like one.

He was royally irritated by her, but knew he couldn’t leave her out here alone. Sometimes having morals sucked.

“You already are aren’t you.” He grunted.

“Yes. Thank you. I need to get to that building.” She pointed at his Nan’s tower. At least he wouldn’t have to go out of his way.

“What’s your name?” She asked, linking her arm through his.

“Rory.”

“Rory. I have never heard of that name!”

She seemed excited, clutched his arm tight.

He pulled his arm away, felt how tight her grip was. He glanced down and she smiled up revealing large even teeth, then she let him go.

“You live in my building?”

He shook his head.

“You visit someone then?”

“Yeah.”

There was something about the girl that made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to share his details with her, didn’t even want her to walk with him as far as the building.

He just had this feeling, like he was being played, like any second now her boyfriend or even her pimp would jump out and start laying into him.

She didn’t seem to be on the look out for anyone, but Rory took the ear buds out anyway and stuffed them in his pocket, even with no music on they still dulled his hearing.

At least she wasn‘t holding onto him anymore.

“My name is Ylva.” She was prattling at him now, although he was walking fast she kept up easily, wasn‘t even out of breath. “I live here with my father and sisters. We will not stay long, only until my fathers work contract is over in a few weeks.”

They reached the main door and he hesitated, listening for noise inside.

Ylva cocked her head and seemed to be listening too.

“Nothing.” She whispered then smiled at him. “You are a very nervous person I think.”

Rory shot her a look. “No I’m not! I’m just careful.”

She smiled and nodded in the slow way she had back up the street. It was knowing, sly, she curled her lip back as though her teeth were too big for her mouth to accommodate properly.

Again there was that small knot of worry that he was being set up.

She grasped for his hand, it was hot in his own.

“I’m sorry. My English… It’s…” She flapped her free hand and rolled her eyes. “I think sometimes my English is bad. Makes me sound rude?”

He looks down at her.

Suddenly she seems, if not older, then at least less child like. Rory felt stupid for acting like a dick, it wasn‘t in his nature to be so brusque.

“No. No its OK. Sorry, rough night you know?”

She nodded earnestly.

“Do you have to go now? To your Grandmother? You could stay with me for a little while yes. Help me improve my English!”

He hesitated. The paper bag of pills still rustling in his pocket. Glancing at his watch he saw it was still early, he could spare half an hour.

She was smiling again and he found himself smiling back.

The childish look to her was gone, maybe it had just been fear. Now she was in her own building she felt safe.

Rory felt his face redden, he hadn’t talked to many girls, not really. He kept to himself at school, didn’t mix much with the baby gangs on the estate. It was much easier to be aloof than it was to be friendly he realised.

Ylva took his hand and led him towards the stairs.

“I know a place we can sit. Come.”

He followed her as she ran full pelt up the steps, he struggles, stumbled, barely able to keep up.

Rory felt his feet sliding on smears of grease, puddles that had blown in through broken windows, but the girl held his hand firmly, almost dragged him along.

Four flights up she stopped and pressed her finger to her lips. Her smile was sly again, her teeth shone inside their red frame. She let go of his hand and opened a door to what looked like an empty flat. Quickly she slipped through the door, then snaked her hand out to pull him inside.

The flat was bare except for a beaten up sofa. Strewn about were paper cups and wrappers from the burger bar, fag butts, rubbers, typical kids fuck about pad.

She sat heavily on the sofa and patted it.

“Sit!”

Hesitantly he sat next to her.

“Do you smoke?”

Rory shook his head.

“Good! Nasty habit!” She pulled a face, grimaced at him in the weak light then laughed, pulling her skinny legs under her, curling up next to him like a cat.

“Here.” She held out a pack of gum and he took a stick, nodding his thanks.

“I don’t know anyone. Do you have friends here?” She looked about her like she might see someone then sighed. “It is not a nice place to live. I am glad we will be leaving soon.”

He chewed on the gum for a moment. “No. Its pretty shit here.”

“Always you have lived here?”

“Nah. Just the last couple of years since…” He shut his mouth.

Ylva put a hand on his arm and looked concerned.

“What is it? A family problem?”

Her way of speaking was so blunt, it tricked you into talking he noticed.

“Dad left. He’s working up in Scotland, in the forestry’s. Haven’t really seen him since he left, but we had to move here, so….”

She smiled at him again. “So sad to have a family without a head yes?”

“We don’t need him.” Rory said defensively. “We do alright without him.”

“Still…”

She was stroking his hair, had pulled his hood back and was running her fingers over his scalp with long sweeping motions.

He leaned into her hand, liking the feeling of her touch as she moved her fingers behind his ears, rubbed the back of his head.

“A family is important isn’t it Rory. A real father wouldn’t leave his family.”

“I miss him.” The words spilled out before he’d even realised he’s thought them, as though her hands in his hair had brought them out, made them more than abstract, made them solid.

“Of course you do. Its natural to miss him. A family is lost without leadership. You are still too young, but one day…” She let the words hang as she removed her hand and sat back.

Rory shivered.

“How did you know?”

She just coked her head, blinked slowly.

“How did you know it was my Nan I was visiting?”

“You should go Rory.” She said quietly.

He pulled his arms around himself, embarrassed as though he was stood naked in front of her.

“I have to go.” He whispered, patting his pocket, feeling the reassuring weight of the pills there.

She only nods, doesn’t go to leave with him as he opens the door.

He runs up the remainder of the steps in a daze.

Its almost like he’d dreamt her up, like an imaginary friend.

Running a hand through his hair he imagines he can smell her with every follicle that moves. It’s a musky scent, it smells of rain and pine and smoke.

Rory shakes his head, as though trying to clear it, he feels nauseous, his heart is beating too fast, his footfalls slow as he reaches the flat.

The TV is on loud but the lights are all off, so that only the blue glow of the screen is visible through the glass front. Hesitating, his hand on the door knob, he starts to shake, the pills in his pocket knocking together quietly in his pocket.

“Nan?” Its almost a whisper. He clears his throat and tries again, this time knocking on the door. “Nan!”

The door swings open as his knuckles touch the wood.

He can hear his heart pounding in his ears as he moves down the short hall into the room beyond.

The wolf is standing on the small table.

It regards him for a moment, its huge head raised, its eyes flashing orange in the light from the open door. Blood streaks its muzzle, the fur around its head, has run down its forepaws, there are little splatters on the wood beneath its paws.

It drops down to the floor, its weight making the table scoot back and hit the wall, revealing two other wolves feasting on his Nan.

“We’ve watched you.”

Her arm encircles his waist and she leans her head on his back. Rory knows there is no point in trying to pull away, her grip is strong.

One of the wolves is having trouble with his Nan’s leg, it twists it this was and that with its powerful jaws, tearing at tendons, snapping the bones.

Rory swallows hard.

“Will they eat me too.” His voice sounds small, it wobbles slightly.

Ylva chuckles into his back, it changes a little, starts to sound harsher, almost bark like.

“No.” Her voice is lower, it rumbles through him making him shiver. Her breath is on his neck as though she were suddenly taller.

He can smell earth and meat and blood.

“Family is so important don’t you think? Maybe you’re not Alpha material yet, but soon. Soon you’ll be stronger, older, wiser….”

He shuts his eyes and tries not to hear the sound of the wolves feasting.

A muzzle bump his hand and another snuffle around his ear.

Rory tries not to lick his lips in anticipation.

On...... Black dogs.

2011-09-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

Its known at the black dog, which says a lot about the superstitions we still hold about dark coloured canines.
Black dogs were thought of as unlucky, portents of death, messengers from the underworld. men chased by the black shuck rarely lived to tell the tale.

Bad rap for the average black mutt.

But of course I'm not talking about dogs, but the other big D.

Depression.

Most of us will be touched by it personally at least once in our lives.
Sometimes its a short lived as a dark cloud blotting out the sun for a brief moment, other times its with you for years. It can be hormonal or chemical or emotional but it is always debilitating in its own way.

Naturally everyone is different, and no two people will suffer the same way.

Most people in my family have had depression at some stage and it's made me acutely aware of others suffering.
I can usually tell from ten paces who is wallowing.

That Alpha Mum over there?
The one grinning and talking a bit too loud..... yup.... that one. Glass of wine? Just to wind down? Sure. I understand.

You see its not all about wearing black and not washing your hair.

There's also the notion that you can "snap out of it" or even worse, the guy that says "Wish I had time to be depressed."

Yeah, because its TOTALLY a lifestyle choice.

Toady I was depressed.

Properly depressed.
Not a bit blue, or a bit down but full on depressed.

Whats the difference.

You can be a bit down, being blue is usually because of something, "Aw man, didn't get those tickets!! bummed" <---- pulls sad face.

If you're blue you can fix it. Put on some music, go out, call a friend..... It works.

When you're depressed nothing works.

Some people are angry when they're depressed, they rage at the world and those closest to them. They rant at their inability to fix themselves and often their loved ones are caught in the cross fire.

That's not me by the way.

I know when I'm depressed because I wake up feeling like someone died.
Its grief.

When you wake up in the morning and you realise your crying but you don't know why. You get up and wash your face but you're still carrying round that heavy cold stone in your stomach, its always there, pushing tears on you when you least expect it, a look or gesture can make you fold on yourself like damp paper.

It feels like a cliche.
The depressed writer..... Oh suffer little artist.
But we're more prone.
Artists, writers.... is it the way our brains work? Or maybe its because we tend to work in solitary confinement, living in our heads. Or maybe by our very nature we more cursed with self doubt, sensitive to others opinions of ourselves.

But it could just be me.

Oh crap.
Now I sound Narcissistic.

Its so not just me....

Fuck.

I dragged through my morning in a state of tearfulness. Got the kids to school without having to talk to anyone. I walked the dogs unenthusiastically. Didn't even want to listen to the i-pod while I did it, usually a given and my main mood booster, I tried it and turned it off in disgust after half a track.
I stood behind one of the big bales sat out there on the side of the hill and cried for no reason, the dogs sat at my feet looking anxious.

Tried to work but couldn't concentrate, couldn't even motivate myself to play online or chat to anyone.
Stared out the window for a while.
Ignored the door when the greengrocer brought my groceries round, let them leave it on the porch instead.
Tried not to look at the housework that could be done, seeing as I can't seem to work today.
Resenting the fact that in an hour I have to pick my kids up.
Feeling bad that I'm resenting the fact that in an hour I have to pick my kids up.
Now feeling like a shit Mum.

Husband calls at lunch time to check I'm OK.
I'm monosyllabic.
Half irritated.
Does he think I might kill myself?
Killing yourself requires concentration skills that I don't posses today.

