Month: October 2008 (Page 3 of 4)

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean, am I sure? Are you kidding me? We’ve been talking about this for weeks! Why are you askin’ me now if I’m sure?”

“Because this is the last chance that you have to back out and I wanted to be sure that you are sure.”

“Look it’s not making me angry, but why do you assume that I’m going to back out of things? I mean if it’s just that you want to make sure that I’m happy then that’s fine, but it feels like you are assuming that I will let you down.”

“Look, let’s not get into that now, okay? I wasn’t trying to suggest that you are going to back out, really. I just wanted you to feel like it was okay, I mean it’s a big deal.”

The mirror was sitting between them, the blade to one side, the light glinting off its sharp edge.

Howard picked up the knife, never once moving his gaze away from Petra, but somehow managing to draw it across his palm and spill a small pool of blood on the mirror. He wiped the blade clean and placed the knife back on the table, hilt to Petra.

“Ok then, your turn.”

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.

“What are you doing that for?”

Llewellyn looked around, trying to find the source of the high pitched and slightly scratchy voice. It was not human, even though he had no idea what manner of being could own such a voice. Maybe it was one of Odette’s friends playing a trick on him; they did that quite a lot.

“Up here!”

Sitting in a saddle where the bole of the oak tree next to him split, was a squirrel. Llewellyn was fairly sure that the average squirrel did not speak, and also that they were not usually as big as this specimen, which was more the size of a small dog than even a large squirrel. He tried to hide his dismay and was about to speak when;

“What’s the matter? You never been spoken to by an animal before? How old are you anyway? You must have led a pretty sheltered life if you’ve grown up this close to a faerie wood and not been addressed by a blackbird or a fox, nay even a squirrel, before.”

Was he mad? Dreaming? Better that than this be real. Such nonsense was not likely to be well received by his aunt.

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.

“What do you mean you’ve never heard of John Peel? Andrew! Are you aware that your seventeen year old son has never heard of Peel? And you claim to be a good father!”

The smile on my brother’s face as this torrent of jovial taunting broke forth confirmed that I was being brought to task for crimes against music; again. It was only twenty-five years since the greatest radio DJ the world has ever known had been taken from us; how was it that my son did not know his name? There were many, many bootlegs of his shows and sessions in the family’s audio library, and yet my son, who calls himself a music fan, had not noticed the aformentioned Margrave of the Marshes.

“You’re absolutely right. I’m a terrible disappointment as a parent. I feel ashamed”

I tried to keep a straight face, but before we knew it the room was filled with laughter.

“Andrew, you know that it came up because it’s Peel Day?”

I had forgotten, but on being reminded it seemed appropriate to put on some music;

“Teenage dreams, so hard to beat…”

Brilliant.

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.

—

Today was nominated as John Peel Day 2008 by the BBC, one of the keenest protectors of his legacy. The anniversary of his death is in a little over two weeks… I can still remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news, and I still feel the space left behind on Radio 1 & 4 with him gone – wherever you are John, thanks, so much, for everything that you did and said.

The arch of her back was exquisite. The stark lighting and her skills as a model were a part of that mystery, but it struck me in that moment that she was a truly beautiful woman.

I put my mind back into the moment and gently squeezed the shutter release; the strobes popped and started to whine as the re-charge phase kicked in.

“You want me to hold this?”

She was looking back over her shoulder, smiling; I could not remotely understand how she held the pose in the first place, let alone throw me a look without losing her position.

“Yeah, just for one more and then we’ll step it up a notch. These heavy contrast spotlight shots are great for the book, but we’re neither of us going to make any money on them, you know?”

She winked;

“Don’t worry, mate. Knees so wide you’d get a car between. I just need to go smoke a fag first.”

I laid the remote down on the camera and fixed her gaze;

“You know that I’m looking for something less brash than that, yeah?”

Her face softened and the smile came back;

“Don’t worry, I know. Relax.”

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.

—

Yet again I forgot to do the Wednesday Poll; apologies to all… Anyway, I offer this as an alternative.

It felt cold in his hands as he picked it up and turned it over and over. Leaning back into the soft leather back of the chair he traced the tip of his finger over the magic word that he had been told by his father since childhood was synonymous with the word camera; Leica. Since growing up, finally, and leaving home, the petty jealousies that a boy holds for his father’s posessions had passed. Even so, sitting there he could clearly remember the teenage frustration he had felt at being denied the chance to even borrow it. Now it was sitting in his grasp; unhappily.

When his mother called, he had known. Dad had been slipping away for weeks. Now, thinking of that slow wane into the darkness, absently fiddling with his M7, James realised that his cheeks were wet with silent tears. After thirty-eight years of life, the only connection that he felt to his dead father was a long-past coveting of a favourite camera. There was nothing more sad, to him, than that realisation. That and the absence of time to change it.

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.

“Eli, come away from the windows, it’s dangerous!”

He snorted, as he always did when she told him what to do. With grudging slowness he let the curtain fall and stepped away from the window.

“You know Molly, we are hundreds of miles from the Golan. I really don’t think that they would be lying to us on the television. There would be instructions to head for shelters if we were in any immediate danger, you know?”

She smiled at him, amused and relieved by his certainty;

“Then come and sit at the table. You should eat.”

He glanced down at the table, there was enough food for when all four of their children had still been living at home, but he was in no mood to have a fight about that; their two boys were up in the Golan with Syrians streaming over the border. He had been looking out of the window, trying to imagine what it was like for his boys crouching in the darkness, clutching their rifles, cowering from the shelling and watching for other people’s sons coming across a line on a map. There was no way to imagine.

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.

—

This Ficlet was inspired by the front page of Wikipedia for the 6th of October 2008, in English. The Article was from the “On This Day…” section from the 6th of October 2008 and concerned The Yom Kippur War, which began on the 6th of October 1973; you can find out more here.

The cold stone flags felt good under his feet after the heat of the day. Having grown up in the Great Forests of the north he would never enjoy the heat of the Salt Pan. He padded over to the open doorway and leant against it; more cold stone to soothe his naked skin.

The heat really did preclude clothes, but a mixture of the strength of the sun and the potential dismay of visitors meant that in public, at least, the inhabitants of Erestella covered their bodies. Once they were able to hide from the sun, or enjoy the darkness, most locals would spend their time unclothed. It had taken him a while to become comfortable with this norm; now he was glad that no one cared about his nakedness.

Serena stirred on the bed, behind him. He wondered if she would appreciate being woken, if she would see his amorous intentions as displacement for his insomnia, as a distraction from the day to come and the problems he needed to face. They were, but they were no less real or urgent because of that truth; he just wanted her.

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.

James pulled the edges of the hood tighter around his face and wished that he had listened to the little voice in the back of his mind that was humming ‘wear a coat… wear a coat…’ when he left the house that morning. It was the first real rain of the autumn, and the hoodie that he was wearing provided almost no protection from it for the first five minutes after he left the office, let alone now thirty minutes out, trudging along the Wokingham Road towards home.

Susan was already at home, her text message short but certainly sweet;

‘Am home, need cuddle. Love you, S x’

As he took step after step through the standing water from which there appeared to be no escape, his feet becoming more and more drenched in shoes completely unsuited to rainy weather, he focused on the idea that very soon he would be in his warm, dry home with his arms around her, and the weekend stretched ahead as a partial cure to the week he had just endured.

Sales was never where he had been supposed to end up; selling copiers was the worst.

—

This does not yet appear on ficlets.com due to a technical problem with that site and its OpenID login, i.e. I can’t get on the site, logged in.