Loitering in grey prison-style fatigues, Kevin looks the part. Scowling, holding a stolen Devil Dog on a thick rope leash, he waits by the only patch of green on the estate.
He goes by the street name Gavin.
Pungent smoke wafts through a city heat haze, but the constant stink of poverty is what Kevin wants to escape. With a third child on the way, Kevin hates the idea of being back in the bin and will not tolerate junkies hanging around his drum, so the street it is.
A fist bump closes a deal for a weed smoker.
The Devil Dog needs a shit.
Released from the rope Devil Dog takes a shit on the patch of grass beneath the ‘No Dog Fouling’ sign as a quick swap of folded note for small white lump takes place.
Phone to his ear, Gavin whistles Devil Dog before sauntering away.
The silence is soon broken; Charlie, Kevin’s youngest; runs up, jumps the railing, and kicks a ball beneath a sign he cannot read that states: No Ball Games.
‘Urghher,’ Charlie shouts, trying to wipe squashed dog shit off his trainer. He gives up and walks off to the basketball pen, a metal frame that looks like a prison cage surrounded by the standard form of estate flat windows.
Sad people yearn, and some people earn by taking money from the ill people they serve.
Gavin and his dog return. Another deal done and the junkie ambles away like one of the living dead.
Happy to see Charlie return, Devil Dog jumps up and over the low fence, as Charlie boots the ball at the wall, that could be the back of the net.
A family man, Kevin proudly watches his son kick that winning ball as his dog back-kicks grass, and for a moment, Gavin is oblivious to how deep it all is.
*
My Conception Day
*
*
To celebrate my conception day, I held a little ceremony. I inhaled and contemplated how and why I won the race.
A nagging confusion became a constant until I realised – I was either lucky or easily fooled. I wanted it, I guess. But did onlookers laugh when I took the first bite of that well-timed egg?
Picture my Father, like a dirty old dog, banging away from behind my Mother. In a mutual high state of loving ecstasy, did they need to fantasise about anyone else? Would a Father’s eyes have looked at the legs of that girl in the Library? Did a Mother check out the male strength of that new butcher’s assistant? I doubted it. From the experience of conceiving twice before, they were adept and totally in love.
Now I see my Mother skilfully riding my Father, a woman in control of a weakling. With legs wrapped around his back, like a vixen, she had him locked on; no man or weakling could stand the contractions for long.
The lingam and yoni, the ecstatic love and the bliss of sexual love, with no help needed from gods or goddesses, I was conceived.
Did I let them down, the last child of three? Should I have given up the race and faced my only existence as one of many that would glide away?
*
*
*
Tenancy
Oblivious to the gentle warmth of spring sunshine, or the scent of pink blossom on roadside trees, Luke cycled home.
Days of spring bloomed into weeks of summer. In the heat, Luke’s mind swirled. He blushed when reliving the jealousy, the uncontrollable rages, and the ultimate loss.
Raking over the scenario, from the short-lived euphoria to a change so radical, that he became lost in love-blind acceptance. Luke knew it was over when he scrawled his signature on the tenancy agreement, and he watched his ideals evaporate with the moisture of the ink. Sifting the detail stored, he recalled the agent’s commission-hungry eyes as another predator devouring Kate.
Wrapped in a dirty sheet, all of Kate’s scent had faded. The remains of the incense she ceremonially burnt still clung to the walls, an unwelcome redolence of burnt magnolia.
Awake before dawn, Luke threw a worn toothbrush into a holdall of dirty clothes. Nothing of value remained in the neglected flat, so he silently struggled down the worn stairwell with his bike.
Before posting the keys, he wrapped them in the eviction notice. They hit interior stone as the metal letterbox snapped shut. As frightened birds returned to their roost, standing in a flow of scented air, he inflated his lungs and listened to birdsong. Toward the city, haloed by the light of dawn, pushing the bike, he stopped only once, swung the holdall over his shoulder, and then silently Luke cycled away.
*
*
Favorite Popstars name Backwards
*
Hypnotised by bright pixels and fuelled by the fear of missing out, Ashley watched his favorite media stars 24/7. Each view of a video on the platform was an increment in payment for the creator, so Ashley wanted a piece of the action.
