365 Ficlets - Day #365 ~ "What a Day This Has Been..."

Her skin felt good against mine as we lay together in the sunlight, the warm afterglow of the sex we had been having wrapping us both up in a bubble of happiness.

“Did I already wish you a happy birthday, Baby?”

Her cheeky smile made me feel incredibly happy. I pushed her hair out of her eyes, cupped the side of her face and kissed her softly, eyes open looking right at her, and then;

“You did, Sara, and you are the reason that it is so happy, so soon in the day.”

She laughed, her eyes shining in the morning light;

“So that’s all I have to do to make you this happy?”

She was joking and so I went with it;

“Well, yeah, but the truth is that the more you do it the happier I will become.”

She laughed again, and then became a little more serious for a moment, squeezing me just a little, just to tell me that I should answer truthfully.

“It is more than that, isn’t it? I mean we have that, and it’s great, but that’s not all you want from me is it?”

I squeezed her back, fixed her gaze and replied;

“I love you Sara, all of you.”

365 Ficlets - Day #364 ~ "Hail Mary Play"

“This space is amazing. I just know that Andrea is going to love it. Can you show me around the backstage area as well please, Tony?”

Tony smiled to himself, inordinately happy that he had sold the place well enough that Andrea’s assistant was asking to see the facilities; the front of house had made the right impression.

Ever since he had taken the job, Tony had been looking for a big name performer or act to come to the chapel to ‘put it on the map’ as they say. Andrea was more than big enough as a star and a singer to really draw the crowds in over the Autumn run; “if Andrea McCormack played there it must be a serious venue” and that sort of thing. Now here he was a few moments away from signing the deal that was likely to save the Chapel from its owners worst impulses.

The tour around the backstage area went off without a hitch, and twenty minutes later Tony was waving goodbye to a taxi containing a very contented tour manager, and trying to contain his glee at having saved the Chapel as a live music venue.

365 Ficlets - Day #363 ~ "On Loss..."

There is no end to any of it, there are only new beginnings. That is the koan which my master left me with on his deathbed, and even now, three years later, I find no peace in it. Nonetheless as I stand over the grave of perhaps my closest friend this so-called wisdom offers me no comfort. No, instead it sticks in my mind like a cruel taunt; what ‘new beginning’ could possibly be here for Tessa or for me?

Her grave looks like a wound in the Earth. There is nothing even remotely natural about burial, about placing the dead in the ground. People say that we become one with the ground, food for worms and beetles, but embalming and coffins lead to that future being unlikely. Tessa did end; there is no new beginning for her, not even organic recycling.

Some might say that her new beginning is the afterlife, others might say it is re-birth or reincarnation, but standing over the dark trench of her final resting place, looking down at her coffin I am so completely certain that she is gone; there is no comfort here.

365 Ficlets - Day #362 ~ "Cloister"

“There are too many names there, don’t you think?”

Leonard looked across the cloister, curious to see who was speaking. He did not expect it to be an old friend. Greg had been one of a small handful of people that Leonard had counted as friends in his seven years at the school; they had neither of them been mainstream people back then, and looking at him Greg had not joined the mainstream quite yet, but then neither had Leonard.

“You know that is just what I was thinking, uncanny that! How are you old friend?”

They crossed the intervening space and embraced in a way that they never could have done whilst pupils. Leonard could not contain his curiosity any further, and so he asked;

“What on Earth are you doing here, Greg? I mean I surprise myself by being here, but you?”

Greg smiled;

“I’m speaking at the same event as you. I imagine someone more conventional dropped out at the last minute and I was the only remaining alumnus with any kind of success in their life, albeit not strictly within the bounds, so to speak.”

365 Ficlets - Day #361 ~ "The Day I met Mr. Kinsey..."

“Just relax Sally, you’re going to do fine, I promise.”

She fixed him with a look that was somewhere between resolve and fear and nodded that he should begin.

“So, to begin with, can you describe the first memory that you are aware of when you first discovered that you could give yourself pleasure by touching your own body?”

“You are sure that this will remain anonymous?”

He nodded and smiled reassuringly;

“Yes Sally, I am sure. This session is not being recorded in any way, and as your interviewer I do not know your surname, and I am not resident in the same state as you. Every precaution has been taken to make it entirely safe for you to be completely honest with me, thus assisting the research team as a whole to gather the most accurate detail.”

She gathered herself, and nodded once again, then took a deep breath before she began;

“Well it was not until I had been married for four long years that I first learned about my own pleasure, and it was actually through an indiscretion that I uncovered this private joy.”

365 Ficlets - Day #360 ~ "Cheating Heart"

“Would you like another drink?”

Her smile confirmed Patrick’s assumption that she was in no rush to leave, even though George was waiting for her at home. He moved slowly, enjoying the ritual of putting ice into their glasses, of gently pouring the precious amber liquid over the ice and hearing it float and strike the sides of the glasses.

“Here you are; you should enjoy this, it’s a special edition from the Islay Distillery, I was lucky to find it.”

They sat there, gently sipping their drinks, the silence hanging between them was not quite uncomfortable, but it was not a familiar or welcome one either.

“Patrick, why did you ask me to come here this evening?”

He took another sip of his drink and then placed it on the desk, before rising out of his chair and walking over to Serena’s chair. She looked up at him as he took her glass from her hands and put it aside as well.

“Patrick?”

He placed his hand on her cheek and moved closer, intending to kiss her. She thought about it for a moment, and then she let it happen.

365 Ficlets - Day #359 ~ "Before the Fight"

The campfire was crackling away, flames rising a couple of feet off the floor and everyone was crowded around enjoying the heat and the spectacle, as they often did on nights like these on patrol. There was no reason to hide from the enemy tonight, as none of the twilight scouts had reported any movement in the surrounding hills for twenty miles in any direction. For now at least they could relax, albeit with the usual watches posted, and enter into the “campfire way” as they all referred to it. There would be storytelling, perhaps a joke or two and then when the mood naturally took them that way, there would be at least one song before the first to sleep would say their good-nights and head for their tents.

As was often the way, the young men encouraged Inigo, the old armourer who tended the men's weapons and chain, to go first. He stepped into the firelight, put one foot up upon the hearth and began to weave a tale as old as the hills, that they all knew only too well. Of course the joy was in his telling.

365 Ficlets - Day #358 ~ "Beach Memory"

The beach was teeming with people and activity when Greg finally made it down there. Not only was there a Capoeira group having a exhibition style match come demonstration just a few yards to his left, but there were any number of what he liked to call 'activity people' getting ready to go.

Canoeists with their surf kayaks, dingy sailors rigging Mirrors. Lasers and the odd one or two more uncommon types, and power kiters getting ready to fly, up and down the beach. One or two hang gliders were being packed away, and looking away towards the far headland Greg could see several more still riding the updraught from the on-shore breeze.

It was basically as he had remembered it from the times a few years before when he and Dana had spent their weekends out there, looking for some peace and beauty away from the hustle and bustle of London. When they had drifted apart he had known it, in part, because she stopped asking him to go down there with her on the weekends. Now he was, oddly, happy to be back without her.

365 Ficlets - Day #357 ~ "Friendly Fireside"

As Lucas bent down to enter the low door of the teepee he caught a waft of incense and felt the warmth coming from the brazier in the middle of the floor and he was immediately taken back to his days of LARPing, and the Burgundian that Hector had offered up whenever the nights got too cold.

A chorus of 'come in' shook off his memories of times past and he clambered in through the door hole, covered the opening with the weighted canvas door, and he settled himself down on a pile of cushions.

They were all strangers, of course. The reason for doing this retreat had been to meet new people. Instead of organising it as a group outing for his friends, he had booked a singles trip to the lake.

There was a joint going around that he refused and a bottle of something going in the opposite direction, which he discovered was toffee vodka. As he looked around at all the other happy faces, and the candles and pillows and rugs he decided to relax and enjoy himself; Danica would have been so happy to see him that evening.

365 Ficlets - Day #356 ~ "Bombshell"

“Thanks for meeting me. I know it wasn’t what you wanted to do, I mean I know it’s hard for you to see me, and well, thanks.”

Karl looked up from the menu and nodded, fixed Susan with an assertive gaze;

“Well clearly you have something to say to me and I think the three years we were together have bought you this much indulgence from me, but I will be honest and tell you that I’m not feeling patient. I mean it’s bad enough that you cheated on me six weeks before the wedding, but to do what you did… No groom to be should walk into a room to see his best friend’s wife eating out his fiancée who is screaming her pleasure without even thinking about how much more likely it must have made the possibility of detection.”

Susan’s shoulders slumped a little and she quickly shot glances left and right to see if they were overheard by the other diners and then turned back to her former partner;

“I’m so sorry, Karl. Still I know that you don’t want another apology so i’ll get to it. You see, the thing is I am pregnant, Dear.

365 Ficlets - Day #355 ~ "Special Delivery"

Of course the doorbell went just as I was getting into the shower, I mean when else does anyone come to your door? So there I am, wrapped in a couple of towels trying to sign for some package that I don’t even remember ordering without showing the delivery guy everything I got, and the water’s getting in my eyes from my hair and well, by the time I got the damn thing inside and the door shut I was in a foul mood.

So I’m stood in the hallway, dripping onto the rug and staring at this package that’s about the size of a small dog andwondering what Earth it can be. Is it those speakers I am waiting for? No they were not due for another week. What about a gift from someone, out of the blue? Unlikely, my birthday was still three months awat, and besides I wasno longer at an age for pyhsically large gift giving.

I decided to put off the grand unveiling and get back in the shower, but as I turned to walk away there was a tearing sound and what felt like a feather duster being run over my legs, as a cat shot past me.

365 Ficlets - Day #354 ~ "Round One"

Winding the tapes between his fingers was the ritual that took him out of the world and placed him mind and body into the bubble of the bout. From this point onwards nothing else would matter until his opponent was out, or he was.

On the edge of his awareness he could hear Frank checking his bag; best cut man in the business, and the oldest, but he still checked the bag three times before any match. The noise finished and he felt Frank’s hand on his shoulder; a silent encouragement, a notice that Frank would be by his side.

