Friday Flash Fiction: Blink

Blink
By Neil Beynon

Matt had always been angry.

No one was sure why, least of all him. It would well up inside him, bubbling higher and higher until like a kettle it tripped a switch and suddenly he would be calm again. Wondering why he had reacted like that. Trouble was: the size of the kettle kept growing.

It was a Tuesday when it first happened. Matt’s anger settled on him like an iron cloak, pulling his neck and shoulders tight, his head spinning with the strain of it. He closed his eyes as a last attempt at grabbing at some self restraint.

When he opened his eyes the object of his anger was gone.

The man – his name was Jeff, he had twin baby girls called Sally and Sarah, and a wife called Alison who was rumoured to be having an affair with Nick from Accounts – had been talking about the need for rationalisation. He had been in mid flow. Now he was gone. There was no sign of him at all.

Confused, Matt waited a few minutes before wandering from the room, reasoning that Jeff had finished and left whilst Matt zoned out. Matt zoned out frequently, it was a way to cope with the dull monotony and so it was not an unreasonable supposition.

But it was wrong.

As he discovered when queuing for the train that evening, the heaving conga pushing him this way and that. Matt’s mobile was knocked from his hand, shattering and drawing stares from those around but not from the person who had knocked it. Matt seethed. He closed his eyes to count to ten and then –

They were gone. Everyone in the station concourse: passengers, guards, shop attendants, cleaners, tramps, all gone. Frightened Matt ran out of the station towards the street. People still walked around, buses still ran, there was nothing untoward. Still the station was empty.

Matt got the bus home.

Matt was calm for a long time after that. Maybe as long as a month but eventually the memory faded to the sepia tones of something he’d imagined rather than something that had happened. After all, people don’t just disappear?

It was a Saturday when he finally lost control. They went to a supermarket, they being Matt and his girlfriend Anne. Matt did not like supermarkets, insisting if he were to come that they leave early to avoid the rush but half the city had the same idea, it was after all sale season. Instead of arriving in good time they had to queue for an hour to get in the car park and wrestle with a man from Finchley, who stank vaguely of urine, to get a trolley. Really it was a miracle Matt lasted until they got to the marmalade section.

In the marmalade section, Anne talking about some trip she had booked, Matt tried to make a decision but it wasn’t easy. The supermarket had stacked enough marmalade for half the western world: orange, lemon, lime, prune, thin cut, thick cut, traditional, finest, gourmet, home made, free range, super-size, medium, small and, of course, not one was the actual jar he was looking for.

He picked up a jar to look at it and, so tightly packed was the shelf, the jar toppled from the shelf, meeting the floor with a loud crack as it shattered, spilling its sugary innards across the lino. Everyone looked.

“You’ll have to pay for that,” said the attendant behind Matt, the same attendant who had just over-stacked the shelf.

His heart was pounding in his chest like a mule kicking for freedom; over the sound of it he could hear Anne berating him. Aware that hitting the attendant was not a good idea Matt closed his eyes.

Silence – and then he remembered.

Matt’s eyes snapped open. It was too late: the supermarket was empty. No attendant, no staff at all, no shoppers and no Anne. Matt ran out into the street, a cold hand twisting in his gut, bile in the back of his throat as looked for Anne. In the car park people went on with their daily business.

Back in the supermarket: silence.

Matt sat down on a pile of tins. The cold fear was slowly subsiding, along with the shock and in their place some other emotion was rising, at first in small bubbles and then with increasing violence. Matt was angry, angry with the supermarket for being so busy, with Anne for bringing him here, with the world for making him angry and with himself for being so angry.

Matt screamed long and hard until his throat was raw, spittle flecking the side of his mouth. When he was done the supermarket was still empty. People from the car park ambled cautiously towards the shop to see what all the noise was about and Matt reached a decision.

He closed his eyes.

