Anecdote

There’s a point in every good anecdote (and the bad ones) where you realise you’ve come too far to stop. The anecdote must be finished, regardless of either the consequences or the fact that Jacqueline just performed a yawn so long that he wondered if she was going to just drop to the floor asleep half way through it. Alas, it concluded, and so he was forced to do the same.

The point of no return can come at many different points. It can come half way through when an audience is just enthralled enough to want to know what happened, it can come right at the end, just before the money shot, because it would be cruel to deprive people of the end of the story when they’d come so far. The point of no return in Larry’s anecdote came after about three seconds.

They’d been having dinner, Larry, his long-suffering wife, and two couples who were friends of Helen and who Larry only knew in passing. It had been going better than expected, however, Larry’s fears that he’d have nothing to add to the conversation, and Helen’s fears that Larry would have nothing to add to the conversation, had proved unfounded, and everyone had got along just fine. In fact, they’d probably got along a little too fine, and so Larry had more confidence in his personality than he perhaps should have done.

All good things must come to an end, and so it proved as the conversation died over dessert. There had been silence of around thirty seconds which had been the longest silence of the evening thus far, and Larry began to panic. It had been going well, what was Helen going to think of him if he let this continue? He had to do something – and so he did. He thought back to what they had been talking about previously, and remembered that Frank had mentioned something about income tax, he hadn’t paid enough (accidentally, he claimed) and so he was about to get hit with a huge tax bill. That was it. That was the opportunity, and Larry seized it with both hands as if it was made of bacon and he hadn’t eaten for the last three weeks.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I met Bill Sharples?” Larry asked with a smile on his face. There was silence. Tumbleweed crossed the room. Eventually, Frank felt the need to respond.

“Who?” he asked, and thus we were at the point of no return. There was no going back for Larry, now. He would have to answer the question and then he would have to tell the story of the time he met Bill Sharples, and neither of them would interest his crowd because Bill Sharples was a person you either knew or you didn’t, and if you didn’t know him then it was very difficult to explain why the anecdote, on the face of it so dull, is actually really quite amusing.

At the other end of the table, Helen was dying inside.

Closing

He couldn’t decide what he hated more, opening or closing. There never felt like there was a risk with opening the store, it was always light outside and there were people around so there was no one that could get to him unseen. Of course, opening signalled the start of a long, miserable day at work, and so he could never truly say that he enjoyed it. Closing was different, though, it should be a joyous occasion because it meant that the working day was done and he could go home and relax, but he always felt uneasy about it. His manager would leave with an hour or so left to go and so he’d be there on his own. In his mind he imagined the perfect time to commit some kind of armed robbery and every time he imagined it would be right now. He was alone, it was dark, there was nobody around, and it wasn’t even a secret. It never happened, but every time he stepped outside and put the key in the lock he expected someone to put a gun to his head and usher him back inside. He accepted that there was a fair chance he’d spent too much time watching movies but at the same time, he knew it could happen, even if it wasn’t quite as cinematic as it was in his imagination.

He’d do it quickly, from getting the lights out to stepping outside to having the door locked and being in his car he aimed for no longer than thirty seconds. He’d count as he went through the motions in order to take his mind off the very thing that was causing him to count. He just had to forget about why he was counting, was all.

He hit the lights and he knew that was the signal, that was the thing that would alert anyone watching that it was time. They’d be getting out of their cars, he heard a car door slam and hoped it meant nothing. One. Two. Three. Four. He closed the door behind him and put the key in the lock. He turned it, pulled it out, and tried to pull the door open to make sure it was locked. He looked at the exact time on his watch so that later when he convinced himself that he hadn’t locked the door he would be able to remember looking at his watch and he would know that he had.

It was while he was looking down (Eleven. Twelve.) that he felt the hand on his shoulder. It was firm and tight as if it wasn’t the hand of a human but the hand of a giant, and when he spun his head to see who was handling him his opinion didn’t change. The man must have been almost seven feet tall and was built like a truck.

“We’re going back inside,” he said.

“Okay,” came the reply, meek and the only possible reply that could have been given.

Safe

The safe was hidden behind a picture on the wall, and it would have been an amazing hiding place except the picture was of a safe. Presumably its owner suffered issues with his memory so severe that he’d completely forget he had a safe were it not for the picture. This would work in his favour, he just needed to replace it with a picture of a boat because the guy would never expect to find a boat behind there so he’d never bother checking, and so his safe would forever remain empty. Unless it was all some huge joke, in which case who cares? It’s not like he’d come armed with a picture of a boat anyway, it’d be a strange thing to bring on a job. “There’s always a chance you’ll need a painting of a boat,” he’d explain.