Sleek High Definition adverts bathed his eyes when plugged in, and while he dreamed, subliminal snippets offered, at a cost, part of the utopia they constantly paraded.
The camcorder arrived four hours after Ashley hacked his mother’s account. Disguising his face with a bright green t-shirt and his grandmother’s sunglasses, he pressed the record button. He stared at the lens. A possession manifested into a creepy hypnotic voice. In a trance-like state, for the next twenty-three minutes, he repeated his favourite pop stars name backwards.
Whirling a digital wand, Ashley edited and looped his movie using stolen software. He quickly registered his channel, ‘On the NetWerk,’ uploaded, and waited.
The moving image was odd but not as disturbing as the audio. Addictive hidden messages drove people insane, and the viewing figures went stratospheric.
News of the upload spread like a shock wave. Hundreds of laptops got smashed, Internet cafes burnt down, and doors of computer stores locked indefinitely as crazy people got tasered by screaming cops wearing essential ear protectors.
All good fun, Ashley thought, until he saw the reports of the atrocity. The vast amount of money Ashley made got hidden as a cryptocurrency the authorities would never trace.
Kept in solitary confinement after his arrest, Ashley relinquished his password. All copies of the video got destroyed by the authorities. Owning a copy would be deemed illegal. When not chuckling to himself, he could not help repeating his favorite pop stars name backwards.
Clip
*
To prove he could, Patrick ran up the stairs of the double-decker bus. And like a big kid, he sat at the front of the almost empty top deck.
His heartbeat slowed to a healthy rhythm. A stream of images and daydreams from a long and varied life came and went as the bus crawled along. Patrick knew he was fit for his age.
An audible clip disturbed Patrick. In a moment, his daydreams vanished, then he heard another metallic clip. His mind raced, visualizing what could be happening four seats behind. Disgust rattled his nerves as he sensed the tiny crescent of a fingernail flying through the air. Would it land on the floor? In his hair? Would it sit stationary on a seat, a surprise for the next passenger?
Patrick turned, and the generational gap became a sinister chasm. One of a couple raised a painted eyebrow, mouthed ‘what,’ kissed their teeth and went back to the task of cutting the fingernails of the partner, who with an offensive smirk and a tilt of the head, spread a leg wide into the aisle.
Turning around and facing forward, Patrick hoped the disgust he felt was palpable. Then another clip took him to that dark place, where all that remained was a timid boy, a quiet boy, one cornered by circumstance, a boy whose father had died too young. He wanted to shout, ‘my dad, was murdered by an army, and my mother cleaned buses to feed her children.’
He then began to fantasize about the pain he wanted to inflict.
Anger, and now disgust, and all that had cursed his life, drove Patrick to stand up. Nonverbally he expressed his feelings and then walked down the stairs to exit the bus two stops premature.
Waiting for the bus doors to open, Patrick heard, ‘Ow, that hurt you stupid…’ the hiss of the opening doors blocked out the last word. Patrick shouted, ’I hope you enjoyed the pain, you stupid…’ the hiss of the closing doors blocked out the last word as Patrick hopped off the bus.
Cracked
Ornate railings are now loose in crumbling concrete. Decorative defences, hard for a hundred years or more, can no longer bar my entry. I squeeze myself, and my sleeping bag, into the locked Abney Park Cemetery.
The dark forces my pupils to dilate. I walk carefully, listening and watching out for people like me. I walk as the trees throw shadows on the graves. Responding to a melancholy sound of breeze-blown leaves, as though they are talking to me, I taste damp earth when I inhale.
Along the track, both sides are bordered by undergrowth and brambles, full of fruit this time of year. A memory takes hold, picking blackberries with my son.
Courtesy of the orange street light that penetrates the canopy, I see a grave adorned with a fresh wreath, and then the shadows return.
After retrieving the cardboard that helps keep my sleeping bag dry, I walk along the track, until I turn right, as I have for the last four nights.
There is a smell of damp grass and my unwashed body, as it aches. I feel cold. I curl up and hold myself, as I should have held on to my son. The pain of sharp thorns nothing, when I dream about the red stain on my fingers.
