The Girl in the Night

 

It was simple. Either her body would be there, or it wouldn’t. As Ralph dug, he considered which one would fill him with more dread. If Jenny was there, then he would have to see her face again, and that would be painful. Except it wouldn’t be her face, of course. Not quite. 

Ralph slung a clod of earth behind him. Across from him, on the other side of the grave, James Mayhew and Ernie Tamms worked with their spades, dark silhouettes in the dance of torchlight. Ralph stabbed at the soil before him. 

How long had she been underground? Five weeks? What happened to a face in five weeks, he wondered. When they opened the coffin would they see a face they knew: pale, blue and still, but recognisably the young woman who they used to pass in the street? A face that might, in a moment, come back to smiling life, eyes dancing with light. Or was five weeks enough that her skin would have started to tighten and melt away, the skull beneath revealing itself in cruel, cold lines?

There was a clunk and Ernie Tamms stopped dead. Ralph and James stopped too. He had hit the coffin lid. The men breathed for a moment, then, slower and more carefully, went back at it. 

Seeing Jenny would be horrible. But worse, much worse, was the other possibility. What if they opened the coffin, the final resting place of this warm, vibrant girl, and found not the rotting remains of her once beautiful face, but instead… nothing. An empty chamber, whose solitary inhabitant was not currently at home.

The three men cleared the last of the soil. They looked expectantly at one another, half drawn charcoal sketches in the murk of night. Perhaps they could stop now. Leave the coffin lid as it was and the mystery unsolved. Like that experiment with the box and the cat inside, neither dead nor alive until you looked. They could move the earth back right now and the coffin wouldn’t be empty, or full of horrors… they just wouldn’t know. 

Except Ralph had a feeling that they would know, sooner or later. That one night soon there’d be a tap on the bedroom window. That he’d wake up to see those dancing eyes and that smiling face, half lit by the moon. That the next day there’d be another person missing, in a town that had seen too much tragedy in this last month. Looking at James and Ernie, he could see the same thought on their faces too. 

He clicked off his torch and knelt down. The light from the other men’s torches swayed over the wood and brass and dirt, searchlights over no-man’s land. He grasped the lid. Noticed that his hands were trembling, as if they, being closer, knew more than he did. He pushed the lid up, sliding it back across the coffin. The torchlight flicked down, casting his giant looping shadow against the pit they had cleared, past him, into the black abyss of the coffin. 

For a long moment Ralph was still, his eyes fixed on what he saw. Of course. What else had he been expecting? He let out a long breath.

A muffled sound came from above him. One of the torches flickered out. Then the other. 

Ralph crouched in the darkness, waiting for what came next. He felt a sick, unwanted smile crawl up his face.

At least, now, he knew.

Check out

I wrote this in response to a prompt which simply said 'Shopping List'. I nearly discarded it, thinking I had nothing to say. But I made myself do it, and gave myself a 15 minute limit to finish. In the end, I'm quite pleased with it. But then, I am a massive egoist.

Do I need anything from the shops?

I do. 

I do need something from the shops. 

I need a place to queue with a human at the end I need a little conveyor belt to put down my stuff that will Smoothly trundle it obediently away So I can put down more things Without creating a mad tower  Of milk and magazines and four packs of beans In one square foot of self service space

I need a real life person with a badge and a hat to pick up my shopping and make it go bleep Someone who knows Where to find the bloody bar code Who won’t spend half an hour Turning the bread round and round and round But will slip it, professionally, under the laser, first time.

I need a human soul, who won’t get confused By a three gram difference in weight. Who expects there to be items in the bagging area. Who won’t make me wait for assistance while  A venomous red light flashes in my sad, lonely face.

I need someone who can look And see by my thinning hair and the lines round my eyes That, yes, I can be trusted to buy These four bottles of red wine.