No there’s bloody not.

He entered the room, then, and walked straight to the painting. He hadn’t expected to find the safe there but he knew there was one somewhere and it was just cliché enough to find it behind a painting, wasn’t it? If you walk into a room full of paintings and you’re looking for the one that contains the safe, well, you’re bound to check the one with the painting of the safe first aren’t you? Even if it’s not there and you feel a bit of an idiot, it’s just human. You look for patterns as a starting point, and that’s all he did. He was as surprised as anyone when he laid his hands on it and it swung open to reveal a small metal device behind it.

He put his case on the floor and opened it with his foot. He examined the safe to find what tools he’d need and smiled, the SafeLoc 1000 was beginner level stuff. Even the name was weak, wasn’t it? 1000, as if it was from some ancient era where safes didn’t so much as exist. He looked at his watch out of habit, he’d normally check out how long he had as a guide to how fast he had to work but in this case it hardly even mattered. It’d take a minute either side of five at most and then he’d be gone, he’d have to be exceptionally unlucky for someone to turn up in that short time. He grabbed a screwdriver first, and set to work on opening it.

Four and a half minutes later he was in and the door popped open. He put all the tools he’d required back into his bag and closed it, another habit. There was no point getting the contents of a safe if you ended up making a quick escape without your tools, the DNA would have you caught in minutes and it wouldn’t matter what you’d found. Only when he was ready to leave did he open the safe, a small metal key falling out on a piece of string as he opened it. The safe contained two items. The first was a piece of paper which he pulled out and read:

“You think I’m so stupid?”

The second exploded in his face.

Sorcery

He thought he had her. She sat in the corner of the room panting, her head down so that she couldn’t see his approach. She could feel it, though, it felt like foreboding, it felt like death was inching closer to her second by second, and she knew when she only had a second left. One last chance. She whispered three words just as he lunged for her and he grasped air, there was nothing where she’d been and he fell through her, standing up immediately and running for the door. She couldn’t have gone far, she had not the energy for it.

He circled the house and looked as far into the wood as he could see but there was no sign of her, and so he made ever increasing circles as if he was unravelling a thread that kept him tethered to the house as a centre point. There was still no sign of her, but he knew she was there somewhere. He picked a direction, which happened to be east, and went to see if she had appeared there.

She watched him leave from high in one of the trees. He hadn’t thought to check up there for some reason and so she felt safe for the first time since he’d begun to pursue her. She should have been stronger than him but he had been cleverer, though she smiled at the thought now as she watched him disappear in the opposite direction, oblivious to her location. She was draped across two sturdy branches and let her head fall back so that she felt relaxed and comfortable. She didn’t know how long she’d have before he found her there, because he surely would, and she needed as much of her energy back as possible when it happened. She could get further away before he caught her, because she would have some warning when he was coming. She just needed to… relax…

She awoke with a start and had no idea how much time had passed. It was dark now and the lights in the house were on so he was surely in there, but did he know where she was? She didn’t have long to wait to find out, he appeared at the bottom of the tree and pointed a gun up at her. “Not a word,” he said. “Move your lips and I shoot.”

She said nothing.

“Put this on,” he said as he threw a gag up to her. She had one chance, and when the gag was obscuring her mouth she uttered the words and from below there was gunfire. She dropped the gag and it fell to the floor, landing at his feet.

When she came to she was miles away, it was still dark and she was confident not much time had passed, but the bullet had caught her in the shoulder and it was going to slow her down. The whole left side of her body felt numb, but if she could get back before he found her he would be safe. She dragged that left side until she saw him coming in the distance. She turned. She was close.

Review – Deadlight (Xbox 360)

1,009 words.

Rumour

It wasn’t that she was an interfering mother, not at all. It was just that she wanted what was best for her daughter and if that meant interfering, well, who was she trying to kid? Her own mother had been the same and she’d hated every minute of her childhood. She couldn’t do anything without her mother being involved in some way, usually hiding around corners and observing so she could give her a good smack later that evening for some perceived bad behaviour. “You’ll thank me when you’re older,” she always used to say, but she never had. She couldn’t thank her, but at least now she could understand her. It was as if something in her brain had snapped and so she found it completely essential to wreck her daughter’s life. Wreck was perhaps too strong a word, she only wanted what was best for her, but she’d been told enough times to keep out of it, whatever ‘it’ was, and she definitely got the impression that what she was doing wasn’t helping. Someone had to do something though, didn’t they? She couldn’t just skip school for the rest of her life.