Afterwards no one could say what happened. The people who came in from the car park asked about the screaming but no one in the supermarket had heard anything at all. Other than a lady who was convinced she had lost something – although she had no idea what – there was nothing else out of the ordinary that Saturday.

Carefully Anne stepped over the marmalade that had been spilt on the floor. Some people, she thought, have no idea how to clean up after themselves and she left the marmalade section. After all, she didn’t like it anyway: too bitter.

Friday Free Fiction: Bag Lady

I went over, hence the change in title. This is an experiment. Feedback welcomed.

Bag Lady
By Neil Beynon

I confess there are days when I do not feel like writing. Days when the page flashes a white neon tundra at me and the cursor blinks accusingly at me. On these days I fear it - whatever it is - has gone for good and panic wraps its steely arms around my chest.

Bad form I know but still: it’s true.

As I sit here struggling to think of something to say, something new to grab your attention, my mind wanders, it pulls at the thread of memories past, picks them up, turns them around, looking for new ways to stitch them, new patterns that might entertain. One by one they are discarded like used tissue.

I type a sentence. Something to hook my attention. I let it sit there, its naked serifs flapping in the wind. This is going to be hard.

The memory when it comes is not picked up. It invades.

It begins with a smell. A faint whisper at the edge of my nostrils, an odour dancing on the slight swells and troughs of the air as it curls around you like a silent, invisible gas. It is the smell of dust undercut with bad perfume and urine, shot through with notes of faeces. It is the smell of old age. It is the smell of death barely postponed…

#

…It is the smell of the old woman pressing against me before I can even get to the paramedic. She is bleeding. Her forehead is a mess of grey skin, pink flesh and blood. The woman’s movement is so violent she gets blood all over my uniform. And dirt, her right hand leaves dark smudges all over my uniform; I won’t get them out, no matter how hard I wash.

“Don’t let them take it,” she exhales in my ear. Her breathe could strip enamel and it leaves me feeling giddy as the paramedic separates us, helping her to sit down. She is clutching something, a small bundle of rags, to her chest with her left arm. The paramedic makes the mistake of touching the bundle in trying to help her to rest easier and earns a swift cuff from her free arm.

It leaves a welt on his cheek, red and angry, as he stumbles backwards.

“Jesus,” he says.

“Looks like you’ve made a new friend Matt,” I reply.

Matt is a good paramedic and he doesn’t give me shit like a lot of them do. That he’s here is a good sign: calm under fire. I can feel the crowd watching me as I lead Matt to one side, the old lady with his partner.

#

I delete the line. It was a stupid hook: melodramatic and self-indulgent. The starkness of the page is hurting my eyes, a migraine loitering with intent and so I look out the window at the street.

There are kids playing. Harmless, shrieking and laughter but it jars against the inside of my skull, jacks my shoulders up. And I never used to be like this so…

#

“…so what happened?”

“Apparently, she’s been wandering round all day,” says Matt. “Then some kids turn up, start jeering at her, trying to take the bundle off her, throwing things at her and she goes down hard. She cracked her head on the curb by the looks of it.”

“Right,” I reply. I know the answer before I ask but I need to none the less. “And no one said anything to the kids?”

“No,” says Matt. “No they didn’t. And they’re long gone. As soon as it gets serious they all run.”

“OK,” I reply. “Is she ok to give a statement?”

“Probably not,” he said. “But give it a go.”

I turn to talk to the old woman then stop.

“Why is she talking to the bundle?” I ask Matt.

“She thinks it’s a baby,” he replies.

It does in fact look baby shaped. My eyebrow must have risen to full mast because Matt continues: “It’s not a baby, just some rotting vegetable she’s picked up somewhere along the line. She won’t let go of it.”

#

I select all the words I have just written and delete them. Hollow things unworthy of the save command. I look up vegetables on Wikipedia. I can’t find the one the old woman had. I do see a pumpkin. I hate pumpkins, even the smell of them is…

#

…is turgid and I do not wish to experience it close up again. That fetid stench is wafting from the woman, if she were in a cartoon green lines would be streaming off her. Still, a job is a job.