The tapes were wound, and without fanfare Jerry was holding out the first glove, always the left first.

Gloves on, quick warm-up, hood up and start for the ring.

He stepped out into the gaze of the arena and the crowd went wild. His heart skipped a beat, just as it always did, and then he raised his right hand and started to jog down to the ring, hood falling back just as planned.

Into the ring, gently hopping from foot to foot, adrenaline now at full effect.

In the other corner; smiling.

Shit.

365 Ficlets - Day #353 ~ "Tower Tryst"

The wind felt good in Faran’s hair and face. Climbing to the top of the East Tower had left him tired and flushed, but the cooling wind was, along with the spectacular view of the bay, the perfect tonic.

It had been ten years of war that had laid the foundation for the tower he was now stood atop. Once the Garlanians had been beaten back into the sea it was Faran’s grandfather Retief the Bloody that had commanded his people to raise up a tower overlooking the three bays, from which the guard could keep a weather eye for sails on the horizon.

Of course the Garlanians had since become allies and partners in trade, and the war was far back in history, but the East Tower still had its uses. On hearing her footsteps behind him he wheeled round and grabbed her waist; Hiera had been trying to sneak up on him, even though he was there at her request and he had known she would be there somewhere. She squealed with delight, then rained kisses down on his face as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

365 Ficlets - Day #352 ~ "Carnival Morning"

The sounds of the carnival were ringing still in her ears when she awoke in the morning. Starting from her sleep and flailing around madly at the canvas that seemed to be all around her she realised that she was not trapped, but was merely between two tents that were standing very close to one another.

As she sat up she could feel that the wet ground had soaked her blouse and skirt right through; her clothes were so wet that they felt like wet tissue paper against her skin. It was at about that point that Lena started to wonder why she could not remember why she was there, on the ground. Why was she not at home in her bed, with her lover. Where was Helena?

And so it was at that moment that she became scared. She felt her breath start to quicken, the beat of her heart coming more quickly and then she was on her feet and running, hopping over tent pegs as she went. She burst out from between the two large marquees to find such a scene of devastation…

All those bodies and all that blood, and so she began to scream.

365 Ficlets - Day #351 ~ "Fatherhood"

The truth is that the very last thing I had expected was to become a father. The recent past, well the last ten years at any rate, have not brought much actual love into my life. Of course there have been lovers, but no one who stayed very long or really got inside my armour.

No one could get close to me after what had happened, and so when Serena came along I was not expecting to find myself in love. In fact it was such a surprise that the last four months have passed almost without my noticing.

Without my realising I have a beautiful, intelligent woman living in my home, sleeping in my bed and sharing my life, and now she’s pregnant. There is a part of me that wants to slow it all down, that is terrified that nothing that can last can happen this fast. That thinks men who have children with women fifteen years their junior are often chosen for their money, not their inner being. When she tells me that she loves me, that little voice becomes very, very quiet indeed, and all I see is the mother of my child.

365 Ficlets - Day #350 ~ "Scoop"

“There’s a story here, I can feel it!”

Damian was already getting excited, gesturing wildly and flitting around the table, picking up memos and invoices from the pile of documents that his contact had posted through his door early that morning.

“Come on! There are hundreds upon hundreds of transactions here that are nowhere to be found within the annual accounts of Foliginan, the parent company.”

I watched him, enjoying his infectious enthusiasm, wondering where he was going to take me, as I had not yet looked through the documents and he had spent all day with them. I decided to spur him on;

“So what you are saying is that this anonymous informant is telling you to follow the money, that the answers to our more interesting questions about the shooting at the retreat are actually answered by a money trail?”

His eyes lit up and widened with the rush of joy that I fed to him by following his line of thinking.

“Yes! Yes, absolutely. I am starting to think the Police assumptions about an angry employee are way off.”

365 Ficlets - Day #349 ~ "Gun Team"

“Load!”

“Loading!”

“Fire in the Hole!”

“Firing!”

BOOM

Everyone on the gun team stopped for a moment and enjoyed the fruit of the last forty seconds' labour and then they began to move like a well-oiled machine to cycle the gun’s breech, bring up another shell, load and fire; all in the same forty seconds.

Lieutenant Peabody was calculating the impact of keeping her most senior pilot on the rotation as well as the entire gun crew, as she worked the team through the orders and watched for opportunities to improve their performance. She wondered if warfare had always been about ‘cost-per-round’ and activity targets, budgets and spreadsheets, but only as much as keeping her mind on the battery protocol and her real-time budget would allow.

Off to one side, O’Hare, the pilot that was costing her forty units more than anyone else, was completely in the zone, guiding shell after shell into the target margin as if he was born to be a shell-jock.

Only time would tell about the budget, but the old man would like the hit profile.

365 Ficlets - Day #348 ~ "Train of Memory"

The late evening train was not as busy as Felipé had expected, as he climbed aboard the westbound train after an extended day in London. Few people expected to meet a Columbian who lived in Swansea, but he was intensely proud of his adopted country. Most of the time he was happy in partial obscurity there at the University; still the occasional trips up to Town were just enough of a tonic for the urbanite in him.

Renata had brought him to Wales. She had captivated him, and when after three magical years together in Buenos Aries she had come to him and said that she wanted to go in search of her Welsh ancestors he had been more than willing to follow her across the globe to a place famous for rain, choral singing and being subjugated by the English.

It had seemed a natural move for both of them to apply to the University in Swansea, and for the next ten years they had been happy there. Now he could not bring himself to leave. It had been four years since she had left him, and still he was unable to break away.

365 Ficlets - Day #347 ~ "Losing the Fight..."

“Mr. Todd is not going to make it through the night, I'm afraid Gina.”

Gina looked up as Freddie wandered into the nurses station and delivered this inevitable yet depressing news as he picked up a drywipe pen to update a different patient's status on the whiteboard. She was a seasoned Ward Sister, she lost patients every week, people too broken to live, but they had all found a friend in Mr. Todd . Every now and again a patient came along who was just playful enough, just enough fun to really grow attached to without their becoming a nuisance, and he had been the latest in a short list over the last couple of years.

“What makes you say that, Fred?”

Gina asked with a noticeable note of concern and worry in her voice.

Freddie shook his head, clearly he did not want to give voice to reason; and yet he steeled himself and answered her;

“He's been anuric for fourteen hours now and his oxygen sats are dropping as well, we keep having to up his mix. It's just the end, the end we've all seen before. I'm sorry, Gina, I didn't mean to sound flip about it.”

She nodded and smiled; she understood the need to be “all business” about the ones that they all became attached to.

365 Ficlets - Day #346 ~ "Song Birth"

The only thing that I can see is the single red light on my monitor. I can’t even see the microphone; it’s so dark in here. I tap the button on the desk beside me, I know where it is by touch now, and the instrumental track comes up in my cans.

My foot starts to tap silently on the thick carpet as I start to slip into the music, counting with my body not my mind, and then I begin.

The song slides out of me like smoke at first, trickling softly, quietly towards the microphone, skating across the melody like a bug on the surface of a pond. The verse builds and my voice picks up weight and power; now the vocal is starting to grab hold of the lead part, pulling its way towards the crescendo of the chorus, exploding into the refrain and then I am silent once again.

I take a deep drag on my cigarette as the music winds its way from the bottom of the chorus to the start of the next verse and so I am stepping back into the stream.

I lose all sense of time; letting the song scratch and claw its way out. Done. It’s over.

365 Ficlets - Day #345 ~ "Free Ride"

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365 Ficlets - Day #344 ~ "Dungeon"

The cold water from the walls was seeping through Geris’s cloak, his torch was sputtering in the draft. When Derral had suggested that they go adventuring, Geris had not really expected cold, wet, dark passageways; never being dry. No that had not been his expectation at all. He had been looking forward to ancient temples, treasure beyond imagining, heroic deeds and perhaps the odd hapless maiden, but nothing had prepared him for reality. He shifted his weight, trying to rest his aching legs; not that it really helped. There was no part of his body that was not soaked and he was fairly sure that he would have given anything to be in a hot bath instead.

The sound of footsteps approaching up the tunnel snapped Geris out of his damp-based melancholia. He closed his hand around the hilt of his sword and raised his shield, waiting, ready for whoever was approaching.

As the approaching torchlight started to get closer, Geris tensed up, trying to steel his nerve. He had been in fights before, but that was no comfort.

365 Ficlets - Day #343 ~ "After the Waiting"

Her lips did not really taste of anything, but kissing them made him feel so transported, so excited that it really didn’t matter one way or the other. She let out a soft moan as she opened her mouth and started to tentatively offer him her tongue, her fingers snaking through his hair. He reciprocated and as their tongues danced across each other and darted urgently into each other’s mouths he let himself slide away.

It could only really have been moments, but they kissed for what seemed like an age, hands traveling everywhere that did not have an overt next-level about it, their shared passion rising as if from nowhere to fill the whole room. Then, on instinct, he let his hand gently cup her breast, his thumb seeking out her nipple through the thin layer of fabric, and she let her head fall back as she pressed her hips against him, pulling his mouth onto her neck.

As he rained kisses down on her neck and the top of her chest he felt a hand slipping over his waistband and then her hand closing around his cock.

365 Ficlets - Day #342 ~ "Opening Night"

The lights came up and he felt the familiar heat bathing his face, and let the applause wash over him. He let the audience bathe him in their welcome, using the time to remember his opening, and then once he was ready he took a big breath and made an overblown ‘cut’ motion.

“So… Thanks for coming down here tonight. Yeah, thanks so much. I can’t tell you how many people you are proving wrong just by being here. Anyway, it’s good to be back in London…”

As he paused for the cheers that would always predictably come from the name-drop on the town he caught a glimpse of movement in the wings, stage right. There should not have been anyone over there and knowing that there was somone darting about on the edge of the stage really threw his rhythm. He nearly didn’t pick up the line after the cheers petered out, but just caught it;

“So a local crowd, then? Excellent!”

He paused for a moment and then unleashed it;

“So who here saw Watchmen? Yeah? A few of you, good. Let me ask you, did the blue cock bother any of you too?”

