365 Ficlets - Day #267 ~ "Time to go..."

I can’t see her face. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, how hard I screw my eyes closed, how much I beg and beg and beg my mind to comply. I haev to admit that there has been a long time in which I’ve not wanted to have her cluttering up my thoughts, but right now, even though I know I should not, I want to see her face.

It’s getting colder. The gauges are telling me that it won’t be long now; less than five minutes and the only thing of interest left is whether the batteries will outlast the air supply. Will I suffocate or freeze to death? At least the view is good. Still all I seem to be able to do is think about her. Staring death in the face, no hope at all of rescue and all I can think of is that hotel room, the last time we made love. I can’t remember her face, but I can remember the smile she had as I slid inside her; I can still hear what she whispered into my ear as our bodies touched, all of me inside her. I can feel the air getting thinner and all I can remember is how happy we both were that day.

365 Ficlets - Day #266 ~ "Delivery"

There was no one moving on the street when I came out of the house. That’s hardly unusual at three in the morning, but I had rather a greater sense of lonliness than normal that night. The bag over my shoulder felt heavy even though there was little in it; the weight was certainly imagined. I locked the front door and then reached into the bag to make sure that the package was still there and still whole. My hand brushed against the Colt as I pulled my hand out again, it’s cold steel body poking out slightly from the hand pocket inside the bag where I had hoped it would be easy to extract if necessity demanded.

I looked up and down the street, trying very hard to not look as though I were looking up and down the street, and then set off into the dark morning. There is something quite magical about that time of day, for me. It is as though the world is off-duty, and one can see it as it really is, not polluted by people or things. It is just quietly being, all alone, like a theatre without a show or audience.

365 Ficlets - Day #265 ~ "Prairie Morning"

“Morning, Virgil.”

Paul had been awake since sunrise and had already rebuilt the fire started on breakfast and made a pot of coffee. His older brother was rubbing his eyes and groaning, clearly stiffened by sleeping on the cold March ground.

“I’m pleased that you didn’t try to tell me is was good, brother. How is it that you are not suffering the effects of last night’s bourbon, Paul?”

“Why I didn’t partake of any of it, Virg. You know I don’t hold wi’drinkin’. Anyway, you want coffee?”

Virgil shook his head as he creaked into a sitting position, running his hands through his hair trying to flatten it down. He grunted a couple of times, then nodded to the offer of coffee as he started to pull on his boots.

“You bin awake since sun-up then, Paul?”

Paul nodded as he poured the coffee and passed it to Virgil

“Thanks.”, Virgil took a long gulp and then settled the tin mug between his palms to warm his hands, “We have a long way to ride today little brother, eat up and then we need to be on our way.”

“Okay, Virg you bet.”

365 Ficlets - Day #264 ~ "Crutches"

“You’re in a bad way then, how’d you do that?”

Henry tried to remember that this well-meaning stranger had no idea that this was the fourteenth time he had heard that question since leaving the house. The problem with British society as far as Henry could tell was that there was no reason to talk to strangers unless they were injured or obviously foreigners. He had commuted in the Thames Valley for five years, on and off, and at the beginning he had tried to engage strangers on trains and platforms in daily chit chat. He had quickly learned that one did not speak to one’s fellow traveller except to to express disdainful solidarity over the issues of delays and overcrowding.

Now that he was attempting to thread his way through commuter crowds on crutches, he fell foul of the fact that there was a lot of standing around for lifts and for gates to be held open, and these pauses allowed normal people to repeatedly ask the same pedestrian question;

“How did you end up like that?” or “Hurt yourself have you?”

Wankers.

365 Ficlets - Day #263 ~ "Constructing a Dismissal"

“You need to actually do some work, when you’re at work, John. You know, you’ve got to stop making up excuses for just surfing the Net all day and actually do your work.”

John nodded and smiled. It looked like his strategy of purposeful deriliction of duty was working quite well and soon his well-meaning manager, Tom, was not going to be able to keep his temper about this and there would be an erruption that led to a firing.