Flash Fiction attempts
wrote this for a comp…had a typo – that has gone
enjoyed the feeling of being on blueys!
Hoping to see Sandra, Greg tagged along with Buckby, who was hoping to see Moody Tony. A long summer and starved of action, some teenagers escaped the confines of those old before their time and gravitated to those with similar sensibilities, which meant hanging out in a small city park, where sex was a snog if you were lucky.
Moody Tony saw Buckby enter the park. Greg saw Sandra. Tony appeared excited, not moody and wiped white flecks from his mouth.
‘Do you want any?’
Greg’s heart began to pound.
‘A quid mate.’
Pocketing the money, Moody Tony carefully watched Sandra’s fingers place three blue pills in Greg’s palm. As Greg made eye contact, Sandra’s little pout was a trigger moment.
‘Hey Buckby, d’you know who’s playing tonight?’ Asked Moody Tony.
Buckby practised his vacant stare.
‘Stiff Little Fingers. Get yourselves to De Montfort Hall at seven-thirty. Violent Stuart’s doing the door on the left, towards the back, be quick, run into the crowd, the bouncers won’t get us all.’
*
Violent Stuart slammed the metal bar. Greg and Sandra ran together hand in hand through the fire exit doors to join an ecstatic cheering crowd and a guitar chord intro.
‘1,2,3,4.’
Pogoing like crazy to the front, Greg lost Sandra. Liquid electricity stimulated every nerve and wide-eyed he watched gold spotlights ricochet off guitars and felt the thud of banging drums as the sweat-soaked vocalist strained with raw emotion to deliver an immediate anthem.
*
After the gig, Greg saw Sandra, a reluctant passenger safe in her mum’s car.
Walking the five miles home alone, Greg took a corner and stopped. He felt the connection of looking at the stars.
Finally, in his bed, reliving it all, Greg willed his dreams to be of the next time.
A Pop Stars Name
Alone in her bedroom, Shanice swapped boredom for synaptic kicks. Staring consistently at a small screen, she tapped into her message stream while watching countless one-minute videos. Any lull in the flow felt like an attack of FOMO.Unconvinced by the visions of utopia paraded by advertisers, Shanice followed the media output of the highest-earning stars. Longing to belong, she fantasised a flock of online followers. Desperate for a piece of the action, she hacked her mother’s account to purchase a state of the art camcorder.As epinephrine rushed red blood cells through her veins, Shanice mastered the controls. Disguising her face with a Day-Glo bandanna and her grandmother’s sunglasses, she giggled, paused, and then pressed record.A psychological storm whipped up in her mind. With bloodshot eyes and a bad taste in her mouth, Shanice lost control of her tongue. For twenty-three minutes, she repeated a chant from another world.eilliB, eilliB, eilliB, hsiliE eilliB, eilliB.Exiting the trance-like state, Shanise uploaded her video. The audio resonance so immediate, so hypnotic, you needed inner strength to resist. Distraught teenagers convinced they heard hidden messages, screamed ‘make it stop!’ or, ‘The voice made me do it.’ Reports of anxious parents, some of them hypnotised, try to warn of the spread, and like the shock wave predicted, in an escalation of the mayhem people violently smashed their smartphones.An act of parliament gave police powers to taser any crazy teen on the street. Screaming cops wearing ear protectors destroyed any evidence. All good fun, Shanice thought, as her follower numbers surged. But as atrocities increased, her income stream was terminated.Kept in solitary confinement after her arrest, Shanice relinquished her password. It transpired when alone, in her untidy bedroom, she had learnt to trade a cryptocurrency, one that would remain untraceable.With calm restored, Shanice now lounges on her new queen-sized bed. At the hem of her designer jeans, fingers full of gold flash and long white nails hinder the lock picking of an electronic ankle tag. Bored, Shanice sits with her legs crossed and, repeats in strange low tones the name of her favourite pop star backwards. i burnt everything i wrote again
well apart from this…..
My dad died. In shock, I had to sort out his stuff. Then I found the t-shirt.