365 Ficlets - Day #341 ~ "Wake"

“Wipe those fuckin’ tears away yer shallow bastard! You didn’t give a fuck about her, so what are you cryin’ for, eh?”

David was wide eyed and terrifying as he screamed at Tony. The whole room fell silent and turned to watch the confrontation. David sensed he had an audience and addressed the room;

“Yeah, yer may all look, you bunch o’simperin’ arseholes! Not man one o’yer gave a shit about her and yet here you all are, sipping tea and sayin’ how she’ll be missed. Fuckin’ tea! For the love o’ all that’s Holy, where’s the damn whisky? I mean is this a wake or what?”

People shuffled their feet, nervously looking about whilst trying as hard as they might to not make any eye contact with anyone. The room was silent in response; no one dared to disagree with David, in fact they did not so it was easier to stay silent.

David relaxed a little, took a deep breath and then in a more calm and measured voice;

“G’wan, leave. Go. Yer none of you helpin’ an’ frankly yer make me sick.”

Five minutes later he and Tony were alone.

365 Ficlets - Day #340 ~ "From Music to Monday"

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. Really.”

She cocked her head on one side, frowned and then;

“That’s bullshit, and I don’t deserve that. Now come on, what’s wrong?”

Daniel sighed. He had really hoped that he had covered effectively enough, that she would not see through him and see the conflict between his happiness and his disappointment.

“You enjoyed the concert, yeah?”

She nodded, her frown turning into mild concern; suddenly she had no idea where this was going.

“Well I did too, so much in fact, but now we have to go back to reality.”

Still confused she motioned for him to continue.

“Here we are, together, seeing a band that means so much to both of us, at a time in that band’s story that is going to be very important, and I am so happy about that. I’m happy about getting to share this with you, and now it’s over and in another hour we’ll be getting off the train and heading back to our respective homes and neither of us will be able to explain to the people waiting for us why this night was so special.”

365 Ficlets - Day #339 ~ "Sitting on the Fence"

“Is it always like this?”

I look around to find a young fellow who looks a little familiar standing next to me on the crowded platform. I am still trying to place him when he intervenes;

“You don’t quite remember me, do you? I’m the fencing club’s, vice-president’s boyfriend. We met at a party at the weekend.”

It all comes rushing back, and I am slightly embarassed by the fact that I probably did not quite remember him because I was off my face; as usual. It’s no secret that I don’t fence, or that I only really hang around with the University fencing club because of a social coincidence years before, but I imagined that this guy was wondering what on Earth I had been doing at that party.

Again he intruded on my inner monologue;

“You remember? I’m Ted?”

I decide to go with it;

“Yeah, Ted. Sorry about that. Monday morning you know? Yeah, Gina’s chap, I do remember. Just about anyway. Was I very drunk?”

He nodded and chuckled; I kept my face together, but inside my heart was sinking.

“So, anyway, is it always like this?”

365 Ficlets - Day #338 ~ "Twilight Regret"

What I have always hidden from my children troubles me in these, my last hours. I have long since been certain that what I have told them about their mother and the way in which she left our lives is the only truth that they perceive, and that they have no reason to doubt me. Even so, I am suddenly moved to question my decision.

It was the long hot summer of 1976 when I lost her, when our Lottie was three and her brother Peter was only eighteen months old. Her work often kept her on campus long after I had left. The real beauty of my life as a mathematics fellow is that I have always been able to work anywhere, and so I could easily be present in our children’s lives where her requirement for laboratories made a very different impact on her time at home. I still remember the first night that she returned home, somewhat in a daze, her sentences filled with mentions of someone called Alec.

It took two gin and tonics and the dinner I had kept warm for her before I was able to decode that Alec was a new colleague.

365 Ficlets - Day #337 ~ "Before..."

As Horace moved the blade back and forth in a gentle circular motion over the oiled stone he allowed his thoughts to drift to happier places and kinder times, trying to push from his mind that the morning would bring naught but blood and death.

Unlike many of the men under his command he was no longer enamoured of war. A lifetime of killing the enemies of Rome had left him more than jaded, it had genuinely damaged him. He had not seen his wife and sons for nearly two years, and the last time he had been free to spend time with them he had felt no peace whatsoever, constantly haunted by the faces of men with whom he had held no real quarrel and yet he had put them to the sword without a second thought.

It was of no comfort, even, that they would have just as soon run him through if he had not fought with all the fury and cruelty that he could muster. In the heat of war it was not hard to simply survive, but the ghosts that followed him around in the quiet between battles were starting to weigh heavily upon him.

365 Ficlets - Day #336 ~ "La Revancha di Tango"

The house band was playing a rather dirgey tango as Tito walked into the hotel bar. A handful of couples were dancing, most of them American tourists gamefully attempting to tango rather than pulling it off, while most of the tables were occupied by local business men and their Friday night girls.

He made for the bar, cutting a swathe through the lazy clouds of cigarette smoke, feeling his heart quicken to the beat of the music, memories of dancing with Connie swirling around his mind, distracting him from his purpose.

He took a seat at the bar and nodded at the barman, who recognised him and moments later placed a mojito in front of him before gliding away to serve drinks for an impatient looking waitress. He stirred the drink lazily and waited; Sanderson was late, as ever.

He turned on the stool and placed his back against the bar, scanning the room for DIPA, sadly they were easy to spot. Satisfied that there were no faces he recognised, and no suspect new ones, he turned his attention back to his cocktail.

365 Ficlets - Day #335 ~ "Morning Offices"

It felt odd to be there, even though he had often frequented churches in his childhood. Paul was sitting near to the back of the nave, trying to keep a low profile without seeming reticent. This was his first attempt at passing in the Cathedral, and he was conscious of the intelligence that he had received concerning one of the Canons and his ability to spot Keystone members.

Suddenly cued by an unseen nod or gesture the organist tailed off the soft incidental theme he had been playing as the congregation filed into the pews and then struck up a vibrant and powerful piece that Paul did not recognise as the choir entered the church.

The pomp and circumstance of the Anglican High Church no longer held any mystery for Paul, particularly after an assignment in South America the year before, but he did notice that having experienced Catholic congregations had fitted him well for the trick of seeming involved whilst actually observing. Finding those who were ripe for intervention amongst the worshippers was his goal.

365 Ficlets - Day #334 ~ "Beyond his control..."

“What happens now?”

The young boy that I had known only for a short time, but whose face I already knew I would never forget, had the beginnings of tears in his eyes as he interrogated me.

“I mean will I have to go into a home or somethin'? I don't to, I want to go home.”

I smiled, trying to reassure him and buy myself some time while I framed the most honest and yet kind response to his entreaty;

“The thing is, under the circumstances you are going to need an adult or two in your life. Do you have any grandparents?”

His eyes lit up, suddenly there was hope;

“Well, you know that my real Dad died in Iraq?”

I nodded,

“His mum, my real gran, is still alive. I haven't seen her for about six years, and I don't know where she is, but Mum told me only last week that she'd had a letter from her, with money in it for me, to hold until my birthday.”

I nodded again;

“Do you know her full name? We will probably be able to trace her anyway, but it may help.”

He pondered for a moment, then;

“I'm pretty sure it's Fenella Cartwright.”

365 Ficlets - Day #333 ~ "Earthquake Weather"

“I hate to say it, but it feels like earthquake weather.”

The groans around the bar were quite audible. It was not like we hadn’t heard Harry’s crazy predicitons before, but then he never let us forget that he’d been right in ’89.

He sauntered over to the bar, and laid down five bucks, as always. I fetched him a Bud and a shot and went back to cleaning glasses. Everyone else went back to their conversations, newspapers and so forth; everyone except for the woman sitting at the other end of the bar. She was clearly not local; the look on her face when Harry so glibly referenced earthquakes was enough to tell that.

I wandered down the bar to ask her if she needed another drink. As I approached she looked up, quite startled;

“Is there really a kind of weather that makes earthquakes more likely? I mean that old guy said it was ‘earthquake weather’ and then everyone just went back to their business, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.”

I chuckled and put the glass I was polishing on the countertop.

365 Ficlets - Day #332 ~ "The Daily Commute"

Yet again the train was just sitting at a station between Reading and London. The PA carried the familiar grey monotone of an employee with all of the microphone technique of Napalm Death;

“We apologise to passengers for the delay to this service, which is due to unforseen circumstances on the track between Ealing Broadway and London Paddington. We hope to have you on your way as soon as possible, and once again thank you for your patience.”

Not a single person sitting on that train with me had any doubt what “unforseen circumstances” meant. Since the US had bombed Tehran in 2014 Britain has become one of the major targets of Islamic extremist terrorism, but then that would be because it was no secret that we let the American Air Force refuel, use our airspace unhindered and on top of that everyone simply assumed that British aircraft were involved. The war had been short and brutal, no doubt that 'The Allies' had won, but the aftermath? Well, I was glad to be late for work; better than being on a train bomb.

365 Ficlets - Day #331 ~ "Itchy Insomnia"

The night is cold and dark here, alone. I lie under the stars, by virtue of a skylight, and all I seem to be able to do is stare up at them and count them one by one. No matter how hard I try to sleep, nothing but more wakefulness comes.

At first I thought that it was sleeping alone that drove me so far from the arms of Morpheus, but last night there was someone in my bed with me and I passed the night watching her sleep, and then dozing for a couple of hours before dawn when I could finally close my eyes. You might wonder if it is more specifically being without a certain someone in my bed, but seeing as last night was a one-off return match with ‘the one that got away’ I am not sure that she really is the cause of my insomnia.

It does not seem likely that I am anxious about work; all is well, and I am financially secure.

No, having examined all of the other possibilites I can only conclude that I cannot sleep on account of some latent guilt, or perhaps just the fear of being caught. Murder is so stressful.

365 Ficlets - Day #330 ~ "Bad News"

“Mr. Jefferies, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Peter’s shoulders slumped, he seemed to be able to sense the weight of what was coming. After a moment he simply nodded.

“Well, the thing is that as I said I have some bad news. There has been an accident, and I am sorry to have to tell you that your wife and daughter have been killed, Sir.”

