Plot Medics 

This isn't my favourite story ever. But it jumped the queue in my head and I had to write it to get it out. I hope you enjoy it.

P.S. Thanks to Dave, for spotting "Discordia" (and only Discordia) on the side of a van.

Mail Order (988 words)

Patricia stumbled down the stairs hissing, "Be quiet," at the chiming doorbell. Her boys needed their sleep, and what would the neighbours think? She put the chain on the door and cracked it open.

"I’ve got the phone right here," she said. "I’ll call the police."

A young man in a cap grinned at her through the gap. He wore a brown wrap-over jacket and loose trousers, and was holding a small package and a clipboard.

"Discordia Deliveries," said the young man, waggling the package at her.

"What? Do you know what time it is? I have to get up early tomorrow. My son Robert has an important interview."

"It’s oh three thirteen, madam. We deliver anything, any place any time, just like it says on the van," the young man said cheerfully.

"I haven’t ordered anything." She sneezed, and wiped her red nose with a clean hanky. Wretched cold was getting worse. "You must have got it wrong."

"Package from Eris." He held out the parcel.

"I don’t know any Eris."

"Mrs. Patricia Callum, 35 Millway Close. It looks like Eris knows you."

Patricia undid the chain, signed the paper in the space marked "Favoured, One:", and took the package. She watched the delivery boy get back in his van. There was no writing on it at all, just a strange blobby logo that seemed to vibrate in the orange streetlight.

She opened the box with little pecks of her fingers. Inside was a jointed teddy bear. Its fur was patterned with rainbow swirls, its black button eyes glinted evilly and it had a tongue poking out. She had a sudden impulse to snatch up scissors and cut it off. Was it supposed to be a joke?

Best get back to bed. Busy day tomorrow, Robert’s suit to iron, and Max’s lunch to make for college. Such clever boys. Her face relaxed into a smile for a moment. Then she sneezed again and shivered. She had to go to the office, despite her aching head and chills. They’d never manage without her. Kevin was a sweet boy, but he took his time over his work. She was sure he’d do better when he found a position that suited him. But Erica spent ten minutes a day on the phone to her boyfriend, Patricia timed her. And there was Christine, who she supposed worked hard enough when they had things to do. But when there were no forms to process, she’d be on the internet unless Patrica looked over her shoulder, keeping order. She’d had words with the supervisor about them both. Was that it? Was the teddy with the wagging tongue a message, to keep quiet?

Well two could play at that game. Erica didn’t have any get up and go, so it must have been Christine. She’d send the teddy back the same way she’d got it, in the middle of the night. Let Christine wake up with her heart pounding, wondering who was hurt. Wondering if she was being attacked. She’d look up the number for Discordia Deliveries tomorrow. In her lunchbreak, of course.

#

Christine watched the alarm clock flick to "03:13" when the doorbell started ringing. She felt an odd little leap of glee. Probably just kids arsing about. She peered out between the curtains. A van with a fractal design painted on it was parked in front of the flats. A bloke in a cap and a brown martial arts outfit stood at the communal front door. Light spilled out of the flat below, and Christine hurried downstairs before someone could complain.

"Hello," she said. "I’m pretty sure I didn’t order a Jedi Knight." She sneezed, searched her dressing gown pocket for a tissue, and had to wipe her nose on her sleeve. Bloody Pat the Martyr, dragging her stinking cold into the office.

"Discordia Delivieries," said the man, grinning. He held out a small box and a clipboard. "Package from Eris."

"Really? I thought she was too busy with hurricanes," said Chris, signing the paper in the space under "Favoured, Two:"

"We deliver to Order. Just like it says on the van."

"Um. No it doesn’t."

The man made a pistol with his fingers, and winked, then passed her the package.

Back in her flat, Chris put the kettle on. She hadn’t been getting any sleep lately anyway, just lying staring at the ceiling, wondering how she kept getting sucked into the clockwork routine of work. She hadn’t made any sculptures in months. She was so desperate for something to change that she welcomed tonight’s bit of random weirdness.

She’d looked on the internet for some inspiration when Pat wasn’t hovering over her shoulder like the Vulture of Doom. Mayan art, Native America totem poles, something to inject some meaning into her work, but she didn’t just want to make ersatz copies of another culture’s art.

