Magenta Monster

I love my writing challenges and October is GothNoWriMo, a challenge not unlike NaNoWriMo which is NAtional Novel Writing Month where you attempt to do write a novel in a month (who knew!). GothNoWriMo is an unofficial gothic version which runs in October – I like doing it as a warm up for Nano.

Previous years I have written novels or 30 poems of the flopping around in pale shimmering nightdress variety, this year I thought I would do a series of flash fictions that focus more on the dark side of things.

Flash Fictions are stories under 1000 words long and I set this blog up as part of a weekly challenge I take part in on twitter called FridayFlash – where you write a flash fiction each week and share it for free on social media. I have been doing this for years now!

Now I have done the 30 stories in 30 days challenge before so thought I would up the stakes and go for more like 2 stories a day – that is 60+ stories.

I will be rolling the tropes out.

Writing commenses at midnight!

I will do regular updates and probably post a lot of the stories as I go.

The air was thick making thinking sluggish the sentinial sat wishing for sleep knowing that none would be forth coming. The last 1000 yrs had been the same, sweltering heat and grit storms. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the heat had been dry and dusty but it was thick with humidity – the sort that would have pressed on the lungs if anybody other than the sentinal had remained.

It was just as well no one had as the humidity was made not just from water but from oily organics that had been evaporated from the broiling surface. Lungs that breathed the grit ladened air of Santor would have simultaneously drowned and had their lungs fried from the insides out – that was if they weren’t abbraided by it first.

Anyway you looked at it it was a slowish, painful death.

The sentinial stood – he did not worry overly about the air – he no longer breathed but the heat was beginning to be an issue. The oily smog of an atmosphere was not corrosive but it was abrasive and grit had jammed one of the cooling fans. The motors that helped the Sentinial where sealed units or at least had been now things were getting a little thin for wear and there was nothing it could do.

The waiting had been millenia and he was starting to have doubts that they would ever come back, his people had preserved him as they preserved themselves in a floating cloud of ice particles out there beyond the atmosphere. The sentinal’s sensors had watched them blink out one by one, a constellation gone, Was it the senosors that had warn out in the intervening time or personal cataclysms, one after another or something else?

The planet had not recovered in the way they had expected, it had become more inhospitable. Maybe plan b) had worked instead and the lights were not extinguished but removed from the system as the explorer craft came back, maybe they had rescued everyone but him. His brain purred and twitched at the thought, and he set the grinding motion of the calculations and transmission go. It absorbed him and took for ever, originally he had done this whilst relaying game moves to friends aboard the plan b)’s but all had fallen silent.

He was lost and forgotten and yet he continued with his job, what else was there?

There was a niggle, something was not right, or more wrong than normal, little pin picks seemed to be invading his system, he had no organics left and yet he had never managed to loose the idea of pain. He locked his processes down and scanned his system as best he could, he could not find the issue.

If he’s had the cameras still he would have seen the crystal growths encrusting his body, seen how the sharp laths pushed in and punctured him. He fizzled and froze and hung, one thought on loop until it became nothing but a whisper.

“so alone”

Written for Bi-Visibility Day.

Saving Heaven

I’d broken away from all that religious nonsense several years before the incident, and was living estranged from my family for the effort. It was a Thursday when the knock at the door came. I pulled it open and an older man in a fine but dated suit stood there, he was of a slight frame and muscle toned, in short he was the kind of guy I would fancy but would decide was too old for me. He had thick curled hair that sat around his face, it had once been black but was no more.

‘Hello?’ I said puzzled.

‘I am looking for the witch,’ he said.

I paused for a moment and then slammed the door in his face, anger pulsed in me. He knocked again, I stood not sure what to do, he knelt down and opened the letter flap, ‘I can shout my business here or you can let me in.’

Sighing I unchained the door, he was brushing himself off. He smiled, it dimpled his only slightly haggard face in an annoyingly cute way. ‘Better,’ he said stepping in. I shut the door and turned to demand what he wanted but he had moved off and into my kitchen. There was the repeated clamour of cupboard doors being opened and shut. He’d put the kettle on, he’d actually made himself at home!

He turned round and gave me the cheeky grin once more, then he sobered, he radiated a sorrow and the tongue lashing I was going to give withered. ‘Heaven is invaded.’

I stared at him, what was he talking about?