Peter made no sound as his entire body started to shake; his entire frame exhibited wave after wave of tremors, each moment the amplitude growing and then subsiding. As the convulsion reached its height it seemed to me that he was about to scream out, keening for his family, but each time he swallowed his grief down and the shaking would subside for a moment or two and then start again.

I wanted to reach out and put my hand on his shoulder, or say something, but confronted with my brother’s grief like this I was suddenly powerless, speechless, and I realised that I had no idea how to reach anyone, let alone him, who was in that much grief. I sat beside him, confused and lost.

365 Ficlets - Day #329 ~ "First Morning"

The sun was warm on Henry’s face as he stepped out of the patio door onto the deck. Breakfast was all laid out; fruit, granola, pastries, and the smell of bacon was wafting out from the kitchen. Looking around, he could not see anyone else out in the garden, so he settled at the table and started to serve himself some of the fruit.

It was good to be back in Cape Town, he could feel himself relaxing back into the pace of life and the sweet, succulent guava and mango were definitely helping to make his first morning feel as real as can be. The mountain was the other part of that anchor to memory and familiarity; ever present, always magnifying the character of the city whether clear and bright like that morning, or shrouded in its ‘tablecloth’.

He was musing on the view and finishing his fruit when Isabella appeared, as if by magic, and laid a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of him.

“Welcome home, Henry. We’ve all missed you.”

Henry smiled up at her, happy to see her, and then he started on the fry up.

365 Ficlets - Day #328 ~ "Time Delay"

Time has all of the power in our lives. Time enough to work, but not time enough to play; time enough to lose as much as we can win. It has been said that time is the fire in which we burn, and yet it is also the cooling spring in which we cleanse our souls. It is everything to us.

When the lightning struck the streetlight I can remember seeing time almost stop. As the power of the heavens surged down the pole and into the ground not four feet from me, seconds seemed as minutes, and I was completely aware of not only what was happening, but what was yet to come.

The pressure wave came surging towards me along the sidewalk, as the residual charge in the air made every hair on my body stand on end, and I knew that before another second had ticked by I would be launched into the air, backwards away from the streetlight.

I want to be able to say that I had a witty thought, or a great insight in that split second, but all I really thought about was Frannie. Then just the word ‘bugger’, large at the front of my mind.

365 Ficlets - Day #327 ~ "A Nation of Shopkeepers..."

“Morning, Cal!”

I wave from behind the counter. Jimmy, like many of my customers, is almost always jolly when I see him. I often wonder if he and the others are quite so jolly after they have left the shop with their papers and their cigarettes and other sundries that I provide to their lives.

“Turned out nice again, eh Cal?”

Molly never says anything different, and after having her as a customer for nearly ten years I know to simply add a ten-pack of Marlboro Lights to the total for the copy of the Guardian and the pack of sugar free gum that she has placed on the counter as an accompaniment to these unchanging, empty words.

Shopkeepers know all too well that the greater share of human interaction is fleeting and meaningless, but I always try to remember how precious it is to me when I have a regular customer that will actually step beyond platitudes and linger for a few moments to share an opinion or better still, really care about mine.

As Molly and Jimmy leave I tidy the counter and wait for Susan to call in.

365 Ficlets - Day #326 ~ "Tech Duty"

“What do you mean you’re not on Twitter?”

David was staring at me, slack-jawed and wide-eyed as he finished the above question. His reaction was as if I’ve just told him that I don’t enjoy having a woman blow me, or that even though I’m a meat eater I think that bacon is crap. The thing is that it’s a no-brainer to me; I don’t need to broadcast my every thought every moment that I thought it. Sure I’m working in “Web” and I blog, and I’m on Facebook, or Farcebook as I like to call it, but why is it beyond belief that I don’t have a Twitter account?

David got himself together and tried again;

“I mean how do you stay in touch with everything, man?”

This was not the first time I’d heard this, and I already had a stock answer;

“What did you do before Aprl 2007? Were you in a desert of solitude without any sense of human connection? Seriously?”

He didn’t get it, he went on for about another hour, so guess what? Yeah, I have a Twitter account now. Now the only thing left to do is to work out what the Hell to do with it?

365 Ficlets - Day #325 ~ "Sleepless Nights and Loving Mornings"

I ran my fingertip along her shoulders and slid my other hand around her waist, pulling her gently against me, letting her know that I was there. She laid a hand on top of mine and gently squeezed it as she relaxed back into my embrace. She turned her head a little and whispered;

“Hello, Baby. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

I rolled my palm over her shoulder, cupping it and massaging it softly as I let her know that I was happy to be awake by starting to lay kisses around the nape of her neck.

“I see. You’re quite happy to be awake then?”

She asked the question in such a way that I had a distinct impression that she was playfully raising an eyebrow, but there was no brush off there; I could tell that as I felt her other hand gently running up the inside of my thigh.

“I love you, Baby. Take me to bed, or lose me forever.”

We laughed together; it had been such a long time since one of us had quoted the movie that had brought us together all those years before. I scooped her up in my arms, and carried her back to bed.

365 Ficlets - Day #324 ~ "Home Invasion"

“Wake up.”

Fran was shaking me hard, her hands gripping tightly onto my shoulders. I clawed my way out of my sleeping state. Just as I was about to ask her what in the Hell was wrong with her she clamped her hand over my mouth and whispered in my ear;

“Listen. Do you hear that?”

I strained to hear whatever it was that she wanted me to hear, but the silence was all I could detect. I was about to tell her she was crazy, that it was just the wind, or the cat, when I did hear something. Someone or something knocked over something breakable, because there was an almighty crash from downstairs; something glass or china broke against the floor. The fear that ran through me at that moment was electric; someone unwelcome was in our house. Our son was sleeping down the hall from us, and the stairs separated us from him, so my thoughts immediately turned to his safety. I turned over and whispered to Fran;

“Wait here for me; I’m going to go and get James before he makes any noise.”

She nodded and I slipped quietly out of bed.

365 Ficlets - Day #323 ~ "Back to the Bay"

“And what is the purpose of your stay, Sir?”

I smile at the immigration official;

“Some business, some vacation. You know how it goes.”

They nod and smile back, then hand my passport back to me and I'm in. Even someone like me, with no nefarious thoughts, with money in their pocket and with no plans to out stay their welcome, entering the United States can be a nerve-wracking business. Still now that I had passed the test I could make my way into the City and focus on the meetings that were the genuine justification for flying half way around the world, and even with that pressure hanging over my head, that was a relief.

I headed across the bridge from the terminal to the BART station and having bought myself a ticket waited on the platform for my high speed ride into the heart of downtown. London could learn a lot from San Francisco on this front. This was my second visit in just over a year and I was still impressed by how simply, efficiently and cheaply the airport is connected to the main part of the City.

365 Ficlets - Day #322 ~ "Travelling Blues"

“Hello there.”

Oh God, she's grinning in that way; you know what I mean, the way that your scary aunty did when you were a child. It's been a constant stream of them, horny fifty-something widows and divorcées, ever since I boarded the boat. I really am starting to wish I'd listened to my friends who had warned me about the dangers of holidaying alone, on a cruise liner. Don't misunderstand, if I was less than fifteen years younger than any of them then I would be happy of the attention, but not only am I still in a place where I want my lovers to at least be capable of having children, but I am on holiday alone not to find a replacement for my last one, but to simply get away and forget. Still, I am not able to simply ignore her or anyone else; we are on this relatively small ship together for ten days after all, though thankfully four of them were done;

“Hello. Taking the air?”

She nodded and sat down next to me, unbidden.

“I'll be honest, I saw you head this way after dinner and I wanted to talk to you.”

My heart sank, the last conversation that had gone this way – after lunch – had been very depressing.

365 Ficlets - Day #321 ~ "Torture"

Hot, too hot. Mouth dry, throat hurts. Eyes open? No, too bright.

“Are you ready to tell us what we wnat to know, Mr. Devlin?”

That voice… Who is that?

“Your current level of discomfort is not the end of the road. There is more to come if you don’t give us the information that we want.”

Have to focus. Is that the one who was called Ignatius by the tall one? Yes, the voice of Ignatius, I recognise him.

“Mr. Devlin?”

Open eyes; slowly. So bright in here. Can’t see him, must be a PA system. Sit up, straight back. Show him strength; resolve. Try to speak;

“N… Noh.”

Throat so dry, can barely make a sound.

“Would you like a drink, Mr. Devlin?”

This is how they start. I say yes to anything and then I might say yes to more things. Have to fight the temptation, but so thirsty.

“How can that hurt, Mr. Devlin? Surely you can accept a glass of water?”

“No th… No thankyou.”

365 Ficlets - Day #320 ~ "The Cut of Memory's Knife"

“What are you doing here, Vic?”

Her smile sent a shiver through Paul, he remembered the time long ago when he would wake up to that smile. Having been put back out into the field, Paul had been given no information on his handler beyond the protocol and the eight meeting places. When he had picked up the location instruction he had wondered if it would be Harrison again; the last time in London it had been Harrison, but he had never thought it might be Victoria.

“Hello Paul. How’ve you been?”

Paul shrugged, still reeling internally while trying to come across as at least professional.

“You weren’t told it was going to be me, were you?”

“No, but it’s fine. I’m fine. How have you been Vic?”

She smiled again, and then suddenly she was all business;

“Well, we want you to infiltrate a new group working in and around Southwark. Their activities have started to become a little too out in the open, and we need to understand what their wider objectives are, so that we can plan the correct approach to frustrate their plans.”

365 Ficlets - Day #319 ~ "Queen's Walk"

The lights on HMS Belfast were like searchlights, illuminating imagined enemies or intruders, rather than being placed by design to showcase her odd, fading beauty. Paul looked out across the river, towards Tower Bridge; he took another pull on his hipflask, now only half full with the cheap whisky he had taken from Grant's flat. “For the cold.” he told himself, but was it really?

He heard footsteps approaching, but in a move planned to suggest nothing but impeccable cool he continued to count the lights on the buildings on the North Bank, and refused to turn and acknowledge the approaching stranger. The footsteps stopped close by. He heard a low, gentle cough and then in a soft genderless voice;

“Excuse me, but do you know the way to Borough Market at all?”