My throat is burning by the time I’m within a foot of her.

“Hello,” I say. “What’s your name?”

“Hello,” she replies.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Ann,” whispers Matt.

“Ann,” I repeat. “Ann, can you tell me what happened?”

“Trolls,” she says.

“Sorry?”

“Trolls,” she repeats. “Pigmy trolls attacked me, tried to take my baby. Please don’t let them take my baby.”

Her free hand grips my arm with surprising strength and attempts to bend my will to hers.

I step back, extricating myself with care. There were no trolls here, just children without the empathy to leave an old woman at home, depressing but hardly a newsflash.

This woman’s mind fractured a long time before she cracked her skull on the concrete and I don’t have time to piece it together. I look at the crowd. No one meets my eyes but that’s ok, I’m looking for something else.

#

Trolls…I could write about trolls. I wrote about them once but no one else much liked it. The thing about trolls is they are metaphorically limited. A trope that is hard to use outside a specific context.

I look at the news, hoping for inspiration. Instead I see the bag lady staring up at me from the local. I don’t remember it being that bright but…

#

The sun glints off the window of the ambulance. The glare makes me blink.

“Alright,” I say to Matt stepping back. “You can take her. I can’t get anything sensible out of her.”

“We’ve been trying,” he replies. “We can’t get her in the ambulance without taking the bundle off her and she goes mental every time we try.”

“Goes mental?”

“Ha ha. You know what I mean,” he said pointing at his face.

“Can’t you just let her keep it?”

“It’s a biohazard,” he replies.

“It’s a bloody vegetable,” I reply.

“I agree, still I can’t take it in the van,” he replies.

“Then just take it off her,” I say.

“Tried,” he says, pointing at his face and then his arm, a set of teeth mark lining his wrist.

“Oh for f***’s sake,” I reply.

It only takes two paces to return to her. I pull the bundle gently but firmly from her grasp without warning or asking. Subsequently I am out of range again before she registers what’s happened. The vegetable stares up at me from the rags. It looks like a deformed and rotting turnip, surface slick with something that looks like milk. It smells worse than she does.

Ann screams long and loud. Expletives rain down on me like a flash flood. Then the threats: she’ll kill me, she’ll die, she’ll…I’ve stopped listening. Instead, I drop the bundle in a nearby bin.

#

My arse is numb from sitting too long. Still no words. I stand and run my fingers through my hair, some of it comes away in my hands, a little bit every day, soon I’ll have to bite the bullet and shave it all off. Funny, I never thought I’d be bald. Then again I never thought I’d be a lot of things.

That shopkeeper, the one with the CCTV camera, had an awful comb over. He was about as much help…

#

…the shopkeeper sends me away with: “Sorry mate, it’s just a…what is it called…deterrent. No tape. Tape costs money.” There is an awkward beat where I decide that it isn’t worth an argument and turn on my heel.

The street is quiet when I come out. The crowd’s gaze turns on me once more, a hostile look, an accusing look full of unspoken words. I look around for Matt.

I find him in the back of the ambulance. His face is set as he presses down on the woman’s sternum, as if he’s trying to force her back into her body. I watch as his colleague swings shut the door. I’m still watching as the ambulance pulls off, lights flashing blue on blue.



#

The woman died.

It wasn’t her head. She’d had cancer for a long time. The doctors couldn’t understand how she’d been walking around given the pain she must have been in. She just shut down: no ones fault.

I close the laptop. I can beat my mind against the page as long as I want but it won’t let go of that bundle, and trapped behind it are the words.