I know what its like to be the partner.
Just as I can hear it in his voice I know I do the same.
You want to make it right and fix it and it hurts to be pushed away, but you are... or you do.

Somethings can't be fixed.
Not like that.

I don't feel as bad now as I did a few hours ago.
Hopefully this is one of those cloud across the sun depressions. A day, maybe two, then I can be perky and filthy and bawdy again.
Writing always helps when I can do it... Even this.
Theres always the tiny slithering worry that it might not be.
That a return to the bad old days over due, that I might lose more precious time in a fug of apathy.

Positive positive positive.

I'm fine.
OK?

EDIT: Yeah, a thought.
You know when you feel sick and you just kow that if you can BE sick you'll feel better? THATS how I feel.... like I need a damn good crying jag.... that I'm on the cusp of it but it won't come.

Told you it wasn't always gonna be pretty in here.

On...... Vivid dreaming.

2011-09-16T01:57:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere that when you dream about a house you’re actually dreaming about your subconscious, that the house represents your mind and the state of the house and how it makes you feel is a mirror showing you how your mind is coping with things.

So.

I often dream about a certain house.

Its beautiful, in a semi run down sort of way.

A fixer upper.

Its big, almost mansion like, but I only ever occupy two or three rooms.

The other rooms are haunted.

Not woo woo haunted….

But EVIL haunted.

So this dream.

I’m with my sister and we’re sorting out this house.

Cleaning it up.

I’m going through drawers of stuff. Old papers, photos, it all smells like ancient make up and toilet water, the photos feel grimy under my fingers.

My sister say’s we should try and find out about who was here, then we can live in the whole house.

Later, its night and we go to sleep in a big double bed.

The presence is physical now.

I can see shapes in the hall and I’m so afraid. My sister is terrified and I say we have to run, get past them and run down the stairs.

We go, and as we pass them I see they are human, a woman and children, their hair is wild, matted, their eyes glow like animal eye as they catch the moonlight.

We run.

Fast.

The next morning we return and going through the papers I see that the woman I saw used to live here.

I come across a clipping.

Her husband was in the navy, thought to be lost at sea.

Grief stricken she smothers her baby and tries to kill herself.

As I’m reading this a man comes in.

He sends my sister away.

I’m nervous but he smiles and tells me not to worry, that he’s going to fix the house for me.

He leads me through the most haunted room and instead of feeling like I’m going to have a heart attack I feel fine.

The rooms been painted, its huge and clean, and then I notice the door going off it.

On the other side is a vast library.

Its truly beautiful.

I literally jump up and down and clap my hands I’m so excited.

The guys smiling at me indulgently.

The library is magic, like real magic.

There’s cloud’s moving around in the vaulted ceilings and some of the books move, send out sparks.

I’m running my hands over the books and I’m so happy.

I look up and there a mezzanine floor.

Two stuffed clowns are looking down at me.

I laugh and tell them to go back to the attic.

They turn into vapour and drift away.

Suddenly I’m scared.

Its all wrong.

The guys smile looks dangerous, false.

I run from the house and now I have my kids with me.

The streets are deserted…. I realise everyone is inside their perfect house and they don’t care that it false so long as everything stays the same.

The guy is chasing us and we sprint down the road to the train station, I can hear him bellowing behind us, like an animal.

I throw my kids on the train, kick out as he grabs for my foot and he falls back.

The train takes us away and …..

That’s it….. It takes me out of the dream.

So what was that all about then eh???

On..... deciding when to quietly just consign something to data heaven.

2011-09-13T05:54:00.000-07:00

There's that awkward moment when you look at a body of work and you have to make a decision.
At some point you really liked it.... It was gonna work! It DID work.... everything gelled beautifully, but now?

Well.
You gave it distance.
Left it for a few weeks (months? years?).
Sometimes this helps, one way or the other.....

You might come back and suddenly realise where it stalled, fix it, then get back to it.

Of course, other times you might come back, re-read it, cringe then delete the whole thing.

But what about the other scenario?
Then one where you keep crawling back like an abused dog to re-open old wounds and self doubts because you can't delete it.......

Hmm... I'll just save it and the folder will blink up everytime I open docs, and everyday I'll think "really should take another look at that...."

So when do you give it up as a fail?

I guess once you can't see a way to the end or its so much hard grinding work that it no longer flows?

Putting work in and gritting your teeth through boring bits is part and parcel of the game..... How many times have you been told "Just get it down on paper!"... Its true! Put it down, ignore the spelling, grammar, awful conversation the "he said, she said"... Sometimes just doing that and getting to the other side of it can loosen the whole lot up and away you go again.

Obviously that awful bit you just wrote gets a re-write after draft one ......

So there's this THING and I kinda like it but now kinda don't and I don't know what to do.

What I SHOULD do it delete delete delete but........ They become your babies right?
Much more than any REAL offspring.

They're a part of you and cutting them lose in such a brutal manner is hard.

So.

Move to file.

Save.

Try not to look at it again.

Ever.

The Wrong Door.

2011-09-08T02:17:00.000-07:00

Another Book Mark project story: I love the song that's featured in this and wanted a way to show that, but the main theme was inspired by reading "The time travellers wife" taking the normal and throwing it in an amazing situation.

She keeps it in a book of verse that she found one day at a thrift shop. A battered warrior of a book, all cracked leather and weak binding, but on flicking through she had seen a line of a poem that made her heart skip....Breath out, so I can breath you in.....
She had bought it and rushed straight home and up to her room. Fishing through the bottom drawer of her bedside cabinet she had finally found what she needed, the faded concert ticket.
Such a small scrap of paper, such an easily lost thing, something that if found on the floor would be swept up and thrown away without a thought.
She placed it reverently inside the book and shut it.
10 years earlier, a decade ago, another lifetime, another her, Aithne...another Aithne.
"Come to the concert" He had said, although now she couldn't remember who he had been. A boyfriend, almost Platonic, almost. A holding hands, kissing only boyfriend who had some classes with her.
She had wrinkled her nose.
"The Foo Fighters?" Raised an eyebrow at him, thinking that she would rather spend a Saturday night in a club with a DJ and a bar than at a concert with a band she didn't really know.
But..but he had pleaded with her, given her the 'ol puppy dog eyes and she had said yes...Yes..Why not, for you.
And so she had found herself shut in a cramped concert hall, they were, after all, not that well known yet, only famous for being in Nirvana, only followed by the faithful.
The Amps were squealing, the lights active, the bodies were too close and sweaty and the boyfriend was high and leaping about and flicking sweat off his hair.
Aithne felt ill...The smoke stung her eyes and burned her throat, her shirt was sticking to her back and sweat pooled on the base of her spine.
" I need some air" She screamed in his ear, he nodded but made no move to go with her, his eyes glued to the stage, his ears tuned to the rifts.
She turned away from him and pushed her way through the crowd, doubling back to avoid an elbow in the face or a cigarette in the eye, moving towards the exit sign like in a dream, every time she got so close she had to turn away again.
Finally, finally, she made it through the door and found herself on a terrace overlooking the car park.
She took a few shuddery breaths of bitter air then realised that the night was cold and she was soaked and had no coat. Shivering she went back through the door.
Inside.
Inside was wrong.
It was bigger, lighter, newer.
The Foo Fighters still sang, the crowed still jumped and screamed, but it was still wrong.
For a moment she stood still, afraid, lost. Then she took a hold of herself, she had only come through the wrong door, come back in a different way, only the claustrophobia of earlier making her feel so detached from reality.
Aithne began to move back through the crowd trying all the time to get a sense of her bearings, find a marker, a familiar face, anything to ground her.
The song had ended with a thrash of cords and the crowed cheered and whistled and stamped their feet for the next.
The opening chords for the next song where quiet, insistent, more melodic. Turning towards the stage she found herself face to face with a man.
His eyes registered the shock she felt, they had been only a breath away from bumping into each other, that was how close they were.
Hello, I've waited for you
Everlong
It hit her so hard, the recognition, the detached feeling of seeing herself through his eyes.
Tonight, I throw myself into
and out of the red out of her head she sang
His gaze flew over her, took in her face her body, her eyes, her mouth everything, she felt naked and knew he must feel the same, as she took him in as well.
Come down and waste away with me
Down with me
Slow how you wanted it to be
I'm over my head out of my head she sang
The air between then hummed and twitched, Aithne knew what it was like to feel him, not imagining, but she knew, she had felt his hands on her, over her, in her and also knew what his own body felt like, smelt like, tasted like. The space between them was so dense she was pushed and pulled at the same time, like they were magnets that had yet to decide their poles.
Breath out so I can breath you in
Hold you in
She was close enough to taste his breath, close enough to kiss him if she had but leaned a little closer, then suddenly the song had ended and the cheering split the force between them and she saw him blink and shake a little, like he had just woken up and she stepped back and exhaled as though she had been holding her breath for the whole song.
Aithne watched him turn away and walk up to a woman. He slipped his arm around her waist and she turned smiling at him.
Aithne could she her frown a little and lip read her "whats wrong". He shook his head and kissed her mouth. She smiled and her mouth worked " You missed Everlong, I love that song."
Aithne saw her turn her head in her direction, she saw her hair flick over her shoulder, she met her gaze and saw her own eyes in an older face.
So she kept the ticket and forgot about it like you forget a vivid dream. The boy friend became some other girls boyfriend and she wasn't sorry, they stayed friendly.
And one day, one day, she had walked into the book store and turned a corner too quick and collided with him.
He had grabbed her shoulders to steady her but it wasn't the bump that threatened to floor her but the realisation that she was looking at the man from the concert, and this man was 10 years younger.
He had smiled warmly at her and laughed at her shocked expression.
He was Daniel, he asked her to join him for coffee and she felt the ghost of the pressure she had felt, only now, now the magnets had settled and only pulled them close together.

On..... 9/11

2011-09-06T03:30:00.000-07:00

Its been 10 years since 9/11.

That’s a long time.

10 years ago there was no Face book, no twitter, no i-pod, no Wii.

The years between the cold war and 9/11 were pretty peaceful on the home front for the Western world.

I’ve refrained from writing about 9/11 for years.

Part of me felt that for me to do it, someone from the UK, with no friends or family who had been touched by the disaster, well, it felt wrong.

Like I had no right.

But on reflection I was mistaken.

It affected us all.

It was the end of our perceived innocence.

Its maybe a more common question in America than in the UK.

Where were YOU when the towers fell?

I was at home.

My eldest son was just eighteen months and playing in the living room.

I had just called my husband at work and asked him to come home, my horse had gone down with colic and I couldn’t handle the vet and the baby AND the horse, so he was nipping home on his lunch break.