It was his contact, and so Paul paused for a moment to frame his practised answer and then turned;

“I am afraid not, I am just visiting from Baltimore.”

He spoke as he raised his eyes, only realising that it was Victoria as he finished the protocol sentence.

365 Ficlets - Day #318 ~ "Dark Night by the Fire"

The polished wood feels good in my hands. It’s funny the things that put us at ease, they are so rarely the same from person to person. In fact there are no other people in my life that feel even comfortable with firearms, let alone comforted by them.

Please don’t misunderstand, I am not a violent person, and I certainly do not relish the idea of shooting someone, but I have done just that in my past, just as many soldiers have. I suppose that the frightening truth is that if you spend long enough in the field you come to see it as the status quo, and ridiculous as it may seem to anyone else I am sitting here by my open fire, practically cradling my fathers twelve bore and thinking of the past.

If the shrink assigned to help with my re-entry into civilian life saw me here without the context of my true feelings I’m sure that he would immediately assume that I am contemplating suicide, but the weapon is not loaded. I don’t have ammunition in the house, it really is just that it is a touchstone to times gone by.

365 Ficlets - Day #317 ~ "Train Dream"

The lights of Oxford were streaming past the train window as I awoke from an odd dream. The particulars of the dream were already lost to me, but I am left with a definite sense that I was frightened and confused. Judging from the looks of surprise on the faces of the two people sitting opposite me I had shuddered awake in some odd fashion, and I was left feeling incredibly self conscious.

The train was nearly back at Reading, so I started to put away the laptop and check my pockets, trying to remember eveything with the dim cloud of this unremembered dream.

The older chap across the table looked up at me;

“Are you ok there?”

I nodded, my embarassment rising, trying to break eye contact with him rather than acknowledge my odd outburst that had piqued his interest.

“It’s just that you were muttering a name under your breath. I mean, who is Deirdra?”

Suddenly the dream came rushing back to my mind, and I was lost in the dark calling out ‘Deirdra! Deirdra’, and I could smell the distinct odour of fresh blood nearby.

365 Ficlets - Day #316 ~ "Riding the Rails"

As I pass down the aisle, lurching from side to side as the train shudders and jolts on every join in the track I dispense a litany of 'sorry' and 'terribly sorry' and 'oh do excuse me' to the various people whose seats I bump into or whose newspapers I snag as I pass by.

When I finally reach the train's buffet, after three carriages of offences against the peace and tranquility of my fellow passengers, I am greeted by a smiling face that already I can tell is softening me up for a disappointment.

“Could I have a coffee, please?”

The smile broadens, and the eyes widen in an almost undetectable act of supplication;

“I'm sorry, sir, but we are not currently able to serve any hot beverages.”

For a moment I consider launching into a comical rant about the fact that there is no one on the planet who uses the word beverage apart from the people who work in transport-centric catering, but in the end the poor woman's visible anxiety encourages me to forbear. I nod and turn on my heel, plunging back into the morass of the three carriages between there and my seat.

365 Ficlets - Day #315 ~ "Weirdo"

“Sorry, did you just say that you don’t like pizza?”

She nodded, a mischievious glint in her eyes and a crafty smile on her face; she knew that this was going to mark her out for special attention.

Daniel stopped for a moment, marshalling his wit, and meeting the gaze of his audience, each of them in turn, preparing them for what was to come.

“You actually have the gall to claim that you don’t really like pizza? I must say that I applaud your honesty and bravery in this company, madam! Even so, despite my quite genuine respect, I must say that as the indigenous master of the great flat food it is my sacred duty to challenge your position, and indeed show you the very grave nature of your error.”

The room errupted in peals of laughter and pockets of impromptu applause, and Daniel rose to his feet, and bowed deeply before starting to speak once more;

“Since the dawn of time, or at least since the nineteen-sixties, people of taste and learning from across this sceptred isle have known the joy of pizza in their lives.

365 Ficlets - Day #314 ~ "New Frontiers"

“Put out your hand!”

The brand was glowing white hot; I didn’t need to put out my hand to feel the heat coming from it. I reached down within myself, searching for the resolve to endure, and endure without showing weakness. Slowly I pushed my hand forward and uncurled my fingers, willing myself to accept the pain that was shortly to follow.

I finished preparing myself for the moment when thought and reality would collide and I would find out the hard way whether or not I was right to be fascinated by the idea of marking my body with super heated metal, then nodded to him that I was ready.

There are no adequate words for the pain of a white hot brand searing its way into the palm of your hand. In the moment it happened I can actually say that I felt no pain, but the brand has to be held in place for a little more than 5 seconds in order to achieve a clean scar from the relief on the tip. I have never experienced such a long five seconds; the last four were so painful. Still it did not disappoint as an experience.

365 Ficlets - Day #313 ~ "Bar Heist"

“Buy me a drink”

I had not even seen her sit down; I was staring into my beer, minding my own business, trying to work out how to get out of my contract. No one believes me now, but meeting women had not even been on my mind when I left work and headed straight to Dane’s.

Anyway I looked over, and unashamedly checked her out; after all she had just commanded me to buy her a drink. It seemed only fair. She reminded me of a young Janeane Garofalo; her sleeve tattoos left me wondering whether or not they continued under her crop-top. Now you can say it was low that I decided I liked the look of her, and so I was sold on buying her a drink, but it was more than her look. Her look was important for sure, but the gall to sit down next to a stranger and demand a drink added to the way she looked and with her overall demeanour as well, she was compelling.

I waved the barman over;

“Yeah, can I get another beer and whatever she’s having, please, man.”

He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow;

“Black Jack on the rocks.”

365 Ficlets - Day #312 ~ "Mission Improbable"

The air is cold out in the street; it cuts into my face as I walk out. No one back home ever believes me when I tell them that it gets cold in The Mission. everyone back home in England thinks that California is like the SoCal beaches in Baywatch, but the Bay Area is not the OC. March in San Francisco is cold by most Californian standards, and windy evenings on 24th make leaving Carlos’s less appealing, but I have to get home.

Since Lottie moved out I have been staying later at Carlos’s, or The Phoenix, and it’s starting to show at the office. Being the ‘token Brit’ means that the State Department are ever present, their agenda unambiguous. If ever I was a candidate for “Visa Loss” then it was in the last three weeks. Greg is a cool guy, he knows I’m hurting. Still, I have to stop turning up at the office hung-over, unwashed and in dirty clothes.

As I head off down 24th towards my place, opposite the Francis Fountain Diner, I pull my jacket closed and almost walk right by her; she’s stood under a street lamp.

365 Ficlets - Day #311 ~ "Dancing to Nothing"

“What the Hell is going on in there?”

I was pointing into the tent, where getting on for five hundred people were dancing, in the half-light, to absolutely nothing.

A stereotypically dismissive teenage boy tutted under his breath and shook his head before saying;

“You never seen a silent disco before?”

This was the first time that I was made to feel old during my visit to Guilfest, but I am sorry to say that it was not the last. My companion - who shall remain nameless at her own request - indicated that she was in no way interested in discovering the secrets of the silent disco, so we agreed to meet later on and I wandered into the sea of silent dancers.

There are no words to describe how odd it is to see a large group of people dancing to unheard music, and clearly not the same music, in a large tent. Every now and again one sees someone dancing to their iPod, but nearly five hundred people dancing to headphones? It’s just odd, there is no other way to put it. I put some headphones on and fell into the groove.

365 Ficlets - Day #310 ~ "Cruel to be Kind"

I looked up from my coffee as he spoke to me;

“Are you going to stir that forever, Keiron?”

I smiled at him and shook my head slowly. He deserved answers, I knew that, but I was so conflicted. I tapped the spoon on the edge of the thick espresso cup, two short taps as I always did, and then the quiet clatter as I let it drop on the saucer. I pulled a cigarette out of his pack, lit it, knocked back half of the sweet, dark coffee and then tried to look him in the eye.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Paul. Do you want to hear that I love you? Do you want me to promise to come out, for me to tell you that we have a future together? Are lies what you came here for?”

His face is all the punishment I will ever need, the pain and indignation in his eyes and the tears starting to run down his cheeks are all knives to my heart, but it is better this way.

“So it was all pillow talk? You meant none of it?”

I shook my head and dropped my gaze, to show him shame and hide my own pain. He needed to hate me; I owed him that.

365 Ficlets - Day #309 ~ "Strangers on a Train"

“Is this seat taken?”

I looked up from my book to see a flustered looking woman, loaded down with bags. She had that slightly desperate look on her face, you know the one that seems to beg for the seat. Luckily it was not my brother’s seat so I offered it up.

“No, not at all. Please…”

She visibly relaxed then struggled to put her bags up on the overhead rack. After a lot of huffing and puffing she managed to get all but her handbag up on the rack and then she slumped down into the seat with more relief than one often sees over a seat on a train.

“Thanks.”

Her smile was delightful, and I realised that her voice was not what I had been used to hearing for the past few weeks, since we had been in the States.

“No problem. You’re British, right?”

She smiled and nodded;

“Yes, yes I am. I’m from a little place called Manchester, and not the one in New Hampshire, I’m from the original one.”

I consciously dropped my faux mid-Atlantic;

“Me too, me an’ our Kid, ‘e’ll be back wit’bevvies any minute.”

I love the memory of her face.

365 Ficlets - Day #308 ~ "Oops-a-Birthday!"

It had got to that time of night. The music loud, the drinks many; at least one person had seen an ex and cried or stormed off. Now the bar is just a little bit uneven where once the floors had been flat and the walls straight.

There is no justice in the world, but the simple truth is that this is the moment when the person that you most want to impress in the world walks into the place looking for a late drink and some friendly faces, and that is what happened to me.

Jessica was the coolest girl in college. I and almost every other guy in our year had been staring at her from across rooms, and the bars in town that would let us in on lunchtimes. Of course not a single one of us had ever had the nerve to talk to her. Now here she was, next to me at the bar, on my birthday, remembering my name, and of course I was dribbling drunk.

