The room was cold and dirty - breathing in meant inhaling the dust, and the racking coughs that ensued billowed whitely from his mouth. The floor and the wall he was propped up against were chilly enough that he was almost paralysed with shivering. A dull globe sat at the ceiling's approximate centre and gave off a fitful glow, enough for Peter to truly appreciate the bleakness of his situation. He could observe the room's features, and though darkness would have allowed him a kind of naive hope, being able to see at least let him be rational.
It was in fact a very typical kind of cell: bare walls, flickering light, a distressingly solid door. And himself, shaking so hard that his bones rattled, attached to this grim tableau by a predictably rusted chain. He recognised everything. Not through his own experience, but through his countless vicarious kidnaps, escapes and murders. A lifetime of horror films had taught him what to expect, though he had never thought the day would dawn in which those particular skills of survival would be called upon.
The day, however, had obviously arrived, and Peter was certainly not going to fail.
As he surveyed the room more closely, he felt a twinge of fear. Whoever had captured him had clearly done a reasonable job - the room was very deliberatel bare, and his pockets had been emptied. The search had not been thorough enough, though. They had found neither the pocket knife in his sock nor the crude set of lockpicks sewn into his jacket's lining.
That was their first mistake, he thought grimly. Their second was not killing him whilst they had the chance.
Peter allowed himself a final moment of doubt before he steeled himself completely. If this turned out to be some kind of misunderstanding he would be appropriately embarrassed. Until then, however, he would proceed with the kind of aggressive caution that was necessary in such situations. It was difficult to take off his jacket with cold-numbed hands and even more difficult to tear open the hem where the picks were contained. He doubted he'd manage to salvage the garment for use in public, but right now he was too cold to be concerned with fashion.
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Thursday, 16 October 2008
She Sells Seashells...
We were calm at first, like we didn't really believe what was going on. We'd never seen any of these mysterious enemies they kept warning us about, and what did we know about war anyway? We were just kids.
They put us in an outpost on the quiet side of the county, where they didn't expect any action.
Tricky tides and rocks and sandbars meant low chances of attack from the sea, or so they told us, and the outpost's flank was toward the city itself. They gave us guns and knives and told us to keep our eyes open, and we were as alert as a group of bored teenagers could be. For a while it was easy. All of us liked being paid to sit around doing nothing. We played countless rounds of cards, used the seemingly endless stores of ammunition in target practise with the local gulls, learned French and German from discarded phrasebooks.
"Il y a une alerte a` la bombe, there is a bomb alert." we would say and laugh uproariously. "How are you? Wie geht es Ihnen?"
Everything was funny in the early days, before the war reached our outpost. The whole thing seemed completely absurd, that we who had only days before been skipping school and work were now to be soldiers against an enemy nobody really believed in.
There was a tiny stretch of sand, sheltered on three sides by seemingly sheer cliffs and on the fourth side open to the sea. The sand was white and soft, with just the right amount of pebbles and seashells scattered around. On sunny days we would go down there - never more than two of us, though. They had impressed severely upon us the dangers of leaving the outpost unmanned.
My favourite person to take there was Sarah. She was quiet around the others but when we were alone the words spilled out of her as if she couldn't help herself. It was nice to listen to her soft voice, complemented by the waves that washed around our toes and underscored with the harsh cries of the gulls. One day she was telling me about her family when the birds arrived, hopping around us and cawing loudly, expecting food.
Sarah was furious - I guess we all had short tempers by this time. We were getting cabin fever, closed up in that little building where the only thing to do was wait and wonder if the war was ever going to come our way. She jumped to hear feet, lifted her gun, and shot them all. The stupid birds didn't even fly away when she started shooting, just cawed and flapped and dropped one by one onto the sand. And then they were all dead, and she sat down hard beside me and started crying. The white sand was stained red in a great circle around us, and dotted with sad little bundles of feathers. We didn't know what to do with them so we just left, and overnight the tide rose up, and when we came back the next day the sand was perfectly white and soft and scattered with just the right number of seashells and pebbles.
It was Clare who saw them first; she was on sentry duty that day, sitting on the roof and staring out to sea. She shouted and we ran to join her, scrambling up the ladder and across the slippery tiles.
"Over there," she pointed, translating automatically into German, "Dort!"
We crouched, staring, wondering what we were seeing. There was just one ship, and how were we to know if they were locals or foreigners? But its shape was different to the boats we'd seen before, and there was an undeniable grimness in its silence that crept under our skin. A sense of self-preservation overcame us all at the same time and we dropped down onto the tiles, flattening ourselves as best we could. Had they seen us?