She made herself a cup of tea and opened the package. Inside was a multi-coloured teddy with a mischevious twinkle in his eyes, sticking out his tongue at the world. Chris smiled. He had the right attitude. Screw them all.

Maybe she’d got too serious about it all. When she was a teenager, she used to run around with a couple of mates collecting up people’s garden ornaments. They’d make them props and accessories, and set up scenes on the grass of the big town roundabouts: the neighbourhood gnomes do Hamlet, the Processional Avenue of Concrete Donkeys. They always put everything back, so they didn’t get into too much trouble until the Grand Bacchanal tableau. Apparently people had Views about concrete and plaster inter-species relations.

A little inkling of mischief capered at the back of her mind, and she began opening her boxes of collected charity shop buys and discarded stuff. She’d play around and see what took shape. She only needed to be half-awake to do her job. Tomorrow could take care of itself.

We can all find excuses not to write.  Sometimes, if we're lucky, someone might not take no for an answer...

Font of Inspiration (984 words)

“Pay what I ask or you’ll never see your baby again.”

This is not something you want to see.

I looked at the note again.  Big letters, six different fonts.   

Obviously it was intended to worry me.  

But I don’t have a baby.  Feeling more than slightly idiotic, I did a quick check; cats, two, for the use of.  One was waiting with eternal optimism by the food bowl; the other perched on top of the printer, helpfully shedding hairs into it.  And I’m not the sort of person who refers to my cats as my babies.  Usually.  Not when anyone else can hear me, anyway.

It wasn’t even as though the message had arrived through the door in a bloodstained envelope.  It had just appeared on the screen, right in the middle of my ruddy novel.  ‘Ruddy’ being the least of the epithets I’d recently been applying to it.  

Obviously I was going mad.  Trying to finish this benighted book had finally driven me round the bend. 

I wondered about the origin of the phrase ‘round the bend’, and looked it up on Google.  It wasn’t, in fact, very interesting.  I looked at the manuscript.

“This is exactly what I mean.  Pay up.”  

Just one font, this time.  Comic sans, bold, 18 point.  Still pretty threatening if you ask me.

I looked up ‘signs of nervous breakdown’ and only succeeded in confusing myself and feeling even more paranoid.  Back to the manuscript.
 
“Excuse me!” Impact, 24 point.

What was I going to do?  Phone the NHS Helpline and tell them I was writing myself anonymous threatening notes?

Maybe it was a poltergeist.  If I waited long enough, I might see the keys depress.  I hovered the cursor over Google again, about to look up poltergeists, when it happened.  No depression of the keys, just the words: 

“DON’T YOU DARE!”  
 
I had one hand on the mouse, and the other on a cat, for reassurance.  So it definitely wasn't me.

I made a noise like ‘gblah!’ and leapt out of the chair.  The cat glared at me.

When I approached the computer again, the words were still there.  I didn’t even recognise this font, but it was in bold and at least 30 point.  Someone was shouting.

Tentatively, feeling surreal, I typed, “Who are you?”  

It came out in good old Times New Roman, 12 point.  The editor’s favourite.

“Who’d you think, idiot?  I’m your muse.”

For a moment I didn’t think I could breathe, never mind type.  “But you sound like a gangster,” I managed.

“How else was I going to get your attention?  It’s not like you’ve been listening to me lately.”

"Oh,”  I typed.  “Sorry.” Was I really having this conversation?

“Sorry my arse.  Do you want to finish this book?”

“Of course I do.”

"Then why do you run off to bloody Google every five minutes?”

"Research, I…”  

She cut me off.  The keys actually wouldn’t work.  Damn, it was annoying, like someone putting their hand over your mouth during an argument. 

“It’s procrastination.  I hate the internet.  Do you know you spend at least three times as long on there as you do actually writing?”

“But sometimes I don’t know what to write until I’ve looked it up,”

She did it again.  I bashed the keys fruitlessly.  

“If you actually bloody listened to me you’d know what to write!”
 
“But didn’t you help the guy who invented the internet?”  I ventured.

“That was one of my sisters.  We’re still not speaking.”

“Oh.”  I was not going to get into a family argument between deities.  I mean, that sort of thing always ends badly.  “So what was all that about paying up and my baby?”