So I was waiting.

And I turned on the TV.

I almost turned it off because what came up looked like a movie.

The first tower was aflame, the camera shaky but the picture clear.

It wasn’t until the regular newsreader came on that I realised it was real. It really was happening.

So I sat down, my hand over my mouth watching the tower, seeing the plane sticking out.

A terrible, terrible accident.

Husband walked in.

“Look!” I point at the TV. “A plane crashed into one of the twin towers!”

He glances at the TV but his mind’s on the horse.

“Fuck!” That’s all he says, then the vets here and he goes outside.

Baby’s playing and I’m watching.

I’m actually watching when the second plane hits.

They get it live.

I see it in the corner of the TV and actually gasp out loud as it plough’s into the second tower.

Worse than that is the screaming.

People all over New York are stood on their roofs watching the tower burn and as the second plan hit there’s this wail that sets up.

Screaming from the people nearest the camera but from further away, from other roof tops, there is just this prolonged wailing.

As though the city itself found a voice and cried out in pain.

I ran outside and yelled “The second towers been hit! Another plane hit it!”

Husband looks shocked.

The vet only frowns, not understanding, not yet knowing what’s happened.

I don’t know how long it was before the towers started to fall.

The baby had fallen asleep on the floor.

He had this hexagonal floor pad he used to lie on, pulling half of it over him, we used to laugh, called it a baby pastie.

All I wanted to do was hold him, but he was asleep.

I didn’t want to wake him.

The camera picks out the tiny fragile bodies of those who chose to jump.

It looks like paper, seems to fall slowly.

But they zoom in as much as they can and you can see legs and arms bent unnaturally as gravity pulls them swiftly to the floors below.

The first tower to fall starts to crumble under its own weight.

The picture is moving as the cameraman runs.

Years later I watch Clover Field and am reminded of this. The shaky camera work, the feeling of being there.

Can’t help but wonder if this shaped later movie productions.

The world turns grey and the cameraman has taken shelter.

On the TV they switch to a distance shot of the tower falling in on itself.

Its like every big budget special effects movie you’ve ever seen.

The feeling of watching a movie is hard to shake.

There’s this little nagging voice in the back of my head that say’s it can’t be real.

But it is.

Husband comes in.

I’m crying.

He puts a hand on my shoulder.

“I have to go back to work.”

His boss is an arsehole.

I nod.

Later, when husband comes home he say’s he told the guys at work about it.

They didn’t care, carried on working.

Didn’t even put the radio on.

Why should we care?

After all other countries suffer disasters.

Famine.

War.

Disease.

There seems to be two distinct camps of people.

Those who weep and wail over 9/11 and those who think its too much.

I can relate to both.

Fence sitting?

Maybe.

My own feeling is that too many people only see 9/11 in terms of its aftermath.

Iraq mostly.

Someone somewhere was quick to use it to their advantage and push for action where previously no action could legally be taken.

But this isn’t what I’m writing about.

Many, many people have written on the political aspect of 9/11.

There are as many conspiracy theories as there were people who died.

I can’t claim to have even the slightest knowledge of what went on.

The basics I know?

Iraq was a scapegoat, they hunted down Saddam when they should have been hunting down rich Saudi boys in Afghanistan.

WMD bullshit, it was oil.

So I don’t know enough to shoot my mouth off about that.

But what makes 9/11 stand out from any other world disaster?

When we see pictures of starving children dying in their hundreds of thousands or see bodies in mass graves in some far off African war, we feel bad, but removed.

Their own reaction plays a part in this.

There’s has been a lifetime of struggle, there is a fatalistic bent to how they see these occurrences.

Famines are not uncommon.

The parents of the dying babies were once this close to death.

War is an almost generational thing.

The continent of Africa has been at war, in certain countries, for so long that it’s a part of life.

We understand this.

They understand this.

In the western world, we feel bad, we throw some coppers in the UNICEF tin that’s rattled at us in the street and we go about our business.

But 9/11.

At the time we were like pampered spoilt children.

The western world was pretty well off economically.

People had calmed down after the 80’s greed drive, but it was still accepted that everyone was able to work hard, get credit, buy a house.

We were living charmed lives.

The first plane was like a slap to the face.

The second was a punch to the gut.

No one knew how to handle it, such an inconceivable disaster on such a huge scale.

If famine comes, it comes creeping in, gives people time to move on, seek help.

War can be brutal but is played out over time and you have a chance, a chance to flee, to hide or to fight back.

Within a few short hours though thousands of people were dead as the twin towers fell.

Thousands of normal people, with families, hobbies, friends, pets, mortgages, homes, kids…. They went to work as usual and were dead before they’d had time for the first cigarette break of the day.

It was indiscriminate.

It took the life of the CEO as readily as the cleaner.

It cared nothing for a persons religion, race or social standing.

Imagine walking up to a small child playing happily.

Now imagine punching that child, kicking it.

That’s what America felt like.

It was so completely taken by surprise that all it could feel was hurt.

Sadly, emotions like this then quickly turn to anger, and many people happily went along with what they saw as their patriotic duty and supported the war in Iraq.

What they wanted was to feel like they were doing something and at the time they clung onto any delicate thread they had of bringing someone, and some would say anyone, to justice.

For the first time since the cold war, America, and the rest of the western world, felt threatened, out of control.

The most dangerous animals are those that are afraid.

So now, 10 years on, we look back at the mess that came after 9/11 but what we should maybe look at is the genuine human emotion of that day.

While the coverage in the media may get tedious and the weeping and wailing may grate, I think we should distance ourselves from the circus and think instead about the guy who walked into his office for another day at the grindstone and never walked out again.

On....... running from Zombies.

2011-09-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has ever known me, EVER, barring perhaps the three month period I attended the British Racing School, knows for a fact that I hate running.

Wouldn’t run to catch a bus.

Wouldn’t run if my life depended on it.

I had a million reasons NOT to run.

Chief among these was the idea that my knees would disintegrate, my boobs would start sitting somewhere near said crippled knees and face would look haggard.

I’d smugly listen to people talk about their own running and sigh, “If only, but you see I can’t because *insert lame excuse >here<*…..”

So it surprised everyone, including myself, when in July I started running.

And it was hard.

Like, ‘OMFG I’m gonna die out here and no ones gonna find my body till spring!’ hard.

But I plugged on and it started to not hurt so much, then it was OK and then I found myself smiling, getting up in the morning excited about running.

There’s something a little amazing about rediscovering your body again.

Realising you can be strong and quick and able, just like you used to.

Learning to listen to what your body’s saying.

To jog down hill and feel your thighs work, your abdominals supporting you, then uphill feeling hamstrings, calves and then fast on the flat, feeling your tendons ping you along like you're spring activated.

To be breathing hard, but not breathless, to feel every muscle working hard, to feel like the ground is helping you bounce along….. Actually , it’s pretty fucking awesome.

So why?

Why after the best part of ten years with minimal exercise, should I feel the need to start running?

Weight?

Nah… If that was it I would have started years ago.

The reason I started running was Zombies

Yup.

The walking dead, the flesh eaters, the walkers.

Writing a first draft, with another zombie nut, was so much fun….. But made me realise that should (or when….. Surely when…) the Zombie apocalypse come I will be one of the first to fall.

Fat guys always get eaten first right?

Besides, our protagonist was doing so much cool stuff!

I was a little…. No, scrap that…. A lot jealous!

So now I run.

Been over two months now and a fair chunk of weight has fallen off so that was a nice side effect.

So when the Zombies finally hit I’ll be fine.

Just need to work on that whole hand eye coordination thing now.

Maybe I should get a Wii……..

Loch

2011-08-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

First bit of something I started about 18 months ago. Contemplating carrying on. Horror genre.

The wind snapped, like a bad tempered dog, at Marks long grey coat as he slipped gingerly out of the ancient Land Rover and onto the grassy (and it seemed slightly greasy) track that led up to the croft. He gripped the side of the door grimly, mindful of the jagged and rusty edges and, trying to chase thoughts of tetanus away, and held on as though afraid the alien surface of mud and grass would melt the very soles of his shiny, almost dandyish, shoes.
Aware of the eyes on his back, burning twin spots on to the tightly woven wool, he did his best to look nonchalant as he let go of the door and tried to stand up straight.
The farmer who had driven him here, watched him stonily.
His battered red woolly hat (AFC embroidered in fading letters) was pulled hard over his ears and brow and his coat pulled over his mouth so that only his eyes and nose poked out from between.
As Mark struggled with his bags and cameras the farmers eyes never left him. A set and hard gaze suggested that the mouth under his coat collar was also granite like, no smile or even grimace wrinkled the skin around his cheeks or eyes.
He did not offer to help.
Mark was beginning to regret this job.
His Brother, Carl, had invited him up to stay with him and some clients at a shooting lodge.
“Be a fantastic opportunity to network my son, there will be loads of minted wankers floating around desperate to throw cash at your little photo shop.”
Mark had worked hard to drop the estuary accent he had grown up with and couldn‘t help but wince every time his elder brother opened his mouth and dropped his H’s.
He had tried not to get angry, and had let the remark about his “little photo shop”, or his “Exclusive art gallery” as he like to refer to it himself, go.
In the end it was a free trip and it always paid to keep connected, especially in today’s financial climate. He couldn‘t rely on the bankers who seemed to ooze money from their pours like green sweat, anymore. He had heard rumours that some of them had even had to down grade to only two homes, fill in roof top pools and cut holidays back to the bare essentials of three a year (not including Christmas shopping in New York of course.)
Mark was nowhere in the same league as the city boys, but he did feel for them in these times and of course worried that some might cut back on art to decorate their God like homes.
Still, he hadn‘t planned this.
For the entire trip he had managed to keep his feet firmly on solid ground.
Tarmac, concrete, chippings, patio slabs..... Grass was for the people in plus fours. Mark was more than happy to clap from the sidelines as yet another red faced overweight money whore shot a clay plate to smithereens.
Carl was a kind and genial host and had made sure Mark was introduced to everyone in the lodge over drinks the first evening, and by the end of the weekend he knew them all by name and had replaced all of his business cards with an equal amount of theirs.
“Mark! I want you to meet Hugh Murphy.”
Hugh Murphy was as red complexioned and overweight as the rest of them. He had a face so clean shaven and smooth that he needed only a frilly bonnet and a nappy to pass as a giant baby.
Only the thread veins on his nose betrayed his true age.
They shook hands as Carl looked on.
“So. Mark. Carl tells me you take pictures eh?”
“Yes. I wouldn‘t call myself a professional but I enjoy dabbling and I sell a little of my work through the gallery.”
Carl began to drift away, eager no doubt to hook more people up.
“Gallery eh!” Hugh twirled the contents of his brandy glass. “Owner must think your talented enough then!”
Mark smiled.
“Well, I don‘t know about that. Its my gallery you see.”
“Well that’s marvellous!”
These older business men had a good dose of old money in their backgrounds and Mark often found it hard to talk to them. They had been playing polo and taking drinks on Yachts when he was still watching cartoons on a black and white telly in the living room of his parents council house.
Something of the proletarian in him always bristled when talked at by someone who seemed to take talking down to him as a God given right and habit unnecessary to break.
Mark couldn‘t help feeling like this was all leading somewhere, but you had to dance the steps correctly, you had to listen for the change in tempo. At the moment the band played an easy waltz, a lulling three time beat of small talk and pleasantries abut the weather that could hypnotize you if you didn’t pay attention.
All of a sudden the beat could change, the tempo quicken, and before you knew it you had stepped on someone’s toes and fallen on your arse.
“Well now...” Hugh drained his glass. “I wonder if I can interest you in a little photography adventure?” He had almost winked at him. As though he was going to offer him some super spy secret assignment, like he was speaking to a child.
Mark had smiled and make noises to effect that he might be interested and had then listened politely as Hugh had explained about this croft in the middle of nowhere he had inherited. A Croft he wished to hire out to holiday folk, and would Mark be willing to pop up there and take a few snaps for the letting agency?
As it happened the croft was only a few miles from the lodge.
“Be there done and back within the afternoon, what do you say?”
Out of the corner of his eye Mark could see Carl sending eye signals to the affirmative, and so Mark had smiled and said yes, yes of course.
Cards had been exchanged and Hugh had wandered off in search of more fitting company.
Carl appeared next to him.
“What the fuck was that about?” Murmured Mark crossly. “I’m not in the habit of taking snap shots for gentry Carl.”
Carl laid a hand on his brothers shoulder and squeezed it lightly.
“I know this might seem like a job for the tea boy Marky, but this guy looks after those that please him. You take your little camera up there and take some holiday snaps for him, he might just send his PR round next time he’s in the city to furnish the walls of his next new office with pictures brought exclusively from you.”
Carl leaned in to whisper in Marks ear. “He owns half the Warf you know.”
Mark tilted his head towards his brother, keeping his eyes firmly on the old man.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. If I was you I should tootle off up there tomorrow morning and give him some pictures to look at over drinks in the evening. You have your laptop?”
Mark nodded.
“You can use my printer. No need to thank me eh?”
He clapped Mark on the back and went back to smiling at his clients, his teeth as white and numerous as a sharks.