"Surely we're of no concern to them," Tom said, trying to sound brave. "We're just some kids playing on a roof."
"We're soldiers," I corrected. "We have to remember that, and we have to assume that they know. We can't be complacent."
They put us in an outpost on the quiet side of the county, where they didn't expect any action.
Tricky tides and rocks and sandbars meant low chances of attack from the sea, or so they told us, and the outpost's flank was toward the city itself. They gave us guns and knives and told us to keep our eyes open, and we were as alert as a group of bored teenagers could be. For a while it was easy. All of us liked being paid to sit around doing nothing. We played countless rounds of cards, used the seemingly endless stores of ammunition in target practise with the local gulls, learned French and German from discarded phrasebooks.
"Il y a une alerte a` la bombe, there is a bomb alert." we would say and laugh uproariously. "How are you? Wie geht es Ihnen?"
Everything was funny in the early days, before the war reached our outpost. The whole thing seemed completely absurd, that we who had only days before been skipping school and work were now to be soldiers against an enemy nobody really believed in.
There was a tiny stretch of sand, sheltered on three sides by seemingly sheer cliffs and on the fourth side open to the sea. The sand was white and soft, with just the right amount of pebbles and seashells scattered around. On sunny days we would go down there - never more than two of us, though. They had impressed severely upon us the dangers of leaving the outpost unmanned.
My favourite person to take there was Sarah. She was quiet around the others but when we were alone the words spilled out of her as if she couldn't help herself. It was nice to listen to her soft voice, complemented by the waves that washed around our toes and underscored with the harsh cries of the gulls. One day she was telling me about her family when the birds arrived, hopping around us and cawing loudly, expecting food.
Sarah was furious - I guess we all had short tempers by this time. We were getting cabin fever, closed up in that little building where the only thing to do was wait and wonder if the war was ever going to come our way. She jumped to hear feet, lifted her gun, and shot them all. The stupid birds didn't even fly away when she started shooting, just cawed and flapped and dropped one by one onto the sand. And then they were all dead, and she sat down hard beside me and started crying. The white sand was stained red in a great circle around us, and dotted with sad little bundles of feathers. We didn't know what to do with them so we just left, and overnight the tide rose up, and when we came back the next day the sand was perfectly white and soft and scattered with just the right number of seashells and pebbles.
It was Clare who saw them first; she was on sentry duty that day, sitting on the roof and staring out to sea. She shouted and we ran to join her, scrambling up the ladder and across the slippery tiles.
"Over there," she pointed, translating automatically into German, "Dort!"
We crouched, staring, wondering what we were seeing. There was just one ship, and how were we to know if they were locals or foreigners? But its shape was different to the boats we'd seen before, and there was an undeniable grimness in its silence that crept under our skin. A sense of self-preservation overcame us all at the same time and we dropped down onto the tiles, flattening ourselves as best we could. Had they seen us?
"Surely we're of no concern to them," Tom said, trying to sound brave. "We're just some kids playing on a roof."
"We're soldiers," I corrected. "We have to remember that, and we have to assume that they know. We can't be complacent."
Monday, 13 October 2008
Curtain Call
The phone rang while I was working and I was tempted to ignore it, annoyed that it had interrupted my concentration.
“Hello?” I said, a little shortly. The person on the other end was silent and I thought they might be a prank caller. “Listen, punk, I’ve had enough of –“
“Rach?” My sister’s voice was quieter than usual. She sounded tired.
“You sound tired,” I said. She sighed.
“I am.” She paused and sighed again. I imagined her standing by the window, staring down at the park across the street. She never went there, but she liked to watch the children playing. She said they made her feel young.
“Want to talk?” I put down my pen and filled the kettle. She’d only called like this a few times before, and it always meant she was upset about something. I put on my most patient voice. “What’s up Sarah? It better not be Troy, if he’s done something stupid again -”
“It’s not Troy.”
The last time she’d called was when she’d caught her boyfriend, Troy, cheating on her. Since then we’d all tried to convince her to end the relationship, but she still insisted that they were in love and that he was a changed man. They could be together for fifty years and die holding hands in their sleep, and I’d still never believe that.
“I’m just in a bit of a mood. Do you want to go shopping? There’s that nice shop that opened up just around the corner from here.” She was trying to sound more cheerful than she felt, that much was obvious. “And you really should get some new curtains or cushions or something, Rachel. Your living room is so tacky.”
