Tag: flash fiction

This week’s entry into the weekly flash fiction competition was horribly, horribly rushed (I.E. I wrote it 2 hours prior to the deadline) and I expect to lose, but, I’ll post it all the same. Edit: I actually won this week with this, ha

Duty Visit

1000w

Cathy

The retirement complex has its own tiddly little bus, a single-decker that goes all about the houses. Half the other passengers already look dead. Garnet, who doesn’t give me a moment’s peace the entire way. Always her stomach aching or her phone not working.

I give her a clip around the ear, and she screeches. My face burns, people turn, people were staring with those awful, sunken, coffin-dodger eyes.

“People are looking!” Shut up, shut up! Why is she doing this to me, why does she make everything so hard? “Sit down! Sit down and be quiet, do you want them to throw you off the bus? Eh? Do you know how to walk home by yourself?”

The old man a couple rows behind, I can tell he’s fixing his disgusting rheumy eyes on me. He’s thinking, what a beast, what an awful mother. No idea, not a clue what I’ve been through. Every day the same, spittle and runny noses, cornflakes and school sandwiches and has the old bat ever offered help? Has she ever, spending all day gorging herself on cake, can’t even lift up the phone but to say to me, oh Cathy you’re doing it all wrong, that’s never how I was to you.

One more visit and I’d never have to look at her again.

Filthy tip of a place, disgusting that anybody lives here. All institutional redbrick and peeling pastel paint, the building looking about as decrepit as the half-ghouls that call these rooms their crypts.

The old cow is sat on it all, perched on what’s mine. She’ll tell me where it was, she’s give me what’s mine, what was always meant to be mine, what I deserve.

Thea

Somebody visiting. Come to ask for something, either money or time. Not that I have much of either. Not now, too tired, sendthem back. They never let me sleep, those girls. Always calling to complain about their awful lives and absent boyfriends.

“It’s your daughter, and granddaughter. I’ll just let them in for a moment, ok?” The nurse doesn’t wait for a reply, so in they come. Here comes Cathy, proud as punch, always righteous, forever strident. And in tow, little Garnet. Eyes red, head low.

It takes Cathy digging her fingers into the girl’s shoulder to bring out a sullen “Hello Granny”. Thinks that she’ll get more out of me by dragging her along in a cheap chequerboard frock. She looks like she dressed in the dark.

But ah, she’s animated now. She lifts my hand off the chair and squeezes it, I suppose the nurses think it affectionate, but her grip is strong and my fingers brittle. It won’t be long until you’re here too, girl. Your hands may have more lotion, but in time they’ll be parchment too.

I let my eyes lose focus. She was always like this, even at Garnet’s age. So many questions and ambitions. How she drove me to despair, her father to drink, her sisters to rage. Never satisfied with all that we gave to her, always grasping for unearned praise. I was too soft.

I know what she wants before she mentions it. She wants to know where I hid it, thinks that it’s her just reward, thinks that a few visits to me will mean I can forget the agony she put me through.

“You’re ruining that girl.”

That shuts her up. I make sure everybody in the lounge hears it. Silly old fool, they’ll think, doesn’t know how loud she’s talking.

“You’re ruining that girl and she’s going to end up just like you.”

That’s right, girl. You want to cry, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes, the glowing red in your cheeks. Just like you did every day as a brat, every time I told you “No”, every time I caught you stealing. Cry, let everybody here see what a pathetic little girl you are.

You want to know where my treasure is hidden? Well, you can’t. It’s mine, and that means I get to decide who gets it. You are a selfish girl who needs a cold, hard lesson in how the world works. It’s mine and will be mine until the day they pack me away from here in a coffin, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Garnet

Mummy keeps saying we have to go and visit Granny, which isn’t fair because we can only visit her on a Saturday and it’s been every Saturday for weeks and there’s nothing here and it smells and the bus always makes me feel sick, but I complained about it last week and Mummy got upset so I don’t complain about it anymore.

The other girls spend their weekends round each other’s houses. When I asked why we’re visiting her so much, Mummy said that I was a nasty girl who didn’t care about her poor old Granny. Granny doesn’t say much and scares me.
Granny and Mummy have just finished talking. I don’t understand what they’re talking about, there’s something in the old house that Mummy can’t find and she keeps asking if Granny knows where it is. I keep saying that if we asked my Aunties to help we’d be able to find something.

We’ve only just got here when Mummy grabs my arm and it’s too hard and it hurts and we’re walking too fast too fast and the nurse tries to hand me something but we’re already leaving and we’re already gone.
I don’t say anything on the bus, Mummy’s too cross and I know not to say anything when she’s cross.

I go to my room and wedge myself into the gap between my wardrobe and the wall. Mummy doesn’t know about my secret place, about my hidden door and my special treasure, about the loose wall behind the wardrobe or the special room. She’ll never know because it’s my secret, it’s mine, all mine, and will always be mine.

