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ISSN 1757-5419 Issue 16 – April 2012 The Depredators’ Club By Deborah Walker Illustrated By Steve Upham
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The Receipts By Paul Johnson-Jovanovic & James Brooks
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Seasons in the Abyss By Anthony Baynton
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Crepuscular Beast By Sharon Baillie Illustrated By Justin Coons
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The Function Room By Matt Leyshon Illustrated By Mark Crittenden
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When The Letter Came By Matthew Acheson
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The Birds of Averrone By Kyle Hemmings Illustrated By Victor Bravo
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Morning Jog By James Gabriel
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Lilies By Gary Budgen
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Flip of the Switch By Philip Roberts Illustrated By Geff Bartrand A.K.A. Dr. Twistid
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Cover By Ben Baldwin - www.benbaldwin.co.uk Proof-read By Samuel Diamond and Trevor Wright All material contained within the pages of this magazine and associated websites is copyright of Morpheus Tales. All. Rights Reserved. No material contained herein can be copied or otherwise used without the express permission of the copyright holders. 2
It was good to be back. Molly Kroner was in the Depredators’ Club for the first time in ten years. She sat in the old leather armchair and listened to the familiar voice of Quentin Rance. Rance She had known Quentin for a long time ever since her father had brought her here as a child. She had become something of a mascot to the men, the little girl with the innocent face and the wide blue eyes watching and learning. This was her home, her true true home, where she could let her mask slip, somewhat, and talk about the things that really mattered. “I believe that there are some things that shouldn’t be stolen.” Quentin was sitting at his usual place by the fire. He gazed at the flames. His face was stained red by the heat. This conversation was a game and Molly picked up the opposing thread of his argument with pleasure, “That’s nonsense; if you have something I want, I will take it.” “But you wouldn’t steal from me, or from any other member of this this club. There are always exceptions. And there are some items that have a resistance to our craft. Take this latest commission, for example.” There was a commission? Why didn’t she know about it? “What commission?” she asked casually. “Don’t give me the eyes, my dear. I’ve known you since you were five. Save it for the young men.” Molly laughed. “Sorry, it becomes a habit after a time.” “Yes, I can see that. This life is a habit too, isn’t it? It’s hard to break: the taste of luxury, the taste of acquisition.” “Acquisition creates the justification.” Molly quoted the Depredators’ creed. “And does ‘gold justify the blood’?” asked Quentin, Quentin, quoting the original creed. “That motto has been in existence for many centuries.” Molly shrugged, “A competent thief doesn’t need violence. She has everything planned in advance.” “Yes, you’re right, Zephyr.” They used their code names here in the club, clu even though they had known each other for so long. “And you are a very competent thief. I’m glad you’ve come back to us. We need all the competence we can get. You’ve heard about Quicksilver, haven’t you? Terrible business.” “Yes, I heard. Such a shame.” shame.” Molly shook her head. “But, what about the commission, Master?” As Acquisition Master, Quentin handled the commissions and sliced off a shard of the profits. mmission for a relic collector: five thousand pounds.” Quentin named the sum “It’s a commission slowly and with relish. “A relic?” “A wooden reliquary housing a preserved finger. It’s very rare and very valuable. In my old days I would have been tempted to acquire it myself.” Quentin had acquired his wealth through a series of artefact acquisitions; they had had also brought him his power and reputation. “Yet, I’m not sure it would be right to give you this commission. Young Robin fell while scaling the wall; he broke his foot. Dismas crashed his car on the way to the job. Gestas was stopped by the police. They found his h thief’s picks and his knife; he’s not out on bail yet. Are you the superstitious type, Zephyr?” “You know I’m not, Master.” “Ah, you’re giving me the eyes again. Alas, this time, they have worked on me. Give her the file, Clyde.” 3
12th February A night in on my own was a rarity, a time to savour. With no whinging wife around, I intended to make the most of it. So off to the store I went for my bits and bobs… Grady’s Your 24 hour convenience store Tel: 01462 846823 Grady’s 33 Welbourne Rd, Craven Locke CL52 8NP Vat number: 665 4568 37 Multi-pack choco bars £1.75 Roasted peanuts £0.99 Coopers beer (4xcans) £3.99 Spicy crisps £0.50 Balance due £7.23 Visa debit £7.23 [ICC] **** **** **** 0645 16:27 12Feb2010 second I thought Sitting on the couch with my feet up, I cracked open a cold one. Savour every second, with a smile on my face. Savour every bloody second. second
14th February Hard day at work so thought I’d treat myself and head down the pub with the boys. More trouble than it was worth, that was! As soon as I got through the door she’s on at me about this and that, accusing me of forgetting Valentine’s Day. Christ, how am I supposed supposed to know about it if she doesn’t remind me! Told her I’d ordered a special present and that I’d left her card in the car…
