The Demon of New Year's Eve

A demon walked the house on New Year's Eve. Clara had seen it. Before she had seen it she had thought things misplaced. But now she knew the demon moved things. The year before last the demon had picked up a glasses case in full view, removed her glasses and worn them awhile before casting them to one side. One lens had smashed against the hearth.

The demon looked a lot like Gary. It had the same posture as him, the same way of walking. Clara knew Gary well enough to recognise the little half-smile even on a lipless mouth on a face of cracked red-black skin. When Clara had seen it last year she was certain the demon had tried to talk to her in his voice. For a while she had entertained the notion that the demon was Gary. The thought had not entirely left her.

Like a child leaving milk and mince pies for Santa Claus, Clara had left out a few things for the demon Gary this year. Nothing dramatic; a Sunday newspaper, a drink of tea without milk or sugar and the wedding ring Gary had worn when he had been alive. Clara sat and waited on the staircase, listening for the sounds of movement.

A four minutes to midnight she heard the distinct sound of newspaper being rattled. She leapt to her feet and rushed into the living room. He was there before her, his naked skin cracked like cooling lava, thumbing through the newspaper as Gary had done. Her breath caught as she looked at him.

"Gary?"

The demon Gary looked up from his reading. There it was, the half-smile, the conspiratorial look that had always passed between them... and then a nod in the direction of his hands. Clara looked. The ring was there, on the fourth finger of his left hand. The engraving could still be read. 'To have and to hold'.

"Oh, Gary..." Clara reached up to kiss him. "I've missed you. I want you back." Their mouths met. His skin was hot and almost crumbly, like hot coal. She felt the tingles of old come back to her; she had forgotten Gary had made her feel like this.

They broke apart. Gary's smile was still on his face. Throwing the newspaper aside, he pulled her in again.

After they separated for the second time, Clara felt something like coal-dust on her face. Moving to brush it away, she saw the skin of her hands start to blacken and crack. It no longer felt like skin belonging to her, more like a strange glove she controlled on the end of her arm.

"Gary, what is this?"

Demon Gary smiled again, sadly, this time, turned his back and disappeared. Clara soon followed him.

Zeus Ex Machina

Zeus Ex Machina
Peter W. Wilson

You know what it's like, right? You meet this girl, it's all peachy, life is good. And then you do something stupid and you lose her like that. No word of goodbye, no long speech, just an angry 'we're done' and that's that. She's out of your life and not coming back.

I did that. Once. I won't do it again.

It doesn't help that the period between meeting her and losing her was the better part of three millennia and that for much of that time I was head over heels in love, blind to all the selfish bitch's faults. Hey, if anyone was at fault for the occasional argument, it was me. And I just accepted that. I'll admit now that I left the dishes unwashed every now and then and when you come home from a long day at the office you'd appreciate not having all that further work to do. Especially when your other half has spent the day lounging round the flat in his underwear watching repeats of Only Fools and Horses.

But in the end she'd decided she'd had enough. And after telling you what I've just told you, who could blame her? Ignore the fact I'd actually taken her to the Fountain of Eternal Youth back when she was a lowly Athens maiden and that I'd been taking her on an annual basis ever since. I'd just given her the gift of immortality, in effect. I'd made sure she was never out of place in the world. I'd taken her on trips to stars and planets and all that usual lovey-dovey crap. When a man promises that he'll show you stars normally he means he's dynamite in the sack and doesn't mean it literally.

I'd given her kids too, of course. Two of them, both in the last century or so. Both mortal, unfortunately; Nikos died in a car crash in Minneapolis while Chara was recently diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. But there's nothing I could have done to stop Nikos's passing - he was on the other side of the planet at the time, and even a god's powers only extend so far (his immediate vicinity, for example) - and I'm doing all I can for Chara. I'm taking her up to the Fountain this coming Thursday.

But no, forget all that and remember the dishes.