“Tacky? Just because it doesn’t look like a page out of a homemaker’s magazine doesn’t mean it’s tacky!” Just like that I felt like we were kids again, arguing over whose turn it was to wash dishes, or who had lost whose hairbrush, or why there was glitter all over the bedroom.
“I hate bringing people over there,” she said. I couldn’t see her but I knew she shrugged.
“Then don’t bring people!”
“Rach, you’re practically famous. If I don’t bring people over, then how will they know I’m related to you? Would it kill you to pretend to be normal in just one room of the house?”
I caught myself before I said anything harsh.
“Don’t change the subject,” I said. She laughed.
“Your house is tacky and you are weird. I don’t know why it upsets you so much when I bring it up.” She laughed a bit more and then she sighed again. “It’s good to hear your voice, little sister.”
“It’s good to hear you laugh, big sister.”
We were silent for a few minutes. The kettle boiled and I made myself a cup of tea, wedging the phone between my ear and my shoulder in case she spoke.
“It was Troy, wasn’t it?”
For a few seconds she didn’t answer but I already knew what she was going to say.
“With his hairdresser. Apparently she was just too exciting to ignore. Kinky, and stuff.” Her voice was strained – she was trying not to cry. The urge to say ‘I told you so’ was almost a physical need, but I knew that I shouldn’t say anything. She felt bad enough right now without me adding to that. It was time to be diplomatic.
“I wish I hadn’t seen it coming, Sarah, but he’s just that kind of guy.”
Damn.
“Oh,” she groaned, “I just knew you would say that! Do you think you’re so much better than me? When was the last time you even had a boyfriend?”
I bit my tongue. We’d had this argument enough times before, and no matter what I said, she’d find a way to spin it around. One of us was bound to end up in tears. She continued to rant, not bothered in the least by my lack of response.
“Do you want to stay here for a while?” I asked softly, and she stopped mid-sentence. “I have a spare room.”
“You annoy the hell out of me,” she replied. I waited.
“We’ll drive each other crazy,” she insisted. I took a sip of my tea.
“Can you pick me up? Troy’s out right now and I don’t feel like asking him to drive me over.”
I picked up the keys and jingled them near the phone.
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” I said, as I slipped on a pair of shoes. “Just know that you will help me with chores, and you will not be touching my curtains.”
“See you in half an hour,” she replied, carefully not promising a thing.
“Hello?” I said, a little shortly. The person on the other end was silent and I thought they might be a prank caller. “Listen, punk, I’ve had enough of –“
“Rach?” My sister’s voice was quieter than usual. She sounded tired.
“You sound tired,” I said. She sighed.
“I am.” She paused and sighed again. I imagined her standing by the window, staring down at the park across the street. She never went there, but she liked to watch the children playing. She said they made her feel young.
“Want to talk?” I put down my pen and filled the kettle. She’d only called like this a few times before, and it always meant she was upset about something. I put on my most patient voice. “What’s up Sarah? It better not be Troy, if he’s done something stupid again -”
“It’s not Troy.”
The last time she’d called was when she’d caught her boyfriend, Troy, cheating on her. Since then we’d all tried to convince her to end the relationship, but she still insisted that they were in love and that he was a changed man. They could be together for fifty years and die holding hands in their sleep, and I’d still never believe that.
“I’m just in a bit of a mood. Do you want to go shopping? There’s that nice shop that opened up just around the corner from here.” She was trying to sound more cheerful than she felt, that much was obvious. “And you really should get some new curtains or cushions or something, Rachel. Your living room is so tacky.”
“Tacky? Just because it doesn’t look like a page out of a homemaker’s magazine doesn’t mean it’s tacky!” Just like that I felt like we were kids again, arguing over whose turn it was to wash dishes, or who had lost whose hairbrush, or why there was glitter all over the bedroom.
“I hate bringing people over there,” she said. I couldn’t see her but I knew she shrugged.
“Then don’t bring people!”
“Rach, you’re practically famous. If I don’t bring people over, then how will they know I’m related to you? Would it kill you to pretend to be normal in just one room of the house?”
I caught myself before I said anything harsh.
“Don’t change the subject,” I said. She laughed.
“Your house is tacky and you are weird. I don’t know why it upsets you so much when I bring it up.” She laughed a bit more and then she sighed again. “It’s good to hear your voice, little sister.”
“It’s good to hear you laugh, big sister.”