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I writee this in the hope that, should my nightmare befall another, they will be prepared. A vain hope, I suspect, but as my last act I can find no more honourable task. The knife lies ready, and the brandy warms gently in the fire’s tender warmth. This, dear reader, reader, is the last account of my life before sweet darkness swallows me. ### I slept, they say, for many months in a coma of unexplained circumstance. I cannot explain why this is so, for no ill befell me. I simply went to bed after a particularly tiresome tiresom day with the intent to sleep until noon the next day. My dreams, oh, my dreams… I ‘woke’ on a sandy beach, utterly confused by the fact of my surroundings. I am a learned man, and though I knew I could not be on a beach, it felt so very real. Indeed, the th sharp pain in my foot was all too real, as what I took to be a shell almost pierced the hard underside of my foot. On closer inspection it seemed to be a piece of bone, no doubt washed up from exotic places far away. The sky was a verdant blue, unsullied unsullied by cloud or bird or even the most insignificant insect. A near white sand, touched by the merest hint of meadow green sprawled in all directions. Of the sea, only an aroma of salt belied its presence. The horizon spoke promises of oddly coloured sand and nothing more. At a loss, I picked a direction and walked. With no wind to guide my steps, I could only look back and hope my trail would be sufficient guide. Though I walked for many days, the sun never set, nor did I thirst or hunger. My legs never wearied ed and my heart never quickened, except in fear. And fear I felt, this dear reader I promise truly. I cannot explain my fear, but a deep loathing for this place pressed upon my mind, until I thought I may go mad. Finally, after days, perhaps weeks, I glimpsed glimpsed in the distance an impossible thing. A bridge! Over what it crossed I could not say, but I ran toward it with careless abandon. As I approached, its crystalline structure revealed itself to me. The ever present sun cast myriad tiny rainbows onto the sand, and, and I was immediately reminded of the rainbow bridge. Were we all wrong? Was Valhalla truly real? Alas no, for this was no bridge to paradise, however warlike. I crossed its peaks and troughs, for it undulated over the sand like a dragon of the orient. orient I could not discern this radiant structures reason for being, for it crossed only the sand that I had crossed on foot, yet I felt compelled to tread its enlightened path. No towers supported this wonder; only pillars of equally radiant crystal signalled its beginning and its end. The hated sun finally dipped below its zenith, and night descended as I stepped off the darkening bridge. No source of light revealed itself, yet I could see as though the hunter’s moon rode the sky. A chill seeped through the ground ground as the smooth sand gave way to rough and brittle grass. I looked back, and the fabulous crystalline form that linked one hell to another seemed almost to urge me on. Very well, I thought, I shall continue, for to sit still is to die. How I knew this is uncertain, but it was true to me then as the paper now in your hand is true to you. I trudged through the endless darkness, and heard the first sound to fall on my ears since my arrival. A keening, as of a distressed feline, encroached upon my brain. Immediately Immediately I wished for it to cease, for it dragged across my taught nerves like a knife on stone. It did not waver in intensity and continued for the duration of my journey through what I now know was Autumn. The grey, soulless grass and the stygian empty sky offered no distraction to me, and so I carried on walking. My heart hammered in my chest like a crazed denizen of an asylum desperate for escape. Once again, the horizon was shattered. This time an immense ocean of sickly orange water compelled me to stop. A raft of wood so purple it was almost black floated uncannily still on the choppy waters. No wind existed to explain the condition of the water, indeed nothing but the wail with no origin penetrated the grassland. 5
There’s an itch under my scalp. A tingling at first, almost an abstract feeling, it’s there, but it isn’t, not fully until I can define it as an itch. It moves to behind my eyes. My retinas re start to burn. I need to scratch it, must scratch it, the pain needs to stop. A knife would do it. A knife for cutting animal flesh. I keep them in the kitchen. Not Not a knife for butter, no, a steak knife. Sharp, soothing steel. If I didn’t look I could do it to myself. myse I would have to look though. How ow could I cut out my own eyes and not see it? Stupid. But it’s on the move again, so it’s a moot thought. The unwanted, unwelcome itch, master of my skeleton and organs, roams where it pleases. It moves to my neck, it dances around the top of my spinal chord, pitterpatter, making me want to rip it from my body. Pain shoots to my fingertips; my feet kick of their own accord. Leave my body, demon! Be gone! The demon laughs and tightens itself around my windpipe now. “You will play,” it says; its voice is mine. “I will not,” I say in a tone that is alien to me. Why does it sound more like me than me? My breathing becomes laboured. It won’t kill me, of course. Sometimes I wonder what it looks like, the demon mon that wanders in my darkness. That That is my darkness, that lurks in the shadow of my being. I imagine it has horns and red eyes, because I would never admit it looks shockingly sh like me. Evening brims. The he crepuscular beast releases my breath breath back to me before I pass out. “Let’s play,” it says. “Now w.” While it slept I locked the door and hid the key. I don’t want to play