Outstanding Contribution

Little bit of flash fiction I did the other day for a weekly flash competition I’m in. The prompt was to do with realising you’ve made a terrible mistake, and the word limit was 1,000 words.

999w

I should like to give you some background first. It’s unbecoming to brag, but between you and me I have a terribly important job, and I am rather good at it.

The entire village works for the Ministry in one way or another, it is no secret what I do. Geoff at the market asks me how my day was when I buy vegetables, and I give an annual talk for Deirdre at the primary school about the necessity of our expedited prison system.

We all understand, you see. The world may not work the way it used to, but my job is no different from Geoff, from Deirdre, or even yourselves. It isn’t as though this job is a new idea; this country had an official executioner until the 1960s. The crisis of the last few decades might mean that our methods are somewhat rushed, but I like to think I bring professionalism to the role.

You’re quite right, I’m getting off the subject. Please, there’s no need to be rough, we really are all on the same team.

It was the bum end of an early shift. I’d performed seven disposals that morning when the Minister arrived with his aide. Couldn’t tell the aide from Adam, they come and go all the time. As I can see you’ve checked, they signed the register and made their way to Cell 23.

No, I most certainly did not listen to what went on in there. We do not get involved in interrogations. I do what I can to ignore the sounds, a little sudoku here and a crossword there.

I was trying to tease out “Dull river crossed by fish (4)” when the cell opened again. The Minister walked swiftly down the corridor, his back turned and hat replaced. The aide made his way to my desk, face pale. Not, I suspected, a successful interrogation.

The young man told me the Minister would like me an Expedited Disposal on the occupant of Cell 23 immediately.

Now, I understood the procedure well enough, and this was a deviation. If you would check my records, you will see that I am one of only 30 per-cent of Disposal Associates to achieve a rating of ‘Outstanding Contribution’ for each of the last three years. I know, if I may say so, my onions.

This gentleman did not act like he was on a spot-check. A forced laugh and a patting of pockets came before a theatrical slapping of his forehead as I reminded him of the process. Of course, he said. How silly of me, he said, such an instruction must only come from the Minister.

Although, he said (and here his lower lip turned up into an desperately pathetic sulk), the Minister had left for an urgent meeting with the Security Service and was incommunicado for the day. He briefly went on a tangent about the Faraday cages these meetings were held in, before stopping bashfully. Ah, youthful enthusiasm.

The young man sighed, bloodied knuckles tapping on his teeth. How were we, two professional Crown servants, to solve this conundrum? And then, with a speed that caused his gore-soaked tie to flick dull red spots onto my desk, he threw his finger up in triumph.

Of course! The Minister had signed the order. He produced the note (yes, this same note, stains and all). Signed, proper and official, with His Majesty’s seal.

He wrung his hands as I inspected it. And oh, gentlemen! You should have seen the wretch. Ill-fitting suit, cheap glasses, ruined white shirt (awful decision in this work). I took pity on the boy. It doesn’t do to be a roadblock to Government, not in these times.

He made sure to take my name as he left. That’s how you know they’re going to put in a good word.

Once he left, I did my duty. They must have really roughed up the fellow this time: they’d gone to the trouble of putting a bag over his head. He didn’t move at all as I raised the barrel to his forehead, sat limp in the chair in a too-large prisoner’s uniform.

I called down for the cleaner as I usually do. Paula (nice girl, thick as a post) said that she didn’t think there were any more booked today. She didn’t understand, and I had to explain twice. That girl couldn’t think her way out of a paper bag.

It’s curious how some things only come into focus when explaining them to another. The Minister had dashed down the corridor in a dreadful hurry, and a hat indoors? And hadn’t Cell 23 been quite a stout man?

Once Paula agreed to do her blasted job, I took another look at the slip. Ministers must be frightfully busy, I’m sure it’s normal to photocopy a signature. And the Royal Seal.

I sat there for a spell, and it was then I elected to end my shift and amble home for a late lunch.

There was a queer atmosphere around the village, silent but for Ministry cars barrelling down the street. I was grateful to shut out the world and sit in my lovely cottage, turn on the television and try to relax. University Challenge, an all-Oxford matchup, Balliol facing Wadham. I couldn’t focus on it.

Doing my best not to think about what had happened, I fell asleep. I told myself, as mum would say, it will all come out in the wash.

I woke when your boys knocked my door in with a ram. Unnecessary, though I suppose forgivable, given the circumstances.

And that brings us to the present. I’m very sorry to hear about the Minister, really I am, and I do hope you catch that rascal from Cell 23. I hope you can see that this was a rare lapse in an otherwise stellar career and allow me to return to work. After all, my job is terribly important, and I am rather good at it.