I was used to hysterical religious types hunting me down, either to try and extricate the devil or to plead I work God’s miracles. I had seen through the whole lot when I was about 14 but it had taken me until I was 19 to completely pull away, psychic churches were hard to leave, any religion is hard to leave.

Part of you never does leave and it is the part I was always fighting and here was this idiot trying to drag me back into the madness. I realised I was grinding my teeth.

I took a deep breath, ‘I think you need help.’ I said it as kindly as I could but he misunderstood me and nodded.

‘Yes very much, that is why I was sent to find the witch only they told me you had left, they didn’t tell me you where a boy, they said you don’t believe anymore. I can see that this maybe the case but it does not matter, you do not need to believe to help us. Do you have any sugar?’

To my amazement I pointed to the cupboard where I kept the sugar. ‘Are you a friend of my parents?’ I asked slumping down on one of my beige Ikea kitchen chairs, the sort with the metal frame.

‘I know of them, they are psychic fools, you know? Been deceived by all the hippy stuff, nice people but deluded, you though, you I can feel from here. Maybe once they had it, I don’t know.’ He paused in the act of adding the too mounded tea spoon of sugar to his mug, he seemed to freeze for a moment and then sigh. The scratching clink of the spoon was somewhat annoying and I wasn’t sure if I was impressed or insulted.

‘I really can’t help you, I don’t do that stuff anymore.’ I made a conscious effort to unball my fists and drape my hands in a more relaxed manor in my lap. He just smiled, dimpled cheeks and all and bought me my favourite mug – a little sailor dragon going on holiday.

I took the mug, and fell into his well timed trap, his skin touched mine, no more than an accident but far more than on purpose, his vision rammed into me and I saw great winged creatures shooting up into the sky and turning urgent somersaults. I smelt the burning of the citadel below them, heard the screams of souls in anguish.

I shuddered back to myself, sloshing scolding fluid onto my hands, I swore and almost dropped the mug, would have if his hands had not gently been there to rescue it for me.

Swallowing I tried to get back the initiative, ‘who are you?’ it would have worked better if it had not been such a breathy whisper.

‘Pahaliah, don’t try to get your tongue round it, you will only fail, call me Pal.’ He stroked my hand and I felt my heat rise, I was about to embarrass myself and he knew it. I shook him off in annoyance.

Smiling he stepped back, giving me room. He turned his back and I saw the glimmer of wings, just a faint outline, not really there, they could not exist in this realm. Shakily I grabbed my tea needing to sip.

‘Oh little non believer, what am I to do!’ he announced looking back at me from over his shoulder. ‘You are a pretty boy, boy witches are rare you know. Just say you will expel the deamons and I will break my vow for you.’

‘Your vow?’ I stammered, blushing and thinking I should have asked about expelling deamons.

‘I vowed 500 years ago that no one would share my bed, your books record us wrongly, we are not sexless, no never that, it’s just we may choose and change. Ah I see that pleases you.’

I cringed at my body and tried to hide slumped in on myself. ‘Say you will help! Say you will save heaven!’ His voice was harsh now.

‘I don’t know how!’ I whined.

‘All you need to do is try!’

The space between us was covered in moments and he raised me from the seat, he seemed bigger now, ‘help me?’ I whispered and he nodded, the dimpled smile playing on his lips as he lent in for our first kiss.

The pack of unlikely primates were bright but not the best equipped animals, it was amazing they had survived this far, their leader was the most intelligent amongst them. He’d killed all the other males but now as his group all began to be heavily pregnant or nursing small babes he wondered if that had been a mistake. Hunting was getting hard.

He called and a young woman answered, her tummy was rounding but not yet cumbersome, she could still hunt and that was important. They were on the move, he had already abandoned half of the women and their young at the edge of the hot wildness, there was water and goats, they could live there if they could keep the predators away. They had not walked fast enough for him.

Things were changing, food that was, was gone and he had moved whilst he could, whilst his people were strong. Others had stayed but they would have slowly starved. He gestured and others fell in behind him, they ran to the trees and to play the waiting game. The hot wilderness was encroaching here too, stealing the forests. He saw the pattern but could not think on cause and effect, though action pushed at him.

They found a small family of forest bore, dangerous creatures to hunt, tucks and teeth and a turn of speed. The hunt was on and it was exhilarating. The mother was suckling, they would eat well. He raised his spear, made in a new way with different stones he’d thought of.