tonight. My lungs consume the oxygen, they ignore the pointless nitrogen, and expel the planet-destroying planet carbon dioxide. Just doing my bit for the destruction of humanity, one breath at a time. “I’ll do it,” it threatens, “if if you don’t play with me.” me I know what it means. I don’t want it to do it. it I can’t stand it, but its games are worse. I stand my ground, I close my eyes and I start to pray. “Hail Mary... ” my voice shakes. I feel the ice form in my blood immediately as it moves into an artery. My blood thickens as it cools and the sludge tries to force its way painfully through my veins. I grow cold. My resolve means nothing any more, but it won’t stop now. “Full of grace... The Lord is with thee... Please don’t,” I beg. “Your fault,” ,” my evil voice replies, replies and I sound distinctly like I’m smiling. “Blessed... art... thou... Please... I’ll play.” I give in far too late.. A moment later it reaches my heart and I die, yet another time, while remaining wide-awake. wide awake. The heart cells that once existed exclusively so that I would live, that pumped life force so that I could be, withered at its presence, and I felt the death of every very cell. My heart was lost, rotten, putrid, my vitality was gone. It pumped death to my body, infecting the toes and genitals and ears with evil; nothing was untouched. “Time to play,” we say. “What fun!” we reply. I retrieve the key. I can’t very well hide it from myself. We laugh at my stupidity and move together into the cool evening. It’s a clear night, night but the moon remains elusive, living by its own rules, refusing to show up just because the humans expect it. We approve. The stars are out in force, fo dying silently in the past. Wee approve greatly. Who tonight, we wonder? Who gets to play? It’s been a while since we had a woman.
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In the undulating folds of the green vale there lies the grey and old town of Leddenton. From the skies you imagine it appearing to a cosmic observer observer as a dying fly in a corpulent web of trundling downs and the laser trails of ley lines. In its dark heart stands your home and workplace, The Function Room, an awkward construction that you imagine might appear to that observer above as a crooked canvas nvas begging to be straightened. It is an unassuming, though somewhat askew building of red clay brick. A small plaque upon its wall deceptively reads, Church Hall. Despite the plain exterior, it is a complex work of architecture that you live and work within; the nooks and crannies inside The Function Room very much defy comparison to the orderly nature of the town outside. The regular homes upon regimented avenues and the straight roads both seem to impose orderliness and regularity upon the routines off the townsfolk, unless it is after all your occasional efforts in observation and control that sustains their plain monotony. Around you tiny white wheels spin like bony tops and pink pulleys pump like the workings of some great, fleshy perpetual motion device. device. Within these tilting walls that openly challenge gravity every day they remain standing, you have learned, and unlearned through laziness, the importance of staying on top of things and keeping your eye on the ball. Sometimes, with despair, you feel as though you are but a mere dust mote inside the workings of a giant clock, for it seems that allowing your attention to wander has, in fact, no consequence; the machine continues to function, outside the same lights go on at the same time each evening, the dog walkers depart their homes just as they did the day before and the day before that, regardless of your intervention. It is hardly your fault that you have become a little idle, but a certain irony is lost upon you, as it was such a tendency towards slothfulness that first brought you to The Function Room. You once worked for the town’s rail company. Your job was in the signal box, a simple but secure occupation that essentially involved, only very occasionally, pulling a lever that lifted a sign thatt would stop one train when another approached from the opposite direction. One day, arising in panic from bored reverie, you pulled the wrong lever and found yourself quite inexplicably in The Function Room, watching what was very nearly a catastrophic train train crash through a very small and dusty window. Above you a spring unfurls in perfect serenity, serenity but as a cog whines gently behind you, you underline your mental note to obtain lubricant from the storeroom, just as you had reminded yourself yesterday. “I really should oil that,” you grumble to the dull walls that are latticed by the shadows of the machinery like corpse dust upon grease-stained grease paintwork. All around you, from the window to the murky recesses of the cellar and attic, wheels turn, spindles rotate, otate, and great axles spin as you grudgingly grudging pull levers and twist dials with infinite weariness. The gentle groans from the machinery that now occur with growing frequency have become an issue that could almost disrupt your tedium with thoughts of urgency. “Going to have to stop being so lazy one day,” you say. Your words drift upwards into into the murk like ashes on crematorium vortexes. In another room a shaft the colour of aging ivory clunks awkwardly and you wince once more, cursing your procrastination. “I’ll maybe fix that tomorrow,” you say to yourself. But already all is on the verge of going awry and an indescribable horror contemplates alighting one stop early at Leddenton station in hopeful expectation of the exercise benefiting its cosmic essence. Not unlike like you, Gormo Gloom is oblivious to this impending disruption.