“Work it out!  If you didn’t have an imagination I’d never have turned up. I don’t appear for people who are already lost causes, you know!” 

I didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.  “OK is the baby my career?”

“Oh please.”

“My plot?”

“Duh.”

“So what about the payment thing?”

“DO…YOU…NEED…ME…TO…SPELL…IT…OUT?”

“Er…yes?”

This time the word was not just in 30 point, it filled the entire page.  It was bright scarlet, 3D, and in no font I’d ever seen before.  It vibrated. 

“ATTENTION!” It said. 

Then, just as big and shouty, “PRESENCE!”

Then, bigger and redder and even more 3d, “CONCENTRATION!”

My eyes hurt.  

“Get it now?”

“Yes,” I typed.  

“Then get off the internet.”

My hand hovered over the mouse. 

“Do you want me to SHOUT?”  she typed.

“No!  Just, may I make a suggestion?”

“What?”

“You could use the internet. You do already.”

“I do NOT!”  

The font had gone red again.  I winced, but ploughed on.  “But I’m always finding inspiration!  Pictures, discussions, things other people have written.  OK, some of the time I’m just faffing about, wasting time, I know.  But not all the time.  And it could help you, too.  I was thinking - rather than turning up in the middle of a manuscript, which is, you know, a bit scary, how about instant messenger?  Or you could have a look at Wikipedia…there’s all sorts of places you could give people a nudge.  After all you’re on my computer.  It’s all part of the same technological revolution.”

Blank.  No words.  

“Hello?”

Oops.  Obviously I’d pissed her off.  I hardly dared try and get back to my story, in case she’d left for good.  But I did unplug the broadband cable, and something worked, because I got to the end of the chapter, and some of it was even usable.

And a few nights later, when I was just about to close down after a surprisingly  productive evening’s writing, my Skype went ‘bloop’. 

The name on the message was ‘Aganippe’.

There was just one word: ‘Thanks.’  

Aganippe is a fountain associated with the Muses – but I made sure I finished my chapter before I went and looked it up.

I'm not making up the stuff about civet coffee, but Marcus obviously doesn't buy his online.

The Seven Year Itch (996 words)

The shower blasted icy water over Georgiana, but the red rash round her belly and back still burned and itched. She sighed. She’d been letting her game slip lately. A few months ago she wouldn’t have got into bed without checking. She used to change her bedroom lock every week so that Marcus only got in when she let him in, and she still did. Sex was a well-used weapon in the arsenal.

It had been a gleeful impulse that made her salt the whole bag of Marcus’s fifty-pound-an-ounce-shat-out-the-backside-of-a-civet coffee. And of course, Marcus had to drink it with feigned enjoyment every morning. One of the rules, unspoken, but understood was that the staff must never know. It had been a childish tactic, utterly without class. The crushed leaves in her bed, placed where the marks wouldn’t show, were a deserved rebuke. Poison ivy, perhaps, ordered from the States, or even brought back from their last trip just in case.

Georgiana towelled off, and dressed in the elegant pastel silk suit laid out on her bed. She was surprised by a fierce burst of longing for a scarlet dress with flounces, for red and black flashes in her gold hair. She ignored it.

The trouble was, she just hadn’t been inspired lately. When was the last time she’d had a triumph like Marcus’s thirtieth birthday party? Something that looked like heaven from the outside, designed as Marcus’s personal hell?

She had considered once, in a white heat of fury, having a child as another weapon, brought up as mummy’s girl, and taught to rub up against daddy’s principles in all kinds of ways. She’d seen exactly how that could be done. But that was just silly. Marcus would use their public front against her, she’d have to play the perfect mummy; she’d be chained to the house, isolated and up to her neck in vomit and shit with a screaming creature’s life in her hands. She couldn’t imagine anything worse.

She began the familiar routine that would turn her out into the world perfectly polished. What she needed was a campaign, something she could really get her teeth into. What she needed was an idea. What she had was a stupid society wedding to attend, as half of the perfect couple.

#

Georgiana and Marcus posed on the church steps.

“Had a good morning, darling?” Marcus asked as the cameras flashed.

“Invigorating. Thank you so much for the present.”