The girl stopped him, anger in her eyes, she was his daughter from his first mate he recalled, she was pretty and smart, could think like him, he looked for the danger or better pray but there was none. He grunted displeasure at her but she did not cower from him as she should have. Instead she pointed to the creatures and then to her belly, he was puzzled – of course she was hungry. They were all hungry, that was the point of hunting. Then she made the cooing noises the women made, soothing sounds, rhythmic like the birds. Some of them he had turned into hunt signals.

She gestured with her hands, rocking a baby and he understood. She didn’t want to kill the pig family. He shook his head annoyed and raised the spear once more, she grabbed the shaft in open challenge and defiance. She was not a male, she was not contenting for a mate but leadership. He struck her down and motioned for the others to hold her.

One of them refused, her belly was more rounded, he hissed in frustration and motioned for her to be held also. He slaughtered the pigs, his people would have full bellies.

Satisfied he looked out at the mass of water, a great lake he could not see the other shore of. As the meat cooked he bound the two girls hands in the same way they had made the spears and secured the flaps of hide so they could carry things. His mother had worked it out, threaded hair and grass together. No one had done that before.

As with the males of the groups, he showed no mercy or remorse and hurled the girls off of the cliff. Turning his back he forgot them and fed his belly. He hunting on and on, leaving groups of too heavily pregnant women when the hunting dried up.

The girls hit the water but his braiding was never that good and they struggled free, water burned they’re lungs but some how they broke the surface and flailing found they could stay with their mouths out of the water, but soon they burned with tiredness. A creature like those they had tried to hunt appeared calling and clicking, they held each others hands as more of the creatures came. They swam up too them, grey blue skin and strangely kind eyes.

They tried to bat them away but the creatures came back, again and again. Too tired one of the girls grasped the creature nearest her, it was that or sink. The other girl copied and now the creatures were cooning and happy. They swam with the girls, helping them onward, out from the shore. Further and further until thirst threatened to kill them. A trill woke them from their stupor, both looked to the islands, in the distance there was a thick cloud rising from the most distant, it was dark in colour.

The creatures nuzzled them off their backs gently and the women wadded a shore. The sand was fine and black and glittered in the sun, fish darted sliver and quick around their feet. They found a small stream and drank deep of fresh non-saline water, it was sweet and clear and beautiful, not the muddy slush they had tended to drink in the group.

After they had sat a while they staggered back to the shore, the creatures nodded and bounced in the water, they wadded in and stroked the blubbery skin. Grunting thanks.

‘Ed-en?’ one grunted the other nodded, there were fruit on the trees and plenty of large plump birds. Both girls wondered if they had died, their grandmother had drawn pictures on the cave walls of after death. They had little language to express the thoughts, but movement and pictures helped.

Using things from the sea they drew the creatures that had saved them, on the sand, then they beat their chests and raised their hands to the sky. Thanking the gods of the sky and sea for saving them. The ground rumbled in response. They ate and rested and built shelters our of bits of tree that had fallen.

The dolphins taught them to swim and their babies were born into the water.

In years and decade and centuries a people arose who were born of savagery and love, they worshiped the dolphins but forgot the lessons of harsh pride that their origin had taught.

There’s a cat that appears at the back door sometimes, it has markings that make it look like a skull in reverse. It stares at me but wont come in. My own cats ignore it and if we attempt to put food outside for it, it pointedly ignores it until the slugs come – then it turns and walks away with one backward glance showing us just how disgusted it is with us.

The slugs then eat the cat food, if I am feeling hacked off at the universe I let the chickens out of their coop and watch them as they slice the slugs to shreds. They produce good eggs for the next couple of days.

But mostly I just watch the slugs, sometimes they each other, slugs do that you see. It’s quiet amazing to watch, the dark brown speckled ones are the most likely to do this and sometimes they are all bundled together in one gooey mess. They mate in a similar way.

As do snails, the other day I found a snail in one my plant pots, I was going to feed it to the chickens but it had all these little white pearly eggs attached to it by slime, it had been laying them in the soil when I came along. I felt bad, like I would be killing a family so I put it back and then I remembered that I would need the veg growing in the pot and I extracted it again.

Apologising I set it down out side the garden, it was a selfish act, not kindness, it was die out there and it’s eggs shrivel away to nothing but I killed it slant wise and not direct. I probably should have put it in a tank and cultivated it for meat. Snail can be lush.

Maybe next time.