Another get rich quick scheme, selling hemp t-shirts with ‘revolution’ printed in reflective ink on the front.
“I don’t want your money, dad.”
“But, I will send you a t-shirt.”
Squashed between old receipts and business cards I keep an uncashed cheque. After twenty-three years it’s in danger of becoming a piece of worn-out paper, but it will always remain more than a bill of exchange between a Father and a son.
I sold five t-shirts.
An orphan, due to a stupid war, my dad never moaned or held a grudge. His signature, in ink, is neater than anything I will ever write. And now I understand love, and how you stated in that handwritten gesture, your support for me.
Ok i retrieved this out of the flames and entered it in a Lunate competition….why?
A cheap lighter illuminated broken wattle and daub that Ralph imagined as skeletal ribs hanging out of a wall. He burnt his thumb before extinguishing the flame.
In his mind, scene by scene, he replayed the build-up to the brutal act and then running away. He took out the hot metal digging into his beer belly.
A police dog barked straining on a leash. A rush to the cranium and a state of panic made Ralphs body shake. He fell to his knees and looked up at the stars, seconds later he heard the helicopter.
All his thoughts vanished as the roaring noise whirred stationary overhead. As remnants of leaves got blown over the pond, torchlights flashed stark silver beams. Ralph stood, grimaced, and backed away from the light.
A derelict farm on a bleak moor the backdrop to Ralphs last act. The countryside shook to a loud crack. A discharge of power that made the Police dogs bark, in the dark countryside.
My Conception Day
*
*
To celebrate my conception day, I held a little ceremony. I inhaled and contemplated how and why I won the race.
A nagging confusion became a constant until I realised – I was either lucky or easily fooled. I wanted it, I guess. But did onlookers laugh when I took the first bite of that well-timed egg?
Picture my Father, like a dirty old dog, banging away from behind my Mother. In a mutual high state of loving ecstasy, did they need to fantasise about anyone else? Would a Father’s eyes have looked at the legs of that girl in the Library? Did a Mother check out the male strength of that new butcher’s assistant? I doubted it. From the experience of conceiving twice before, they were adept and totally in love.
Now I see my Mother skilfully riding my Father, a woman in control of a weakling. With legs wrapped around his back, like a vixen, she had him locked on; no man or weakling could stand the contractions for long.
The lingam and yoni, the ecstatic love and the bliss of sexual love, with no help needed from gods or goddesses, I was conceived.
Did I let them down, the last child of three? Should I have given up the race and faced my only existence as one of many that would glide away?
*
*
*
Tenancy
Oblivious to the gentle warmth of spring sunshine, or the scent of pink blossom on roadside trees, Luke cycled home.
Days of spring bloomed into weeks of summer. In the heat, Luke’s mind swirled. He blushed when reliving the jealousy, the uncontrollable rages, and the ultimate loss.
Raking over the scenario, from the short-lived euphoria to a change so radical, that he became lost in love-blind acceptance. Luke knew it was over when he scrawled his signature on the tenancy agreement, and he watched his ideals evaporate with the moisture of the ink. Sifting the detail stored, he recalled the agent’s commission-hungry eyes as another predator devouring Kate.
Wrapped in a dirty sheet, all of Kate’s scent had faded. The remains of the incense she ceremonially burnt still clung to the walls, an unwelcome redolence of burnt magnolia.
Awake before dawn, Luke threw a worn toothbrush into a holdall of dirty clothes. Nothing of value remained in the neglected flat, so he silently struggled down the worn stairwell with his bike.
Before posting the keys, he wrapped them in the eviction notice. They hit interior stone as the metal letterbox snapped shut. As frightened birds returned to their roost, standing in a flow of scented air, he inflated his lungs and listened to birdsong. Toward the city, haloed by the light of dawn, pushing the bike, he stopped only once, swung the holdall over his shoulder, and then silently Luke cycled away.
*
*
Favorite Popstars name Backwards
*
Hypnotised by bright pixels and fuelled by the fear of missing out, Ashley watched his favorite media stars 24/7. Each view of a video on the platform was an increment in payment for the creator, so Ashley wanted a piece of the action.