“I’d like to see how it looks on you.” Marcus took her arm gently. “Let’s go in. From what I’ve seen so far I’ll give you a straight bet. Twenty thousand that they won’t make a year.”

The vicar held forth at some length on what it meant to love, honour and obey while Georgiana and Marcus exchanged smirks. Georgiana toyed with the idea of making Marcus fall in love with her, then she laughed at herself. Marcus would never fall for it. Perhaps she could find somebody, instruct her, put her in his way. She wasn’t sure what, or rather, who would work, though.

A little voice from the back of her head said, “What if he leaves?” Georgiana laughed that off. They were both bound up in barbs of money, pride and reputation. But Marcus really hadn’t been trying lately either. She hadn’t cried with rage since he’d made sure she had to leave her weekly crochet circle. Was he giving up? Planning an escape?

She stared at Marcus, studying his expression, until he caught her eye and pointed discreetly at the happy couple. The gorgeous groom seemed to be eying up the bridesmaids over his bride’s shoulder. The bride’s smile looked pinned on and she fussed with her dress through his vows.

“No bet,” Georgiana said.

#

At the reception, Georgiana asked Marcus for a Buck’s fizz. He brought her an orange juice but she barely noticed, her mind racing. Marcus drifted off to talk business.

What would she do if Marcus did escape? Breathe Georgie, breathe. You can’t think clearly while you’re frightened. Somebody tapped her on the arm.

The bride, Jocasta, was looking at her with an expression of creeping panic. “I’ve got to talk to someone.”

“Of course darling,” Georgiana said. “Whatever is the matter?”

“How long have you and Marcus been married?”

“Seven years.”

“And you still look at each other like’s there’s no-one else in the room. But do you, I mean, what do you do,” Jocasta dropped her voice to a whisper, “if you get bored.”

“Oh darling, your feelings for your husband will change in cycles. There will be calmer times and then the – the passion will come back all over again.” That was the answer. This was just one of the quiet times. Time for a temporary retreat, some intelligence gathering. She’d run out of material to work with. She needed to get to know Marcus better again, then she’d be able to plan a new campaign. “Just keep putting the effort in. Really. I’m never bored with Marcus.”

Jocasta smiled. “If I do get bored. I suppose I could always have children,” she said. 

You stupid girl, thought Georgiana. Children shouldn’t be toys. And I remember the fuss you made when made when you cut your finger at the Hampson’s barbeque. How are you going to cope with childbirth? All that blood...

“Are you alright?” said Jocasta. “You don’t look well.”

Georgiana slumped into a chair.

“I’ll get Marcus for you.”

Georgiana felt cold. Two months ago, she’d been at some tedious gala, gritting her teeth through period cramps. She hadn’t had any since then, and Marcus had been in her room. All it took was one pill missed or tampered with.

Marcus took one look at her face and smiled. “Ah, I see you’re onto my latest move. No more champagne for you. But you’ll be able to put your crochet skills to good use.”

Georgiana smiled back. Marcus was still making the effort.

This is what comes of going for a run while you're desperately trying to think of this week's flash piece, and hearing strange noises.  Some of which were probably just my joints objecting to the exercise...

Tempus Fugit (997 words)

Before he finished the first circuit Terry’s hip was grinding with pain.  He had reached the far corner of the athletic ground, where the bushes grew densely below the railway embankment.  Then he heard a sigh; smelled a brief waft of something sweet.

Young’uns, smoking dope, probably feeling each other up.  Plenty of them around, kicking a ball about, showing off for a girlfriend on the sidelines.  Girls playing these days, too; he tried not to be obvious about looking.  A pretty arse could still brighten his day, but he didn’t fancy being beaten up for it.  

He wasn’t, refused to be, some Daily Mail knee-jerk old fool who thought all the young were villains; but he did get angry at the ones who just seemed to hang around, looking threatening, wasting time that they’d never have again.

On the second circuit he caught the scent again. He slowed without realising.  A throat-catching sweetness that made him think of religion, or mystery.  He wondered where that had come from.  He wasn’t even a lapsed Catholic; wouldn’t know what church incense smelled like if he sat on a censer. 

Sometimes he wished he was religious.  It had been a rotten week; an old friend had gone into a nursing home.  Terry was working up the courage for a visit, dreading the smell of baby powder over pee and the bemused and whimpering occupants. 

