There was a considerable swell rocking the boat – a parting gift from hurricane Eve. The experts had named it so, because according to their readouts Eve was a category five and had looked like being the mother of all storms. Thankfully though, Eve had not lived up to their pessimism and had passed over with wind speeds peaking at two hundred and thirty eight kilometres per hour which was more in keeping with a category four. That unfortunately was still more than enough to bury the area that we had been surveying for the last five weeks in a heavy layer of silt…
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The Space Janitor
Moving through the corridors the janitor went, cleaning up the odd spill here and gathering up a stray piece of garbage there. It was a lonely existence since his two fellow workers Now and Then had been sent to work over in Elsewhere but it gave him a sense of purpose in his old age. He did his job well – always had done in fact. Few aberrations or blooms got past him for very long…
Voicemail
Bang, bang, bang!
Someone’s knocking at the door.
“George! George! Aren’t you awake yet?”
I open my eyes, feeling confused about where I am. The alarm clock on my bedside table reads seven forty five. I sit bolt upright and swing my legs clumsily out of bed.
“I’m up mum! I’m up!”
“You’re going to have to hurry,” she calls. “Else you’ll miss the bus.”
“I know,” I mumble. I cringe inwardly because my voice is almost as clumsy as my legs. It’s been like that ever since my accident…
No Room in My Head
Once more around the yard she went. Once more searching every nook and cranny between the big brown cobbles, worn by the constant passage of her family’s feet over them. In between the big half barrel planters she looked and amongst the flowers that grew there. Over the crumbling red brick wall, next door’s washing flapped in the breeze whilst hers lay piled on the bathroom floor – untouched and purposefully forgotten. She knew what was in there and it was best left where it was…for now…
Quetzalcoatl’s Gate
“But my family will never know what’s happened to me,” murmured the voice from beyond the static. There was a reply somewhere in the background, but it was incomprehensible as it was spoken in a language that hadn’t been used in over five thousand years….
One Down, Six to go
“So this was where you last saw him?”
“Yes. We had lunch at the Strawberry Fields café over there. Although I have to say he didn’t eat very much.”
Detective Jenna McCabe made a mental note to check the close circuit cameras in the area in the hope that she could pick up some clues…
Pier 54
They’d been apart for the best part of a year now, separated by a huge expanse of water almost three and a half thousand miles wide. During that time Alice had given birth to his child, squatting like an animal on the floor of the eight by ten room she rented just above McGoldrick’s butchers. Her mother-in-law had assisted with the birth before dying from influenza just three weeks later. For days Alice was too overcome with grief to notice that her infant son was also displaying the very same symptoms…
Shoeshine Jean
There were signs of life stirring on the street now, even though the daily commute had not yet begun in earnest. Traffic was beginning to build on the gently warming tarmac and soon cars and taxis would be bumper to bumper. A loud crash from a building site across the road disturbed a flock of pigeons pecking crumbs from around the feet of a hollow faced homeless man. He held his head in his hands as they took off suddenly, almost flying directly into his face…
Dream Walker
“Yes I see him father. But he seems strangely unafraid of what lies ahead,” I said. I was referring to what would happen when they came to take our land. Or perhaps I should say “if” they came to take our land because that’s what we were trying to prevent…