But there you have it: Some days I just don’t feel like writing.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

It had to happen sooner or later…

OK. After 47, more or less, consecutive Friday Flash Fiction entries I’m afraid I’ve lucked out this week and there will be no entry today. *Hangs head in shame*

I did actually write a piece but - although the idea is good - it’s just not polished enough to post and so I’m going to work on it some more before posting it next Friday. I don’t want to just put things out there for the sake of it - I want to grab your attention, to entertain you.

In the meantime, and so you don’t feel let down, I’d like to draw your attention to some of the stories I’m most proud of from 2008 (the full archive is available on the nav bar above). They are in no particular order:

Pixies
After The Rain
Faraway
Territory
Touched

You can check out Friday Free Fiction at Futurismic. And don’t forget the other fictioneers (apologies if I miss anyone - feel free to self-promote on the comments thread):

Greg O’Bryne
Sarah Ellender
Shaun C. Green
Dr Ian Hocking
Gareth D. Jones
Jay Lake
Martin McGrath
Dan Pawley
Justin Pickard
Gareth Lyn Powell (Originator)
Paul Raven

And remember kids: I shall return Mwaaahahahaha!

Friday Flash Fiction: Mary

Feedback -as ever - is appreciated:

Mary
By Neil Beynon

“…I love that curl,” he sighs, flicking the errant lock with his finger as he struggles to finish his carefully crafted and crumbling segue. “I’m going to miss it.”

Mary looks at him with her big brown eyes, bright with the sheen of chained tears; her hair hangs in wild ringlets that refuse to be tamed and frame the light gold of her face. Over the pungent smell of bitumen from the sweating street he can smell faint undertones of strawberry. She always smells of strawberries.

The street is empty save for them. No people. No cars. No one much wants to drive far under the circumstances. Those that are have gone already; fled faraway to the arms of family, friends and faith while the people left behind huddle close in the abandoned detritus.

She blinks as if punctuating a question that hangs unspoken. He reflects that she has eyes that other women would kill for. Hell, if he continues to look into those big brown eyes staring up at him he might just drown. Then again maybe not, his resolve - at least - would falter.

And so he looks away. Up at the stone wheel hanging in the sky above the city, an axe poised over their heads, an axe that will either kill them or set them free - depending on whom you ask.

It is a chance glance. Yet he looks up in time to see a section of the lower side of the stone disc, the quadrant high above and to the front of him, roll back. Above his head the inside of the disc yawns wide, airless and black. He can see nothing within.

“Would you look at that,” he says.

Silence.

He turns to look for Mary but the street is empty. She has walked away, footsteps hidden by the rubber soles of her shoes, leaving the ring he gave her abandoned on the ground. He picks it up as if it is an alien thing he has never seen before, both surprised and not surprised. A schizophrenic response for a schizophrenic day.

Perhaps it is for the best, he thinks, his memory dwelling on her blinking eyes. Then he turns back to the gaping mouth looming large above him, a hollow black that seems to swallow the light and bleed shadow.

He shivers; a vague sense of disappointment draped over his shoulders. He wraps his arms around himself as if trying to capture something, something ethereal: heat perhaps? Or is it the smell of strawberries that has dissipated so quickly? Whatever it is has already flown. He is standing alone in the dishwater grey street with his goose bumps and the smell of atrophying bitumen.

Casually, he wonders what happens next.

Friday Flash Fiction: Precious

I was vaguely surprised to realise this is my forty-second FFF entry, really - given the number - it should be a comedic reflection on the meaning of life but sadly that’s not what I wrote. Hope you like it anyway, feedback - as ever - is welcome. Here goes:

Precious
By Neil Beynon

The door pops open without warning. It cracks loudly against the wall like a gunshot and causes Sarah to jump, spraying dishwater across the kitchen. There’s a low cursing from the doorway; she slips one rubber-covered hand around the textured grip of one of the knives she’s just cleaned.

#

The sheets are still warm and damp. She watches him pulling on his underwear in the netted light as she enjoys the feeling of warmth on her bare skin, the warm glow in the pit of her stomach. It seems like the afternoon is cast in chocolate; a sugar coated moment ready to melt into a gooey mess without warning and flecked with guilt.