“Heya, Jess… You look fantast-t-tic!”

She smiled. I wasn’t sober enough to see it, but she actually did that smile, you know, the ‘Oh my God’ smile. I know because someone took a photo.

365 Ficlets - Day #307 ~ "Daemon Days"

“I am here? Why aren’t you here?”

Nothing. Of course there is nothing there, at least nothing that is visible to the mundane senses. I look again at the empty corner of the room to which I had directed my comment, straining to look with my heart instead of my eyes.

Now I can sense what you may be thinking;

“Is he describing the moment at which he finally lost his grip on reality?”

Well, I have to admit that the thought has crossed my mind, but in the end I have decided to embrace the connection I have started to feel about an attendant source of inspiration. It was an idea I had heard from a bright and compelling writer whose take on creativity really spoke to me, and so I have tried to find the good grace to allow for the possibility that my creativity is if not entirely from without my being, that it is at least enhanced and perfected by an unknowable external force.

“I need your help, now more than ever”, I said to the corner, “you know this is what you’re here for.”

Just as I was about to give up, it was there.

365 Ficlets - Day #306 ~ "Questions..."

“Look at me… Please!”

She raised her face, her cheeks wet with tears, her eyes filled with fear and pain.

“I’m not going to hurt you, well that is to say I’m not going to attack you with my fists or my feet. What I have to say may hurt you, but I no longer care about that, at least not as much as my own sanity.”

She sobbed slightly, lifting her trembling had to her lips and looking for all the world as though she wanted to protest, but could not frame the words.

“I have stopped waiting for you to give me real answers. I don’t know if you think that you are protecting me or yourself or maybe both of us, but I need to hear the truth from you and then you need to hear the truth from me, so just be honest with me. You did not really love me, did you?”

Her face was suddenly awash with tears and between the sobs there was a refrain of;

“But I did, I did.”

I fixed my eyes on her, locking our gaze together, waited for her to pause and simply slid the verbal knife home;

“Then why did you leave? How could you do that to us?”

365 Ficlets - Day #305 ~ "Strangers on a Train"

I can only see the side of her face, and yet for some reason I am completely drawn to her. I can’t stop looking at her. She is two rows ahead of me, fussing her bag and then gently brushing a stray red hair back over her ear, the beauty of her white skin and the soft suggestion of freckles on her temple…

How do I get from this point to actually connecting with this woman? I am so drawn to her that I am not even thinking about her naked, or thinking about what it would be like to kiss her or touch her. I am thinking about talking to her, I am imagining how her voice will sound, how her eyes will move and focus in conversation.

She is reading a briefing document; is she a civil servant, or a political aide? I imagine her briefing an MP or brainstorming in a think tank; she has that air of gravitas without seeming anything but exciting.

I fantasise about offering her my card, saying that I never normally approach strangers, but if she would consider posing for me I would love to show her my vision of her beauty.

365 Ficlets - Day #304 ~ "It's your birthday..."

“Do you want to go to the movies later?”

Carrie’s voice drifting in from the bathroom woke me from a light sleep, the kind of Sunday morning snooze that every working person spends their weekday mornings dreaming about.

“Yeah, that would be cool. What do you want to go see?”

She wandered back into the bedroom, her body still covered in tiny water drops, her hair tousled and wet, and suddenly I was not listening any more.

“You wanted to see that comic book movie, the one that the whole of fandom is either scared of seeing or is creaming themselves about. I saw the trailer on the Apple website and I have to be honest I quite fancy it.”

I tried to concentrate. I mean here she was just standing about naked, which I loved, but it wasn’t like her, and she was suggesting that we go and watch the kind of movie that normally she ribs me about even wanting to see. For a moment I wondered if it was my birthday.

“Yeah, I’d love to see that with you, baby, thanks.”

She climbed onto the bed with a very wicked smile on her face.

365 Ficlets - Day #303 ~ "Afterthought..."

If only it had been like the movies; that is what those of us who made it out of there were left with. In the movies, as often as not, there are less survivors, so it might seem strange to hear me say that, but that’s the thing that no one gets. Extreme as it may sound, I spend a lot of my time wishing that I had not survived, mired in survivor guilt as my shrink calls it.

I mean I can be doing something as mundane as buying fuel for my car when I have a flash of memory and all I am left with is guilt at having not helped this person, or having run away from that encounter, or just incredulity that the people I watched die had not been able to take in the most simple information that would have saved their lives.

Zombies are not hard to kill, not when you get down to it. All that they want to do is to grab onto you and bite and eventually eat you, so as long as you keep your distance from their low-speed shambling bodies and deal out head shots that they don’t even understand to defend, then you are home free.

365 Ficlets - Day #302 ~ "Message in a Prism"

The sunlight caught on the chess piece, the faceted crystal creating an odd irregular prism. She looked at the centre of the piece, scanning it for the hidden message that she was certain Ged had left. Turning it slowly between her thumb and forefinger, she tried to find the correct angle to unlock the crystal, as she was trained to do so many years before.

So engrossed was she, she did not hear Yuri enter the room, she did not know to conceal the chess piece and her efforts until it was too late.

“What are you doing Anna?”

She started, and instinctively attempted to palm the chess piece, drawing too much attention to it;

“Yuri, you startled me! Isn’t the sunlight beautiful this afternoon?”

He smiled;

“Indeed, my dear. Come, tell me what you have in your hand, sister?”

Her shoulders fell, she knew that he had detected her poor legerdemain. She also knew that Yuri had never been schooled as she was, would never understand the truth. She rose trying to drop the piece into the pleats of her dress without him noticing.

365 Ficlets - Day #301 ~ "Underground"

The sunlight coming through the street level vents looked for all the world like ladders up out of the tunnel as I wandered along the disused tracks. A few people had warned me that there might be homeless people down here that would not take kindly to an interloper from the surface world, and might move from displeasure to hostility once they realised that my cameras might buy them some food or whisky. Even so I had not seen anyone for about forty minutes and I was starting to think that I had found a real treasure, that there was a good chance I could persuade Sophie to model down here for me.

I started to look for landmarks that I might be able to use to remember places and things that I wanted to use as backdrops; this piece of graffitti, that broken column. I never heard him coming, I was so engrossed in my work.

“Sir, put the camera on the ground and get down on your knees with your hands on top of your head.”

I flashed a look over my shoulder and was amazed to see a cop with his weapon leveled at my back.

365 Ficlets - Day #300 ~ "Morning Run"

The sun had only been up for an hour or so, but already the sand felt warm beneath his feet. The quiet lagoon was indeed paradise, just as she had said it would be. The waves were barely lapping at the beach, even though he could see much heavier breakers out beyond the reef, and the copse of palm and other smaller trees on the western border of the lagoon was an effective windbreak from what was at least a fresh force four.

He took another mouthful of water from the canteen and then bent down to slip his feet into the running shoes, gently batting any little bits of sand away. He enjoyed the ritual of even little things and putting on his trainers was no different; these were the last few habit-formed things he would do before he would indulge in another daily habit.

Feet safely ensconced he took one more slug of water, placed the can on the ground and walked down to the wet sand. Once there he picked a spot to run to on the eastern side of the lagoon and began to put one foot in front of the other; to run.

365 Ficlets - Day #299 ~ "First Duty"

The pine needles under my knee feel slightly scratchy, but I have been schooled repeatedly that I must not flinch until I am spoken to, and I must not lift my eyes until my presence has been acknowledged. It is the first time I have been given the honour of carrying news to the throne, and along side the swell of pride in my bosom there are nerves aplenty.

“Rise and approach good messanger, we would hear what news you bring to our ear.”

I look up and see the Night King, resplendent in his finery upon a throne of wood and bone. He is everything that I have been told he will seem to be; authoritative and beautiful. I am awestruck and though my moment’s pause is appropriate, it is in no way calculated. Slowly and carefully I rise to my feet and slowly approach the throne, and the King gestures to a seat by his left hand where it is clear that I should sit. I take my seat and he leans close to me so that I may whisper my message into his ear.

“My lord, the words of the forest are in my keeping for your ear alone…”

365 Ficlets - Day #298 ~ "Cruising for a Hit"

“Excuse me, but can you tell me where I would find Kings of Leon, please?”

I thought about telling her that I was not a member of staff, but she was fairly clearly somebody’s Mum, rather than a fan, and I didn’t have the heart to throw her on the questionable mercies of the actual staff. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit attracted to her as well.

“Er, yeah sure. Just come this way and I can point them out to you.”

She smiled and relaxed, she seemed relieved to be led to the Rock section of the store.

“So, are you a fan?”

I asked as we weaved in and out of other browsing customers. She smiled and laughed nervously;

“No, I’m more a Girls Aloud and a bit of Aleesha perhaps. No this is my punishment for getting myself a younger man. It’s his birthday and I wanted to get him something he really wants, which was fine until I had to walk into a record shop.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at myself on the inside as this admission trickled out of her; my good deed for the day was not going to be rewarded with a phone number.

365 Ficlets - Day #297 ~ "We Could be Heroes..."

“Hi. Listen, I know that this looks bad, and you have every right to call the Police or just run like Hell, but I didn’t believe your assistant that you had seen my request for an appointment to meet with you, and well…”

I was aware that if I kept talking I could well be accused of trying to do too much; that tailing off and not belabouring the point might indeed serve me better than sounding too desperate.

It’s not often that one of your literary heroes catches you shinning over their garden wall on a sunny Saturday afternoon, but I had been getting desperate. As a solution, having worked out roughly where DeLacey was living, I had spent Friday evening buying drinks in the village pub until the actual location of his house was shaken loose. Now here I was, on my knees in the camelia bed, gesturing a little wildly with a notebook and hoping that perhaps the greatest novelist of my lifetime was going to be amused or at least curious rather than angry.

“Get up, young man. Would you like a cup of tea perhaps?”

365 Ficlets - Day #296 ~ "Moondancer"

The cold clear water of the brook feels good in my hands, clean and fresh in my mouth. It is a fine night, here in the high country under the moon and stars, far away from the sights and sounds of man. Even the hikers whose camp I can see below the waterfall are enjoying the wilderness with a sense of respect. I can see no litter and their food has been properly secured off the ground and away from the camp. They are sitting around their fire with a guitar and heavy blankets, singing quiet songs and from the smell of things enjoying a joint.

