The first writing exercise I picked said; 'follow the course of a ten pound note for a day'. Given the current circumstances, it seemed appropriate.
Money (914 words) Someone got a bonus today.
The notes slide out of the cashpoint as though dealt by a croupier; their temporary owner tucks it into an Aspreys wallet; initialed, (not on the outside, that would be vulgar) but under the flap.
The man pulls a tenner out again in low light, flattering to ageing complexions veined, like port-soaked stilton, with overindulgence. He is surrounded by men in suits, all nearly identical to his own, all very expensive. Their shoes, brogues to a man (women are rarer than trainers here) have a subtly lavish gleam. He leaves the company credit card in the back of the wallet - it's use is not considered appropriate in the current climate. Until the token few have been thrown to the wolves, until it’s business as usual again. He nods at the other members of the club as he hands the tenner, with a bunch of its fellows, over the bar.
It goes as change to a younger man – his wallet is initialed on the outside. He doesn't know there's a wolf at his heels. He's seen the mess all around him, but he's confident he can continue to walk the tightrope. Other people may fall, but not him. He has a highly expensive, professionally decorated flat, a highly expensive, professionally decorated girlfriend, and a car that makes other men shudder with envy. He's a survivor; he calls for more champagne. He's just the sort of irritating, brash young fool the tabloids love to rage over; someone will slip them a copy of his drinks bill.
Next the tenner goes as a flashy tip to a weary waitress, who puts up with the accompanying grope because she needs the job. Off shift soon, thank god. She hides the note. The boss isn't beyond swiping their better tips, and she's bloody earned it tonight. Her arse feels covered in smeary fingerprints. Leaving, she transfers the note to her purse, next to the receipt for the designer jacket she bought last weekend; she's going to have to get a new credit-card, that one's hit the limit. She’s heard they’re not handing them out like sweeties any more, but it’s never been a problem before. And she’s bought so many clothes partly because she can fit into a size ten now; the one good thing about serving food all day is that it's ruined her appetite. Just to make sure she doesn’t get hungry, on the way home she buys a packet of fags.
There aren’t many other notes in the till at the newsagents; he takes most of them out as soon as there's £100 in there, shoves them under the floor. He has safe, for the more persistent, professional criminals; it holds £500 which is the most he reckons he can afford to lose. The insurance bastards still haven't paid up after the last robbery. He wishes he could give it up. His back aches, his wife is too scared to work the nights; but the kids like to have the same stuff as their friends and he hates to deprive them. Why shouldn't they have nice things? Though last Christmas he looked at the presents, stacked up and spilling across the floor, and he did wonder. He'd had a stocking and one big present, when he was a kid, and glad to get it. But he’s doing this so the kids can have a better life than he did. He’s been socking the odd tenner away in a Christmas club – it’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.
The woman buys cheap wine and bananas. The note gets shoved into an ancient purse, held together with a rubber band. She managed to save a bit this month. She’s hoping to afford a holiday next year. She sometimes wonders if she should put the money in a pension instead but a tenner a month is hardly worth it; besides, she's only 30. She hurries to get home and tries not to see the man sitting on the pavement. There's so much dirt on his face the lines look as though they've been etched with acid and oh, God, his feet are bare. It's November and brutally cold. His filthy feet are shaking with it.
She shouldn't give him money. He could spend it on drugs and die. She'd have to get close to him, he’ll smell awful and he might be dangerous. And she was saving up to go away, somewhere warm and pretty. It’s the feet that do it, the horrible pathetic feet. Angrily, she snaps off the rubber band. Angrily, she opens her purse, digs out the tenner, leans down. She wants to say something pithy, something that will penetrate, make sure her tenner, her tenner, dammit, doesn't go to waste.
"Here," is all she can manage; she shoves it into his hand and stalks away, before he can pull her in, make her try and do more.
He stares at it. A tenner. He has problems thinking straight, always has; there’s a lot of noise in his head. He used to be in a place where they gave him stuff to keep his head quiet, but it closed. There wasn’t any money in there; but he knows a tenner when he sees one.
It gives him the impetus to get up. He walks on feet he can’t feel, remembering that somewhere in a nearby street is a place where he can get tea.
Someone got a bonus today.