We were silent for a few minutes. The kettle boiled and I made myself a cup of tea, wedging the phone between my ear and my shoulder in case she spoke.
“It was Troy, wasn’t it?”
For a few seconds she didn’t answer but I already knew what she was going to say.
“With his hairdresser. Apparently she was just too exciting to ignore. Kinky, and stuff.” Her voice was strained – she was trying not to cry. The urge to say ‘I told you so’ was almost a physical need, but I knew that I shouldn’t say anything. She felt bad enough right now without me adding to that. It was time to be diplomatic.
“I wish I hadn’t seen it coming, Sarah, but he’s just that kind of guy.”
Damn.
“Oh,” she groaned, “I just knew you would say that! Do you think you’re so much better than me? When was the last time you even had a boyfriend?”
I bit my tongue. We’d had this argument enough times before, and no matter what I said, she’d find a way to spin it around. One of us was bound to end up in tears. She continued to rant, not bothered in the least by my lack of response.
“Do you want to stay here for a while?” I asked softly, and she stopped mid-sentence. “I have a spare room.”
“You annoy the hell out of me,” she replied. I waited.
“We’ll drive each other crazy,” she insisted. I took a sip of my tea.
“Can you pick me up? Troy’s out right now and I don’t feel like asking him to drive me over.”
I picked up the keys and jingled them near the phone.
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” I said, as I slipped on a pair of shoes. “Just know that you will help me with chores, and you will not be touching my curtains.”
“See you in half an hour,” she replied, carefully not promising a thing.
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Visitors
"They're coming tonight," she announced as I entered the room, not looking up from the charts spread out across her desk. There were more on her bed and on the floor too, A4 sheets she'd printed and taped together, mainly. Maps, and graphs, and calculations that I knew better than to try and make sense of.
"For real this time?" I joked. She frowned at me, eyes serious behind the glasses she wore for reading. The frames were thick, black plastic. They made her look like a real typical nerd, the kind of person people would expect to believe in aliens. When she wasn't wearing them, though, she looked almost normal.
"Yes, for real this time," she sighed, rushing to rescue the papers I had been about to sit down on. They crackled as she gathered them up. "I've worked it all out. There are reports in the paper, you know, signs. Proof."
"I thought you said the government stops the evidence from being printed."
"They do. But maybe they missed something this time. You can't be vigilant every second of every day-" She glanced nervously out the window, as if expecting them to have arrived when she wasn't watching. Without thinking about it I looked too, searching. Even though I knew better, I still secretly hoped that I would find proof one day that she was right. That she wasn't really crazy.
"I've tried to be vigilant, you know. I've worked it all out but there's no point telling anyone because nobody listens. Nobody would understand, there's no point telling anyone. Do you believe me, Sammy?" She had paused, but not for an answer, just because the words needed the time to get their point across. "I don't blame you. You have enough things to worry about without this one. Besides, they aren't going to end the whole world. Just mine."
I couldn't help but sigh, because she always talked like this. Like she was going somewhere.
"I'm going to miss you," she said, continuing to stare up into the sky.
"Good night," I replied. "See you at breakfast."
"For real this time?" I joked. She frowned at me, eyes serious behind the glasses she wore for reading. The frames were thick, black plastic. They made her look like a real typical nerd, the kind of person people would expect to believe in aliens. When she wasn't wearing them, though, she looked almost normal.
"Yes, for real this time," she sighed, rushing to rescue the papers I had been about to sit down on. They crackled as she gathered them up. "I've worked it all out. There are reports in the paper, you know, signs. Proof."
"I thought you said the government stops the evidence from being printed."
"They do. But maybe they missed something this time. You can't be vigilant every second of every day-" She glanced nervously out the window, as if expecting them to have arrived when she wasn't watching. Without thinking about it I looked too, searching. Even though I knew better, I still secretly hoped that I would find proof one day that she was right. That she wasn't really crazy.
"I've tried to be vigilant, you know. I've worked it all out but there's no point telling anyone because nobody listens. Nobody would understand, there's no point telling anyone. Do you believe me, Sammy?" She had paused, but not for an answer, just because the words needed the time to get their point across. "I don't blame you. You have enough things to worry about without this one. Besides, they aren't going to end the whole world. Just mine."
I couldn't help but sigh, because she always talked like this. Like she was going somewhere.
"I'm going to miss you," she said, continuing to stare up into the sky.
"Good night," I replied. "See you at breakfast."
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