Someone who’ll remind me that I have parking to validate Who’ll smile as they wait for me to fish out my coupons Who’ll give me ten seconds of genuine interaction And treat me like a human Rather than another machine, doing the work of the company

Do I need anything from the shops? Yeah I need to feel like they value their workers rather that tolerating them Until they can think of a way to sack them all off And give half their jobs to machines And the other half to me

If they don’t have that Then I can probably do without whatever else they have.

She Moves Between the Frames

 

She’s in every film they ever made

If you know where to pause

I’ve seen her shape a thousand times but I know

I’ve missed a hundred thousand more

A luminous moment, a beautiful fragment

Among the extras in the crowds

Almost impossible to catch, before she slips 

Between the frames

Disappears into the background

I don’t know how I know her

She always wears a different face

But when I see her it’s a moment of clarity

Salt water and insanity

Cresting and crashing through

like the breaking of a wave

Frames drop and beads of water burst 

Aquamarine against the sun

And she’s there, stretched like melting toffee

Reclining, like a lizard, in the afternoon

Fuzzy contrasts in gold and reds and blues

A 16 millimetre study in oversaturated hues

Another day she comes in Nosferatu shapes

Flickering through falling rain

In the silvers and shivers of a European street

A moment in monochrome, between shadow and grey

100 years out of time

Of maybe just wilfully arty and New Wave

And I live for the moments when I catch one of her glances

When she looks, from the corner of her eye

Looking straight through the screen, 

Across the Z-axis

A heart attack line drawn from her eye to mine

She can’t be caught

Stare too long and the image slips

And she dissolves

The celluloid bubbles and the image burns

She only makes sense from a distance

Only takes shape when she’s in motion

And let’s you gaze, for one eighth of one second

Into the beauty

Of her world

Paths of Convenience

 

I didn’t drink yesterday

Or the day before

No-one can say I haven’t tried

So I’m allowed to drink tonight

The evening shifts around me

Bright yellow ribbons

Light through a smeared lens

The people around have that look in their eyes

That says I’m talking too loud

And making too little sense

And I know, I know

I’m overcompensating for something

That I get less considerate as the night draws on

That I planted in shallow soil

And now the crops are all failing

A lad with bad hair is at the bar

And he’s depressed, maybe

Or just thinking hard

Like Spock trying to mind meld with himself

His fingers digging into his face, drilling holes

Perhaps he’s a poet

Or perhaps it’s a pose

And there’s a girl who’s missed her calling

As a kid’s TV presenter

And her mates all seem to respect her

Despite the lack of self knowledge

And the mindset that hasn’t moved on 

Since she finally found some people who’d listen

Back at college

Every one of these people a careful collection

Of well rehearsed quirks 

And paths of convenience through social convention

And part of me knows that’s not all they are

But I’ve got to find somewhere to stand

And I’ve no other plan

And nothing else works

I make a mental note

To write this all down

A note that will be lost 

In a wind that will scatter the leaves

As I order another drink

And let it all bleed in

The merry go round

The lights and the music

And the slow constant spin

Of another lost evening

Fight: Part Three

The conclusion of a tale in three parts. Though in fairness you could probably just read this one and it would make as much sense. However, if you are so compelled, here's part one, and here's part two. 

John Butcher is swaying in front of me, ready for a fight. 

He makes some kind of jeering attempt to goad me - probably an insult about my glasses, or my stupid hair, or maybe my hilarious name. In fairness to John, there are many fun reasons to bully me. Name-calling is, however, a total waste of his time. For one, he’s clearly already decided we are going to fight, so it doesn’t really matter whether I respond. And secondly, I am such a colossal coward that I can’t really image what you’d have to say to me to tempt me into fisticuffs.

So I just kind of stare at him, quite scared of the oncoming likelihood of pain and embarrassment, but without any real strategy beyond “stand there letting time pass until eventually this isn’t happening any more.” This almost accidentally works as an avoidance tactic. With no response to his insults, John seems unclear as to how best to proceed - like a computer stuck in a loop until it gets sufficient input. Clearly his algorithm has a ‘pause for response’ condition, and for a few moments I wondered if I’ve defeated the basic programming inside his head.