Anyway the cat with the inverse skull, it is a bit of a mystery, you see it is not one of my cats and since the strange day when everything changed there is no longer a proper beyond the garden. It’s all just hot and bare and I think crackling with radioactivity. My dad tried to walk out beyond it all, convinced it was some stupid TV show but he never came back.

I’m not sure how we are surviving, Dad tended to stock up on things as he thought the end of the world was coming. Sometimes I think that is what has happened. But it makes no sense, it is just our house and our garden. The chickens are all girls so at some point we will stop having eggs, and there is only so much I can grow, mostly we have a cellar full of cat food. Water seems to be not a problem, at first we panicked and filled up every cup and basin and pot we could find but the taps just keep working. I don’t know if they will for ever.

It gets really boring here though and so I think one day soon I will try and follow that cat as it walks away. It may take me out there were Dad disappeared but what else is there really? I read all the books to death. Mum is ageing so I probably should stay and help her but if the water stops or she dies then I am out of here.

Oh look there it is now, the cat with strange markings, they look like an inverse skull. I shall get the cat food.

The liquid was cool and clear and had many many little bubble floating up and popping on the surface, pop and fizz and sugary smell, it drew her forward. Kimmy stared at the offered beverage her eyes wide with wonder, dark brown hair curled around her face but she did not move to take the glass.

The large lady offered it again and smiled, it was a sad smile but Kimmy was weary of it, it looked different to the viscous smiles that would offer her food and then take it away and laugh or land a fist on her. A chunky hand covered in more gold and glitter than she had ever seen, lowered the glass down to her height, it had a straw in it!

Carefully she put her mouth round the straw but still did not take the glass, it was cold and sparkly and it kind of hurt but the sugar zing was amazing. Somehow she ended up holding the glass and slurping greedily, she panicked and looked up but there was only amusement in the dark crinkled eyes above her.

Looking through her lashes she handed back the glass, and though no thump came what would happen when Mum came back, when it was time for her mum to leave the police station again? She liked the childrens’ home, the beds were clean and there were cartoons on the telly but she couldn’t relax. A sound outside made her jump round and Kimmy’s eyes scanned the room for an imminent arrival.

‘Did Sam explain what happened today at the courts Kimmy,’ startled Kimmy stared back at the large lady, and tried to think, tried to remember, tears pushed out of her eyes at her failure to recall.

‘Why don’t you come and sit on the settee?’ Kimmy shook her head she didn’t really want to get within arm reach.

‘You’re mum is going to be in prison for a while this time Kimmy, she has also agreed to allow you to go to another family to be looked after, to become part of that family.’

Kimmy shock her head hard, and began to back away, what had she done wrong? She’d tried so hard to be good and now… ‘please don’t let them turn me into dog food!’ It was supposed to be a shout but instead it was a whisper.

The lady still heard her though.

She bore down on Kimmy who couldn’t back away any further and scooped her up, she was so shocked she forgot to struggle. ‘No one is going to hurt you like that Kimmy, no dog food factories or punches and food and I will be making sure you are safe and loved.’

Kimmy laid her head on the large woman who smelt of flowers, she didn’t really know what love was but she knew what safe was. The snug was safe she didn’t want it to end.

With the death rate nearly non-existent the population went exponential. It was an explosion, a rapid climb towards oblivion but we found a solution – sleep tanks glistened full of those who chose a way out, for now. Stacked high they formed walls and the walls grew. Citadels of the sleeping arose. Most left the planet and ventured into the stars, needing space and resources and the sleepers slept.

Jungle vines crept upon them and swallowed a world that had almost imploded. A remnant population known as the Keepers stayed to guard and protect and awaken those who slept at the a lotted times. But they soon forgot their purpose and the cities of sleepers were lost to nature – a new world arose, knowing of those who had left but not why they had stayed.

Then it began, it the core and heart of our civilization the city of Gloam, my home. It was the pulse in the night time, that moment before the dream engulfs you, then it was that the shadows would appear, reaching too us and whispering. The dreams would tumble onto most before they could jerk awake from fear and the dreams were of strange worlds.

For most people it became just a normal part of life but for those like me, it became everything. Down at the hospitals, wards became lined with those who refused to sleep and those who had refused to wake. The world of the sleepers and our own began to mesh.

I was never good at sleeping, pain kept me from the sounder deeper levels and my fait was to slowly go insane. I would have vivid dreams where I felt the world around me, so realistic and… solid. To help me I had been trained to know my own mind, to be able to reach into my own dreams and direct them.

