Two people got on the train. One sat on either side of me. One smelled of the death of other people. The other smelled of mine. We got off the train together.
Month: October 2013
Someone would be angry
Kenny was stuck between two volume levels. Five was too soft and let the birdsong through; six was deafening. He shouldn’t have, but he threw the old brown teapot at the speaker.
What was all the noise? No, not the music that didn’t let the birdsong through, the noise of – oh, the teapot hitting the speaker and then the floor.
The volume level suddenly jumped to zero. The birds had stopped shouting and wailing, even the pretty-tune ones. The heavy curtains kept out too much light. Dusk indoors and the smell of hot tea and fresh urine.
The hands on the clock with no numbers stayed still, still telling the time before the tea on the floor. Kenny knew someone would have to clean up all that mess. Someone would be angry.
“Double, double, you stole my face….”
Henry Brodie looked out at the audience as he sang and saw his dark reflection in their adoring eyes.
Later, one person screamed, high-pitched, as he stepped off the roof of the multi-storey car park. Nobody saw him land. They identified the body as his twin’s.
The birds fell (updated)
The birds fell, one by one. At first Ian thought they were diving but they were not, they were falling, some backwards and down as if cuffed from the sky, wings spread like crucified angels, others tilting and tipping, heads heavy with emptiness, falling and falling, wings folding. Their distant fall ended somewhere through the shimmering air. He thought of stories that had started and stories that would never. His story ended.
(www.paragraphplanet.com 21 October 2013)
Autocorrect
Franki’s friend learned too late not to trust autocorrect. “Two hours to kill at Luton airport” became “Two people to kill at Luton airport”. Blue lights, shouting, lying on the floor, a kick to the head, falling down the stairs, found innocent but dead.
It just says
-Come up on stage to read the next line in our crime and thriller show!
-But it just says ‘BANG!’ It just says-
-Yes, yes, it does.
So why did you do it?
-So why did you do it?
-Not why, how.
-We know how.
-No, if you’re asking why, you don’t know how. Look at them and you’ll see.
-Them?
Salt and sauce
The fame, the glory, a moment in the sun. That’s why I’m doing this. I may be tomorrow’s chip paper but your blood’s my salt and sauce.
simonsalento 