With my collar up against the cold and my hands balled into fists and hiding in my pockets I reached the bus stop. It was open-fronted but covered and people were huddled there, closer to each other than they would normally be. In front of the bus stop, in the gutter, on the road, a large deep puddle had collected and was advancing towards the middle of the road. Every time a car or van or motorbike went past the people stood by me stepped back and I stepped back to and a little wave of water washed up over the kerb and towards us. Most of the cars slowed as they passed. Some didn’t.

(more…)

Things deadly and dark. Rattled and shaken. Out here hidden from the rain. That night into this morning. Rain falling over cobblestones and through grey cloud-covered skies. A shiver all through me, through the coat and the scarf. That middle point when I’d forgotten the crucified men seemed a long time ago and it seemed as blinkered and innocent as a child’s belief in Father Christmas. This now was the new world. The reality of things pressing hard against my skull and the bone there splintering into the amygdale and cerebral cortex. My head open to the blank heavens and to the roof of this open-fronted shed. I didn’t stand still though I stood in the same place. I jerked and twitched like a small electric current was being passed through my body. Like I was a mute soldier in the grip of shellshock strapped to a leather chair in a medical room. I thought that if I stood still then the spiders that nested in the roof of the shed would spin down on abseil lines and make nests in the cracks of my skull. That babies there would be born, and from there they’d burrow down to find something good and grey to dine on.

(more…)

Out in the depths of Angel infested zerozero, if you manage to avoid gate campers and local wars, you may run into the odd Machariel or three. They’re gorgeous ships, the hotrods of the stars; long, sleek, black fangs hanging in space. If you don’t know what you’re doing up against zerozero pirates, they’ll kill you quick. But then if you’re in zerozero and you don’t know what you’re doing, you deserve to die.

(more…)

- Chorus

My phone rang in another room and I scuttled from my chair and answered it and after a minute or two of conversation I had something to do that evening. As I hung up I smiled at the dead television screen with mockery on my face.

Fifteen minutes after that I wrapped my scarf noose-tight around my neck and turned the collar of my coat up in the hallway, checked my pockets, and closed the door behind myself. Down the stairs, out into the street dark deserted and blushed with orange from the streetlights. I looked left toward the river and right toward the chip shop where a queue of people snaked around the block like soviets waiting for soap. I knelt and tied my shoelace and as I stood the terraced houses leant in on me. I stepped out onto the forever-quiet road and walked down the middle, past the chip shop, left, down another provincial street of legend where thin curtains did a poor job of hiding whatever happened within.

(more…)

The saddest song with the silliest title rose up out of the television and I opened my eyes from a too-early tiredness. I didn’t know where I was until Geeshie came whispering to my mind and told me. She almost lost her scowl before she left my head and went back to her plot. I sat and watched and listened until the song came to an end, and I turned the television off. I didn’t look at my watch. I knew it was far too late, and I knew that I wasn’t going to get enough sleep. I didn’t want reminding of the fact. I stood and tripped over my shoes. The noise was far too loud and in the wake of it I stood and waited for the sound of Anna waking. It never came and I released a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding.

(more…)