She’d always been so good. She’d never missed a day, always up at the crack of dawn ready to go and do her best so she could become a vet. Vets need decent educations, and she’d intended to get one. Then three weeks ago she’d fallen ill. “I don’t feel well,” she said, and she’d spent the day in bed. Then the next day, and the next day, and it soon became entirely clear that she wasn’t sick at all but that for some reason she wanted to stay home from school.

She’d asked her husband what to do about the situation, and his advice was much as she’d expected it to be. “Don’t get involved, she’ll hate you for it.”

“I know,” she said, whilst trying to work out just how she could get involved with the minimum of damage. “I’ll pop into the school tomorrow and have a word with the teachers,” she said, and he sighed at her, much as she’d expected him to. She didn’t tell him the whole plan because he’d have probably tied her up so she couldn’t get out.

And so it came to pass that the next day she found herself waiting outside the school gate for no one in particular. “Do you know Shelley Carter?” she asked every single child that passed, and every single child smirked at her before shaking their heads and walking on.

“Is she okay?” came a response that finally differed from the norm, but before she could answer the child had started giggling and walked into the school. At least she knew something was going on, now, and she was going to get to the bottom of it. She marched along the driveway of the school, taller and at twice the speed of all the other children, to say she stood out would be something of an understatement.

She introduced herself as Shelley Carter’s mum to the receptionist, who turned her back with her hand over her mouth.

Broadcast

She travelled to find the source of the broadcast because it was all she had. It had to be close, she clung to this truth like a new born child. The satellites, they’d been down forever, since before she was born anyway, and she’d seen enough in books to know that if the broadcast wasn’t being sent by satellites, there was a radio tower somewhere that was transmitting it. These weren’t long range, or at least she felt as though wherever it was would be close enough so that she could find it, so that she’d know whether or not there was someone at the other end of the signal who was still alive, or whether her last hope was for nothing.

It was the funny thing about last hopes. No matter how hopeless they were, you’d still follow them to the end of the world and beyond until you saw with your own eyes that there was no hope left. Even if part of her knew that there was nothing there, her hope remained as if it wasn’t a part of her at all.

If there was someone there, why were they sending her this? Something was transmitting, because when she was out of range it would hiss and click until she pointed her antenna to where she thought she should head. She was using it like a compass, even if the science behind it wasn’t entirely sound. Hope, again. When she received anything it was silence, but the silence made it feel like someone was there. She wanted someone to laugh about the irony with, but she hadn’t seen another person alive for years and the silence around her only meant that nothing but her existed.

Things didn’t broadcast on their own, though, they needed to be maintained, they needed to be kept running, and if there was someone there doing that then it meant there was someone there. They were just like here, acting in hope and nothing else, hoping that someone somewhere would be carrying a radio and that that radio would be tuned to the right frequency and that that person would understand what to do with it. They had less hope than she did. Maybe they had been talking once, and had given up. Maybe they sit there now, just waiting, knowing that there will never be a response to the signal but that one day someone might find them there.

How long had she travelled? She couldn’t know. Fifty miles a day? A hundred? Ten? She’d find villages now and then as devoid of life as the place she’d come from, and she’d stop there, never for long. Every day she wasted was a day that the broadcast could stop, as suddenly as she’d found it. She’d tune in one day and get the static that had come to soundtrack her nightmares. The signal was all she had and she had to find it before it was gone, because everything rested on it.

Review – Wreckateer (Xbox 360)

929 words.

Eight

If they’d have known the trouble it would cause before they began, perhaps they would have thought twice.

“Bagsy invisible,” said Clive.

“We’re not doing powers yet,” said John, who fancied himself as being in charge. “We’re doing names.”

“Invisible man.” Clive, again. For some reason, Clive really, really wanted to be invisible. Maybe if he’d shut up for two minutes he could at least have the illusion of it.

They’d been arguing about names for over an hour now. Each time one boy came up with a name, another boy would decide that they wanted that name and there’d be arguments until someone came up with an even better name, and then the arguments would just begin all over again. There were too many of them for a crime fighting force, that was the problem. Heroes worked alone and it was precisely because of issues like this. If Spider-Man and Batman had been working as a team, there’d have been massive fights over who got to shoot webs and they’d probably still be there now while Gotham City burned down. Or New York. How would they even decide that?