I watch them for a while, drinking until my thirst is slaked. I remember being tied to their world, and a pang of jealousy does strike at my heart. Even with the life of wonder I now lead I miss the simplicity of a normal human life - Starbucks, Chipotle, The Movies, videogames and the internet. Still, I have my night’s work ahead of me, no time left to linger. I say a brief prayer to the Owls “watch over these innocent souls” and disappear into the woods, unseen, unheard.

365 Ficlets - Day #295 ~ "Last Stand"

“They’re still out there, John. What are we going to do?

John was sitting the other side of the window thumbing shells into the twelve gauge. He just shook his head and grumbled under his breath.

“C’mon John! A little help here.”

He lifted up his face, pumped the shotgun, and then looked into Carrie’s eyes; it was then that she saw his fear, his confusion. It occured to her that he may well be just as adrift as she was. She looked down at her hands and realised that they were shaking so hard that at any moment she might drop the thirty-eight. She stared at the cold weapon and realised that just twelve hours before she had never held one.

From outside she heard the shuffling footsteps of another zombie. Her heart sank, knowing that the shambling undead creature outside the store was almost certainly in the shape of someone that she knew the day before. Would it be Daniel, the mechanic from the town gas station? She had not seen him, and she was starting to fear that the five of them were the only ones left alive.

365 Ficlets - Day #294 ~ "Longing..."

The cherry blossoms always take me back to the spring mornings of my childhood. From one day to the next winter would give way to spring as the sakura would burst into life, shades of pink and white frosting the hilltops above my father’s house. Then in a few short weeks the petals would become a plesant springtime snow of sorts, floating on the breeze.

Looking at the cherry blossoms here, on the other side of the world, is both a comfort and a great sadness; I wish that I could return to Hokkaido and the land that my father watched over until the end of his days, mourning that his one son was lost to him.

There are few tragedies greater in any life than exile. Certainly there are even greater burdens to bear, disease, bereavement, poverty and so forth, but my experience of living as an outcast in a foreign land has only served to give me the belief that exile is as heavy as any other weight one might have to carry. Even those I might seek out in America who are from Japan shun my company; my crimes are known.

365 Ficlets - Day #293 ~ "The List"

Dana laid her pen down and sat back in her chair, sighing with the relief of completing her list. It had been a conversation with Frank that had led to this impulse to give form to her thoughts about her life and what she hesitated to refer to as its direction.

It had been bothering her for a while that there was a lot about her life that seemed to be “business as usual”; just a daily drudge of get up, wash, eat, go to work, come home, eat, wash and sleep. Every now and again there was some sex, and even less often there was a decent conversation or a really great movie or a genuinely engaging book, but more often than not these things were rare.

She was going to be thirty and what had she actually done? More to the point, what did she want to do? That was the crux of it, more than anything else she was disconcerted by her apparent lack of dreams. Frank had suggested that she take some time, quietly, to sit with pen and paper and write a list of things that she really wanted to do, no matter how large or small.

365 Ficlets - Day #292 ~ "Grift"

“The thing is, right, if you get good enough at counting then you have to ‘ave the cash to go in big and score, ‘cos after that first night when you walk out with your pockets full, all bets are off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Casinos don’t put up with counters. It may not be cheating, but it’s not the game that they want to play, and they are allowed to refuse you entry.”

“So what you are saying is that practice may make perfect, but that we need to make some money up front to be able to afford to place bets that are big enough to reap the big rewards?”

“Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I know this guy, right?”

Jim nodded.

“He’s a bent banker, and he tells me that he’s onto a winner with fraudulent credit.”

Jim’s eyes lit up;

“Aw mate! I’ve heard about this con. It’s spectacular! You set up a business account for a new venture, and then you drain the account just after the new business loan goes in, then fold the company. Everything’s done with alias’s and when all’s said and done it’s only the insurers that get hurt, yeah!”

365 Ficlets - Day #291 ~ "First Tour; First Patrol"

Bullets were riccocheting off the top of the tiny wall, and we were both lying flat on the ground, clutching our carbines to our chests. I looked over at the Skipper, and touched my forefinger to the last grenade on my bandolier. He gently shook his head, opening his palm instead to show a claymore detonator. He put his other finger to his lips and then motioned to listen for footsteps.

I looked over at Freddy, he looked like he was in pretty awful shape, and I realised that we really could not bank on him for covering fire any more. To be honest we would be lucky if we didn’t lose him to his wounds.

The gunfire slowed and as I listened with Skipper for the tell-tale sound of VC running closer hoping to close range on us without any more of a fight.

I wondered at his nerve; I would have pumped the switch twice before he even looked like he was going to. Their footsteps seemed so close, but everything was out of whack, not least because I was scared out of my mind.

Suddenly he pumped the button. Bring the noise.

365 Ficlets - Day #290 ~ "Jazz Flute"

The music was everything. Standing under the lights for the hundredth, even thousandth time, the darkness of the club out beyond his sight, he knew that he needed to remember that the music was there for him. Music was always there for him, even when he felt alone in crowded rooms, or when the fear of going on stage would grip him, twisting in his belly as if someone were tying knots in his guts. He tried to breathe, tried to focus on the first lines of music that would come through him and his instrument as he put it to his lips, tried to find the solace that this thought usually brought.

On the edge of his awareness he could hear the MC announcing the act, and then he heard Buzz start the beat on the drums. He opened his eyes and looked up at Tom, watching for him to cue him in. The bassline started to build and Tom fixed him in his gaze and then nodded, a four count until he needed to be playing.

Everything slowed down, he raised the flute to his lips and slipped into the melody, and the world fell away.

365 Ficlets - Day #289 ~ "Commuter Solidarity"

“Tickets please! Please have tickets and passes ready for inspection!”

The train manager was coming, as they usually did at some point between Paddington and Reading, and I dug in my pocket for the season ticket that was indispensible to my person when outside of the house. Commuting becomes a state of mind after a while, you never leave the house without iPod, book, season ticket as well as the more common wallet and keys. Seriously, after I’ve been locked back into it for a few weeks I don’t leave the house without picking up my bag and checking it for the commuting survival kit, even if I’m actually off to see some my friends on a Saturday evening.

I looked up as I placed my ticket wallet on the table and accidentally made eye contact with the woman sitting opposite me; clearly making eye contact is forbidden on the Tube, but sometimes you can get away with it on the trains that leave Greater London. She smiled;

“You look like you are fully in commuter mode. This train every day?”

I nodded;

“Pretty much, aye.”

365 Ficlets - Day #288 ~ "The Hearth of Home"

The glass felt cold in his hand. He turned it slowly in front of his eyes, enjoying the way in which the candlelight seemed to make the whisky glow and sparkle amongst the ice cubes. This was his favourite time of the evening. He enjoyed the company of his kids as much as anyone, more in fact than most people would assume, and he loved the fact that as often as not they dined together as a family. Even so once the house was his once more, quiet and calm, he liked to sit and enjoy the contrast.

It was winter, and so the fire was dancing in the fireplace, and he fixed his gaze into the heart of the flames and took a sip from the glass. He held the whisky in his mouth, letting the gentle burn of the alcohol burn its own fire in his mouth and then as he swallowed he revelled in the transformation of the flavour and the feeling of the drink coating his oesophagus with spicy, honeyed warmth.

He knew that she would disapprove if she could see him just sitting, drinking alone like this, but that was really the point.

365 Ficlets - Day #287 ~ "Tracks of My Tears"

He was stood by the floor to ceiling window in the living room of their suite, staring out at the nighttime cityscape. The rain was caming down with a monsoon intensity and the window reminded her of the way in which streams of rainwater criss cross the rear window of a car.

She stood in the darkened doorway watching him, trying to understand what was on his mind, trying to understand why he had not slept since they had been in Tokyo. Part of her wanted to reach out to him, to put her arms around him and let him know she was beside him, but she listened to the quieter voice that both counselled restraint and was a little hurt that he did not turn to her.

“Are you going to stay over there just looking at me, Sara?”

She was jolted out of her thoughts, surprised that he knew she was there. She stepped out of the shadows, and shrugged;

“I don’t know. I didn’t know if you even wanted me to know you were out here.”

He turned towards her and she could see the tears running down his cheeks like the rain on the window.

365 Ficlets - Day #286 ~ "Case by case..."

“It is a thing of beauty is it not?”

Pierre turned to the voice and saw that his host’s elder son was stood a few feet behind him. He turned back to the painting and nodded;

“Ah yes, it is indeed a privilege to be able to look upon the original, and in such otherwise beautiful surroundings as awell, rather than in a crowded and rowdy public gallery. Did you meet the maestro when your father commissioned the piece?”

“Alas no, I was away being fostered to a neighbouring baron; learning the laws of war and chivalry and I missed that chance. My younger brother, Oswald, met him and spoke to him as often as he could.”

Pierre nodded again and turned back to Gerard.

“I was thinking of taking a short ride for the sake of my health and to pass some time. Your father has graciously asked me to dine with him, but he cannot spare me any time before dinner. I do not wish to be under foot. Would you be kind enough to join me and show me the estate?”

Gerard grinned, clearly some, or perhaps all, of this request suited his tastes.

365 Ficlets - Day #285 ~ "Photo Legal"

“Excuse me, Sir, but could you explain to me what’s going on here?”

Frank looked up at the Police Officer that had approached him while he was framing the shot. The Officer’s face seemed blank to Frank, seemed to be devoid of anything either positive or negative leaving him no clues as to how to play the situation. His model, Tess, was already hurriedly covering her previously naked form and anxiously looking on to have the best chance of choosing her moment to run if that seemed to be the best course of action.

Frank was still deciding how to play this situation out when his thought process was interrupted by a shift from questions to commands from the Police Officer;

“Could you stand up, please Sir, and pass me your camera, please.”

Frank’s position on the Police had always been that they ought to be respected and obeyed, but he was fairly sure that he had not been breaking any laws, and more to the point that the Police Officer had no legal right to his camera. He decided to meet the guy half way and stood up.