#

The air from the open door is cold and Sarah’s skin is a chain mail of goose bumps as she moves towards the intruder, the faint smell of dishwater and wet rubber following her like a fetid cloud. There’s a man in the hallway so ancient he looks like he’s crawled out of the grave, he leans on the wall, one age stained hand cast to the heavens and the other gripped around the banister rail for the stairs. His silver haired head is bobbing up and down as he tries to regulate his breathing.

#

“I have to go now,” he says.

#

“Are you ok?” asks Sarah, forgetting about the knife.

#

“What’s this?”

#

The man looks up. His face so creased with age it’s barely recognisable, but she does manage to place the person who stares out at her from that paper-thin ancient hide. A face she’s seen every morning for the last thirty years, a face that only this morning was framed with hair only flecked with silver, whose flesh was smooth, firm and fleshy even though you would not call it young.

#

Steve is pointing at a gold chain hanging from the hook inside the cupboard door that is open because she left it open. On the end of the chain is a crystal medallion wrapped in fine silver, it is delicate and in the darkness of the cupboard it seems like there is light trapped in the crystal.

#

“Ken?” she whispered. “But…what happened…?”

#

“It’s just a trinket,” she says. “Something Ken gave me when we first moved in together.”

#

Sarah rushes to her husband who is eying her warily from his position in the hall. She places the knife on the dresser then moves to his side, taking his arm and leads him to the sofa where she helps him sit down.

#

He picks it up and moves into the light of the window. The crystal is still glowing although it’s harder to see.

#

“What have you done?” says her husband, his voice broken and frayed like old rope.

#

“It’s beautiful,” he says turning it one way then another, watching the light bounces off the walls.

#

The words are like a sink full of cold dishwater being poured over her. She moves to the armchair, perches on its arm instead of sitting properly and does her best to look casual. She really is uncertain what he means. There are so many things he could mean. But deep down she knows. She’s worn it like her own chain for so long.

#

“You have it,” she said. “A gift to remember me by.”

#

“Done? I don’t know what you mean.”

#

“Won’t he notice?”

#

Her husband doesn’t answer. He merely stares at her. The phone rings.

#

“He never checks it, he’s not bothered besides he gave it to me,” she replies. “It’s mine now. You have it but keep it safe – it’s a precious thing - there’s only one in existence.”

#

She rushes to answer it, relieved to be away from his gaze. She closes the front door as she does so, an absent-minded afterthought.

#

“Thank you.”

#

“Sarah?”

“Steve?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Look Sarah, I had an accident.”

“What do you mean? Are you alright?”

“Yeah I’m fine, it wasn’t that kind of accident. I…I dropped it.”

“Dropped what?”

“The medallion. It shattered, it’s ruined…Sarah…are you there?”

The click of the receiver returning to the cradle is louder and more final than it should be but the house is silent save for the hiss of his laboured breathing.

#

“Don’t thank me,” she said pulling him back to the bed. “I want more than that.”

#

The world spins, a kaleidoscope of bad wallpaper they never got round to replacing, a doorway, the kitchen and Ken hanging in the doorway staring at her again. Not even Steve’s firm thighs, easy green-eyed gaze and warm calloused hands could prevent the single stabbing feeling of anger she cast his way.

There’s something in Ken’s hand.

“What. Did. You. Do?” asks Ken.

“I’m so sorry Ken,” says Sarah. “I didn’t mean it.”

#

She watches Steve walk down the street from a crack in the door, wide enough to allow her to see but narrow enough to stop anyone seeing that she is only wearing a small shift she threw on to see him out. His hand is in his pocket, guarding the gift she has given him but her eyes are on him as he walks down the street. As he disappears she casts a look at her watch. Ken will be home soon, she’d best get dressed and on with stuff.