When the shadows came I could not direct them, they petrified me and I would jerk awake and watch their outlines fade. But this only served to increase my decline and I slipped into the waking dream state of the sleep deprived. The shadows began not to fad and I walked in the corridors of the hospital, my canes clacking in support as I skittered as fast as I could from my over lit room to the day room and back again. I made sure I was as far from the walls as possible, for there the dark hands of nothing would reach through to me.

But each day they was ghostly outlines in my periphery and each night they grew stronger. Around the time the hospital decided that I could keep my light on at night, the whispering started. It seemed to hit my inner ear and echo to a painful swell in my chest. It was a forlorn moan in the night, a rabid hate and blinding anger, and bewilderment. These emotions where threaded together and slammed into me one after another. I recoiled from them.

I could not understand the words but the meaning was clear. I lost my mind and tried to hide within my own head, the shadows would not let me. The nurse came with calming sleep inducing drugs. I would have no rest through, now I was trapped and they loomed there, solid as me in my dreamscape and I knew they could inflict pain.

I tumbled through dream after dream until I landed on the roof of a pyramid, it was glass and within it emaciated bodies slept, skin wrapped around bones and a glittering darkness pervaded what should have been a clear glass like substance. A young woman stood next to me, eyes big and wide and hair shimmering in shades of blue and pink undulated around her as if she were swimming under water.

She spoke and I could hear the sorrow but I could not understand the words, her nostrils flared in irritation but she held out her hand. She was not a shadow like the others, and this was a pleasenter dream than the others that had chased me. I took her hand.

She smiled, triumphant and harsh, we began to sink through into the sleepers body within it’s dark crystal cacoon. I tried to pull my hand from her’s, she held fast. I felt I would suffocate but struggle as I might I sank down through and into the structure of dreaming bodies.

We passed through the sleeping catacomb into the belly of the structure and there a dying machine lay, lights blinking feebly and the screens encrusted with fine tendrils of some microbial life, eating the system away from it’s core. We walked hand in hand, her gesturing to diagrams I could not understand. I knew this to be real, a sharing of thoughts if not a physical actuality, our footprints left no marks in the dust.

I felt a history unrolling within my mind, in pictures and words I could not speak and then I was drifting upwards and through the pyramid of not death once more. But there was no sky now, just loam, the dirt was thick and smelt dank but up I rose, through the ruins of cities long gone, their foundations and floors – rocky rubble beds, up and up and out and I was standing in the woods.

I looked up and the light glinting through the trees and I recalled being brought there as a child. I wondered on a gravel path it lead to the city, back to the hospital and the bed I knew I was a sleep within.

I had to awake, I had to tell of the sleepers beneath and I had to do it without sounding mad. It was a relatively easy task in the end – everyone was plagued by the shadows in the walls. I never thought for a moment that perhaps we should leave them to their tombs.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Alfie’s Triumph

Alfie sat there with Sophie’s muzzle in his lap he stroked her with blue-veined hands, his skin mottled with liver spots. He was in his mothball-smelling arm chair, so old and dusty that the original colour had been faded to beige. His wife had chosen the furniture and they had been a rich velvet blue, but she was long gone, bless her. His lovely Margery lost barely a year after they were wed.

How could he ever forgive himself? But they had both wanted a family, something they’d almost had. He’d tasted paradise and had then been plunged into hell. On the cusp of having all he had desired, all he had craved and hoped for – it had been snatched and dashed on the shore of life.

Her letters had been all that had got him through France and onto the Queen Bodacea II. For his eighty-ninth birthday his great nephew had taken him back onto that savour of a boat once again as it had been returned to the river cruise industry from which it had been stolen during the war. He’d been amazed that it was still going and yet there it was with its shiny Dunkirk plaque; he’d sat there, covered in a blanket reminiscent of the ones they’d had back then only this was a brightly coloured tartan rather than the drab bottle green in itchy wool. He was going home to her, how ironic that his survival would spell out her death. These thoughts had circulated in his mind for decades. Others had told him to find a new wife but how could he? No one could ever have compared to her, and how could he risk another woman’s life? And no matter what they said they’d want a baby sooner or later and he just could not bear the risk.

He’d seen so many die, so many bodies. He’d thought of them as meat in the end, you had to to remain sane whilst wading though corpses. But she had lain there, his beautiful angel, with what should have been her joy next to her, a little girl she’d have loved and shown to cook her own mother’s welsh recipes. The little hands where cold just like her mothers.