365 Ficlets - Day #284 ~ "Scoop"

“C’mon! It’ll be fun!”

Tabitha scowled at Daniel and shook her head even more fervently than she had the first time. She pointedly turned away from him and crossed her arms, before she realised that this left her with no hand free to retrieve her cigarette from her mouth. She flailed around for a moment and ended up shoulders back, arms laid across each other, back to Daniel, with a thin trail of smoke appearing to rise out of the top of her head; he tried not to laugh, reasoning that such an outburst might actually lead to violence.

“It’s just an interview for my film class, Tab. What harm can it do? I mean you’ve been on camera before.”

He knew as he said it that he had made a grave error, but now she was on her feet and coming for him. There was a look of fire in her eyes as she advanced, and he found himself mesmerised, a little like a deer in the lamp light. She stopped when they were toe to toe;

“You only want to interview me because you’ve found out that I’ve done porn and you think it will be a scoop.”

365 Ficlets - Day #283 ~ "Shadowplay"

Donovan paused to light a cigarette, and then turned back to Fiona as he took a long deep drag and almost immediately lifted his coffee to his mouth and took a huge slug of the searingly hot beverage. She sucked her teeth, rolled her eyes and then took one of his smokes and joined him.

“You know, Donovan, you have a shitty job.”

He laughed, smoke signal staccato issuing forth as her remark caught him off guard.

“Yeah, I know. Thing is, it’s all I know how to do.”

She nodded, trying to simply stay cool and not show that his low, gravel voice was almost sexy enough for her to forget that he was a twice divorced, borderline alcoholic, chainsmoking paparrazo. She wondered if it was his voice and his raw arrogant bravado that meant she had chosen to shadow him, but she quickly banished that behind the convenient fact that he was the highest earning member of his profession in the city that had agreed to even talk to her.

“Don’t you ever get tired of staking out C-Listers and hoping they aren’t wearing panties though?”

365 Ficlets - Day #282 ~ "The day before..."

The bed felt small beneath him as he sat there in the quiet. He passed the cricket ball from hand to hand, trying to focus on simple things; the smoothness of the leather, the fine work on the seam. He ran his thumb over it, trying to find the joins, trying to understand how it was made, to focus his mind on something mundane. Of course it was not working. How could he think of anything else in this room? He looked around at discarded toys, at posters and the models that Christian had made, never accepting any offers of help. All he could think about was the coffin in the study downstairs, smaller than any coffin should be.

It had been a glorious afternoon in the sun. There had been maybe thirty of their friends and all of their kids on the lakeshore, eating, playing, dancing and generally making a good time of the weekend. He had been running the grill, like any good host and father, and when Christian had come to ask if he and some friends could go swimming he had just said yes. Of course he had said yes.

365 Ficlets - Day #281 ~ "Head"

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Baby”

She licked her lips seductively and traced the very tips of her fingers along the shaft of his cock, playing with it idly as his erection started to fade. He smiled and pulled her towards him kissing her passionately. He loved the feeling of their mouths becoming one, the way in which as their tongues met and wrapped around each other they became one in just as real a way as when they made love. They came up for air, but stayed close with their foreheads touching one another.

“I love the way you will just kiss me after you’ve come in my mouth. It’s like you, oh I dunno, like you are in no way bothered by the fact that you might taste yourself on me, you are just filled with love, and that is all that matters.”

“It is all that matters. I love you so much, Rachel. I’m certainly not going to let the fact that you’ve just given me a mind blowing orgasm get in the way of me kissing you.”

He threw her a self-satisfied grin and she pulled his hair playfully;

“Well you’d better show me. Now.”

365 Ficlets - Day #280 ~ "GPA"

“I hate that shit, man. I mean why is it that whenever someone is ‘hacking’ or writing a virus or enhancing some kind of image, video or audio that they are always dancing around and clapping their hands and high-fiving with their hacking buddy? Does anyone who doesn’t really know anything about computers really believe that this is what actually happens?”

Terry nodded, admittedly without taking his eyes from his screen, his fingers still moving at speed as he typed line after line of code into the terminal window.

“I mean it’s not like that, right? You want this last slice of pizza?”

Terry shook his head, but still did not turn away from his work.

“So what you workin’ on T?”

For a few moments Terry did not respond, he was clearly finishing a thought, but then he took his hands off the keyboard and turned to Hugh;

“Well, mi compadré, I think that I can say wtih some certainty that we can have whatever grades we want this year.”

“No way, that’s outstanding!”

It was as their hands met in a high-five that Hugh realised.

365 Ficlets - Day #279 ~ "Needle"

Jennie pulled the curtain aside and removed her crop top and bra, then lay down on her front on the angled couch. It was only a few moments before she heard the curtain close behind her;

“Hello Jennie. It’s been a long time.”

Jennie craned her head around to look Franklin in the eye. More specifically she wanted to be as sure as she could be that the voice she was hearing was indeed coming from the person that she was expecting.

“Hello Franklin. It’s good to see you old friend. Are we alone?”

“Yes, Stacy, who was in the next cubicle has left.”

“I didn’t hear the bell.”

“She didn’t use the door, but then you were about to work that out, huh?”

Jennie laughed and nodded her head.

“So, Jennie, you want the usual or do you need something else?”

“Just the usual. I presume the price is the same?”

“Yeah, no problem. Pay me once we’re done.”

She lay back down and closed her eyes. She heard Franklin settle down onto his wheeled stool, heard him break open the blister pack containing the fresh needle and the whirr of the machine.

365 Ficlets - Day #278 ~ "Ink"

The icy blue cast of the light in the waiting room struck Jennie at once as she stepped through the door. As she closed the door behind her a rather surprisingly twee bell announced her arrival.

“Be with you in a few moments!”

The voice had emanated from behind a brown curtain that at first glance looked as though it might be leather, but on a second look was plastic made to resemble leather. After the voice, Jennie could hear the low hum of a tattooing machine, and occasional quiet gasps, presumably from the recipient of the work being done behind the curtain.

The waiting room was not like the waiting room of other tattoo parlours, there were no stock designs on the walls, no piles of tattoo magazines, and no other punters. Certainly it was dark outside, but it was only four o’clock, and though Jennie was not surprised to see the waiting room empty, it would be an odd detail to anyone else, she thought.

The curtain was thrown back, and Franklin stepped out, looked at Jennie, and nodded at the unoccupied cubicle.

365 Ficlets - Day #277 ~ "Saloon"

“Whisky!”

Cole thumped the bar with his fist as he spat forth his demand, making no attempt to cloak the contempt in his voice. The whole saloon had fallen silent when he had walked in, and now people were still holding their peace, but also now shuffling in their seats. A handful of the clientelle near to the door hurriedly rose and left, and the Faro dealer was closing up as the barkeep slowly wandered over to Cole, bottle in hand.

He poured Cole a shot;

“That’ll be a dime, Cole. You know the rules. You don’t raise that shot up ‘til I see your coin.”

Cole slammed three dollar pieces onto the bar;

“Leave the damn bottle, an’ shove your rules!”

The barkeep did as he was told, sliding the three coins off the bar and turning away in contempt.

“Mind you bring me my change, boy! This bottle ain’t full and I’ve give you fifty cents over the value for a full one.”

A shadow fell across the doorway and a voice came in from the street;

“Cole, if you want to drink in my place, you need to be kinder to the folks as work for me.”

365 Ficlets - Day #276 ~ "Dinner Date"

Dinner was going well. Paul was starting to hope that he was reading her body language right, the smiles, the inclination of her head towards him, little touches on his hand as they talked about this and that; it felt like they were on the road to at least a first kiss. It occured to him that despite the coaching from Lawrence he had no idea what it was that was swinging this his way, whether it was the fact that he chose decent wine, or that he’d agreed with Lawrence and booked a table at a decent restaurant for a change or if she really liked him. Still, it seemed as though she was listening to what he had to say, that she liked that he was actively listening to her, that she was really looking into his eyes. He let himself believe, and then relaxed and tried to stop thinking about it too hard.

The waiter appeared, or at least there was someone by the table. It took a moment for Paul to realise that it was not a waiter, and that there was a gun pointing at her.

BANG BANG

She was limp and the shooter was gone.

365 Ficlets - Day #275 ~ "Sittin' on the Dock"

“Granpa, why are you fishin’?”

Theodore smiled at his grandson’s question, enjoying the simple naiveté therein.

“Well, Carl, that’s not a question I’ve been asked before. Folks often ask me what kind of fish I hope to catch, or why I fish in this spot or that spot, but no one has ever asked me why I indulge in this hobby of mine.”

Carl was already transfixed, as he often was when his much adored grandfather explained things to him, and so sensing that there was more than a simple answer still to come he settled down on the dock in the way that children do when they are entertained.

“I suppose I like to come down here onto the dock and cast a line into the water for a whole bunch’o reasons, Carl. I like to be out of the house, and coming out to spend some time fishin’ gets me time under the sky come rain or shine. But it’s not just about being out of doors. The time I spend out here lets me do some thinkin’ as well.”

“But don’t you want to catch fish, Granpa?”

“Well it’s not as important as trying to catch them.”

365 Ficlets - Day #274 ~ "Wake Up Call"

It was the smell of bacon that woke me up. The sun was streaming in through the window and there was a soft breeze blowing across the room, but it was the smell coming from the kitchen that actually roused me. I pulled the blanket around my waist like a sarong and padded down the hall into the kitchen, following the smells that were now not just bacon, but also fresh coffee and toast.

Laura was standing by the cooker, apparently wearing nothing but my shirt from the night before, tending to the frying pan. I leant against the doorframe and let my eyes linger on the back of her neck, enjoying the line of it curving into her shoulder, remembering running my fingers along it.

“Don’t just stand in the doorway, sit at the table. I bought a paper, if you like, and there’s juice and fruit out. This will be ready in a couple of minutes.”

I did as I was told; I’ll be honest it felt good that she wanted to cook for me, to look after me. I know some men would be freaked out, after only two weeks, but it felt right to me.