The address had got him as far as the track, but it was too rutted for him to get the little hire car up there, so he had driven five miles back down the road and asked the farmer to help him.
The farmer had, but only because “I don’t fancy having to drive up the lane in the dark to pull y’rself out later.”
So he had braced himself against the door and suffered the attentions on the farm collies tongue on his neck, to bounce up the track in a vehicle that promised to deliver him home again.

Watching his shoes, Mark made his way to the edge of the property to try and get a picture that showed not only the charming croft itself, but the loch, woods and the mountains behind them in the distance.
The artist in him wanted to get a shot that showed how secluded it was, how very far from everything this retreat would be.
He snapped off shot after shot, the digital whine of the camera marking each frozen moment. A quick swap of cameras and he took more, each one showing nothing but the peace of the mountain and shine of the loch, the charming, stone built crofters cottage dappled by the sun filtering through the rowan trees planted at its edge.
The wind dropped slightly and the temperature rose a few degrees. The sky was clear, the sun hit the loch and seemed to shatter into a thousand tiny shards. A flock of geese called to each other as they migrated to warmer climes above him.
He smiled.
As he stood motionless soaking in all that stood before him he found himself wondering what it would be like to live here. He could feel the city slipping further and further away, leaving him stood before this mountain, a feeling of utter contentment washing through him.
“Are you done!?”
Mark blinked and frowned then turned to the Land Rover.
The farmer was leaning out of the window.
The dog was barking, jumping from side to side in the back of the closed pickup, rocking it slightly.
He raised his hand.
“Nearly. Be right there.”
Mark turned back to the loch and inhaled deeply. The tang of the late winter (Or maybe early spring?) stung his nostrils and sent plumes of steam flying before him.
Something about the place called to him. Stirred in his chest.
The forest, the mountains, the water, the croft.
A born and bred city man, an urbanite, a metro-sexual.
He had never owned a pair of wellies in his life and had no desire to, but something here made him want to kick his shoes off and sink his toes in the half frozen mud.
A horn sounded and he jumped.
Behind the wheel the farmer glared at him.
Irritated, Mark gathered his things and went back to the Land Rover, the wind picking up again as he struggled to shut the door.
He got it caught on the third slam and as soon as he had the Land rover shot back and seemed to grunt as the farmer hauled on the wheel and thrust the gear stick into first, pulling away from the croft recklessly.
Mark held onto the front of the dashboard to stop himself being thrown forwards and he heard the dogs nails grasp uselessly as the metal floor in the back.
The farmer leant over the wheel and drove as fast as the lane would allow. No doubt eager to get back to what ever it was farmers did. Mark made a mental note to ask Carl to sort out a bottle of wine for the farmer. Then again maybe he would prefer Scotch?
Mark was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of the dog. It had stopped barking and was now whining and panting.
He moved his head away slightly so that the dog wasn’t breathing on his face.
Making a stab at conversation he shouted over the roar of the engine, “Beautiful spot up here don‘t you think?”
The farmer grunted.
A sharp ammonia smell began to fill the cab and Mark turned round to see the big sheep dog squatting and pissing all over the back of the pick up, its grinning open mouth still panting and whining.
“Your dog...!”
The farmer nodded.
“Aye. He’ll do that.”
Mark discretely pulled his collar up over his nose and pulled the window open a crack.
Jesus!
What a story he’d have to tell! He smiled a little despite the situation, he could clearly see himself holding court over dinner somewhere, retelling the story of the grizzled farmer and his amazing urinating dog.
He pointed to a bank of low heavy clouds that were moving in from the mountains behind the loch.
“Looks like snow?” He ventured.
“Aye.”
The farmer changed gear noisily and put his foot down so that the Land Rover bucked like a pony bolting for home.

2.
Valerie stood back from her canvas and frowned, that little crease forming between her eyes again.
Chewing hard on her lower lip she tried to work out how her painting had turned out so bad, how every time she had tried to rectify it, to coax it back the way she wanted to go, every time it had veered away and now sat in oils, mocking her with its blah-ness.
It was a seascape.
Or rather it was meant to be a seascape.
She had intended the waves to look brooding and dangerous, in her head they would speak to the viewer, scare them a little, make them feel a slight nauseating vertigo, as though standing on the edge on a ships deck in a storm, like they might fall into the painting.
It had all been right there in her head, waiting to flow down her arm and fingers and through her brushes onto the canvas as easily as if she had opened her veins and let the blood pour in its place.
Instead the water in the painting just looked shallow and polluted.
Slowly she picked up a brush and took up a little paint to dab at the cresting waves.
Every touch seemed to make it worse.
She threw the bush to one side in disgust and went to the sink to clean her hands, the sharp smell of the white spirit filling the small room like a spectre, an unwanted guest.
It said You’ve given up haven’t you?
It said This is not the first painting to turn out like this.
It said Maybe you’ve lost it.
It said Maybe you never had it at all.
She gritted her teeth through this silent barrage of little insults. One day she vowed she would really listen, if only to determine whether the voices was hers of someone else’s. Although what it meant if it was someone else’s was a little hazy.
Which she wondered would she prefer? The rube mumblings of the spirit world or the threat of schizophrenia?
The door of the flat opened in what seemed like another world altogether, and she heard Paul throw his keys on the table.
Valerie sighed and rubbed her hands slowly against her towel.
She didn‘t want him to come in here.
He would look at the painting and say “Wow, its so atmospheric, I love it!” Or some other bullshit. Trying to compliment her, showing her he loved her, but just really falling a million miles away from the mark.
“Val! You here?”
She heard him move to the door, heard the turn of the knob, smelt the scent of him that rushed into the room.
“Hey.” He walked to her and slipped his hands around her waist from behind as she continued to dry her hands.
“Hey yourself.” She moved her head back and he kissed her on the cheek. “Good day?”
“So so.” He let go of her and turned towards the canvas. “You’ve finished it? Wow, I love it Val.”
The white spirit had made the skin of her hands dry and cold.
“Yeah, I finished it.”
“Its great! What are you going to call it?”
“I’m not going to call it anything.”
“Ah. like “Untitled” By Valerie Clark!”
“No. I mean it doesn't get a name because no one will ever see it.”
Paul moved to face the painting fully and looked at it carefully.
“Val. Its great. Really. Why don’t you call Mark. Get him to put it in the gallery with the other seascapes. He loved your last work. Give it a name at least.”
For a second Valerie felt a white hot rage flood through her very bones.
She looked at the painting then at the open and smiling face of her husband and felt like taking one and smashing it over the head of the other.
“Oh.. Ok. How about I call it “Brown puddle of shit.” Or maybe “Polluted mind of an idiot who thought she could paint.” Or even better “Fuck up by someone who should go and get a real job.” Which one do you like Mr fucking art expert?”
She threw the rag in the sink and stalked out, slamming the door behind her.

After an hour soaking in the bath, Valerie, calmer and smelling less like failure, slunk back out to the kitchen and slipped her arms around her husband. She buried her face into his broad back and closed her eyes, feeling the muscles in his back working as he chopped peppers on the kitchen worktop.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered.
“I know. I’m sorry too. I should know by now. Nezer argue wiv ze artiste.”
She smiled into his warmth and was proud that she didn‘t allow herself to get riled by the false French accent.
“I was mean.”
“Yeah, but you’re right. I’m not an art expert. I just want you to be happy.”
Valerie squeezed him hard then stood up straight.
Paul handed her a glass of red wine then tipped a good glug of the bottle into the sauce that was simmering on the stove.
“Why do you love me?” She asked.
“Because you’re passionate and talented and beautiful and kind and funny and passionate...Did I say that already?”
They smiled at each other.
Paul stirred the sauce and slopped it over the side of the pan. “And why would such a creature love a slob like me?”
“Because you’re good in bed.”
Paul’s eyes crinkled.
“Is that a hint.”
“Hmm, maybe. I am clean and fresh and I let the smell of despair go down the plug hole with the dirty water.”
He kissed softly around her ear.
“What about the sauce?”
“It will reheat.” She sighed happily.
“It won’t taste the same.”
“I don‘t care.”
“Me either.”
He turned off the gas and she led her husband to the bedroom.