“Okay, well I’m glad that we understand each other. I know that it’s hard to concentrate, so just don’t open up any non-work websites. Be strict with yourself and that way there is no temptation to spend hours reading blogs or posting on web fora. I promise you that you’ll find your day goes a lot quicker if you are busy with work as well.”

“No problem, Tom, and you’re right of course.”

John turned and slouched out of the office and back towards his cube, a soft, barely detectable smile on his face. Soon he would be free of this place and without ever having had to be anything but bone idle.

365 Ficlets - Day #262 ~ "My Diamond Shoes Are Too Tight"

“The thing is, right, that it don’t seem to matter what I say she still comes at me. I mean day an’night, pal. She’s insatiable!”

“Am I s’posed to have pity on ya? I mean seriously, ‘ave you ‘eard yourself, you prick? You know I’ve not been gettin’ any since Deb left last year, an’ now you want to bend my ear about your old lady hankerin’ after yer cock?”

“Oh, I’m sorry mate, it’s jus’it’s been preyin’ on mi, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, what’s the problem? I mean you’re not tellin’ me that you can’t get it up or nuffin’ yeah? I mean seriously, you an’ Mish ‘ave bin living together fer six years and she’s still after you in that way and you aren’t ‘appy about that. What’s up wiv ya?”

“Well, it’s not like there’s any problems, ya know, down there, but I get tired. I mean a couple o’nights without the full eight hours in the name of love, and I’m on board, but every night? I’m genuinely knackered, bruv.”

“Well, I can relate to that, but I can’t ‘elp thinkin’ that if it were to change, you know?”

365 Ficlets - Day #261 ~ "Able"

It was getting cold in the deserted jetway; Gethin shifted in the wheelchair, trying to get some circulation going in his now sleepy backside. There was a time when he had been preparing for this mission that he had tried to make himself ready for the periods of time that he would be left alone in restricted areas of the airport. It amused him that people in general seem to trust people in wheelchairs, as if a disabled person would not do anything dangerous or confrontational, and that was why they had decided to have him masquerade as a paraplegic. Still the temptation to break cover and complete his objectives now that he had a good chance of making it to the plane before the assistance guy returned was really strong. Of course the empty wheelchair and discarded crutches would raise a red flag or two. Better to stick to the plan, to patiently wait for all the pieces to fall into place.

A voice from behind interrupted his thoughts:

“Ah, monsieur, tu es prêt?”

Gethin nodded without turning around;

“Oui, merci.”

365 Ficlets - Day #260 ~ "Sea Change"

“What do you want?”

I stared at her, unsure as to where this dominant styled submission had come from. It was not that I was upset by her desire to please me, to serve my desires, but she had previously been pretty clear about the fact that our physical relationship was about me pleasing her. I had been very happy about that; for all of the potential baggage I am sure that represents, and while this unexpected sea change was a good thing it was a curve-ball.

She could see my confusion;

“Don’t think about it, Paul. Tell me what to do. I’m horny as hell and I want you, but I need to hear that you want me and what you want from me, yeah?”

I nodded and stopped thinking. I let my eyes wander across her body and then back to her eyes, which I fixed in a stare;

“Let me taste your pussy. Don’t move to me, just open your legs more.”

She smiled and did as I requested. I slid off the bed and knelt before her; staring into her eyes. I laid my hands on her thighs and slid between them, pushing my mouth up to meet her wetness.

365 Ficlets - Day #259 ~ "Fire Team Alpha"

“How long have we been laying in this ditch, Chief?”

“Shut up Mankowsic, you want those dirtbags to hear you?”

Mankowsic smiled, only Chief Tillman could dead-pan such a ridiculous statement, after all they were a sniper detail over eight hundred metres from the ranch house that they were covering; unless the perps were pointing a laser mic right at them, his low whisper was not going to be detected.