#

The blade glints in the afternoon sun, shattering the light and scattering colour across the walls as Ken shuffles towards her, hands trembling with age or rage – there’s no way to tell. She backs up against the wall; the gloves on her hands leaving wet stains on the paper that will never come out.

“Didn’t mean what?” asks Ken.

Friday Flash Fiction: Territory

As long as I’ve been doing the Friday Flash G has been asking me to write a specific type of story. On weeks where I find myself clawing for ideas the answer from her is often: do that one I want you to do…or words to that effect. And so finally I have.

This week’s story was written for G - belatedly - for the occasion of her birthday.

Feel free to provide feedback in the comments.

Territory
By Neil Beynon

You, my subjects, ask where I have been in your simple tongue, bewildered by my glorious reappearance and my newly acquired battle scars. You look fearful at what creature was bold enough to leave such welts on your master. Are you safe? You think. Should you run? But the glint in my eye and the sharpness of my tongue silences such worries even as it casts my mind back over the darkness I’ve just walked across.

#

As soon as the great fire lord dove below the horizon I was up and about. The cool dark my preferred time, there was no moon it being the silver one’s time of rest. A dark night, good for secrets, good for trysts and made for hunting.

And hunt I did. Over fields, fences, rivers of stone and water to the woods. All across my realm I roamed. I fought and killed a burrowing beast in the woods; it had a tail twice as long as itself and tried to run but there is no escape from my swift blades. The blood was warm and sweet.

My next prey was a winged beast that rested on the stone river but I did not fare so well in that for the creature was huge and unwilling to go quietly. See the cut upon my shoulder from the fell beast’s talons but know that it carries far worse from my swift work though escaped it did.

Near the brick temple I met Lady Tora. She seduced me with a flash of her bright green eyes, the cheeky almost insolent tilt of her hips and her sleek, crow black, coat. The lady is a witch. Our union rang out across the darkness attracting the attention of feral primates who cast water at us in their insolence. As my lady left, bored of our dance and unwilling to risk the cloying fluid that destroys balance, I resolved to attack. To make the wild apes mine. The cunning monkeys had locked the doors against me and I was too exhausted from my lady’s appetites to gain entry.

I slept for a while in the cool and the dark.

My energy returned, I patrolled my borders, as is my want as the darkness draws to a close, checking I had marked them properly. There were rumours of an intruder, another nightwalker hunting my kingdom. At first I thought it was a joke: Another? After last time?

Surely not.

Then as another long tailed beast fell beneath me, further information extracted with a minimum of fuss – the creature hardly bled at all, I smelt him. On the gentle breeze a musky scent that is not my own, it is more pungent, wilder and marked with the length of his journey. It wafts from the near by fence. He is near.

I dropped into the caged field with ease and there was my quarry. Frozen, eyes on me, shoulders hunched and ready to pounce as I moved slowly closer. There is no talk between us; this is no accident. This is a challenge. Bold, daring and insolent.

It is he who makes the first move, leaping at me with skill and poise. Yet I have not kept my kingdom through idle banter and I answer every blow. I add a few of my own with the precision that is my trademark for I dislike waste.

Through the remainder of the night we fought: two ancient warriors in an epic struggle. Across the land we wrestled for superiority, all the creatures of the kingdom watch us – even the winged ones. As the fire lord returned, my victory was complete, my opponent limping across the stone river to the west, the one that marks the end of my lands.

#

And so my servants I return. You may bring me some more of your excellent wine – the creamy white one that tastes nearly as sweet as blood. And I dare say I could manage some of that metal fruit’s meaty filling, if you have any.

Quickly now. I don’t have all day.

Review: Odd and the Frost Giants By Neil Gaiman

I read Odd and the Frost Giants yesterday as a break from labouring on The Woodsman. Something I could fall into for an hour in order to think about something else; no real intention to review it. Reviewing Neil’s work is hard because I am quite clearly and obviously a big fan. No matter how many times I point out that I actually think Stardust – although enjoyable – is quite a weak novel technically speaking, or that much of his poetry simply falls short of his fiction, people rightly view me as biased.