3.
The window to the flat was open slightly to allow a breeze in.
As well as the welcome air though it also let in too much in the way of noise and smell for Valerie‘s liking.
Although it was only 10 am, the greasy aroma of slightly rancid chip fat wafted up through the blinds on the wings of the air. This particular late summer delight was also mixed in with other smells such as (in no particular order) exhaust fumes, dog shit, spilt beer, hot tarmac and a peculiar wet hamster cage small that occasionally drifted across the city from the huge paper mill on the outskirts.
She lay in bed, the light slashing through the blinds like white knives across her sheets.
The world outside a smorgasbord for the senses.
Sounds also slipped through the slats. Barking dogs, crying babies, rowing couples, road works, slamming car doors, snatches of loud, eye ball rattling base from someone’s car stereo.
Valerie rolled over onto her side.
She shut the blinds so that only two of her senses were to be assaulted.

Paul had been gone since half eight.
He had risen, showered and breakfasted without waking her and had tip toed back into the bedroom to rouse her with a good bye kiss to the nose.
Now she lay on her bed, it seemed island like to her at the moment.
Its rumpled sheets the sand, the pillows its mountains, herself some long lost giant statue of a heathen Goddess, covered in vines and with trees growing up through her fingers and eyes, pinning her to the soil long after the people who had made her had stopped believing and left.
This has to stop. She thought numbly.
She knew it was the simplest thing in the world to swing her legs over the side and walk to the kitchen and make some coffee.
Knowing an action is easy and actually doing it are too different things all together though.
How could she swing legs of lead over the bed? How could she walk the miles and miles to the kitchen? Once there how could she possibly ever work out how to make coffee? How would she even know what coffee looked like?
Get up, Get up, Get up.. She willed herself.
For maybe the third time that month Valerie felt a twinge of panic.
What if she couldn‘t get up? Not just today but for always!
She remembered her mother having fits of melancholy. Long spells of her early childhood where her mother had simply stayed in bed the whole day until the hour before her father was due home.
Valerie could remember the endless hot summer holidays when she would have to play quietly in the darkened house, the odd escaped slice of light showing up dancing particles of dust that she would wave her hand through to scatter.
She would listen to her friends tales of holidays at the beach or trips to the park or even just playing in the garden while their mother baked or made a meal and she would feel a gnawing animal of resentment chewing at her stomach.
She felt sure there wasn’t another child in her class that had to lead this almost vampire like existence, who had to creep around the house for fear of waking the monster in the bedroom, who had to make their own breakfast and lunch and learned quick how to make use of bread and fillings.
She would watch her mother, fresh and changed for her father, a meal waiting for him when he got home and she would hate her.
She would hate the way she would be dismissed up to bed early, and for the longest time she felt like a prisoner on life. Stuck in a airless, silent building with only her imagination to keep her company.
Valerie had vowed that she would never be as selfish as her mother.
But lately she had found it harder and harder to get out of bed. Every task felt like a hundred and each one bared down on her shoulders like pillars of granite.
The few times this had happened had given her pause for reflection.
What sort of mother would she be like if she had a small daughter in her care now? Would she allow a tiny damp hand to pull her out of bed and would she be smilingly indulgent to the demands placed before her for toast and juice and cereal and then some paper and pens and a trip to the park and a game of dress up and a tea party for thirty stuffed animals who's names she would have to know by heart.
She liked to think she would be that mother, the mother for whom maternal bonds were enough to break the chains of malaise, but in her heart she knew it was unlikely.
She could imagine how grating all that devotion would be, how depressing to be at the beck and call of a pre-school dictator when all you wanted was for the world to leave you alone and let you be...just be.
Would it start with a wave of the hand?
A movement of fingers to shoo a child away?
But what next?
A slap? A shout? Would she snap and physically push the child away so that it fell and ran out of the room crying?
When her bed held her close like this, that scenario seemed much more believable than the happy mother one.
We are mirrors of our children as they are of us.
Where had she heard that?
It was apt whatever the source.
She had only one model of motherhood and it was a pretty poor one.

The phone rang.
It rang three times before she even remembered what the noise meant.
Her hand moved to the receiver and picked it up.
“Hello?” The voice in the phone said.
She knew she should answer but her lips didn‘t work.
“Hello? Val? Are you there?”
She sighed and her voice came flooding back.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Hey Val! Its Mark! Paul called me earlier and told me you finished the painting. Is that right?”
“Uh-hu..” She cradled the receiver with her chin and reached for her cigarettes, lighting one and blowing smoke ridiculously politely away from the phone.
“Well...Can I see it? Come on Val! You said it was a seascape and you know I’m after some more large pieces to hang up babe.”
“Mark it stinks.”
There was a throaty laugh down the line.
“You always say that. Let me see it. Paul said it was great.”
Valerie snorted.
“Yeah. And he always says that. He had no right to call you, you know.”
“Fuck, Valerie, if he didn‘t call me I’d never know when you had something finished! Let me come over. Look I have to meet someone over your way in a couple of hours so I‘ll call round on the way ok? See you in a bit.”
The phone went dead.
Valerie sat for a moment with the phone resting on her shoulder, the cigarette turning to ash in her fingers.
She sat and silently sent waves of hate at Paul for calling Mark.
Then she silently thanked him for reaching his hand out to her and pulling her from the heavy sheets and allowing her to stand up and face herself again.

4.
Mark was looking at the painting with an eye Valerie trusted and at times feared.
Her hands shook as she made coffee.
She felt stupid.
Mark was her friend, she trusted him, but her anguish as having someone as honest as him looking at her work was gut churning.
He cradled his elbow with his other hand and let his eyes roam around the canvas.
Valerie used to stand behind him when he did that but she found her eyes picked out every imperfection, every single brush stroke that wasn’t quite right, every flaw, every mistake until she was all but weeping in a corner.
Now she would let him in and hide in the kitchen until he was ready to come out.
She thought he also appreciated it.
He came out a good twenty minutes later.
Sitting at the kitchen table, he poured coffee and spooned in three sugars.
“I want it in the gallery Val. It’ll sell in no time.”
“You don’t like it.”
She didn‘t ask him, she made a statement.
Mark sighed.
“I don’t not like it, but its not one of your best, no.”
She nodded.
They sat in silence for a while, supping coffee, listening to the low hum of the radio in the flat below them.
“Are you alright Val?”
She shook here head.
“You and Paul?”
“No. No, nothing like that.”
She sighed, swilled the spit of coffee left in her mug around and around the slightly stained bottom. Wondering if she could read the granules like tea leaves.
“So what is it love? Tell Uncle Marky.”
She smiled into her mug.
“Ah. I dunno Mark. Its just.. Life. I guess. Dragging me down. I try to work and I just feel so hemmed in.”
He nodded and sat silently, waiting for her to go on.
“Mark you know I want to paint water. Seascape‘s, lakes, streams, but I can’t!”
“You’re perfectly capable love.”
“I know!” She shouted. “That's what’s so frustrating!”
She stood up and rinsed her mug in the sink.
“Its this place you know. This flat, this fucking city. I can’t breath here!”
“I know, you said Val.”
Mark came up behind her and hugged her. She turned and hugged him back. It was a comforting brotherly hug, a hug Paul could never give her.
“Valerie.” He whispered close to her ear. “Let me show you something.”

5.
Paul was at his desk, his head in his hands when his mobile went.
He switched it off and dropped it into the pocket of his jacket draped over the back of his chair.
He was half way through writing a feature about the shadow home secretary. Writing about the private man. The man that liked to play with his children on weekends and make time for his wife for “dates” in the week. The family man, the trustworthy type. The spin he had been asked to put on this was to distract from he fact that two days ago this MP had been caught sending dirty text messages to his cleaner. His cleaner for Gods sake.
Paul was stuck.
His head was as empty as the proverbial vessel.
Angrily he saved his document and shut it down.
He decided to check his email.
Sometimes the words came flooding back through half an hours strolling though his messages and Tweets, his Facebook page and Myspace. It soothed him, calmed him, readied him for another few hours of fiction writing.
A message from Valerie.
“Why is your phone off?? Call me!!!!!!!!!!”
His hand reached automatically for the mobile be he hesitated before turning it on.
Lately he was reluctant to let Valerie into his work time. He loved her, he would die for her, but sometimes she was so intense, so over bearing that he needed the hours at the paper to re-charge.
While he deliberated another email popped up.
“Call me now!!!!! V. IMPORTANT!!!!!”
He sighed.
How could he possibly ignore that many exclamation marks.

The phone didn‘t even ring before it was snatched up.
“Hello?”
“Hi babe. What’s up?”
“Paul, Mark’s here. Look, I’m sending you an email now, take a look and tell me what you think.”
He sighed.
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“No!” She was almost shrieking. “No! You have to see for yourself!”
“Ok. Alright, its coming through now. Shall I call you back?”
“No. Stay on the line.”
Paul clicked on her message and then on the file attachment that came with it.
While the picture loaded he went to the cooler in the corner and filled a cup with water.
He didn‘t have the energy to talk to Valerie while it loaded. She wouldn‘t want to talk anyway, she’d be too excited about what she wanted to show him.
The pictures had loaded by the time he sat back down.
Beautiful photos of a tiny cottage with a view of a lake and mountains.
“Pretty.” He said into the phone.
“Pretty? Paul. Look! Look at the lake, the loch I mean! Its beautiful.”
“Uh huh.”
“Paul! Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Paul had to reach into a deep place to stop irritation seeping into his voice.
“Put me in the loop babe, I’m about ten steps behind you.”
Valerie made no attempt to hide her irritation and sighed loudly into the phone.
“Its for rent! We could spend the rest of the summer up there. Paul I could really work up there!”

