The blade glints in the light that breaks through the shutters.
Dust motes lazily dance in the illumination, like galaxies spiralling away from The Big Bang, sending her mind to thoughts of fractal patterns, never-ending repetitions of mathematical formulae that are mesmerising in their complexity and beauty.
She can see everything now, the enhanced vision they gave her at sixteen just one of the many upgrades that apparently make her better, faster, stronger. She’s supposed to be more than human but, somehow, feels lesser, as if this isn’t meant to be.
Liz sat drinking her oat milk latte, and seeing her reflection in the cafe window sighed. This is not how I imagined my retirement, my face all puffy and pale from the medications I had been prescribed. After an active job I had felt prepared for the future, but my body had other ideas it had decided. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol had suddenly appeared, although I was told they had been on their radar for years!!
Having lost the ability to wear stilettos, I reluctantly admitted defeat and replaced them with sensible shoes. I loved my old shoes even kept my favourites, just in case, trying them on now and again but usually ended up going ass over tit .
What with the encircling memories crowding in, Engineer Ozob completely forgot to recalibrate the composter. The consequences, cataclysmal, are well-documented in the journals recently unearthed, an appropriate descriptor, given the tons of earth mixed with meteor fragments that had entombed the Obmil Annals. 110 year-books, carbon-dated 5630 AD to 5740 AD, then silence.
The previous evening, prior to Ozob’s dream, Deputy Toidi had reported, “Composter one’s out again.” with that smug look that said “You must have it done it wrong again.”
“I’m onto it. Good timing; a new rubbish cloud is orbiting.”
Alfie disappears into the classroom without looking back. It swallows him whole. That’s good, I tell myself. He’s happy and I’m free to be ‘me’ again. It’s terrifying.
Turning towards the gate, I focus on the shiny new stilettoes that I hoped would bring me confidence. But I feel ridiculous. A pool of sweat is collecting beneath the too-tight waistband of my trousers, the material straining to contain my bulging flesh. Why did I let Ben convince me to pursue a career again, at my age? Asking his university colleagues to consider me for a job? They’ll see right through me. Inadequate. Embarrassing. Fat.
What a great place for a mini break Madrid is, especially the wonderful galleries. I went with a group of friends and we spent hours in the Prado. One thing that continues to bother us is the painting of Sisyphus. We talk about it a lot. I now realise it has bothered people far and wide across time and place. Why, in Greek mythology, did Hades condemn Sisyphus to roll a ridiculously heavy rock up a steep hill, only to have it roll back down and for the process to begin again – for eternity: a curse of mind numbing, excruciating boredom, to say nothing of huge physical effort?
Click, click, click of the invigilator’s hard-soled shoes on the gymnasium floor. Bob’s head full of clicks and empty of ideas. Cursing Philip Rees for their back row antics in maths. Both sending notes to Amanda in the front row, while on the board algebra was explained one last time. The clicks louder as the invigilator approaches, and then silent, as she looks down with a smile at the blank answer page in front of him, pristine as freshly fallen snow. Phillip in town with Amanda watching Star Wars. London Calling, lost in the supermarket, heart of glass, and the years pass. The sound of shock and awe on the news, the territorial trumpeting of ducks on Regent’s Park lake, Theseus nearby proclaiming his greatness from the Open Air Theatre, and then silence, as Titania sleeps, and dusk falls over London. Tick, tick, he waits 59 seconds for the next tick. Tick and he waits again. He looks away and looks back at the question. It hasn’t changed. He writes a paragraph, tears it up, writes the same paragraph again and tears it up. He waits for the tick. The sound of muffled traffic along the Strand, the tick louder than ever. Trisha, the environmental lawyer from Boston, queuing for the photocopier in the basement. Standing behind her with blank sheets of paper turned downwards. The clunk, clunk, clunk of the copier. Spending the next morning in the queue, getting to the front and starting again, front to back, back to front, more reliable than the machine, which splutters to a halt. Just as she steps out of the lift. Sitting together in the pub, her dark hair draped over an unfamiliar pint of bitter, Simply the Best on the jukebox, old guys in the corner looking on with grumpy or wistful eyes. Book marking that moment in time and portending the future. Decades pass. His grandmother wheezing, pouring him a tot of whisky in her toothbrush mug from her secret bottle that all the nurses know about, asking him if he thinks she will get better. Telling her she will outlive them all. The ensign draped on her coffin, the sound of Santa Maria sung in a beautiful soprano, the priest hurrying after the secular congregant who has pocketed the host as a souvenir. The silence of her room. The whisky bottle gone. Years pass. The gentle snore of his wife. The day time sound of his neighbour playing Bach on the piano. It could be worse, he thinks. Drugs parties, feuds, not fugues, the acid sound of blame. Then one night, another sound. Not from next door, but upstairs. And so it begins. Months pass and the past unravels. The present vanishes. A box there in the middle of the room. He peers into see if hope still resides there. Something at the bottom stirs. The sound of wings flapping. It circles the room twice and then out through the open door. He looks again into the box. It’s now pitch black. Like a black hole which allows no light to escape and sucks in all around it. Pitch black and bottomless.
“I mean,” she said, “clearly there’s something not quite right here, something’s missing.”
DI Jenkins sighed and bit down a sharp retort. Of course there was something missing. In fact, there were a few things – eyes, fingers, liver, lungs, kidneys, and, possibly most disturbingly, the victim’s trousers. His dentures had also been removed and were in the middle of a damp stain on the carpet.
He was just grateful that whoever had done this had stopped the mutilation there. After all, he already had one young constable throwing up in the back garden, and his sergeant was looking a bit queasy too.
It’s hard to savour every moment when everyone is fussing so much. Honestly, did half the ward of nurses really need to come? They buzz around me like polyester flies.
My daughter adjusts the deckchair, almost tipping me over in the process, asking me again and again if I’m ok.
‘The tide’s coming in, Mum, so you can’t stay here long. Are you sure you don’t want me to sit with you?’
You fumble for your mobile. “Boss. I’ll there in about 10 minutes. Sorry. You’ll never guess what I’ve just seen”
Working last night up to 1 am was too much. Shouldn’t have to take the accounts home – not after a 10 hour delivery day.
You hear a grumble, see a spray of earth flume upwards as the paving-stones lift corner by corner. With a creak and snap of cables, the telephone booth upped on points and pirouetted on one corner.
Driving from Cardiff to Swansea, Lloyd found a passenger in his car.
‘Who are you?’ he said, slowing.
‘Your inner self,’ came the reply.
The guy certainly looked like him: older, more haggard, greyer. It could be him.
‘You’re on the wrong road, Jim,’ the passenger said, ‘every day commuting a ton of miles to that vehicle licensing hole.’
‘It’s a job.’
‘So’s being a galley slave. How about jumping ship?’
Port Talbot steelworks skittered by, its Meccano limbs tangled against the grey sky as if in agony. The other Jim had vanished, gone in a spurt of yellow steelworks gas.
Work went badly. Workmates faces resembled those of ghouls. The phone calls, a hundred ways of asking the same thing about car tax, lapped in his brain with a disturbing echo. He felt outside everything.
After a long journey by train, standing on the platform, looking up into the blue
sky, I decided to walk to the farm. A bit of a trek but I was wanting to tune back into the countryside, the winding lane and all its treasures.
Hedges bristling with new growth, smelling wonderful after years of living in the city. Breezes gently caressing my face, a smile appeared, my shoulders dropped, all tensions fading away. Birds chirping as they flitted about in their endless search for insects, animals grazing in the meadows bleating and lowing.
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