Sleek High Definition adverts bathed his eyes when plugged in, and while he dreamed, subliminal snippets offered, at a cost, part of the utopia they constantly paraded.
The camcorder arrived four hours after Ashley hacked his mother’s account. Disguising his face with a bright green t-shirt and his grandmother’s sunglasses, he pressed the record button. He stared at the lens. A possession manifested into a creepy hypnotic voice. In a trance-like state, for the next twenty-three minutes, he repeated his favourite pop stars name backwards.
Whirling a digital wand, Ashley edited and looped his movie using stolen software. He quickly registered his channel, ‘On the NetWerk,’ uploaded, and waited.
The moving image was odd but not as disturbing as the audio. Addictive hidden messages drove people insane, and the viewing figures went stratospheric.
News of the upload spread like a shock wave. Hundreds of laptops got smashed, Internet cafes burnt down, and doors of computer stores locked indefinitely as crazy people got tasered by screaming cops wearing essential ear protectors.
All good fun, Ashley thought, until he saw the reports of the atrocity. The vast amount of money Ashley made got hidden as a cryptocurrency the authorities would never trace.
Kept in solitary confinement after his arrest, Ashley relinquished his password. All copies of the video got destroyed by the authorities. Owning a copy would be deemed illegal. When not chuckling to himself, he could not help repeating his favorite pop stars name backwards.
Clip
*
To prove he could, Patrick ran up the stairs of the double-decker bus. And like a big kid, he sat at the front of the almost empty top deck.
His heartbeat slowed to a healthy rhythm. A stream of images and daydreams from a long and varied life came and went as the bus crawled along. Patrick knew he was fit for his age.
An audible clip disturbed Patrick. In a moment, his daydreams vanished, then he heard another metallic clip. His mind raced, visualizing what could be happening four seats behind. Disgust rattled his nerves as he sensed the tiny crescent of a fingernail flying through the air. Would it land on the floor? In his hair? Would it sit stationary on a seat, a surprise for the next passenger?
Patrick turned, and the generational gap became a sinister chasm. One of a couple raised a painted eyebrow, mouthed ‘what,’ kissed their teeth and went back to the task of cutting the fingernails of the partner, who with an offensive smirk and a tilt of the head, spread a leg wide into the aisle.
Turning around and facing forward, Patrick hoped the disgust he felt was palpable. Then another clip took him to that dark place, where all that remained was a timid boy, a quiet boy, one cornered by circumstance, a boy whose father had died too young. He wanted to shout, ‘my dad, was murdered by an army, and my mother cleaned buses to feed her children.’
He then began to fantasize about the pain he wanted to inflict.
Anger, and now disgust, and all that had cursed his life, drove Patrick to stand up. Nonverbally he expressed his feelings and then walked down the stairs to exit the bus two stops premature.
Waiting for the bus doors to open, Patrick heard, ‘Ow, that hurt you stupid…’ the hiss of the opening doors blocked out the last word. Patrick shouted, ’I hope you enjoyed the pain, you stupid…’ the hiss of the closing doors blocked out the last word as Patrick hopped off the bus.
Cracked
Ornate railings are now loose in crumbling concrete. Decorative defences, hard for a hundred years or more, can no longer bar my entry. I squeeze myself, and my sleeping bag, into the locked Abney Park Cemetery.
The dark forces my pupils to dilate. I walk carefully, listening and watching out for people like me. I walk as the trees throw shadows on the graves. Responding to a melancholy sound of breeze-blown leaves, as though they are talking to me, I taste damp earth when I inhale.
Along the track, both sides are bordered by undergrowth and brambles, full of fruit this time of year. A memory takes hold, picking blackberries with my son.
Courtesy of the orange street light that penetrates the canopy, I see a grave adorned with a fresh wreath, and then the shadows return.
After retrieving the cardboard that helps keep my sleeping bag dry, I walk along the track, until I turn right, as I have for the last four nights.
There is a smell of damp grass and my unwashed body, as it aches. I feel cold. I curl up and hold myself, as I should have held on to my son. The pain of sharp thorns nothing, when I dream about the red stain on my fingers.
ianrushton.net 