He checked his notes again, re-measured the range, re-calculated the wind shear and then turned back to the Chief, who was checking his sights and double checking the rifle’s action. He was about to crack a joke when the radio crackled in their ears;

“All positions, target exiting North East Corner. Fire Team Alpha provide cover as required, extraction team are going in for snatch and grab.”

“Mankowsic. Ranges for the North East Corner.”

“Aye Chief. Eight hundred, twenty-nine yards, three degree shift for wind. Sights free, Chief.”

Tillman flipped open the sight covers and settled into the firing position.

They waited.

365 Ficlets - Day #258 ~ "Longing"

As the band struck up another cover classic and the gentle, partial buzz that he was nursing was amplified by the company and the sing-along spirit in the bar he felt himself let go and really experience the lyrics to song after song of timeless classics that he was in now way ashamed to have on his iPod.

It was only as the set got deeper and deeper into nostalgia and cliché that he started to veer away from the feel-good vibe and start to focus on the person who was not there. He had tried to drive her from his mind before he even left on holiday, but now, in the midst of a good time the only thing that he saw when he closed his eyes was her face, and more to the point the only thing that he could think was that more than anything he wished that she was there.

He knew in his heart that she was never going to be with him on trips like this or in fact in any way other than the friendship that they already had. Why could he not simply enjoy the fact that they had a connection? Why was context, as ever, king?

365 Ficlets - Day #257 ~ "Loggerheads"

The table was littered with half empty wine bottles, and the air above the table was hazy with curls of cigar smoke. Hector was starting to despair of Paulo and David, who were apparently unable to come to any kind of conclusion to their conversation. Neither of them were exactly wrong, but neither of them were exactly right either.

Hector could see that they were both operating from a place of emotional investment; they were no longer listening to the caveats of each other’s discourse, but simply hammering away at each other’s position as if it had gone to a place where each of them needed to win more than they needed to hear each other.

He contemplated stepping in, reminding them that despite everything they were friends, that neither of them had started out wanting to hurt or attack the other; they had just wanted to have a conversation. He realised, of course, that if he did he would sound preachy at best and patronising at worst and then both of them would resent his interference to some degree or another.

365 Ficlets - Day #256 ~ "Counting Blessings"

As the cloud burned off Paul was left with a spectacular, if typical, Alpine vista before him. Even though he would not be taking to the slopes, due to work commitments, there was an undefinable joy in his heart to know that somehow he was actually living the dream that had begun two years before.

It had all started on a cold February evening in Stourbridge in a pub called The Bag of Spanners. As he cast his mind back he remembered that it was a conversation with Daryl about how much he was missing the Alps, despite having only returned three days before, when Daryl made one of his characteristic observations;

“Why the fuck are you not making plans to go and live there you plonker?”

That had really been all of the spur that he needed, and now he was indeed there, and there was no doubt that it had been the right decision. Daryl had, of course, been the most suprised of all. When Paul told him that he had found a job in Les Menuires, Daryl’s entirely appropriate response had been:

“I didn’t mean it yer twat!”

365 Ficlets - Day #255 ~ "Breakfast Hunt"

The dew on the bracken was, while attractive, leaving Gethin’s leggings damper than he would like. He had left the others sleeping and headed out to find breakfast, while the wood was still asleep. He had already found enough mushrooms, now he was looking for a small boar if he could find one. He was pretty certain that he was not going to scramble about in the morning half-light to make breakfast every day, but some of the young ones on this trip were still getting used to the idea that they had only walked about one twentieth of the trek to the white tower, and they had over a fortnight more of sleeping on the cold, hard floor.

About twenty yards off he saw the ferns moving in such a way as to suggest a small woodland animal, and he hoped earnestly that his searching was over; he did not want to leave the young ones for too long. He crouched down and waited, listening. The telltale snuffling confirmed his hopes. He nocked an arrow, drew the string back into the valley and waited to see enough snout to loose.

365 Ficlets - Day #254 ~ "The Old Bear and the Old Eagle"

“Why is it that you always want to meet somewhere for a hotdog? I mean, normal people meet for a drink, or maybe a coffee. What’s with the hotdogs?”