6.
Paul brought home Chinese food as requested by Valerie and she took it from him as he walked through the door, with a peck on the lips for thanks.
Mark was sat at the table, having come back from his meeting, and had his laptop set up.
Valerie flitted around the small kitchen area, pulling out plates and chop sticks and spoons, finding glasses and opening a bottle of white wine.
She hurriedly placed the containers on a tray and set it on the table.
Her face was wide with her smile and her skin glowed like some inner fire was consuming her. She shone and shimmered in the weak kitchen light.
Paul felt he was alone in not being happy about her new buoyant mood.
He saw a feverish, manic quality to her movements, her eyes looked like she was on drugs, but he knew that look. She had shot out of her depression and was now flying higher than anyone could reach her.
He sat down to her little party, the round table meaning he could both sit next to her and look at what Mark had on the screen.
“Benn Taibhse is the mountain at the back of the property.”
Mark pointed to the purpled titan behind the loch, its dizzying snow peaked top only just making it into the picture.
“And this..” He zoomed in on the loch. “Is Loch Sgàthan, sometimes called Taibhse Sgàthan or Taibhse’s reflection.
Valerie’s eyes were getting bigger and bigger. Her anime eyes Paul always thought of them. So large and shimmering, like she was pouring her whole soul through them for anyone to see.
Whenever he saw her like this he was as uncomfortable as if she had been sat at this table naked.
“Paul!” She breathed, clutching his arm. “My God Paul, isn‘t it beautiful!”
He nodded, and lay his hand over hers.
Mark took them on a visual tour of the outside of the property, pointing out the forest, the sandy beaches at the loch shore, the huge endless expanse of sky that went on forever even in the limited medium of a 15 inch screen. They went to the letting agents site that Mark had taken the pictures for and read about the dimensions of the house.
The cottage only had one bedroom but had a huge living space with the later addition of a Victorian sun room tacked on the end of it.
Paul realised what Valerie was thinking.
“I could paint!” She whispered breathlessly. “I could paint forever with a view like that!”

Later, after Mark had packed away his laptop and departed into the night, Paul sat with Valerie and tried to gently bring her down.
“Val. what is it you’re thinking of exactly.”
She smiled at him. Her face as open as a clean new book.
“Paul, you know what I want. I want to go there!” She was laughing with delight, that high pitched cackle she brought out at times like this. “I want to leave this flat and this city and all the shit that’s stuck to it and breath some mountain air for a few weeks. Baby can’t you see that?”
“Valerie..”
“Paul I’m dying here. I have to paint that water, that mountain.”
“Sweetheart, I don‘t know if I can get the time off work.”
“Then I’ll go alone.” She was still smiling but her eyes flashed red in the light that seeped through the window from the street lights below.
“Don’t be silly.”
“Don‘t placate me.”
They stared at each other for a moment and then she kissed him on the nose, breaking the deadlock, making peace.
“I have to do it.”
Paul couldn‘t help but show his annoyance.
“Oh. OK. Like you had to spend a week in Spain painting horses, and never once lifted a brush? Like you had to fly to Iceland so you could paint the moonscapes there but spent all your time lying in a spa?”
The high colour in her face faded away to a grey and her features went slack with shock.
“I am not a bottomless well of money Valerie and I can’t just drop my job to chase you to Scotland!”
“I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Yeah, well..” He tried not to cave in to her sudden look of hurt deflation.
“Is that how you think of me Paul? Some pampered pet vampire, sucking your bank balance dry on a whim?”
“That’s not what I said.” He answered tightly.
“Yes it was Paul. I don‘t need your money, I have my own money. I can go alone if I have to.”
“Valerie...”
She stood up and he saw with a sinking heart that she wasn’t cross or even upset, she had picked herself up and found her footing again and was now defiant and triumphant, she shone with her own self importance.
“I’ll make the arrangements tomorrow. If you want to come with me fine. If not that’s alright as well.”
“Babe..” He was floundering now.
“You could never understand what this feels like Paul. I don’t expect you to.”
He stood up, his anger flaring. “That’s not fair!” But she was already walking towards the bedroom.
She was already there.

1. Valerie opened her eyes and for the first time in three weeks she didn’t wait to hear the bin men, or slamming car doors. Instead she shut her eyes again and smiled as her ears sought out the shill jeepjeepjeep of the numerous, small, earth coloured birds that liked to hop about in the climbing plants on this side of the croft house.
She smiled wide and stretched out like a cat, all her joints popping in anticipation.
So funny, she thought, so funny to be somewhere that makes you feel so light.
Her legs swung off the side of the bed and pulled the rest of her easily behind them into the kitchen.
The morning was bright, newly minted.
Everything slept at night out here. No street lights casting their sickly orange glow on the clouds above, no mini cabs leaning on the horn, no all night bars that you could hear half a mile away.
No.
When the sun went down the earth here slept away the dark and was re-born in the easterly shards of light that peeped first over the mountain before rolling lazily across the trees and then filled the loch with bright clear light.
She knew it would be warm later but inside the house was chilly so slipping on sandals and shrugging on a sweater, Valerie took her coffee out into the garden and sat on the wooden bench, that rested against the south wall of the croft, and let the view warm her us much as the rising sun.
Breath.
She had wanted to breath and now she had more air than she could ever fill her lungs with. She wished she could bottle it up and take it back home with her, so she could sniff on greedily whenever she needed to quiet that tight, panicky feeling in her throat that had become so much a part of her life that she felt something was missing when it left.
It had taken her a few days to realise she was filling her lungs to the bottom, her throat opening up and drinking air like water.
Valerie hugged her knees and drunk her coffee.
Time to paint. She thought.

Welcome back, don't trip over all the crap on your way in.

2011-08-30T06:07:00.000-07:00

Its been a been a long time since I did anything to this blog.

Wonder if anyone is still watching it.

Doubtful, but here I am.

The reason I brought the blog back to life (Its ALLLIIIIIIIIVVVVEEEEEE Mwahahahahah…ehem…) is because I’m writing again.

Simple as.

In fact I’m in the middle of a very exciting project, co writing a book with a friend, something very new for me.

The whole process is so different from any way I’ve tried to write before that its almost mind blowing in places.

I’ve always been wary of co writing.

Often what I remember is a truly awful book I once read that seemed like it had been written separately then shuffled together before publication. Like two different novels that had only a tiny thread of storyline to join them.

Just horrible.

I’d like to think, in fact I know, that we’ve neatly sidestepped that particular trap.

We’ve developed a system of writing, editing, amending and adding to each others work that seems to work very nicely.

Pretty much every day we talk online about the draft we’re working on, where that particular story line is going, we chat about chracters back stories, and aren’t afraid to say ’Hmmm, don’t think that will work.’

The downside of this is waiting for the other to complete a piece.

Sometimes it can be a few hours before our inbox’s ping, other times it can be a week.

You can’t rush art darrrrrling.

But its strange for me.

In the past when I write I WRITE, fast.

So waiting has been a huge learning curve for me but a good one, it means I take time to think and brood about the story, I find I can think slightly ahead and roughly work out where my line is going to go.

Then when it comes through I can’t wait to get my hands on it, read, edit, add then carry on.

The process has also taught me a lot about the craft.

In the past I’ve worked feverishly, churning out 20’000 words in a few days….. Then stopping, reading back, hating it, fiddling with it, growing angry with it and then dismissing it in a fit of self loathing.

Who the fuck am I kidding???

I can’t write?

Goodbye piece of worthless shit!

>Delete<

Since taking up this project though I’ve learnt to control that side a little.

We wrote a first draft.

It was OK.

We’re now halfway through the second draft and its amazing to see how its evolved, how the story we told to start with has subtly changed, deepened, grown muscle and skin and personality.

Its also pretty good to have someone say they like it.

Mini ego massage.

So, watch this space, would be nice to think that in a few months I could be announcing the publication of book.

Unless it sucks…..

Oh shit…..

Who am I trying to fool…..

Ugh.

The Crocodile

2011-08-30T05:08:00.000-07:00

Honestly? I have no idea where the idea for this one came from. But I like odd deaths and sometimes think kids are better able to cope with the strange than adults are. Another one from teh Bookmark Project.

Mark was dismayed to find out that his first day at his new school coincided with a project about family.
His smiling teacher, Miss Hays, had directed him to the front of the class and he now stood, cheeks burning , stomach writhing, with the eyes of all thirty, nine year olds on him.
"Class, this is Mark Driver."
Thirty vaguely hostile pairs of eyes took him in, tried to make that snap decision, predator or prey?
"Mark, we have been preparing a little project on our families so I think this would be an excellent time for you to tell us all about yourself."
Her grin was faintly alarming, lips pulled back over teeth, eyes bright with gaiety.
He couldn't say a word...his mind was blank with fear, thirty bums shifted bored on thirty seats.
"well, why don't we try a questions and answers session? I'll begin shall I?"
Mark managed to nod.
"Ok, do you have any brothers or sisters?"
Not that, any question but that.
"I had a brother."
Miss Hays lips drew in on themselves to make an o.
A hand shot up.
"Is he dead?"
The hand belonged to a boy with red hair, Mark had never seen so many freckles on a face before. "Yes."
"Erm, class, maybe now we should..."
"How did he die?" asked a blond girl with pigtails.
And it always came to this, this question. He knew he could let the teacher rescue him but deep down he knew it would come out sooner or later, better to do it now and get it over with."
"Mark, you don't have ..."
"My brother was eaten by a crocodile."
There was a heartbeat of absolute silence, then someone started to giggle and then laughter flooded the room like the echoing of a monkey house.
Any sympathy Miss Hays may have shown earlier (although it was more likely to be embarrassment of her own) was now pushed roughly away by the braying from her class.
"Now really Mark, Im sure we don't need another class clown, your joke is in rather poor taste."
"Its not a joke, It really happend."
Miss Hays briskly neatend some papers on her desk.
"You may take your seat Mark"
The laughter had died down.
The children sensed a pivotal moment was about to occur, they smelt it, tasted the air through their over bright eyes, something primeval was moving around the room.
"Why don't you believe me Miss?"
Perhaps it was his over calm voice that made her back rise, or the fact that she had found herself unwittingly under a microscope...or maybe the fear that all adults feel when they realise that they have lost control of children in their charge.
"If you do not take your seat and stop this nonsense Mark I will send you straight to the headmasters office, and I hardly think that is a good way to start your first day at your new school. I won't tolerate liars in my classroom."
"Don't call me a liar."

Mark sat outside the office while his mother talked to Mr Potter, the headmaster.
For maybe the millionth time in his life he wished his brother had been hit by a car or stabbed with a knife or drowned in a river. All of these ends would have emitted sympathy and cooing from those that hear the tale, not laughter and accusations of lying.
The door opened and his mother and Mr Potter walked out, she quiet, erect, he deflated, flustered.
"I'm very sorry for this misunderstanding Mrs Driver, perhaps it would be as well to take Mark home for the day and start afresh tomorrow?"
She only nodded and touched Marks shoulder to indicate he should get up.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that Markie."
The car was steamed up and Mark drew tiny swirls with his finger on the window.
"S'k."

When Mark was two and Phillip, his Brother, five, they had lived in Australia.
Their parents had emigrated to the childlike continent with high hopes, blue skies and open spaces.
A camping trip was arranged, into the bush the happy little family went, they set up a camp and made a fire and kept a bucket of water next to it, mindful of the danger of sparks in the bush, they watched the children like hawks because even in an Eden such as this snakes hid in leaves and under rocks.
But Phillip was a curious little guy and one morning, frustrated no doubt by the lack of freedom he was allowed on this trip, he awoke before the others and decided to take a walk by himself.
Early morning by the water, little boy throwing stones unaware that only inches away from his toes lay a hidden crocodile, so close to him that the stones he was throwing cleared the whole animal by a foot.