I have not. A crowd has gathered now, ready for the latest instalment of  ‘John Butcher - Random Punchist’. His antics are pretty routine by now and hardly the stuff of novelty. But there is a little extra excitement this morning, as John is facing up to the absolute softest kid in the school. It is quite possible that there’ll be blood, tears and maybe even a death. John registers the crowd, and remembers his purpose. 

Having never been in a fight before, I don’t know the protocol. From the outside it’s always looked like a complicated set of moves are made by both combatants, almost chess-like in their precision; fists and boots moving faster than the human eye can track. I wonder what it will look like from the inside. 

What it looks like is this. John lunges towards me with all the precision and grace of a pantomime horse. Unexpectedly to me, he chooses to lead with his face - wobbling it violently towards me as he draws his fist back. I wonder briefly if there’s some kind of protocol at work here: “You must not hit a face when it is presented so obviously and easily as a target.” It does seem unsporting. 

Luckily, this super-polite part of my brain is over-ridden by a previously unknown bit of lizard-brain survival instinct. I watch as my right arm raises to my side, as if hailing a bus. My fist clenches, and then - as John’s gormless face continues its slow motion advance towards me - my whole body pivots on its axis, my fist arcing round like a pencil on a compass. 

I watch, as surprised as everyone else, as my fist connects with John’s idiot mouth. His eyes briefly register the new, unexpected data, as shock waves ripple through what passes for his brain. Then - time speeds up. He careens off, spinning away from me and collapsing to the ground. 

I stop and behold in amazement the work of my hands. There lays my fallen foe, hurt and bewildered. The crowd of kids around explode in a cheer of surprised delight. This is amazing - they’ve got to see someone being caused pain, which is obviously brilliant regardless of context. But also, they’ve seen something totally unexpected: the kid who looks like he might blow away on a windy day has somehow murdered the kid who looks like an angry slab of meat. This is the greatest Tuesday ever!

It would be great if this story represented a new era, for me, of a self confident boy who luxuriates in the respect of his peers. Sadly, I remain the same nervous little bug, skipping about relying on jokes and weirdness to survive the horrors of my school years. Maybe that’s a good thing. 

As for John.. well I honestly can’t remember ever hearing about him again. Maybe I killed him with my amazing fist. And the teachers covered it all up, glad to have a slightly more peaceful maths class, and relieved that they lived in the 1970s where people didn’t check your paperwork so often.

Or maybe he just wandered grimly on to whoever came next in the alphabet, sleeves rolled up for more pointless pugilism. Or, maybe, he grew out of this behaviour and became a totally different person. That would be better, wouldn’t it?

I’ve changed his name, because even though that child I knew was an absolute cretin, he was just a 9 year old boy. There’s every possibility that he became a brilliant, gentle, inspirational human being. He may be out there now, changing the lives of people for the better, one day at a time. Perhaps he’s even reading this, in his office, between meetings, sipping on a coffee and marvelling at the distance between the people we were, and the people we can become. 

I hope so. All the best, John. And sorry for totally owning you, like a boss, in the most compelling victory one human has ever had over another. Please don’t find me and hit me back. 

Fight: Part Two

Part two, of a tale in three parts. Go here for part one.  

I am not a fighter, in any sense of the word. 

I’ve always been small, and that’s part of it, but I think there’s something more fundamental at work. I’ve seen plenty of lads who were smaller than me but great at fighting. Wild terriers, possessed of the most unearthly anger, leaping and bouncing and snarling at the world around them. Some of them jumped and snarled at me, and I can tell you for sure - their punches hurt just fine.

No, it’s not really a size thing. I reckon that even if I’d grown up big and tall, my body developing upwards and outwards with the physique of a Greek god, I’d have still been reluctant to throw a punch. 

