I’ve heard tell that science instructors at the Fleet Academies teach students that the most important thing, the core fundamental need that humans have when terraforming new planets, is water.
Those two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms are used to sustain us wherever we go; no water, no humanity.
They’re wrong.
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The ochre light of the sun hugs your face through the windscreen as you smile in a way that gives the warmth of the day competition. Scenery of greens and blues and mountains and sheep fly past behind your head out the driver’s window, and it’s as though the music takes over. I hear nothing you say but I can count the lines around your mouth and the glints in your eyes. Then like that – it’s over; I can recall nothing you said or did but this image in my mind where your face convinced me magic exists in this world.
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Well now, ya feeling alright hon?
I gotta say ya done give me a scare, not often that my fellas go under like that, thought I was goanna lose ya.
Now I’d best tell you what I is, I is a hog farmer, and this here is my prize-winning hog, Precious. What can I say sweet cheeks, this little lady sure is precious to me.
Continue readingBefore she died and came back to haunt me, I lived with my mother for two years. They wouldn’t let her out of the hospital bed until they knew she was coming home to someone, and my father had the foresight to die a decade prior. I asked her doctors for a care package. No result. When they told her this, she took it to mean that no one cared.
Behind the dusty velvet curtains in my mother’s spare bedroom was a streetlight bright enough to seep around the edges and keep me up all hours of the night. At four o’clock I’d stand in the window and watch the rain fall like knives and write descriptions in my head of the garden, four metres square of concrete jungle. To the song of her snoring I’d walk along the landing and trace my fingers along the bannisters, planning how to photograph the woodwork for the house listing. When I spoke of my mother, the neighbours’ mouths gaped, horrified at my exasperation, and I made a mental note to warn the next owners they could never be honest.
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I do love a vintage store, but this smell is like something from Hell. At least I am out of the rain though – Britain, am I right?
Surrounding me are a litany of supposedly real leather briefcases and a couple of wooden chairs. I wouldn’t mind a fancy briefcase but where would I wear it? It feels like the flash and suave look of a well-made briefcase died after the second world war. Oh well, I’m not here for me anyway.
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I sense their presence before I open the door, despite their lack of scent. What’s the point of flowers without a scent? Just as I feared, I enter my kitchen to find it full of them. Asters. I hate the things.
They spill from vases and peer out of pots on the table, the floor, the windowsill. Some appear to be growing directly from the ceiling, strangling the light fittings and creeping down the walls. It’s a floral nightmare. Where have they come from?
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I heard stories about the Eternal Windstream. It will test you; it might break you, but if you’re strong enough, it will take you wherever you wish.
My search for it is finally over. I feel the flow of air and its pulsating energy before me. Excited, I step off the cliff.
The fall doesn’t last long. I spread my wings and enjoy the sensation of the wind in my feathers. And up the sky I go, gaining speed. Effortless.
I look back. The land gets further away. How far can I go now? How far should I go?
The wind gets stronger – now I have to fight with it to stay in the flow.
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The chair’s voice droned on.
‘Agenda item number 12.2’
This had been the longest day of my life, and we were barely halfway through.
‘All in favour?’
There was a unanimous show of hands.
We had all learnt from previous meetings. Any dissent to his proposals would mean even more procrastination, and would mean an all-nighter.
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I love a conspiracy theory, don’t you? Say what you like about them, mine is the best. It’s about…well let me take you to our inaugural meeting to hear believers and the yet-to -be convinced shouting the odds…
Newbie 1: You’re saying Earth is a penal colony used by several peaceful and well run planets to deport their undesirables? Well that makes complete sense to me. I’m in. Who do we have to kill?
Newbie 2: Where did you get the information? Q Anon are very clear about their origins.
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I’ve developed a grudging respect for my disease, it’s merely fighting to survive same as me; both of us were unwitting guinea pigs of doctors who misdiagnosed us, then prescribed inappropriate treatment, courtesy of the deplorable Sackler family. It was an osteopath in the end who felt the adhesions under my skin, with more skill in her fingertips and common sense than the scores of medics who had assessed me before. What precisely are they trained for if they can’t spot a disease as common as diabetes that only occurs in women?
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“Can you draw your voice, Theo?” says the therapist. She gestures to the felt-tip pens, screaming with artificial brightness on the table.
I want to shout in her smug face. “You think I’m going to draw a bird in a cage or some shit like that? A bird of prey, too dangerous to set free? Forget it. I’m thirteen, not three.”
I don’t say it, of course. But my eyes must tell her because she sighs and stares at her ugly vegetarian shoes.