He had wept, sobs racked him but he had failed to grasp what a world without them would be like. All the horrors of war could not have prepared him for that. The army had refused to take him back, not with that piece of shrapnel in his leg. The same piece that ached beyond endurance when the frosts arrived.

Sighing, he pulled himself out of the chair. It was painful; his finger tips permanently tilted sideways with arthritis. Marge would have known some remedy, he was sure. Sophie, dislodged, looked at him expectantly; he smiled gently and patted her boney head. Other similar heads rose with large round eyes.

‘Now you lots!’ he said affectionately to the dogs, ‘you’ll all get a walk in turn don’t you worry!’ He moved slowly through the room to the hooks the dog-leads hung from. His jacket on, he clipped it to Sophie’s collar and headed for the door.

‘I’ll have to polish me medals tonight Sophie! I haven’t done it for a month,’ Marge had been so proud of him and had made him promise to polish his medals so they always gleamed. And he did. He also polished the old service revolver; he knew he shouldn’t still have it, but noone had asked for it back. Of course that might have been because it was actually Corporal Williams’ gun, but the poor sod had told Alfie to oil it and what have you, when that shell had landed. To many things then happened and Alfy had forgotten to say he still had the officer’s gun.

He’d sat there with it on his lap when he’d returned from the hospital, it would have been so easy to join his wife and child but the thought of Marge’s disapproving hurt look had stopped him. All through the war her letters had made her wish clear.

‘Live for me, if I am gone live for me.’ and so he had. He’d kept the gun even when the law had changed, making him a criminal. There had been gun amnesties and still he had kept it. And he looked after it just imagining old Williams’ face if he hadn’t.

Sophie and the other seven dogs were for Marge, he smiled at the memory as he walked briskly (if creakily) up the road. The greyhound pulled at the leash. ‘Don’t worry Sophie, soon you’ll be able to run as much as you like.’ He’d taken Marge to the dogs just before the war. Her friends had been aghast, so uncouth and down right dirty masculine but she had adored it. Had cooed over the greyhounds in their stalls. Initially she had thought the dogs half starved, lamenting over the fact their ribs showed but he had appeased her, and they had won a whole ten bob.

It had become their thing to do together, she’d loved the dogs so much and they had planned to have their own. She’d never got to have her greyhound so Alfie had adopted them one after another. Old ones who could no longer race, whilst he was working he’d only been able to take one at a time. They were highly strung beasts and their hearts weren’t very strong. He made their last days as fun and stress free as possible.

Sophie was the oldest of the current pack and therefore got preferential treatment. The park was deserted, which was good; he didn’t like giving the dogs free rein if there were small children playing as the over-excited animals could scare or knock the little ones over. It was a consideration he felt sure Marge would approve of. He let Sophie off her lead.

‘Hi Alfie!’ He turned and smiled at the two school girls with Cassy, a beautiful Collie.

‘Hello girls! Running late today?’ They shook their heads.

‘That mean guy’s about again so Dad said we not allowed to walk to school anymore, just take Cassy for her walk and come back.’ They looked slightly crestfallen; Alfie had known them since they were toddlers in the park and they’d been so proud that they were allowed to walk to school now.

‘Is that the man with the British Bull Dog?’ They looked at him slightly blankly, he smiled inwardly, ‘The Churchill dog?’ they nodded. ‘He told his dog to chase us and Cassy, Dad said that’s dangerous, it sucks, we’re going to have to get a lift. It’ll be like being in Junior school again.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Alfie, vaguely. He recalled the man, he was older than a lot of the solders had been, older than Alfie had been when he lost Marge, and yet here he was, bullying school kids.

‘And he looks like he’s stuck in a time warp!’ the girl flushed, ‘Not like you, Alfie, though.’ Alfie smiled again, he knew what she meant; he still wore his tweed suits but Marge had liked him to be smart.

‘Yeah,’ chipped in the other one, ‘He looks like he’s from the ninetees! And he’s really fat,… and’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘He’s one of those horrible people, you know, a neo-nazi.’ Alfie looked at the girls, both frightened and excited; he remembered that look from kids during the war when they shyly approached the solders to ask questions.

‘A neo-nazi?’ he asked. Did this little girl, born so long after the atrocities he fought, even know what a nazi was?