But the problem is I do like to talk about his work.

Odd and the Frost Giants tells the tale of a Viking boy called Odd. Odd has had a hard time of it growing up: father dies at sea, mother remarries a bad tempered oaf and he accidentally shatters his own leg trying to use his dad’s axe.

One winter, after the snow has stretched on far too long Odd escapes his obnoxious step family by retreating into the forest to his father’s old cabin. On his journey he meets a bear, a fox and an eagle; creatures with a story that sends Odd farther than he ever imagined.

A journey to Asgard, the land of the gods, and an appointment with some frost giants.

It’s easy to forget just how clever Neil Gaiman is. Beneath the charm, the floppy hair, the disarming smile and the aura of eccentric dishevelment wrapped in a leather jacket it’s easy to overlook that there are some serious smarts lurking beneath the curls.

Odd and the Frost Giants is a beautifully crafted example of this. On the face of it you have an obvious, unashamed, recycling of Norse mythology into the form of a longish short story. Fun, entertaining but not too much going on.

This is a mistake.

Delving a little deeper you’ll find a whole host of cleverly blended mythology, history and fairy story, sprinkled with narrative echoes of Milne – intentional or not - and finished off with a healthy swig of humour. Imparted in the story - transmitted if you like - is a deep love of Norse mythology along with – hopefully – enough nuggets of knowledge to encourage children to pick up more books. To find out if bits of the story are true. To ask questions like “Did ice really once cover the world?” and “There were Vikings in Scotland, no way! Where did they go?”.

Told with prose that is direct, clean and crafted to let the story run with minimal interference from the author, Odd and the Frost Giants is a welcome escape for an hour whether you’re six or sixty.

And remember: all proceeds go to this.

Friday Flash Fiction: Faraway

Feedback as ever appreciated. Here goes:

Faraway
By Neil Beynon

The tree still stands. That’s something. That’s what she tries to tell herself as a cold breeze sends her hands to her elbows in search of warmth. Her bag lies discarded by her side, a faded red cross hanging on by one corner’s stitching, an airplane tag kept from drowning in creases by its string mooring; tethered to the handle as the wind threatens to drag it away in a merry dance across the sky.

She can see the sky is a brilliant azure, hardly a cloud in sight save for the odd puff of white. Like gunfire. And she thinks to herself: it should be grey.

Her gaze sweeps the newly laid car park. Looking at where once was soft earth, in which trees had once dragged their feet in a slow intricate dance that only the stars ever really saw and where, as a girl, she’d sneak down to watch the owls at night.

All gone.

Save for one. Save for the tree that still stands. Her special place. His special place. Their special place. She steps forward to the small wooden barrier that encircles the tree. She doesn’t run her hands over the wooden cage they’ve built for the tree – it would leave splinters – but her hand hovers above it as she walks around the futile architecture. As if trying to sense if it has any power.

The plaque is brass. Like the car park it has not been there long. Her fingers explore the words etched on it, examine the smoothed off edges where it meets the wood. And her lips mouth the words.

The smell of the place is different. Gone are the smell of wood and mud, vanished is the tang of grass permeated with wildflowers and there are no clothes drying in the wind. Adding their soapy scent to it all. Now all she can smell is dust and tar, smells that catch in the back of her throat like two dirty fingers.

She steps over the barrier and up to the tree. It still stands but the trunk looks paler than she remembers, older than she recalls – but then they were both that – and as if something vital has been drained from it. If she didn’t know better she’d have said it had died, that they’d merely preserved the carcass - maybe that was true but the tree wasn’t actually dead. It had bloomed only a few months ago according to her sister.