Mark had once seen a nature documentary about crocodiles.
His Father was out and his mother was upstairs taking a nap.
He had watched, fascinated, as a wildebeest sipped from the edge of a river, its ears twitching, its flanks quivering as it kept look out for monsters.
Neither the wildebeest or Mark saw the silent crocodile until it reared up in front of the startled animal, caught it round the throat and pulled it into the water.
Just like Phillip, he thought
He watched as the crocodile was joined by others who all took a limb and spun their bodies round in the water to tear the meat off. He watched and he saw the wildebeests mouth open and shut. He watched and he saw his five year old brother.

Marks mother had gone upstairs for a nap. He wondered if she ever slept at night, because she always slept a lot in the day.
He wandered through the house and looked at the pictures on the wall, the ones with Phillip in them.
He was sure he felt grief for his big brother, certainly there were pictures of the two of them where a hug was being given or ice cream was being shared, but two was so little. Mark sometimes felt all his grief was aimed more at his parents than the brother he couldn't remember.

The next day Miss Hays didn't say a word to him or meet his eye.
It was obvious she wanted to forget the whole thing and was employing a least said soonest mended approach.
Children don't forget though and Mark waited with trepidation for break time and wondered what it would bring.
It brought the red headed boy over.
He sat down next to Mark on the wall and smiled a little.
"I'm John."
Mark smiled a little back at him.
"I told my dad about your brother." He said and rummaged in his pocket for something.
He pulled out a bookmark.
It was Pale green and leathery, as bumpy as it was frail.
"He said maybe you might like to have it, you know. It came from Australia, might have been the same croc."
Mark doubted it, that crocodile was shot 10 hours after killing Phillip.
He smiled and took it.
An adult might have seen it as an insensitive gift, macabre as it was immoral and, well, just down right tacky, but Mark understood, John understood, Johns dad had understood. It was a scalp, a trophy, a charm.
"Thanks."
"S'right." Shrugged John. "Wanna play some footie?"

The Sword

2011-08-30T02:49:00.000-07:00

Another Bookmark project story. This one was inspired by a Times feaure on Indian prostitutes.

She didn't remember her name.

They only called her Mol, girl.

"Mol! Fetch my slippers!"
"Mol! Go to market!"
"Mol! straighten your sari!"

She remembered the river she had grown up on, the great brown rushing animal of the Godavari, the giver of fish and the taker of unwary children.

She also remember the aunty that had come to the house of her parents and talked long and low before handing them a sword.

The sword had been a rusty, lackluster weapon that would never have struck more than amusement into the heart of anyone it was being brandished at.

Her Family had taken her to the temple of Shiva where she was married to the sword, the mangalsutra hung first over her head then over the swords.

She was left alone in the temple after, but before her mother left she whispered, "you're married to Shiva now."

Mol had no idea what she had meant at the time, only that she was alone in the temple of her "husband" and that rats scurried across the floor all night, fat brown rats from the river, well fed on the corpses that where interned there.

Mol contemplated this past life for a moment before opening the book that had sat in her lap.

She had marked the page with her only real possession, a delicate necklace with a blue stoned cross on it.

Baba has snorted when she saw it.

"Just tin Mol, why do you keep it! It only shows how low you are! I am desended from a direct line of dasi, the very women who danced to distract Vishwamitra from his meditations."

Baba worked very little these days and Mol didn't think the men really cared about linage so much now.

But she had kept it just the same because the Englishman had given it to her, and because it was so worthless as to be safe from jealous fingers.

The Englishman had also given her the book.

Memoirs of a geisha.

He had said it was "fitting", that she might enjoy the comparison.

That had been five years ago and in all that time she was nearly half way through, an English dictionary at her side, helping her with the longer words.

She had fallen into memory after reading the part about the young girl, the girl taken from her family and plunged into the sex industry.

That's what it was, under all the beautiful silk and painted faces, it was still only an industry in sex.

Little Mol had been taken from the temple the next morning and driven to Peddapuram with an Aunty sat next to her, thick in the middle her flesh spilling from the gap between the folds of her sari, her scent of unwashed fish making Mol feel ill.

"Where are we going aunty?" She had asked eventually, only to have her hand pinched in reply.

"The gentleman who won the auction will have you for a few nights. You know the Melas yes?? You'll dance that for him. When he is done you'll come live with me, now shut up."

Mol had never forgotten the man she danced for, how old had she been? 12? 13? It didn't matter, she had placed bangles on her ankles and danced for him and done his bidding compliantly after.
She had lay half asleep, half stunned later and heard him talk to the chowhardy who seemed to own this house.

"So how was it friend?"

"Five lakhas well spent! If only I were rich I would bid every year char?"

Auntys house was full of girls and Mol was young and pretty and so very busy. How blurred the years became, an endless stream of heat and flies and washed sheets and dusty men and play acting.

" Oh please, don't go, don't leave now! Your so different from all the other men char! Stay a while longer!" She'd hang off the hand of another man who had had his fill and now left to pay aunty her dues. Boosted his ego in the hope he would return and that, of course, would keep Aunty happy with her.

The book had been in the Englishman's backpack.

After he had slept she had picked it up and studied the girl on the cover.

"Keep it." He had said, smiling with his grey blue eyes.

The other girls had shunned her for weeks for having bagged the rich Englishman, but she didn't think he was so very rich, he had worn sneakers with dust all over them and his right sock had a hole in the toe.

Although her reading had been halting and she had all but worn out the first 100 pages by going back and forth trying to make sense of the words, Mol was tiring of the Japanese girl. She held too many dreams, too many hopes to be a real geisha, did Mol think of her Englishman like the girl thought of her chairman?
No, her feet where firmly in the dust.

To think that a girl could love a man, men with their needs and their lusts and their clumping animalistic fumblings.

Impossible.

"Mo-ol!"

She looked up from her book.

"Visitor Mol, ready Mol!?"

She sighed and pushed the book under her mattress, adjusted her sari and smiled widely for the opening door.

Impossible her head laughed as she welcomed another into her room.

"... But without your glasses!..."

2011-08-30T02:37:00.000-07:00

This story is one of the bookmark project series I co wrote a couple of years ago with some friends.

Elinor loved books.

This was just as well as she was assistant librarian for Gordons Schools.

Elinor was quiet and short, with mouse hide coloured hair, thick , thick glasses and a body shape magazines politely referred to as "apple", that is she had almost normal arms and legs and a body like a beach ball.

Unsurprisingly Elinor was shy.

She hide behind her hair, her glasses, her books, her desk, never spoke above a whisper....so really the life of a librarian was perfect for her.

Her idea of happiness was to wander the stacks before she left for the night, breathing in the ancient,cracked scent of words.

Although a love of the classics (Dickens, Austen...) and the heavies (Proust, Milton...) came with the job description, Elinor had a weakness for the lite and fluffy, the romantic and dreamy.

She retreated into these worlds daily at her desk when things where quiet, it was her release...No one was ever going to look at her and say "Why! Elinor! ...but without your glasses you're beautiful!" No man was ever going to reach back and unclasp her hair and watch in breathless awe as she was instantly transformed from frumpy to fetish.

So ...she satisfied her need with chick lit.

At the moment she had Anita Shreve's Fourtunes Rocks on her desk.

She threw herself into summer 1899, imagined herself as Olympia, driven almost mad by her love for a married man twice her age, imagined herself in his arms, her virginity taken in an imposing hotel be while the waves crashed against the beach below and...

"Excuse me?"

Elinor looked up into the quizzical and slightly disdainful face of the fifth year girl in front of her.

"Sorry, yes?"

The girl flicked back her long blond hair from her narrow face."I need a book on Apartheid, I can't find anything."

"Right, OK..erm..over here."

She moved herself away from the desk and self consciously trod towards the modern history section, the girl following her.

Oh god , but Elinor felt like an elephant leading a gazelle, everyone must be watching and thinking the same!

She rushed back to her desk after (no thank you from the girl, not expecting one anyway) and opened her book again.

Inside was a banana skin.

She recoiled slightly at the unlikely bookmark, then leaned forwards, angry that someone had put their rubbish in her book!

Then she saw the writing on it.

I LOVE YOU.

She felt her throat close up.

What a mean joke, what a nasty thing to do to her.

She glanced around the room to see if there was a cluster of kids snickering about her, maybe filming on their phones her reaction.

Elinor blinked fiercely and drove back the tears that threatened to over come her.

Well, she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her upset.

She slapped the book shut, locking the banana note in between the pages and gathered up her things.

"Mr Deeks" she whispered to the head Librarian as she left the desk. "I feel ill, do you mind if I go."

He let her, a small worried look on his face, and watched her leave early.

Some one else also watched her leave. The boy with banana on his breath and a brick in his heart. He watched her beautiful curves go through the door and thought he had never seen a creature so beautiful and so unaware of her beauty. The banana bookmark had been a spur of the moment thing, and now or never thing, leave her a note, but on what!? It had been a foolish thing, but maybe one day he would pluck up the courage to tell her to her face and to gently take off her glasses and undo her hair and tell her.."you're beautiful."

crow curse

2011-08-30T02:02:00.000-07:00

This little story was written in the middle of a rut, the kind most people stuck in a domestic life seem to find themselves in at one time or another.

The Crow family were as unremarkable a family as you could meet.
Down the murky grey paths of mundane generations they had worked as bank tellers and salesmen, shop assistants and waiters. They had been housewives who worked un-complaining at ironing and dusting, hoovering and sweeping, feeding the cat and making packed lunches of jam sandwiches and apples for their children.
They became teachers who taught their classes in dreary tones, in dusty classrooms, who plodded through their school day like plough horses, resigned to a life in traces, and sipped at stewed tea in stained mugs in the teachers lounge.
As children they had all been average.
They had friends, they ate jam sandwiches (their mothers thumb prints embedded as always on the left hand slice, her right busy with the knife.) got picked for teams after the popular children, but always before the fat kid, or the one with asthma. They got 70% in tests and minor parts in school plays.
They had a girlfriend (or boyfriend), got a job, got married and had children of their own.
The Crows had nothing at all to make them stand out in history.

Almost nothing.