‘Yeah, he threatened my friend just ‘cos she’s from Shri Lanka,’ Alfie felt the fear rise in his gut. How had they let their guard down? How had they not seen the echos of the Third Reich?

‘Anyway, we’ve got to go! See ya!’ He waved as they bounded away with more energy than he’d seen in a few decades.

Troubled, he continued to watch Sophie sprint in high speed around and around in circles.

‘Call that a dog!’, someone called from behind him. Alfie turned unhurriedly so as not to give the enemy any sign of fear. There he stood with his dumpy dog tethered, the opposite of Sophie’s rangy elegance.

‘Yes, sir, I do,’ The man really was a slob, the girls were right; he wore a Union Jack t-shirt which didn’t even cover his beer belly. Alfie had thought such visages only belonged on the boxes of the music the kids listened too.

‘Eff of you old fart! Chalston doesn’t share this park with no skeletons of a dog.’ Alfie looked at this man. ‘My God’, he thought, ‘and he is wearing the British flag’. It made Alfie feel sick, he’d fought under that flag and this was a grotesque distortion. It was even printed badly.

‘I will walk my dog where I like, thank you very much.’ Alfie could feel the adrenaline rack his old frame, but he would not back down from this bully.

‘Nah you old git, you ain’t walking that here,’ He’d bent and was unclipping Chalston who was growling wetly, great stream of drool escaped his flabby jowls. Surprised, Alfie just stood and watched as an exhausted Sophie made her way back over to him.

‘Attack!’ the man screamed pointing at Sophie. The small dog may have looked comical, but it was vicious. It headed straight for the exhausted greyhound. Chalstan locked his teeth around one of Sophie’s fore paws.

‘Stop! stop! Call him off!’ Alfie shouted but the man just laughed. Alfie knew such an injury would probably prove fatal but he was desperate to rescue Sophie. Sophie turned her boney head to him, pleading; whimpering. Softly Alfy saw her bright eyes begin to fade. He was beside himself and rushed to her side and. ignoring the protests in his knee he knelt to cradle her. ‘Weak hearts!’ was all he could whisper. The man just kept laughing, just kept on about how pathetic Alfie was.

Alfie looked at the obese piece of shit. He was meat, like all those Jerries he’d killed, and this one was Nazi meat, the girls had said so. Sophie had been for Marge and this fucker had killed her. Marge would disapprove of Alfie’s language but she’d have to lump it.

Alfie stood up with Sophie in his arms and strode home. He cried silent tears, for Marge, for Sophie, for those who were gone. He laid her on the kitchen table, something Marge would go spare about. He opened the drawer and checked the service revolver. The other dogs whimpered. ‘Don’t worry,’ he mumbled to them, ‘I’m going to get that Nazi.’ He shoved the well-oiled machine into his pocket and left the house again. The journey back to the park passed in a red haze of vengeance. The park was still empty, good, because he couldn’t do this in front of children. The man was there, Chalston back on his lead.

‘What you gonna do, old man!’ he laughed and spat in Alfies face. Alfie didnt say anything, he just raised the gun. The man’s eyes flew wide with fear, his doughy face took on a waxen texture. Alfie smiled slightly and pulled the trigger.

BANG.

A whimper.

God, he’d forgotten how much recoil hurt.

‘Wha…? the man said, shocked to find himself still alive. Alfie turned and walked away, he had one dog to bury and seven more to walk.

‘Chalston! You sick fuck you, killed ’em! You fucking shot Chalston!’

At home Alfie cleaned the gun and put it away. He sighed, and went to dig yet another grave. He’d be in trouble for that, he knew, but he was sure Marge would have approved. Well, she would have pretended not to, but that didn’t matter.

Sophie buried, he sat quietly, waiting for the police.

June is the month that sees National Flash Fiction Day on the 21 so I thought that I would spend this month writing flash fictions 🙂 The aim is one a day – so 30 by the end of it – I’m going to be popping them up on here but probably not every day 🙂

For some truly inspirational Flash Fiction writing check out Calum Kerr.

Written from Three Word Wednesday – deviate identify saturate

Ismail was a cop, from a long line of cops, he had The Code and he followed it rigorously – find those who deviate, identify them and their acquaintances – then saturate their brains with correcting fluid. It was for their own and everybody else’s good. It had been this way for a full two decades before he was born.