Do you remember the first person you had a crush on? Do you now slap your forehead and think, "Ye gods, what if I'd married him/her?" It could be worse.
Til Death Do Us Part (995 words)
Weeks of preparation, all those sit-ups, and Eva had to admit, her abs were looking pretty good. The hour spent on make-up was wasted, though. Her face had been crushed by the impact.
Hammond McKnight stumbled out of the Lamborghini, clutching his hair. “Fuck! Where the hell did she come from?”
She’d even got lucky with the weather; London felt wild and otherworldly in the lashing rain.
A white-faced blonde tottered from the car. She wobbled to Eva’s corpse, squatted next to it, felt for a pulse.
The thing is, nobody talked about the undignified things that happened when you died. Eva’s body stank of shit.
“What am I going to do?” said Hammond.
The blonde leaned away from the body, puked, and then took a tiny pink phone from a tiny pink purse.
Hammond said “What are you doing?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” said the blonde. “She jumped right out. We have to call the police.”
“The premiere’s tomorrow.”
The blonde looked sick again, and turned away to make the call.
Eva could feel the guilt radiating from Hammond. Goddess! It worked, they had a bond. But it wasn’t the darkly romantic start to her haunting she’d dreamed of. #
“So I’m not batshit?” said Hammond.
“Oh, she’s definitely here,” said the psychic, returning Eva’s wave. She wasn’t Eva’s idea of a psychic at all. She had sensible cropped grey hair and wore a mumsy skirt.
“Right. You can do that thing, make her go into the light or whatever?”
Eva sighed happily. He wanted to help her. She could stare forever at his soulful ocean-blue eyes, was desperate to stroke the curve of his jaw. She hadn’t touched him, hadn’t spoken. The first move had to be his.
The psychic plumped down in a squashy white leather chair. “You say she followed you, Mr. McKnight?”
“All the way from London to L.A.”
“She’s a very determined spirit. And she sealed her will with sacrifice. But there’s no malice here.” The psychic sighed. “Only love.”
“What?”
“I don’t think she can move on. Is there any reason she’s so bound to you? I sense guilt too. That can be a powerful tie. If there’s something...”
“Thanks for coming.” #
“I know you’re there,” said Hammond. “Look, I’m sorry. It was one snort of coke. If anything, it makes me drive better. Nobody knew about it. How the hell did you know?”
He gulped. “Can you speak?”
“I didn’t know,” said Eva, and Hammond went very still and pale. “I just wanted a way to be with you. Ever since I first saw you on screen, I knew we were supposed to be together.” She brushed her hand on his. He flinched. “I can do things for you. Anything you want.”
“Let me see you.”
Eva put her will into it. Sunlight flooded everywhere, bouncing from the waves outside and through the glass wall. It was a bitch to shine brightly enough to compete.
“That’s really you? No ghost tricks?”
“All that’s left of me.”
“You’re kinda cute. The little goth girl thing is different for me.” He put his hand out tentatively at breast height. #
“Eva!”
“I’m right here.”
“I don’t see why you can’t bring me a goddam drink.” Hammond peered into the mirror while Eva straightened his bow tie.
“I told you, it’s hard for me to move things. It uses up my energy.” And he’d had enough booze already. He’d make a total arse of himself again at this high profile party. Big producers, big directors, big fat bore. Eva sighed.
Hammond heard her. “Jealous? Don’t worry, I’m about done with Rachel, just a few days of the shoot left. You’ll always be here.”
“I like Rachel. She talks about philosophy, she loves snakes and she listens to kick-arse music.”
“Don’t try and speak to her again. It really freaked her out.”
“Noone can hear me except you and the psychics. And we’re not around them much.”
“So talk to me, baby. How do I look?”
“Gorgeous.” And he did.
Eva walked out of the room, and kept on walking. “I release you,” she said, just as an experiment. Of course she was still wild about Hammond. But where were the hidden depths she’d seen in those eyes? Very, very hidden, that’s where. She only got so far before she smacked into an invisible wall and psychic’s words whirled in her mind. #
Rachel had talked about sins of omission. Eva didn’t have to whisper in Hammond’s ear to have one more drink, snort one more line. She could just do nothing and sooner or later he’d have enough to kill him.