Yuri cracked a smile;

“You see it’s like this, my friend. All of my childhood I saw American movies on pirate video tapes; the whole of the party was doing it, so my father was no different, and I always saw that among the many things that really meant America, the hotdog was one of them. When I finally was posted here with the diplomatic corps the first thing I did was go out and get a ‘dog with sauerkraut, mustard and relish and I discovered that I was right; they are fantastic!”

Ted laughed;

“Sell it somewhere else Yuri, I’m not buying that ‘I always loved America’ crap. You were a loyal soldier back then. Anyway, if you’re not going to tell me the real reason about the hotdogs then at least tell me why I’m out here in the freezing cold at eight in the morning, when I could be enjoying coffee and a danish at my desk.”

“Sure. You remember Kiev in eighty-seven, Ted?”

365 Ficlets - Day #253 ~ "Snow Day Noir"

The snow felt cold under his head as his consciousness came swimming back. He felt around the back to see if there was any blood, but found no unwanted stickiness back there and breathed a sigh of relief. He opened his eyes more and slowly he could make out the tops of the tall spire-like trees that were everywhere around the resort, blowing gently in the breeze.

He mentally checked all of his other limbs, starting with fingers and toes and then working his way back up to his own trunk, but he could find nothing untoward. He sat up, half expecting the world to swim out of focus and his head to spin, but all was well. It was still light and he could even tell where he was, although he was not sure how he had come to be there on his back in the snow.

Tentatively he eased himself up onto his knees and then his feet; his balance was good and he felt surprisingly steady. He reached into his jacket pockets and came out holding two surprises. One was a matchbook from Dee Dee’s in town, and the other, a small revolver.

365 Ficlets - Day #252 ~ "Night Kill"

The night was warm, close even; the humidity had left him covered in a sheen of sweat, even though he was clothed only in a pair of boxer shorts. The gun was heavy in his hand now, where before he had felt almost as though it was holding itself up, or at least that it had given him strength. He looked down at it hanging by his side; just to look at it there seemed to be nothing different about it. There was no curling smoke coming from the muzzle, nor was the slide locked out as one often saw guns in the movies.

He turned slowly and looked down at the bodies behind him, one of them was still alive, but the neck wound had left them with nothing to do but to silently open and close their mouth, like a fish gasping to breathe in air.

He lifted the muzzle of the gun and cradled it in his other hand, then looked deep into the eyes of his gasping victim;

“You want me to end it?”

The look of terror on their bloodied face intensified, and they started to shake their head violently.

“I should leave you alive?”

Nodding.

“No.”

365 Ficlets - Day #251 ~ "Turning Point in Pain"

When people say that everything slows down just as you have an accident I am often left with a certain level of disbelief. My experience is one of everything speeding up as circumstances accelerate away, and all that is left is to sit back and watch as body and soul fall on the mercy of fate.

That was what happened the day I skied for the last time. I was not doing anything particularly dangerous or difficult, particularly considering my experience, skill and level of fitness. I was descending, off-piste, between the Platières lift and the run coming down from Mont Vallon, knee deep in fresh powder and running on instinct. I had skied this section of the mountain many, many times, and usually in the same conditions - clear skies the day after a snowfall. I had no reason to be afraid for my safety, and then it happened. I would be able to piece it together later on, but at the time there was just a piercing pain in my knee, a wrenching and then I was neck deep in powder, on my back, looking up.

365 Ficlets - Day #250 ~ "I say 'Pub' you say..?"

“What do you mean, you think that the answer is Carly Simon?”

Jacob hesitated, unsure whether or not Gavin was taking the piss or not.

“Well, Gav, the question is ‘Which recording artist who has recorded a Bond Theme has also had a romantic affair with Warren Beatty?”, and the only one I can think of is Carly Simon, unless you think that Beatty has been shagging Shirley Bassey!”

Gavin smiled;

“Ok, yeah, you’re right. I just love winding you up on Bond questions.”