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I was in a very curious emotional state on the day the letter finally arrived. I had gone to check the post office box religiously every Friday afternoon and each time I had returned empty handed, until now. There it was at last, in my trembling hand, shining like a bolt of cleansing fire out of the heavens - the letter. I tore the envelope open and read the letter to myself aloud: “Dear Mr. Browne, I’ve been been following your ad in the paper for some years now. I must admit that due to the apparent lack of a solution to your cryptogram, and the sensational nature of your claims, part of me assumed your advertisement was a practical joke, or perhaps a clever hoax. h Still, your puzzle was an intriguing one, and I must confess that the clipping has been posted to the wall beside my desk for some time. “I’m sure your time is as dear to you as mine is to me, so I will get straight to the heart of the matter. I have found a solution to your puzzle! I was hoping it would be possible for us to meet, so we can go over the particulars in person. Mailing the solution to you simply will not do, I’m sure you understand. I shall patiently await your response, although I do hope hope this letter finds you well and that we shall not have to wait too long to meet. This is a jolly bit of excitement don’t you think?” The letter was as signed: Aidaen McCallister, Professor of Mathematics Mathematics at the University of Maine in Orono. I wrote back immediately, moving the pen in slow, deliberate strokes, so as to still my shaking hand. I chose the Sunday of the following weekend as the date of our meeting, to allow time for the professor to mail his response and make travel arrangements. It’s ironic that after five years of waiting and hoping, those final eleven days seemed to last for an eternity. Thoughts of Him hounded me day and night. Sleep came with great difficulty, when it came at all, and I found that my appetite was greatly diminished. When the day finally came, I found myself blurry eyed and bone weary. We met at the train station, in the village of Waterboro, a few miles away from the farmhouse in which I grew up, for I dared not reveal our ultimate destination in writing. The professor had a foreign accent, British by the sound of it, and was dressed in a mustard coloured colo suit. He was short and plump with a receding hairline and a fuzzy greyish-brown brown beard. He seemed a jolly enough fellow, and so the two of us rode together in my motor car to my old family homestead. I drove with my head tilted half-way half way out the window so I could taste the cool spring breeze. Meanwhile, the professor told me all about how the means of solving the cryptogram had come to him in the middle of a lecture on polyphonic polyphonic substitution, and how he’d dismissed the class early so he could go back to his office and work out the solution. When the professor had finished relating the tale of his triumph, he read the decrypted text aloud. At first there was only confusion, but but as the words swirled and danced like a maelstrom in my mind, their meaning became perfectly clear. I understood exactly where He meant for us to go.
