Friday Flash 4

New York, New York

The whole city really did look like a film set. That classical skyscraper, that’s where King Kong met his end. You could picture four women lunching and bitching in that window there. Audrey Hepburn returning at dawn, ‘fifty dollars for the powder room’ in her bag, gazing into a dazzling display of diamonds. Spider Man and Batman saving the world from evil just opposite Bloomingdale’s.

And as for this crumbling old shell of a woman? I couldn’t die without seeing New York, could I? A lifetime with a pleasant but tight-fisted man and not a single adventure other than through the silver screen. Now he was gone I wanted to be a part of it, New York, New York.

The taxi stopped just near where the horse-drawn carriages waited for tourists by Central Park. I paid him, tipped well, and stood with my back to the park, admiring the solid, gothic-tinged apartment blocks, each with their inscrutable doorman. Wasn’t that one where the Ghostbusters had their final showdown?

I shuffled around to face that wonderful park. My shoes were already giving me trouble but that wasn’t going to stop me. I had gone for an appointment, set up the day after Bernie’s funeral, with the personal shopper of Bloomingdale’s. I had explained my situation.

“My husband has left me three million,” I said. “Dress me as if I lived on Park Avenue.” And, eyebrows hardly raising – she must have seen some customers in her time! – she dressed me like a Lady.

I wrapped my stole tighter around me to protect me from the sharp wind and made my way towards the lower East corner. I had been told there was a little zoo near here.
“Can I interest you in a ride, ma’am?”
I shook my head at the tall, smiling black man who sat at the reins of the first carriage.
“You sure, ma’am? It’s an awful big park?”
All of a sudden I felt the chill of the March wind and the pinch of the elegant shoes on my tired old feet. I looked up at him.
“Do you know, I think that I might enjoy a ride?”
The driver helped me into the carriage. He did indeed cut a dash with his white teeth and smart black suit. I felt every inch the real Lady.
“I’m going to take you on the greatest ride of your life, if you’ll permit me, ma’am. I’m going to show you everything you never saw. I want you to be a part of it, New York.”
“Well thank you, my weary old bones are about ready to be shown the city in style.”
The graceful black man, his midnight eyes shining with the wisdom of centuries, flicked his reins and his beloved horse pulled away from the curb. The ebony carriage, shimmering darkly, gathered speed, taking me to see all the sights that I had never seen.

Friday Flash 3

The Smell of Tornadoes

Raindrops slapped the wooden deck, swollen and bloated like drowned fish. With them came the smell, the smell of the atmosphere and all the charged ions that rumbled with pent-up friction.

The raindrops burst as they struck, flattening into discolouration, and the woman with her hair pulled back with an elastic band watched their stain spread across the oiled wood, the heat causing them to fade back even as she stood there, one hand resting on the screen door. A trickle of sweat ran down the V of her breasts beneath the INXS t-shirt. The air was weighted and thick.

A gust of wind brought a new smell from far off, the smell of the tornado, and she caught the stench of things pulled up, uprooted. Things that were never supposed to see the light of day. A tear tracked the path of her sweat, down her neck and under her t-shirt.

The storm burst, cascading lightening bolts as if they were seed corn as the thunder cracked above the house. The rain came faster, blotting out the trees on the other side of the field with grey haze. She drank in the release of the storm, reaching her arms out to its honesty.

And the woman turned to her husband who was seated at the kitchen table before a map of electronic parts he had taken from the vacuum cleaner, a smear of oil on his prickled chin.

Vince, she said. Vince. And he looked up into her moist eyes and frowned. I have something I need to tell you, she said. And this time you’ll listen.

The bloated raindrops fell, coating the oiled wood with slick reflections, so fast now that the solid heat could not absorb them all.



Photo courtesy of WeatherSavvy.com

Friday Flash 2

Another Scottish apocalypse this week, but no zombies.


Highland Visitor

"I'll get it!" I scrambled over the squidgy eiderdown walls of the fort ahead of Rose, skidded across the wooden hall floor in my socks and pulled open the front door, making the wind chime jingle.
"Mam's just in the garden," I said to the angel who stood there. "She's trying to mow the lawn before it gets too dusky. Shall I away and get her?"
"No, no, it's fine," said the angel. "I don't want to bother her if she's busy. I'd just like a glass of water, if that's okay?"
"Caitrin!" hissed Rose from behind my knees. "We're not supposed to let strangers in without Mam."
"Aye, it's alright, it's an angel. Mam won't mind."
I pushed Rose backwards across the floor on her behind and stood back to let the angel in. He sidled in, looking a fair bit embarrassed.
"I won't stay long," he said. "I don't want to get you into any trouble."
He had a lovely voice, all warm and treacly.