He puked and rinsed his mouth out with whiskey. She watched him, stony cold.
“Get away from me, bitch!” he said. “Spying, judging me.”
“I’d go if I could,” said Eva. “Please, drink and snort yourself to death. Then we’ll both be free.”
“You don’t know what it’s like for me,” Hammond said.
“Take a bucketload of pills with your vat of booze.” The glasses on the table rattled with her rage. It was a struggle to hold herself together. “Let me go. Do it!”
“Oh yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Us together forever in the afterlife.”
Shit! She hadn’t even considered that. She assumed it was til death do us part, please Goddess. What if their link went beyond this world? The anger drained from her, leaving weariness.
“Hammond, you’re a fucking idiot. Admit it, you’ve got exactly what you wanted and it’s a big disappointment. So find something else that isn’t. It’s not too late for you.”
Hammond dragged himself up against a sofa, and his eyes drifted closed. After a while, he said. “Go into retreat, maybe, work on my craft.”
“Learn to act?”
“Been getting by on my looks.” He half-smiled. “You really want me to kill myself?”
“No,” said Eva. “Just live an interesting life.” After all, she’d have to share it.
This was partly born out of an old idea that's been hovering waiting for a voice, and partly sparked by one of Sarah's pieces - wonderful thing, creative partnership, innit? The Temple ( 985 words) The temple stood in the desert; a small, plain building, baking in the sun. An acolyte, tall and shaven-headed, bowed Javed in to coolness and soft light. Javed left his guard in the outer chamber, and walked to the altar past the wooden screens carved with processions and sacrifices. Though he always came here at the same hour, it seemed the light fell, every time, on a different carving. He paused, and frowned.
The priestess appeared. She was like a carving herself, cool, ascetic, smelling of some pleasantly astringent soap, her robes falling in simple folds.
“Look there,” Javed said. “That caddell, spirit of battle, urging the men forward.”
“My Lord?”
“She is wearing a mask. See?”
The priestess bent closer. “Why, I believe you are right, my Lord.”
“It is slipping. Look, she is weeping under it. That is no spirit to send men to war!”
“Perhaps that is why she wears a mask. So they will not see her tears.”
“Hmmm.”
The priestess often remained silent, unless he asked her a direct question. He found it restful. But today she broke with custom.
“What troubles my Lord?”
“The barbarians,” he said. “Trade is all very well, but they are a corrupting influence. I’m told their howling music is heard now even in our own villages, and their customs…” he looked at her calm pale face, so untouched and pure. “Well, I should not mention such things to you.”
“Many people come here to tell me their troubles, my Lord. I am not quite ignorant of the world.”
“Their women choose their own mates, and fight beside them in battle!”
He saw one of her eyebrows rise a little, but that was all. “Indeed?”
“Yet they none of them read. Not one. They despise it. Why, even our women are taught to read! No man wants an ignorant wife! How they ever run a household…but of course, they don’t have households; they live like wild dogs.”
The priestess said nothing; but she, like him, was looking at the caddell, with her frantic gestures and downturned, sobbing mouth. A young man lay broken at her feet. “She is like their women,” Javed said.
“Perhaps, my Lord, they lack the refinements of mind that an education can bring.”
“Perhaps…”
***
Biradex cracked his head guard across the jaw. She had been about to go into the temple ahead of him, checking for trouble. “Stay out here.”
She stepped back. “Lord,” she said, through swelling lips.
“No respect,” he growled to the acolyte. “Let ’em raisin in the sun for an hour.”
The priestess lowered her painted eyelids, the acolyte bowed. Biradex eyed him with disapproval. The man couldn’t have done much today but sweep the temple floor, yet his bald head was gleaming with sweat and his breath came short.
Biradex followed the priestess, eyeing with appreciation the ample hips dressed in not much but gold. He’d wait to be asked, though; he knew priestesses. Sink your dick there when it wasn’t wanted and you might not get it back.
Outside, the temple was plain as a skin tent; inside, it was rich night. Heavy carved screens across the windows kept out the sun. The air swirled with incense; the carvings flickered and danced in the torchlight.