Also forget that I had infinite opportunity over the years to leave her for another woman. The Muses have done practically nothing since the fall of Athens, occasionally agreeing to appear in some graphic novel or other, but other than that they've been largely redundant. Calliope's been so bored that she's actually shacked up with some Norse god or other. It might be Thor. Or Odin. Anyway, my point is that there has been a supposedly better class of woman available to me, and yet I stayed with her and didn't once stray.

We'll also forget all that, and the time I forgave her for bringing that postman home.

You know what, life was far more fun when I could just say sod it and turn into a swan without having a ball and chain with a mouth on it around my neck all the time, nagging me to do those dishes.

- Zeus

Or maybe not

Right, so the first draft is finished. 486 words of me spouting the usual nonsense. But it's nonsense I like. And it's nonsense I want to try to get published. With apologies to all who might actually have been in the slightest bit interested in reading it (apart from people who I live with, obviously, who might as well have a free pass to my work once I start getting vaguely enthusiastic about it), I'm going to send it off.

The editing process is starting tomorrow morning (or later this evening, once The Inbetweeners has been on telly - I have no doubt that there's a blog about them coming on at some point fairly soon). By this time tomorrow evening, it'll have gone off to the first of the three ezines I have earmarked as potentially publishing it.

Once again, apologies. I'll get to work on a different one instead, just to satisfy the masses (both of them).

New story in the works

I've been spending the afternoon working on a new piece of flash fiction. It's been slow going, but the idea's there and I quite like it. As things stand, I'm about 250 words in to the first draft, and it should be finished before too long. I'm going to put it up on here rather than try to get it published and get paid; it's not SF (well, not strictly speaking at any rate) and if I'm honest I want to get published in SF before I get published in other genres (uni anthology notwithstanding).

With a bit of luck, the story will be finished in first draft form inside the next 24 hours, with the second draft coming along within a day after that. I'm hoping that it'll be up by Thursday. If it isn't, blame the dissertation.

A flash of inspiration

Writers who may be reading will already have guessed what I've been writing from the title. To any non-writers who don't have a clue what I'm referring to, it's this: flash fiction.

I've taken it up as a writing exercise of late. The Sucker (see archive) is an example of this, although most of the stories I've been writing won't see the light of day in the same way, either being rubbish or experimental (or, more commonly, both).

However, I'm excited about my latest effort. My challenge to myself was to pull off a galaxy-spanning epic in 500 words, and I think I may have done something like it. OK, so epic might be stretching the definition, but the point is it has a journey longer than Lord of the Rings and a word count shorter than quite a lot of poetry. Result.

I may be deluding myself about how good it is (chances are I am, considering my record), but I feel so good about it that I've actually submitted it. Not to a place that will pay me (it's 492 words long - why would anyone in their right mind pay for a piece of fiction that long, really? I wouldn't pay to read it, that's for sure), admittedly, but it's a first submission of the summer and one of the biggest steps I've made in my writing for a while.

If it ends up not being published, I'm not to bothered. It'd be nice and a real boost ahead of the new uni year, but at the end of the day I can then bring it back and polish it further, re-write it and then try again. Part of me wants it coming back negative, just so I can do that very thing.

I'm weird like that.

Frustration

Frustration is one of my biggest weaknesses. I've never been very good at dealing with it, if I'm perfectly honest, and experience hasn't helped me mellow in the slightest when I'm genuinely frustrated. I'm still prone to shouting at something for no apparent reason, other than it's there to take my frustrations out on.

Fortunately, I do have outlets that will help me to channel frustrations. One of these is watching the Town, although this often ends in me being even more frustrated. Another is going out in the garden and booting a football about for 30 minutes. I did this a couple of times this afternoon, and right now I'm feeling pretty good.

Today's frustration came about as a result of a misbehaving story. After having an idea, I couldn't get the opening scene to do what I wanted it to. Cue me trying way too hard, the writing deteriorating and, before too long, a grunt of annoyance aimed at the computer. How hard can it be to get into the head of a mother wanting to protect her kids? It's not tough to write a good opening few lines just go get the story started, so why isn't it going to do what I want it to as it is?