Is that true? Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe if we looked into alternative time, we’d find mirror-universe Rob, six foot tall and rippling with muscles, swaggering about the world like a king, smacking people round the head every time they got a fact wrong about Doctor Who. “No, it wasn’t Tom Baker in the One With the Maggots you tosser. It was Jon Pertwee, and its proper title is ‘The Green Death’. Now give me your lunch money.” 

Maybe the reality of being tough would change the paths along which my personality developed, and I’m just a slave to circumstance. Like that time I bought my first car with a two litre engine and discovered that, far from being a thoughtful and considerate driver as I’d always imagined, I was in fact the same kind of aggressive speed freak as everyone else - I’d just never had a powerful enough car to see that side of myself. 

Hmm. Anyway. Back to this universe: specifically the bit of it that contains my school playground in the late 1970s. 

There’s me, small and weak and glum, staring at the tarmac. Tuesday morning break. For twenty minutes we are cast outside into the miserable, cold, concrete deathtrap that surrounds the school, away from the nice, warm, good bit, inside, where the books live. Most of the kids charge into the break like an army of berserker demons. They love it, and go appropriately insane with noisy joy. I don’t know why. Kids are idiots, and the sooner I don’t have to hang out with them, the better. 

As if things aren’t bad enough already, it soon becomes worse because there, in front of me is John Butcher. I don’t remember him approaching me, he just seems to pop into existence a few feet away, as if in a dream or a particularly depressing video game. He wears the same kind of cunning, leering anticipation that a dog might have when considering eating whatever’s in your hand, even if the thing in your hand is a glove, or a book, or one of its own paws.

So this is it. The idiot king of the pugilists has finally got to ‘R’ in his mental inventory of “People I must punch, at least once”. And now, we have to fight.

To be concluded... in part Three

Fight

 

I never knew John Butcher to speak to. We were very different kids.

I was, as you’d expect, all books and glasses and mumbles. I hung around the edges of the playground with a bunch of similarly minded geeks, giggling at the fantasy worlds we’d concocted to escape the grey reality of the 1970s in the North of England. Occasionally we’d see John, tumbling through another ill conceived fist fight in the middle of the yard, sometimes surrounded by a little crowd of excited onlookers. 

The size of the crowd varied depending on whom John had chosen as his adversary. Sometimes he’d pick on one of the big lads, and that would be guaranteed to draw the numbers. The big lads rarely fought, because they didn’t need to. They were the superstars of the middle school ecosystem - famous because they were famous, their prowess in the arts of combat often spoken of but rarely seen. No-one in our mortal sphere would be so daft as to challenge them, and they didn’t fight each other. They weren’t friends, I don’t think, but they were smart enough to know how to sustain a reputation - and that meant not scrabbling around in the dirt at playtime over a bag of crisps. 

John didn’t care about any of this. He’d fight one of them as easily as he’d fight one of us. I still remember that rainy Wednesday when John loped up behind Big Raj, bobbing up and smacking him across the back of the head. He called Raj a name that you certainly wouldn’t use now, and even then in the 70s was pretty risky behaviour for a lumpy little white lad. Raj didn’t turn round, for a second, and it was like raindrops sparkled, suspended in the air for a moment. John just kind of stood there, his gormless face excited and proud at this frankly insane thing he’d just done. 

And then time just seemed to jump; Raj’s arm pumped out and back faster than you could think, and John was on the floor. Raj turned back to his mates and carried on talking, sort of smiling I guess but also almost totally unconcerned, as if nothing had happened. Describing it now feels like he was in his 20s or something, but he must have been at most eleven. John crawled to his feet and stumbled off, grimly satisfied that he’d hit his quota. 

It seemed like John was on a mission, and that mission was as beautiful in its clarity as it was stupid in its conception. He was going to fight every other boy in the school, at least once.

One rainy Tuesday, it was my go at being his 'once'.

Go here, for part two of this thrilling tale...