Biradex flung the deer on the altar. The priestess sunk her hands in its guts, and her eyes rolled back in her head. “You are troubled, great Lord,” she said, her voice gutteral and somehow insinuating. Biradex felt a shudder up his spine, but squared up to the spirit that possessed her; it wasn’t in his nature to do otherwise.
“Yes, by the balls of Lodek, I’m troubled. We should have attacked as soon as we arrived in this land.”
“After that trek, with your warriors half-dead of thirst and gut-rot? A fine show you’d have made.”
Biradex growled. “Well, well, I admit, your advice then was good. But these soft city dwellers are sucking the life out of my people. First, it’s trade; fine goods and furbelows. Now…we have to invade, and soon.”
“And what has given you this panting eagerness to stick your head out for the axe?”
“You think I don’t have reason? Listen to this. Adrek, my own sister’s son, came to me asking for permission to go study in the city! My own blood, a scribe!”
The thing possessing the priestess growled. “And for this you will invade? I never took you for a fool, Biradex.”
Biradex snarled; he didn’t like being called a fool, even by a demon.
“A scribe?” the voice went on, “a spy! A gatherer of secrets! The scholars in this city know more than its battle leaders. You’d have the place in your hand in a month, without a fight.”
Biradex opened his mouth, and shut it again.
“Hmm.”
*** The acolyte brought another jug of water and poured it over the priestess, scrubbing the scented oil out of her hair.
“Gaaaah,” she said. “That’s good. No, I’ll do it, I can tell your back’s hurting.”
“We need lighter screens,” said the acolyte. “That was too damn close. Javed’s rearguard had barely got out of sight. One of these days they’re both going to be headed this way at the same time.”
“We managed in Travisten.”
“Only with the help of a handy rainstorm and thirty-three runaway mules.”
“We should have kept those mules,” the priestess said, stretching.
“If all it needed was stubbornness, we’ve got thirty-three mulesworth right here.”
An undignified tussle resulted, in which they both got very wet.
***
Two days later, the young man eager, his female guard glaring and suspicious, with one hand on her knife, the first two barbarian students entered the university.
A year after that, the temple stood abandoned; and in a distant town, two short-tempered twin queens, and one anxious warlord, began to hear rumours of a new shrine to their favourite gods…
I used the "Creative Block" book by Lou Harry for this one. I opened it three times at random and got a picture prompt for a doorway, "Lie" as a 'sparkword', and a suggestion of writing about someone who discovers they're broke. It didn't turn out the way I expected. What Lies on the Other Side (1000 words)
Hartwell had lost a hundred gold on the unicorn races, hobnobbing and generally putting it about as number one goat. He’s got a front to keep up, the bold explorer, first man to the top of Kalijuri, tamer of wild beasts and savage women like me.
I saw my chance at Lord Greenward’s party. Hartwell always takes me with him. The Ladies glance slantwise at my dark skin, and giggle behind their fans imagining what we get up to. The truth, of course, is - nothing. Hartwell has his own Code of Honour.
Lord Breakspear was the centre of attention. “The Door was uncovered in an earthquake in March,” he said. “In the foothills of the Wolf Fang mountains. I set off as soon as heard about it.”
He described a carving he’d seen, a moon and a rabbit. I stood in the background, hands folded, until Hartwell gave me a nod.
“May I speak, your Lordship?” I said. “It sounds like a mark of the trickster goddess, Isot. In my studies of the region...”
“Studies!” said Greenward. “Hartwell said your lot believe in educating their daughters. Damn fool idea. Everyone knows that women’s brains overheat if they learn too much.”
“Steady on,” said Breakspear.
“Some benighted idiot has started a Free School for Girls. What good is that going to do?”
Breakspear broke in, his voice shaking. “Five thousand gold to any man who goes through that Door and brings me back something from the other side.”
That was it. When we got home I lied a bit and told Hartwell we were broke again. It was more of a prediction than a lie.
He stroked his luxuriant moustache. “Well, Mulog my girl, I have you to keep track of these things. A trip to the pole, I think. The Exploration Society will fund it.”
“I don’t think so, master. They’ve sent two expeditions there. We need somewhere new.”
“Nowhere left to go, what? Since the ruddy balloonists started harnessing dragons everyone and his maiden aunt’s an explorer. The Ladies will hardly sit still for my stories now.”