Anyway, I decided to take a break over lunch, listened to a couple of short stories, had a look at what was going on in the news, and then got back to work. The story still didn't want to play ball. It felt awkward and unwieldy, and frustration again reared its head. I wouldn't be so fussed if over the last couple of days I'd been writing fluently and this was the first block I'd had for a while, but that isn't the case. It's been a tough couple of days. Perhaps it's because I've been writing from a woman's point of view. Most women would agree that I really don't know how they think. Anyway, whatever the cause, writing's been difficult this last couple of days, and so I decided to give it up as a bad job for the afternoon and do something else.

Frustration is best worked out physically, I find. There's nothing that gets rid of that anger quite like putting my foot through a football and hearing the satisfying thwack as the ball flies into the nets I still have in the back garden (and which remain there for this very reason). Before too long, the frustration had gone to be replaced with just enjoying having a ball at my feet. I was trying my usual back garden tricks - drag-backs, stepovers, flicks with the outside of my feet, using my knees and shoulders to control the ball - and thoroughly enjoyed it, if I'm honest.

It would also be worth mentioning that I probably needed the exercise. I actually had to loosen my belt for the first time ever yesterday, and I did it again this lunchtime. My target is to be in shape when uni kicks off again at the end of September so I can actually play a few games for the Gooks this season. I was going to say 'make a telling contribution' but that'd be pushing my abilities a bit far. I might play my part, but I'm not going to score and create goals by the hatful.

Another thing worth mentioning is that this evening I'll be back in front of the iMac bashing out some flash fiction. I saw a website that isn't a paying market, but which interested me and I quite fancied seeing if I could get a bit of something on there, before going back to the previous idea I was working on and also starting work on an idea for an anthology I fancy writing for.

In the mean time, tea. I'm starving.

The Sucker

Apologies for the second post of the day, but I've just finished the second draft of a little bit of flash fiction (a rare piece of flash fiction, if you're me), and I thought I'd share it. Not like it's publishable or anything, as it's just a bit of fun that occurred to me when I was on holiday. Let me know what you think.

The Sucker
Peter Wilson

The Sucker was coming.

He could hear it even though he couldn’t see it, as it sent its strangely high-pitched whine through the air. It sent a chill through his body, knowing that before too long that whine would turn into a roar and that roar would translate into the hideous sucking power of a great mouth that was guaranteed to bring death.

Looking round, he realised that he had been careless in venturing out. The sound of the Sucker meant is was moments away at best, leaving him with no time to make the rush back to cover, back to the darkness of the caves at the foot of the cliff. He was adrift, exposed on the savannah-like flatlands. The Sucker couldn’t fail to notice him – it had never failed to notice any who had been careless enough to be out like this before, and he was no different from them – unless he somehow managed to get back to the caves.

It wasn’t as if there were any obstacles. His path was clear. Nothing could stop him from making the caves except the Sucker itself. He would have to try; if he didn’t, he would just be giving up without a fight. At least if he was caught on his way, he would go to his death with the consolation that he had tried his utmost. He broke into a run, seeing the cave in the cliff as the greatest treasure in the world, should he attain it; it was salvation from his mistake. Slowly, it grew larger, very black against the pale cliffside, and hope grew within him. He could just make it…

A glance over his shoulder, and hope was lost. The Sucker was there, standing as a grey tower for a moment, as though weighing him up. He stopped, knowing running now was futile, knowing he would never make the cave now. His world was the Sucker now, and he wanted to watch it as it advanced on him, the whine intensifying. He trembled momentarily as it leaned back, and a wind of hurricane force pulled at him.

He kept his feet, still staring up. He had never thought he would see the Sucker like this. He had always watched from afar as another made the mistake that sealed their fate, watching as their small forms disappeared into the maw of the Sucker. He had always assumed he was too intelligent for that to happen to him. Numbness took him as the Sucker advanced, the whine intensifying to a white noise.

Amidst the hurricane winds and the screaming din, he curled up and waited to be sucked into the vortex of the Sucker’s mouth.

* * *

Ellie White shuddered as it went up the vacuum. Old as she was, she still hated spiders.