The third time around, he caught the same scent, and a sound; maybe a sob. 

This time, he stopped, pressing his hand to his hip, half-glad of the excuse.  “Who’s there?  Who’s messing about back there?” 

Whispers.  His spine chilled, but he walked forward into the green darkness, cursing himself for an old fool.

There were two of them, a boy and a girl. Both inhumanly beautiful, like the Taj-Mahal or the moon, gowned for a costume party.  “Who?”  Terry said.

“Hello,” said the girl.  She had silver bells on her gown, and in her voice. 

“Hello,” said the boy.  A golden voice, summer flowers, glades filled with light.

“Who are you?”  Terry managed.

“We’re…” they looked at each other, and back at Terry.  Their movements had a languid dreaminess.   “Visitors,” the boy said.  “From across the ferny brae.’” 
 
“Tell me, why do you run?” said the girl.  “We see you, running, but you just go around, then you go away.”

“To stay fit,” he said absently.  The phrase about the ferny brae reminded him of something.  He wasn’t afraid; they were frail-looking, small, and seemed half-asleep.

“Fit for what?” said the boy. 

Terry laughed, abrupt and bitter.  “Wish I knew.  Trying to hold old age off as long as I can.”

“But you’re already old,” the girl said.

“Yeah right.  I want to stay active, is all.  Not that it makes any difference.  Age is a bastard.  You’ll find out, if you stop smoking whatever you’re smoking long enough to live past fifty.”

“Smoking?”  They looked puzzled.

“Why is age a ‘bastard’?” said the boy.

“It hurts.  Everything stops working.  If you’re lucky you go out like a light, if not, you end up dribbling your days away, not knowing your own name.  Enjoy your youth while you can.  You youngsters seem to think it lasts forever, but it doesn’t.”

He realised the girl was crying, tears slipping like silver down her perfect pale skin.  “Hey, don’t,” he said.  “You got years yet.”

“Yes,” said the boy.  “We have years.  Endless years before us and behind us; and we cannot change.  We are as we are, and all that happens is that we thin, and fade.  We have no children to carry the future, only a past that lies on us like lead, crushing the sunlight, silencing laughter.”  

He got it, finally.  “You’re…what?  Fair folk?  Fey?”

The boy shrugged.  “If you will.”

 “And you don’t age?”
 
“No.  And there have been no children for so long…” the girl looked out at the field, where a young man with dreadlocks was shepherding eight or nine small children into a noisy game.  Her face showed almost no expression, but her ache echoed in Terry’s own chest.

“And you can’t die?”

The two of them linked hands.  “Only by iron, and it takes more courage than we have,” the boy said.

He brushed Terry’s cheek with a long, cool finger.  “You,” he said, “you are so beautiful, do you not know it?  It is your briefness makes you so.”

“You burn so bright and fierce,” the girl said.  “You blaze.” 

“Hah.”  Terry looked down at his hands, rivered with blue veins.  “Beautiful, eh?  Well, there’s a thing.”  He looked up at them.  “Can you make me young again?  Sprinkle me with fairy dust?”

“No,” said the girl.  “We could only make you last longer.”

“Don’t ask,” the boy said.  “Please.”

“Fairy gifts come with a price, don’t they?”  Terry said.

“Always.”

“Well then.”

Terry was never sure how long he spent there, talking.  Nor sure what was said.  Only that he left feeling touched with mystery, feeling winged with joy and drenched with a profound sorrow that was almost sweet.

#

He kept running as long as he could, though he never saw them again.  He visited his friend, and took an old book of fairy tales, and read them aloud, while the nurses gathered in the doorway, listening. 

Terry died, in the end, swift and clean, collapsed on his kitchen floor while he made tea.

The trains continued to rumble along the embankment, and in the bushes, the scent of somewhere else still hung.  Two pairs of eyes watched the playing children grow, and the children after.  Eventually the athletic ground was dug up and boxy houses grew where the bushes had been.  One morning, the driver of the 8.15 froze in his seat, thinking he’d seen two figures on the line, standing with their hands linked, but when the train reached them they blew away like smoke, and the iron wheels pounded on, into the future.