I gave him a well-practised languishing glance. “There is the Door, master,” I said. “I could sell some goblets discreetly and get enough for our travels.”
“Hrumph. Breakspear hardly set foot over the threshold. Hasn’t been the same since.”
“The Ladies were very interested in his story.”
“All right. Sort out the travel arrangements. Do you speak the language?”
“Not yet, master.”
And so we went, full complement of horses, mules and native guides, up into the cold, sunny shale of the foothills. The Door was just a hole in a cliff, outlined with three heavy strokes of rock, the symbol on the lintel.
“A rabbit, eh?” said Hartwell. “That don’t seem so frightening.”
“It’s a hare, master. It’s Isot’s symbol.”
“Get the torches, Mulog.”
Inside, the tunnel became a narrow oval. Wind gusted past like breathy laughter. A sense of presence grew, something vast and powerful and feminine. Hartwell walked in front, and his figure seemed to shrink and change in the dancing torchlight. I heard him gasp, and then he screamed, his voice sliding into a higher register. He dropped his torch, shoved me against the wall with both hands, and ran shrieking back to the entrace. His silhouette against the dim light was drastically altered.
Well, there was no blood and he still had breath enough to yell. He wouldn’t let me come back in on my own, the Code don’t y’know. If we wanted the gold, I’d have to get it myself. I picked up his torch and went on.
I stepped into a dazzling cave, light leaking in through crystal veins. Flowers twined around rock columns, the petals shaking in sudden breezes gusting from the tunnel. A small waterfall tumbled into a pool of fresh water. Just being in there felt like I’d come home and taken off a heavy load. Offerings were scattered by the pool: bowls with the contents long gone to dust, tiny sculptures of hares in wood and stone and clay.
“Great Isot,” I said. “If you’re here, you know what I want and why I want it. Please let me take one thing.”
The gusts from the tunnel got up again, and blew out the torches. In the near-darkness, the crystal light winked from something. I put it in a pouch at my belt, and made my way by feel down the tunnel. I found Hartwell lying at the entrance, looking as he always had, breathing, unhurt, and in a dead faint.
I opened my belt pouch, and found that I’d got a stone hare, holding an ancient coin in its mouth. Worth plenty, and proof enough of where we’d been. I slipped it into Hartwell’s coat pocket. Then I arranged myself in a comfortable fainting pose a few feet into the tunnel and waited for Hartwell to wake up and get me.
On the way back Hartwell was whiter than a ghost moon and jumpier than a poked frog. Finally, he said “Dashed odd, what?”
“Some sort of opiate gas perhaps master? I was overwhelmed, but your superior constitution fought against it.”
“Hrumph.”
“It was well you had the presence of mind to snatch up that trinket on the way out.”
Silence. Curiosity tugged at my tongue. “I saw such strange visions before I fainted.”
Hartwell’s expression was desperate with the need to confess, be reassured. “It seemed to me for a short while, Mulog, that...” he swallowed, “I believed I was a woman.”
No wonder he was terrified. “How funny, master. How could your intelligence ever be housed in a woman’s brain?”
He stroked his moustache. It cheered him up enough to say, “Breakspear will have to eat his hat. It’ll be the high life for us.”
And so it will. But Hartwell’s household expenses will continue to be extravagant, as far as he knows. And some benighted idiot will carry on contributing to the Free School for Girls.
This came out of a picture prompt of an incredibly complex machine. When I thought about the picture there was a small human figure staring up at the machine, dwarfed by it; but when I went back and looked at the picture the figure wasn't there. Funny thing, the mind. Thomas and the Machine (992 words) Thomas frowned. There was a smudge on a pipe he was sure he had already cleaned. He sighed. Once, he had been able to keep up. It seemed that the older he got, the bigger the machine got.
This was, of course, true. When he first began to work on it, it only covered one wall of this underground room…at least, so he thought.
He stretched, to ease his aching back, and looked around.
The machine now covered three of the walls; a great intricate mass of pipes, joints, valves, and dials. It crept up into the echoing darkness of the roof. The ladder Thomas used to clean the upper reaches stood, in narrowing perspective, ready for use. When had he got the ladder? Who had brought it?