Jacob smiled and yet inwardly he was asking himself the same question that he asked every week; ‘Why am I doing this?’

The quiz master announced the next question;

“Which actor played Captain John Sheridan on the TV Sci-Fi show Babylon 5?”

Jacob knew the answer well enough; anyone who had even watched the show whilst awake would know that it was Bruce Boxleitner. Still he wanted to see how badly the team needed him, for all their sport and history knowledge, none of them could touch him anywhere in entertainment. None of them even looked up; they needed him.

365 Ficlets - Day #249 ~ "Needs Must"

“So, we are agreed? Twenty-eight hundred per kilo and any load over five hundred kilos will carry a ten thousand bonus.”

Piers nodded; it was not the best deal he’d ever made, but there was not a lot of choice. DeVere was pushing for his money, and much as Piers hated bailing his brother out he knew what DeVere would do to Mark if his debts were not covered. They were going to be having a conversation and more to the point, Mark would be doing his part on this deal.

They shook on it and then he was out in the cold air, suddenly filled with apprehension; Santos had negotiated the price down, but not as much as he had expected. He reasoned that all he had to do was make sure the crew were ready for the potential double cross and then get on with the job in hand.

He lit up a cigarette, nodded to the guy watching the door and then headed across the street to where he’d left his car. As he stepped into the darkened alley, just out of sight from Santos’ place, he saw a cigarette lighter flash into life;

“Hello Piers.”

365 Ficlets - Day #248 ~ "Aspirational Mismatch"

“What do you mean, you’ve decided that you want to learn to paraglide?”

David just smiled and nodded, employing his stock, enigmatic refusal to actually answer the question. Then after a pause he stood and cleared the plates.

Jennie had started to get used to David’s madcap ideas and fads; well fads was a little unfair as he generally did follow through with his ideas, but still. He was clearly not going to enter into a dialogue about it then and there, and yet unlike his desire to learn a computer programming language when they first met, or the French lessons that came shortly after they moved in together, learning to paraglide added a real dimension of risk to his hobby life. She tried not to see his cavalier attitude as selfish, but she could not help but be hurt by the fact that he did not want to even discuss this with her. He seemed to pay little or no heed to the fact that she would worry about him. What if he killed himself chasing the dream of unpowered flight?

“I need us to talk about this, David.”

365 Ficlets - Day #247 ~ "Anticipation"

The cold floor under his feet made it real finally. One quiet moment away from the others, looking out at the wall of mountain summits against the deep blue velvet of the sparkling night sky. He rolled the cheap tumbler between his hands and smiled; first night in the Alps in far too long, a dram of malt and a belly full of a good meal cooked by someone else, and good friends.

The next day was going to bring adventure and fun, just as it always did. There were many joys in his life, but very few of them stacked up against the feel of wind in his face and the sound of his skis on the snow.

There is no way to describe the feeling of flying down a mountain under the power of gravity and body control, working both in harmony and against one another at the same time. In the past he had tried to explain the sense of release that he would feel as the edges bit and he set his body into a long sweeping carve across an empty piste. That perfect moment is beyond the ken of anyone who has not experienced it.

Time for bed.

365 Ficlets - Day #246 ~ "Front Man"

The shouts and whistles of the crowd were as a low hum to him as he stood in the wings, waiting for the signal to take to the stage. The satisfying cold weight of his guitar’s body laying in the small of his back was his anchor. He focused on the picture in his mind’s eye of his lover’s face and imagined her resting her hands on his shoulders, squeezing gently and wishing him a good show.

Music had kept him sane when she had died, well music and his family of music. The band had been amazingly supportive and understanding, as had their fans, but in the end there had been a lot of good material to take from his grief and, feeling sure that she would have approved, he saved himself from his grief by telling the world about her.

The signal was given and he walked out into the lights. The roar from the crowd was genuinely palpable; it made him rock back on his heels and he could feel wave after wave of excitement and adoration. He turned to check that everyone was in place, plugged in and stepped to the microphone.