She kneels at the base of the tree. Searching for the opening. It isn’t there. Just a small hollow that could never have been what she remembered and yet there it is. Perhaps it closed up unable to bear what had happened. Perhaps her memory is faulty? Although she’s spent so much time in her own skull lately it’s all fading, merging with other’s miasmic musings of what once was.

She isn’t sure of anything. Hasn’t been since Korea. And she can’t ask him anymore.

She steps back, looking up at the branches. Big huge knots of wood stretching into the blue but containing nothing more than decaying leaves. No familiar sights, no familiar faces - lined with age but recognisable - gazing down at her. And far above, the tree that once reached the clouds now falls short, as if it is slowly shrinking back to seed.

There is a flapping from a tree branch so high she nearly misses the owl, sitting there in daylight beyond all reason but gazing down at her all the same. She starts. It can’t be. She begins to speak and then catches herself. Of course it isn’t. Too young, feathers the wrong colours…besides - why would he be there when the others…

It’s horrible. Like she’s back in that fetid tent again, with the flies and the laid out meat awaiting identification; as if, once more, she’s rolling back the blanket from what’s left of him. That the tree - like him - is both there and not there. Something discarded, forgotten and forlorn. She shouldn’t have come.

She doesn’t know why she did. When her plane landed it seemed the most important thing in the world, more important than resting, or seeing her sister or pretty much anything normal.

Perhaps she had hoped it would still be as it was. But no. She’d known about the car park. Yet it’d still felt like her lungs had no air when her eyes fell on it for the first time. Had still felt a little part of her die when she realised she could see the uppermost spire of the tree and that there was no escape. No remedy.

Just like in the tent.

She steps back over the barrier. Her hand lingering on the brass plaque, tracing the J, caressing the P and lingering on the H. No one called him Joseph. At least they got the rank right.

“Bessie!” calls a voice.

Bessie turns, her uniform making it difficult. Her sister is waving at her from across the road. She raises a hand in return before turning to pick up her bag. Gives the tree a fleeting look back before walking away.

And the sky should have been grey but isn’t.

Buggeration

Apparently today is the 30th March. Constant readers will know this was meant to be my self-imposed deadline for finishing The Woodsman.

I haven’t hit it, have no chance of hitting it given I’ve only got as far as the end of chapter six, but it’s not all a lost cause. Having the deadline in mind has spurred me on and I’m learning loads -mostly by mistakes admittedly. I’ve also really enjoyed the process of teasing out the themes and fixing the problems of earlier drafts. That I can see what needs to be done to finish it helps.

Most importantly what’s been done to date is better than what went before.

So new deadline.

It took me around eight weeks to get to chapter six and I have around seven to go but I also have other short story projects backing up…let’s go for June 15th. No particular reason other than I’d like to have it finished in time for the Arvon course I’m attending in July.

Anyway, chapter seven beckons…

Friday Flash Fiction: Burned

If you missed last week’s flash, it can be found here.This week’s piece was written at Eastercon for the Friday Flash Fiction workshop we ran to launch Illuminations. Not one to ask others to do what we would not, each of us wrote a story whilst the attendees crafted their own compositions.

As ever I’m not sure this works but here’s mine:

Burned
By Neil Beynon

The city burned. Fire like fingers pawed the sky, knocking down buildings in clumsy haste to grab the velvet black. Hot ash danced down alleys, coalesced in squares and throttled the hapless few.

“What happened?” screamed Amanda over the city’s howls.

“I don’t know,” said Pete. His eyes not on her but drinking in the amber riot in front of him, watery orbs listless and lost.

Amanda tugged at his arm.

“We’ve got to get out of here.”

Pete stood there, as if his feet had melted to the atrophying asphalt. Gently he removed her hand from his arm, the wedding band on her ring finger having left a blister from the heat. The silence roared over crashing steel.

Amanda paused, her eyes full of smoke, perhaps. Then she ran.

And the city burned. But she did not look back.