Thomas shrugged. The same people who left his food, and his clothes. It wasn’t his concern. He could see no more smudges, so he could go to bed, now. “Respect the machine,” he said, and went to the bathroom cubicle. He always shut the door, even though there had been no-one else there for as long as he could remember. To do otherwise would be disrespectful.
He folded himself neatly onto the bed in the corner of the room. The machine hissed and creaked, thudded and roared. It had grown louder at the same pace as it had grown larger, so Thomas barely noticed, and usually slept easily amid the cacophony.
Tonight, though, he found thoughts chasing themselves around his mind. He was getting stiff in the joints, at the end of a busy day the small of his back had started to develop a hot, low ache. How long would he be able to keep up with his duties? And what happened when he couldn’t? He knew, of course, what should happen; the machine would take care of him, as he took care of it. But sometimes, other, treacherous thoughts crept in.
The new boy appeared one morning; he had messy hair, hazel eyes so bright they almost seemed to glow, and a dazed look. Thomas was pleased; obviously someone had realised he was getting on, needed help.
“Right then,” he said. The boy only looked puzzled. He raised his voice. “Over here!” He showed him the cloths, polish, wrenches, all neatly laid out. He took pride in his tools.
The boy nodded, but didn’t actually do anything until Thomas put the cloth in his hand, showed him a smudge, and set him at it.
Another bed had, of course, been provided; but the constant presence of another being took some getting used to. And the boy, James… the boy was sloppy. Thomas caught him more than once sitting on his bed, staring at the walls, running his hands through his messy hair, when he should have been working.
And he asked questions. “Where does this pipe go? What’s this dial mean?”
Thomas didn’t like these questions. They weren’t respectful.
The machine, however, seemed to like the boy’s presence. It roared louder, the windows into its raging heart glowed hotter, it thudded and steamed with enthusiasm. And it grew faster; whole new sections appeared overnight.
James quieted, eventually. His hair settled down, he started to comb it neatly. The light in his eyes dimmed to something more appropriate. He stopped asking so many questions.
Thomas was pleased to note the way James began to copy his own methods; the way he laid out his tools, the way he folded his cloths. Sometimes he heard the boy scream, in the middle of the night, but he would settle down. Thomas had done, after all.
Thomas felt himself slowing. Not only his back, but his hands ached; his knees weren’t up to the ladder any more, and though he didn’t yet quite trust James to do it properly, he had to let him do the climbing.
One morning Thomas was carefully polishing the face of one of the big dials, the one with a needle as long as his forearm; the dial was glossy with health. Thomas’s hand looked ancient; the knuckles swollen, blue veins standing out under the fragile skin.
He looked up to see James swarming down the ladder with dangerous speed. Thomas felt his heart speed up. “What is it?” He shouted. “Is something wrong?” He imagined a leak, a break, steam from a joint, water dripping…rust, decay…
James shook his head, and pulled Thomas towards the bathroom cubicle. Thomas went, protesting, his polishing cloth still clutched in his hand.
James shut the door and leaned against it. His hair was on end again, his eyes furiously bright. He beckoned Thomas close.
“What is this nonsense?” Thomas said, carefully folding his cloth.
James beckoned harder. Thomas, sighing, went closer. James bent and whispered, “There’s a window. Up in the roof. I reckon we could get out.”
Thomas gaped. There was a strange feeling in his chest, pain, like something cracking open.
He pushed past James, without a word, and went back to his polishing, concentrating on the face of the dial, on its mysterious numbers. What did they mean? It wasn’t his business to ask. He went on polishing, until his arm hurt, until the dial gleamed like teeth.
James pulled at his sleeve, but Thomas ignored him. The machine got louder; all around them, there were roars and thuds and gushes of steam. James pulled at him one last time, and then ran for the ladder.
The floor shook. Up in the roof, things clanged. Thomas kept polishing. In the corner of his eye James’ thin legs were scrabbling higher, higher.
He kept polishing.
The dial glowed for a moment with a strange new light that stung Thomas’s eyes; a light from outside, an errant beam, finding its way all the way down to the depths of the machine.
Then the light was gone. Thomas kept polishing. His tears soaked his collar, but he ignored them.
They’d send someone else, eventually.
|
RSS Feed