“Fine, let’s just do powers,” said John.

“Invisible,” said Clive, in case nobody had heard him the other hundred times.

“X-Ray eyes.”

“Teleporting.”

“Flying.”

“Super strength.”

“Umm.”

“What else is there?”

“Invisible,” said Clive.

“No one else can be invisible,” said John.

“I meant for me.” Clive, AGAIN.

“Everyone needs their own power, or they can’t join the team. You don’t need two people with the same power because they’d just get in each others’ way.”

“They could solve two different crimes at once.”

“Shut up.”

And the arguments began again. Why should Gary get to have super strength just because he said it first? He was four foot tall and weighed about three stone, his arms would snap like twigs if you put any pressure on them at all, it didn’t make any sense. It made total sense to Gary, though:

“I said it first.”

And so it was that the Electric Eight never really got off the ground, and they left the policing of their fair city to the police.

“I didn’t want to be called the Electric Eight anyway,” said Clive, when it became clear that their dreams of fighting crime were going to be lost to petty fights. “Invisible Eight is way better.”

“We’re not all invisible.”

“Yeah, well, don’t matter. I could be leader.”

“And ‘invisible’ don’t begin with E either.”

“So?”

“So it don’t fit!”

Around half an hour was then spent arguing about what the name of their failed crime fighting force should have been, and they eventually settled on Excellent Eight, and Max decided that he would have wanted to have electricity as a power if they hadn’t already given up on the idea. He didn’t say how turning on a kettle would have fought crime, but those were details for the later that never came, because the next day they just played football instead.

Fraud

She answered the door to a cheery looking fellow who was wearing blue overalls. “Evening, ma’am, is your ‘usband in?”

“No,” she replied, and she didn’t expect him to be home for some hours yet. “Can I help?”

“Sorry, love, that was awful sexist of me weren’t it? Traditional bloke, me, didn’t mean any offence or ought.”

He hadn’t intended offence and she hadn’t even realised that she should have been offended until he mentioned it, but now that he’d mentioned it it was all she could think about. Just what had he meant, anyway? Poor little woman can’t deal with whatever it is? What an odious little man he was, she decided, and she resolved herself to be as short with him as possible.

“What do you want?” she said. “I’m awfully busy.” A complete lie.

“Sorry, love, sorry, right, what it is is I’m from the gas comp’ny and we’ve had reports of people in the area smelling gas is all, so we’re just doin’ the rounds and makin’ sure that everything’s ship-shape.”

“Does this require my husband?”

“No, not at all, sorry again ‘bout that. Didn’t mean ought by it. Mind if we come in and have a quick shufty at your boiler?”

The mention of ‘we’ had taken her somewhat by surprise, and it was only then that she noticed a shorter, thinner man who was standing behind the sexist and was rendered almost completely invisible by the man in front’s dimensions. The man behind took a short step to the left as if to make his presence known, but didn’t speak.

“That’s Jimmy, that, don’t mind ‘im, bloody brilliant gas man if a little weird.”

Jimmy smiled.

“Well,” said the woman eventually. “I suppose you’d better come in for your… shufty.” She wasn’t entirely sure what the word meant, having done her best to separate herself from people who worked in what she called ‘the trades.’ Their manners of speech would always be lost on her.

“Where’s your boiler, love?

“Oh, I’m not sure, my husband usually deals with things like that.”

“No problem, d’ya ‘ave an airin’ cupboard?”

“Yes, it’s on the second floor.”

“Right you are, you lead the way,” he said, before turning to Jimmy. “I’ll have a quick sniff around up there and you check the pipes down ‘ere, lemme know if there’s ought going on.”

Jimmy nodded, and she led the sexist upstairs. Jimmy was standing in the hallway when they returned ten minutes later, during which time she’d watched the man perform all manner of tests such as knocking on the boiler and writing down some numbers from somewhere before calculating something else with them. She couldn’t smell gas, though. Jimmy was leaning on the wall and she imagined there to be a man-shaped black stain on the wall behind him from where his grime had rubbed off. That was her afternoon sorted.

In fact, her afternoon was spent giving descriptions of the men to police, while she was made to feel like an idiot for leaving one of them alone downstairs.