He was a good cop and he loved feeling he was helping make the world a safer place but sometimes the worm of doubt would start. Would whisper in his ear and sometimes it got so bad – like today when he found the library and had to take the little old lady into custody. He’d looked at the books, they didn’t seem bad but his supervisor said they were full of ideas and those were what needed to be stopped. They had all felt wretched as the woman struggled, clawing with soft nails at their armour. As soon as the brain bullet hit her she went quiet and glassy eyed and drifted into the sleep, she should have awoken fine.

She hadn’t though and he was now laying her out in the morgue and wondering if there was any family to trace, they would be looking into that anyway as they would need to be neutralised as well. She had simply been too old and too frail.

Ismail sighed and turned so his supervisor wouldn’t see the tear that dropped onto the soft wrinkled cheek.

He would be sent back to the site, he felt the itch, the itch he always felt when on a book destroying mission. He wanted to read those words, wanted to see what was so dangerous that they had to rough up little old ladies that were more ancient than his own grandmother. One day he knew they would be using the bullets on him, one day the correcting fluid would flow through his synapses and he would feel better – his guilt would be gone. If he was strong enough he would do it himself, he knew his commander had, he’d seen the scare. He said it hurt very little.

But Ismail was a coward and he knew it. Shuddering he climbed upon the transport and glided noiselessly towards the old ladies treasure once more.

The place was tidy and neat, not a den of evil. There were hundreds of devices and each one was loaded with books! Each one was neatly labeled, ‘classics, history, science, childrens’. He stopped looking at the tags after a while, his team mates were getting impatient.

They put the devices one at a time on a destruction pad. Shards clattered around the place, marring the neatness the granny had left behind. Ismail kept the refrain in his head, ‘words are wrong, words foster descent, words make wars.’

His team mates laughed about the lace and faded niceness of the place, he shouted at them. She had been a subversive but she was still a person and she should not have been dead. He at least was doing this to save people. They shrugged and continued their work in a resentful silence.

A slick of a nose behind him made him stop, they hadn’t checked for concealments, he felt the tingle of eyes on him and ducked as the dart whizzed by. His team mates were not so lucky, their bodies making dull thumps as they hit the floor.

Ismail was trained for such events and evaded them for a full two minutes but there were eight of them. He felt the hysterical laugh as a cold dart punctured his skin. His mind seemed to soak out of his head and he flopped into a dream.

He awoke by degrees, pain spiking through his bound arms and trussed feet. His breathing became erratic as he panicked over the dusty cloth wodded into his mouth.

‘He’s awake,’ snarled a voice.

‘Good, it is time to ask some questions,’ said a second voice.

‘And then revenge Nana?’ that was a pinched voice, young and afraid.

The rope attaching his legs to his hands was loosed and he was helped to hope along to a chair. He was steeling himself for torture but instead they removed the rag and forced his head back, he tried to clamp his teeth down but they were prepared. The truth brew was thick and sweet, it glooped down his throat making him gag.

They asked pointless questions, about how many cops there were and where the correcting fluid was sourced. Many of their questions he could not answer and that made him so woefully sad. Then he slept, and the books he’d destroyed tumbled in front of him and glassy eyes stared accusing, it was an old dream.

He awoke naturally, his bonds cut, food and pain killers sat ready for him. Gulping the water he thought too late that it might be poisoned then he thought of the third voice and ate all the faster. They came for him just as he finished dressing in the clean cloths that had been left supplied. They were standard issue but clean and felt cool to his skin, he had a fever, he was sure it was fear.

They led him out to stand by his team mates, one of them was slumped the other blubbing, snot oozing from a nostril. He looked around with quiet curiosity, they were dead, he knew that much but this was amazing, if he did not know better he would think this was a trail. His granddad had told him about them just before he had been corrected.

He looked to the right and saw a middle aged woman in a dirty fuzzed wig, they made eye contact and his resolve broke, ‘please!’ he croaked, ‘I know you will kill us but please! I want to hear what the words say! Why are they so dangerous?’ A hush filled the room, she nodded and large hand grabbed him from behind.

She lifted a little wooden hammer and struck a platform, ‘take him to the core for education.’ He struggled but they were too strong for him. He heard the wail and sharp snicks as his team mates collapsed. He went stiff with the realisation that they were dead and bit his tongue to keep himself focused. It was a pointless gesture as the needle pricked his skin.

‘Do not fret,’ said a soft voice, ‘you are going to hear the words, a life time of words.’ And he tumbled into the darkness.