365 Ficlets - Day #245 ~ "Throwing"

The grit in the clay was biting into his hands as he centred it, elbows locked on the rim of the wheel to make a triangle with its point over the centre. Even now, doing this simple task that he had done a thousand times before he could not push his anxiety away. It was going to be another six days before he would hear about the test results, and he needed to be able to live for those six days.

The clay centred, he started to create a simple bowl, pulling the clay from the centre between finger and thumb. He focused in on the bands of clay that he needed to flatten as he raised the wall of the bowl between his hands. The muscle memory, like the wisdom of his body, his hands, guided his movements and allowed him to perform this delicate task, while his mind raced with the whats and wherefores of his condition.

He finished the lip of the bowl, the wheel moving at half speed as he curled the edge down in a movement that reminded him of the way that a tyre is rotated onto a rim; if he had cancer he would fight it.

365 Ficlets - Day #244 ~ "Preparation"

The sizzle of the onions and the garlic, as he chopped the meat, was all that he needed to shuck off the stress of the day. The pressure that he was under was the very last thing that he had expected when he had taken the job, but the truth of that was really just his own naiveté.

The meat chopped and the rice on to boil he poured a glass of wine from the bottle he had opened for the cooking and leant back on the surface across from the stove. He could hear the shower, upstairs, and smiled. He had been so engrossed in his cooking that Harry’s return home had gone unnoticed; he decided to pretend to be suprised when his lover came into the kitchen fresh and clean, the city washed away in his own very personal ritual.

He lit the candles on the table, and tried to resist the urge to re-straighten the napkins. Perfection was in the company and the food, not place settings, and anyway he did not want Harry to even suspect that this was a prelude to anything more than a re-kindling, a way to make time for each other.

365 Ficlets - Day #243 ~ "Washington Square"

He passed it from hand to hand, enjoying the chilly, smooth feel of the rook against his palms. He loved playing in the park at this time of year, his set always felt like they were carved out of ice during the clear winter days.

His opponent was following his hands while he considered his move, as if trying to understand his thinking. He knew that his opponents were often distracted by this habit, but it was not calculated to throw players off their game. In truth he did not know why he did it, and more importantly he rarely noticed that he was doing it until he saw the person opposite's eyes moving from side to side.

The game was six moves from mate in his favour; this guy was not any kind of challenge. They never were all that tough any more in the mornings; it was as if the real players were sleeping in during the cold weather. The game wrapped, exactly as he expected, and he took the money, shook the guy's hand and started to reset the board.

"Xavier Crown?"

He looked up; this new guy was not there to play.

365 Ficlets - Day #242 ~ "Admission"

“Come on, you can tell us. Let’s be honest you’d have to be trying pretty hard to shock either of us two!”

Kit sighed and tried to work out how he had ended up having a conversation about unfulfilled sexual fantasies with Sheena and Paul, his two most sexually accomplished and broad minded friends. All he could come up with was two bottles of red wine and perhaps an unconscious desire to share, maybe even to see if they would seduce him. Without really knowing why, he steeled himself and decided to admit something that he thought they were not expecting.

“I’ve always wanted to go down on a man. There you go. I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but there you go.”

Sheena did not say anything, she just smiled a wicked smile and then flashed a look at Paul. He nodded;

“I’m up for it, Kit,and I know that Sheena won’t mind. In fact she really likes seeing me with men.”

“I do, really. Do you still want to?”

Kit nodded. He did not really understand it, but suddenly he was filled with resolve rather than remorse.

“Yeah.”

365 Ficlets - Day #241 ~ "Beginning is easy..."

I remember it like it was yesterday. Sundays were dry beach parties at that time; none of us were old enough to get alcohol from the Spar, not even on the blag, and so we would load up on cigs and anything that any of us could lift from our folks. Dry Sunday parties always started early too, before dark.

I was lying on my back in the sand, watching seagulls wheeling overhead and working my way through the second of my Marlboro Reds, when a face I did not recognise appeared above me.