Abigail Crow was a mother. She also worked part time on reception at the Welcome Break on the ring road.
Life was.
Fine.
Abigail’s Mother (Brenda, fifty four, permanent depression on the side of her left thumb, as in flatness, not the blues....obviously) lived two streets away from the kids school.
Every Friday Abigail dropped round for a brew before picking the kids up. A little ritual.
Brenda had done the same with her own Mother when Abigail had been at school.
She poured the tea and set the biscuits on a plate, then sat opposite her daughter at the little kitchen table-for-two and said “Now then.”
For a minute they spooned sugar and dunked digestives and said nothing in the companionable silence that settled about them like so much milky smoke.
“Ah.”
Said Brenda presently.
“I had your aunt Vi on the phone this morning, your cousin Martin’s dead.”
“Oh, that’s sad.” Mouthful of soggy biscuit. “Such a shame. He was only forty wasn’t he?”
Brenda nodded.
“Terrible accident at work. Seems one of those drinks machines he puts in was wobbly. He tries to set it right and the whole thing tips over onto him. Dead before the ambulance got there.”
Brenda shook her head at the waste of it.
Abigail had let her mind wander. (Phone charged? House locked? Enough jam for the weekend?) The Crow family was large and spread. She hadn’t seen Martin since they had been in nappies.
“Death came as coke, crisps and cheese and pickle sandwiches.” Sighed Brenda.
“You what?”
“It was one of those snack machines in the council offices, you know. You can get chocolate in them as well.”
“Right.”
“Another got by the Crow curse.”
Abigail was pouring more tea, she wondered if she dared risk another hobnob. Her jeans had been getting a little tighter.
“What Crow curse.” She asked wearily, pouring for Mother as well. “The curse of being killed by a vending machine?”
Brenda tutted.
“Don’t be daft girl.”
She said nothing for a while, raised china cup to painted lips, lips that bled fuchsia from tiny fissures, permanent marks from years of knowing pursing.
Around the rim, a splash of colour, like tagging.

This.
Is.
My.
Cup.

She put the cup down with a slight rattle.
“But you’ve surely heard about the Crow Curse Abigail? You’re thirty three, you must of heard about it before.”
Abigail shook her head.
With a sigh of impatience Brenda folded her arms over her formidable chest and started.
“Abigail. Not one Crow has died peacefully . Not one.”
She pursed her lips and the fissures disappeared.
Abigail put down her cup and frowned at her Mother.
“What are you talking about? Don‘t be daft. Of course there has.”
“Name one.” Words shot out like silver bullets.
“Well. Granny Crow!” She said triumphantly.
Brenda shook her head.
“You remember her in her bed, but she was dead before we put her there. She was just put there while we waited for the undertaker.”
“How she die then?”
“Cat killed her.”
“A cat!”
“Yes! A cat. She was walking down George street with her shopping trolley, you remember? The tartan one with the little plastic wheels that squeaked? Any how, cat from down the road shot out in front of her and she tripped over it, sent her flying. She landed, knocked herself out, the trolley followed her, tipped over and landed on her head. It was pension day. A whole weeks shopping in there, spuds, tins, pack of chops.”
“An accident.” said Abigail.
“No. The Crow Curse.”
“Mother.” Abigail started to put her coat on. “I have to go. It nearly two, I’ve got to get the kids.”
“Fine. Will you all be over for lunch on Sunday.”
Her Mothers dark eyes, calm pools, ordinary thoughts slithering away behind them. Grandchildren, Sunday lunch, tea tonight, the Archers after.
Abigail nodded, kissed her Mothers powdered cheek and worried that maybe she was ill.

Later on she called Brenda.
“Uncle Joe. He died peacefully.”
The tinny sound of her Mothers snorting down the line.
“He most certainly did not.”
Abigail shouted through to the kids to ‘turn that bloody telly DOWN!’
“You said he died in hospital!”
“He WORKED in the hospital!”
“Oh. Well how’d he die then?”
“Uncle Joe worked in the hospital canteen. He used to push the big trolleys up to the wards with all the meals on them for the sick people. You remember. Always smelt a bit like cabbage and rice pudding your Uncle Joe.”
Tinny laughter in the background. Brenda had a fondness for American sitcom.
“Don‘t tell me he got crushed by a runaway trolley.”
“Do you want to hear this story or not?”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway. One day he’s pushing trolley about as always, and its piled high with meals for the top floor. Now canteens on floor five, ward he’s after’s on floor eight. So, he presses for the lift and it comes and the door opens and he pushes the trolley BUT the lift ain’t there! Just the shaft, so the trolley just falls into blackness.”
“Oh my God.” Whispered Abigail. “And he fell in as well.”
“No you daft mare. He was so shocked that he stepped backwards, put his foot in a fire bucket, lost his balance and fell out of an open window.”

Abigail starts to see the world through new eyes.
Over the next few days she throws more Crows at her Mother and she has them smacked away like bothersome flies.
Granddad Crow, chocked to death on a fish bone (the fact he was eating chicken at the time only added to the mystery.)
Uncle Ben was kicked by a seaside donkey, fell face first into a quarter inch kiddie pool and drowned.
Cousin Emma died when a bird flew into the open window of her car and made her crash into a barrier, erected to stop cars accidentally rolling into a river (it didn’t. She did. The bird, presumably, flew back out again.)
Aunty Maureen survived a sinking boat only to be run over the second she stepped back on shore (by a too eager ambulance driver.)
Great Grandpa Crow used to keep pigeons and one day, after putting off cleaning them out for a while, he stood up too quick in the shed he kept them in and smacked his head on a perch. He fell unconscious and was overcome by ammonia fumes before anyone found him.
Great Uncle Simon had worked at the zoo. He had only just started, it being his dream to work with exotic animals (he had until the week before, been an accountant). He disappeared mysteriously one day after going in to feed the crocodiles.

“Mother this is terrible.” Sobbed Abigail. “Why didn‘t anyone tell me? What can I do to break the curse?”
“Well. I don‘t know. No one ever bothered before.”
Abigail dabbed her eyes with a disintegrating scrap of toilet roll.
“I mean, I can’t live my life wrapped in cotton wool can I! It’s not like I live an exciting life is it!”
“Well no. But then, maybe you should.”
Abigail blew her nose noisily. Got most of it on her fingers.
“What do you mean?”
“Well. Look at it this way. None of them Crows did anything exciting did they! They all ate their dinner and went to work and cleaned the house and the Curse found them. Maybe if you go the opposite. Liven things up a bit, maybe the Curse will forget you’re a Crow and leave you alone.”
“I don‘t understand.”
“Oh for goodness sake girl! Put some sparkle back in your life! Do something you never dreamed of! Travel! Dance! Do SOMETHING unusual!”

Unusual.
Abigail stood in the kitchen and started to make the kids lunches.
She stood Jason’s lunch box up against the toaster and Sarah’s up against the kettle. She took out four slices of white bread and spread them with marg. She reached for the jam.
And stopped.
Jam was what you had in sandwiches wasn’t it.
That’s what her Mother had always made her.
Abigail let her hand drop.
What else could she put between two slices of bread?
She felt stupid, light headed, almost dizzy.
Such a simple question, but she had no answer.
Is THIS how she would die?
Would she fall forwards onto the butter knife? Or perhaps she would trip over a school bag and impale herself on the mug tree.
No.
No. Instead she reached out past the jam and took out peanut butter.
She bypassed the apples and gave them yoghurt instead, even threw in a packet of crisps.
Took a deep breath.

While the kids put on their shoes Abigail called in sick.
She made her voice croaky and soft, begged a heavy cold, promised to be back tomorrow, yes, yes, she could swap with someone else’s shift.
Put down the phone, cheeks burning with shame.

The kids safely in school, Abigail took a turn up town.
She walked past usual shops as though trying to avoid someone she didn‘t like. As
though she might accidentally make eye contact with the shop and not be able to get away.
Instead she walked into Top Shop, New Look, River Island. Places she hadn‘t been in since she was a teenager. She run her hands over rails covered with dresses and tops and skirts designed to last a while, not a long time, not years, but as long as some delicate insect. A few sparking flaps of lace like wings.
At home she had a wardrobe full of solid clothes. Jeans, sweaters, sensible black skirts and white blouses for work, a green dress she’d brought for a Christmas party seven years ago and had dutifully trotted out for every social occasion since (well. Seven works Christmas parties).
She wondered what her husband would say if she pulled on a one shouldered mini dress to go out for a curry instead of her good jeans and a cardigan.
Would he notice?

She was hungry.
She often waited till elevenses at work before eating in the morning, but today she was someone else.
Abigail walked past the little cafe that served tea in a cup and saucer and a choice of home bakes. Instead she crossed the road and walked into a coffee shop.
She stood in line and suddenly realise she didn‘t know if she liked coffee.
The first coffee chalked up on the board was latte, so she ordered that and a plastic wrapped muffin and carried her tray to a little sofa set up by the window.
She sipped the coffee (milky. Ah, that’s what latte means!) and nibbled the crumbly
muffin.
The town lay out in front of her.
She sighed.
“Ee, you wouldn’t get me doing that.”
An older woman in the generic clerk suit of black skirt, white blouse (will I look like that? She thought) had sat on the sofa opposite Abigail.
“I’m sorry?”
The woman pointed out of the window, slightly behind Abigail’s shoulder.
In the distance was a tall, tall yellow crane and as they watched something seemed to fall off it, falling, falling until snapping up again.
“Bungee jumping! Bloody daft if you ask me. Chucking yourself off a height and trusting your life to a bit of ’lastic band. Wouldn‘t see me within a mile of one of them.”
“No.” Said Abigail. “No. Me neither.”

No.
Abigail wouldn’t have done it. Would have shut her eyes even watching it.
But of course, today she wasn’t herself.
All money to charity.
Air ambulance.
Well. She thought. Nice to contribute if I’m going to need them.
The instructor at the top was helping her into harness, tightening straps, adjusting her crash hat, talking at her, his words carried away by the wind.
She stood, back to the drop and looked across the town. The gentle curve of the earth dipping from one side to the other.
She fell back.

For sickening seconds her body screamed YOUR GOING TO DIE!
She saw her children’s face’s at her funeral, her confused husband, her work mates wondering for evermore why she had lied, thrown a sicky and gone bungee jumping of all things.
She fell, fell, fell.
She saw her head hit the road below, saw the impact shatter her crash hat and skull and drive her shoulders into the ground.
She saw it.
She felt it.

Then.
She was rising, up and up and up and ..
Laughing.
Abigail laughed and laughed and bounced and shrieked with delight.
She spat in the eye of death and laughed in his face.
“Abigail Crow is ALIVE!” She hooted into the wind.
..and in her kitchen at her table-for-two, drinking tea with a lipstick stained cup, Brenda Crow smiled.