I led him through to the kitchen and sat him down at the table. Mam would be far more annoyed if I was rude to a guest. The angel was carrying a wee golden trumpet and one of those swingy things you put incense in at church. Rose was still shuffling around on the floor and I could see she had spied the trumpet. She always acted skitty around people she didn't know and I was going to give her a proper chiding when the angel had gone.
To get her to act nicely I sent Rose to fetch some water, although I knew she'd have to stand on her pink stool to reach the tap. I asked the angel what he was doing all the way up in these parts.
"It's the apocalypse, you see," said the angel in his treacley voice. "I'm early, though." He leaned forward and I leaned in too. "Can you keep a secret?"
I nodded. "Aye."
"I'm a temp. I'm not supposed to be on duty at all. Half of the office is out on training and then the call came through." The angel shrugged and sighed. "I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get here so I set off early and of course now I'm the first one."
I'd had that before, that time of the junior disco down in the town, and I nodded.
Rose came back in the glass of water and put it on the table without spilling a drop.

Outside I could still hear the mower rattling around the garden with Mam in tow.
The angel took a few sips then put his glass down.
"I'd better go. Thanks for the water."
He seemed very jumpy now, nerves I suppose, and as I showed him to the door I gave his hand a wee squeeze.
"Good luck with the apocalypse."
The angel returned me a grin and a shrug.
"Thank you." And he disappeared off into the gloom.

Friday Flash

How about a bit of zombie apocalypse-themed flash fiction for a Friday?










Preparation

When the zombie apocalypse came, Dev and his friends were ready. They’d trained, prepared, and visualised every step of their plan. As lifelong fans of quality science fiction they had always anticipated the day there would be news that an extremely contagious virus had leaked from a top-secret, high-security government lab causing people to eat their victims’ brains, and it was their sworn duty to run away very quickly.

The call from Hamish came at 10.20 a.m. Dev was at a job down in Leith fixing a pipe at a flat when that mobile started to ring with the signature theme from Shaun of the Dead.
“Hamish, tell me it’s true.”
“Dev, it’s all over News 24. An extremely contagious virus has leaked from a top-secret, high-security government lab causing people to eat their victims’ brains.”
“Let’s roll.”

They met at Hamish’s comic book shop, Vintage Vault, on South Clerk Street. Dev could see Sandy’s van parked outside. Inside, Sandy had an impressive array of weaponry stolen from the Royal Mile tourist shop he sometimes worked in.
“I’ve got a double-headed replica medieval axe each and two genuine Braveheart broadswords between the three of us. They’re for chopping off heads. The crossbows are for long-range action.”
“Good work, Sandy,” said Dev.

They loaded up the van with supplies stored in the back room of Vintage Vault: tins of food, a laptop, matches, first aid kits, sleeping bags, seeds, spades, oil lamps, gas burners, packets of crisps, cans of drink, radio equipment, and the box sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Farscape. The roads were quiet – the outbreak was confined to the South East of England for now – and as they joined the A90 the mood of optimism and camaraderie rose.
“The sat-nav reckons another four hours till we get to Loch Maree,” said Hamish. They high-fived and went over their plans for fortifications.

Twenty-eight weeks later and the country had fallen to the zombie plague, although pockets of resistance were left in the cities, according to radio broadcasts, and isolated crofts held out.
Up at Hamish’s grandma’s house on Loch Maree, Dev was bored and hungry. There hadn’t been electricity for months so the television and computer were useless, and the tinned food had all gone. The seeds couldn’t be planted till spring and worse, Hamish’s grandma was driving them mad with her constant talk of the War and how much better her generation would have coped with a zombie apocalypse. It had also dawned on them that none of them had girlfriends so repopulating the world was out.

Dev walked into the kitchen where Hamish and Sandy were playing cards.
“I’m going,” he said. Hamish and Sandy looked at each other.
“The van’s already loaded up,” said Sandy. With a desultory high-five they stashed Hamish’s grandma in the back seat and headed south.
“Glasgow or Edinburgh?” asked Dev.
“Edinburgh. Better class of zombie,” said Hamish. Sandy remained silent and concentrated on sharpening the weapons.