“My goodness, an Angel!”

The words had left my mouth before I had even considered them, like a reflex. For a second I waited to be laughed at, or hit by a jealous and insecure boyfriend, but neither expected payback was forthcoming. Instead Fate made her smile at me;

“It’s good when men notice that I am heavenly without me having to tell them.”

Sure now, looking back, it’s hard not to think that she was an uppity bitch to my bumbling sycophant; actually it was all without artifice.

As the sun sank an hour later we were sharing a smoke.

365 Ficlets - Day #240 ~ "Another Day"

“RE-VALLEY! RE-VALLEY!”

The banging on his cell door would have woken him if the shouting had not. Talk about cruel and unusual, to have to be awoken every morning by the COs not only banging on his door but also murderingthe language of his home. Reveille; re-valley? Why was it so hard for them to say the word the way it was meant to be said?

His lawyer had been unwilling to explore the possiblity of petitioning for his return to France, but then what had he expected from the public defenfer’s office? Now here he was, stuck in an American gaol; bad food, bad mattress and oh God the food.

The cell door popped and he knew that there was less than a minute before he had to be dressed and stood by the door, that or face a beating from whichever CO was checking cells that morning. He swung his feet out onto the hard, painted floor; cold. Uniform pants and t-shirt, they were quick to throw on. Then socks and pumps. He was stood up mere moments before the CO came in. He had time to realise that the morning was cold.

365 Ficlets - Day #239 ~ "Bump in the Road"

The cold air outside the club was not helping. When someone had suggested a breath of fresh air he had assumed, as everyone else had, that it would clear his head and make him feel a little better, but it really was not all that useful. For a start he did not have anything warm with him; he’d been expecting to be inside a hot nightclub so he had just worn a t-shirt. As the cold nipped at his bare arms and his nose, not to mention the slightly more insidious cold that was creeping through the back of his jeans where he was leaning against the wall, he tried to decide why he had not simply gone back inside.

Tina was still in there of course, but then he did not really want to admit to anyone that had not already worked it out that her arrival on the arm of his former best friend had anything to do with his ‘funny turn’. It had been months since Rich and Tina had sat him down and been all adult about the fact that they had fallen in love and had never meant it to happen; when was it going to stop bothering him?

365 Ficlets - Day #238 ~ "He Came a Callin'..."

He stood on the corner, his breath turning to a thick fog in front of his face in the cold, and watched them walk away. It was very good to see her happy. He smiled, and nodded. He was acknowledging that she would remind him that she was not just happy because she had found Lee. She had been sad when George had left two years ago, but she had dealt with the loss well and apart from the odd slip of the mask had covered her loneliness quite adroitly.

They disappeared around the corner of the gaol wall and he turned in the opposite direction and started to walk towards his appartment. The cold air was not really moving, there was not even a breeze, so the cold air just seemed to settle hard on his shoulders, like a wet blanket, and naturally he had not worn a coat.

He was crossing the last part of the road - the junction between town and the block which included his flat - when he realised that there was someone watching him, and more to the point this watcher was not burdened with good intentions.

“Who’s there?”

365 Ficlets - Day #237 ~ "Frostrow Fell"

“Left, right, left, right.”

The mantra in his head was not any more complicated than that as he jogged up the rutted path towards the golf course hut. It was fifteen years since he had tried to run all the way over Frostrow Fell and back, but the months of training to get this far told him that he was ready. Everyone wants to believe, later in life, that the effortless fitness they had at school can be recaptured.

He was halfway up the track; already he could see it growing longer and longer with every step. His breathing was already staring to become shallow and desperate, and his legs were starting to burn from the lack of oxygen. Even then he knew that when he reached the hut he would have to turn left and run up to the real summit; no time to recover.

It was all he could do to just repeat his simple mantra over and over, as if anything more complicated would allow an internal discourse, and as soon as he started to reason about his choices, he could weasel out of doing the run.

“Left, right, left, right.”