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Walking through the early morning mist, I remember years ago thinking I was walking on clouds. When the mist was higher it would wrap itself around me pulling me to the old mansion.
It all started with a dare that I could not refuse: entering the local haunted house. I pulled the board from the entrance and an earthy musty smell raced out, as though it had waited too long to escape, and disappeared into the undergrowth. Opening the entrance further, I caught my first glimpse of the damage inside. Stairs were misshapen, lurching this way and that. Rustling erupted, balls scurried into the depths away from the light. Once inside the dust swirled around my feet and a breeze caressed my cheek like fingers, but I didn’t feel threatened.
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It isn’t hard to ruin the life of a thirteen year old. I seem to do it all the time. Take yesterday:
‘Mum, you are ruining my life. Everybody has an iPhone. You need it to look things up in class and to talk to people. I’m completely humiliated without one. Who knows what people are saying about me?…’
‘I accept that your life is in tatters, and I’m sorry for you. But in 20 years you will come and find me, throw your arms around my neck, and thank me. You will be able to think without the help of influencers and you will not have a repeating backdrop of porn movies and pile-ons to spoil your dreams.’
Continue readingDear Harriet.
I guess this is it then, the end of the line.
You know why I hired you? Because convincing a halfway decent person to go out with me is an impossibility.
Recall Sam Jackson yelling and waving a gun in some poor bastard’s face. All the poor bastard can do is say “what” over and over again because he’s too terrified to even think.
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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.
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Feeling totally confused, Jaxon lay there. He could hear lots of noise, occasional conversation that seemed to be about him. His eyes refused to open; where the hell was he? Drifting off, the bleeps seemed to soothe him.
Out of nowhere appeared a boy about his age, wearing funny clothes like you see in the black and white photos his mam had. When he started to speak to him, Jaxon’s mind went into overdrive.
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This morning, my algae soup tasted even blander than usual. Lifeless. Flavourless. Purposeless.
“Seems familiar,” I mused, granting myself a rare indulgence – not washing the bowl. Why bother? It joined the stack of unwashed dishes, each marking days of the same hollow thought.
Outside my house, I stood before the only soul who would have cared. She would have made me wash up; she made me a better man. Kneeling, I placed a small metal flower upon her makeshift grave. Its subtle blue hue was a stark contrast to this monochrome underground world of dirt and metal.
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‘Which one of us would do it?’
‘He targeted my daughter. It should be me.’
‘You’d really…?’
‘Could I actually just go in there and…? Let me think. Smother him? Yes, yes I could.’
‘We might not need to, Natasha. I’ve not been feeding him.’
‘You’ve been cutting back on his meals?’
‘I’ve not given him any food in seven days. Just water.’
‘He’s looking very gaunt, Annette. Do you mean you’ve been deliberately…?’
‘I want him dead. I hate him. This way we just say he wouldn’t eat, we say he…’
‘Refused food… we say he didn’t want to live any more with the pain of the cancer… we…’
‘We wait two more days. He can’t last out if we starve him.’
/
In his studio they looked at the paintings, many of them of themselves in the first flush of puberty, thin, uncomfortable, unhappy, all naked. Natasha remembered him painting Annette many times, then her turn came. She didn’t quite know what was going on. It’s art, darling, her mother insisted, keep still for Daddy and stop complaining. Her mother had practically pimped her. Creation from exploitation? That wasn’t art. Post-Jimmy Saville his reputation had crashed. Now he was reviled by many, his works removed from galleries. Quite right. Burn them all. A vile paedophile.
His sister though believed they had aesthetic value, said each haunted portrait revealed her mixed feelings: fear of her father and her unbreakable connection to him.
/
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My mother tells me my middle name should be misfortunate. She blames it on my being born on Friday the 13th, sliding into the world feet first, causing her intense pain, which she still remarks on today.
”AS IF ITS MY FAULT I DIDN’T ASK TO BE BORN”
I had the misfortune to have very curly brown hair and green eyes, unlike the rest of my family. Mother is still convinced that I was swapped at birth.
”SURELY SHE CAN’T BE SERIOUS!”
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This was it. I’d had my share of bad luck. After decades of caring for my ailing parents and alcoholic husband, then losing all of them, one by one, it was time to put myself first. Midlife, I decided, would be a new beginning. The mid-point of a novel, after all, isn’t the end of the story, but the moment the protagonist takes charge of their own destiny.
Where better to kick-start a change in fortune than Las Vegas?
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” Nina slurred, and we all clinked glasses.
“Don’t look now,” she shout-whispered into my ear. “Hot guys, by the Blackjack table.”
I cringed. “We’re old enough to be their mothers!”
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