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The Birds of Averrone are a select breed of air dwellers. They are alluded to in many fairy tales, and in most cases, the divergences in the retelling differ by only a degree of X. In one story, a Bird of Averrone saved a starving arving child by feeding her bread and pieces of pilchard and guppy. In that version, there was a forest and a ruined kingdom. In a more modern retelling, there is a doedoe eyed princess who cannot be cured of club foot. Do you believe this, you ask. All I can say is that I was never a child with a set of invisible wings. When the Birds of Averrone circle above you, it means your lifeline is running out. If you are indoors, you can sense but not see the Birds of Averrone. On such days, hot days, days under the axe, I will close my eyes to the sun and hold up an arm, so a Bird of Averrone will land. In this way, I will not die alone. I, a falconer of men, cured of a morbid tendency to burn things to the ground. The Birds of Averrone are lonely but never alone. For this reason, they glide in flocks, in downward appeals, spirals, prayers, etc. You are familiar with the lingo. It’s been said that William of Ocham was inspired to develop his law of parsimony by observing a Bird of Averrone fly with one wing. How is that possible, you ask. In this world, anything is possible. I know that sounds flimsy. But to assuage your acute sense of balance or aerodynamics, your hatred of anything bloated or falling in slow motion, multiplying endlessly, I concede that the footnote footno is still debated by philosophers of science. Do you feel better? Do you feel you can now fly? As a child, I believed the Birds of Averrone flew over my house at least three times a month. I never knew where they came from or where they went, but I had names for those birds: birds Golki, Asperentia, Merusa.. Sometimes I see the Birds of Averrone in somebody’s eyes. When this happens, I try to hold that person close. Why, you might ask. Trust me. When I was very young, my father buried my mother not far from our country home. At first, I thought she died of natural causes. It’s what he told me. I remember looking up at the sky and watching those glorious birds circling, lower and lower. Maybe Maybe they knew something I didn’t. didn’t I remember nights when my parents had heated heated arguments over my mother’s supposed infidelity. But as months passed, I suspected my father killed her with the same axe his father used to slay his unfaithful wife. In the shed out back, I ran my finger over the sharp blade still stained with streaks of blood. I’m not sure just when it started. My father, perhaps from the stress and strain of raising me alone and providing for the two of us, began to exhibit bizarre traits. He would stare at me in a menacing manner. He spoke sentences or asked questions questions of only a few syllables. Often, his speech sounded mumbled. My meals became measly me rations. I concluded that in some way I reminded him of the woman who betrayed him, the woman he tried to destroy all trace of. At night, I remember listening to the Birdss of Averrone make strange noises upon our roof. Were they trying to tell me something? Then, my father locked me in the basement. He said I mustn’t come out and if I try to escape I will meet a fate worse than my mother’s. mother . “You’re mother went fast,” he stated s dryly. “But you will die slow.” I noticed that he wasn’t shaving anymore and his clothes, the same ones worn for days, began to smell.
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The lunatic in my head keeps telling me to scream as it laughs an insane hysteria; a banshee chatter that dries teeth and makes eyes bleed. The maniacal giggle says, “Play,” “Play, before punching me in the face. Then again the rippling, “Play.” before drawing back into the smoke and mirrors to bring forth a hatchet already stained with something some thick red and drippy, running like warm cherry c pudding that I know he tastes tes when I’m not looking. “Play,” “Play,” he says again as the hatchet swings right between my eyes. I open suddenly to the ceiling and look around a room. My head swivels panicked. The room comes through in an already unfamiliar static, static, with echoing voices full of giggles and tears between the walls. Eyes from every-nowhere every nowhere penetrate through the layers of heroes and ghosts laced into my woven cage. My lids droop and the mist rises again. “What now?” the imp standing on my shoulder says as he dips his face to lick at my head wound. “I don’t know,” I say wondering to myself why I feel no pain. “The brain has no pain receptors,” he says reaching inside the bloody broken hole. He pulls out a small piece of gray that doesn’t matter and and sucks it down. I hear him swallow my thoughts right past ast my ear. “It’s like a noodle,” noodle,” he says and returns to the dark bloody orifice, “Is there anybody in there?” His holler echoes in my head. The response that returns from the hole sounds like a third third grade classroom chewing on glass. “There’s nobody in here except us.” The imp considers for a moment. “Well that’s a relief,” he says leaning to look around at me. “So, what now?” m dreaming,” I say with a drunken lisp and reach up for the imp, coiling coil my finger flick “I’m him away. He dodges quickly and gives me a good bite, tasting the spurt of blood that covers his face. “Ouch!” I'm not dreaming. The imp reaches into the wound again and scoops out another bit of gray that doesn’t matter, a great, almost two-handed handed wad. He He licks his lips and sits down on my shoulder, getting comfortable as he prepares to eat the wet popcorn ball. It drips a little red, but mostly a clear thick liquid that runs down his wrist and chin. “You got your redwings,” I say through a hazy giggle. He wipes his chin with the back of his arm, arm and smearing gore across his face, face he looks at his hands. “Well you can only get it by eating out.” We both laugh at that one. “What now?” he says after a moment, smacking his lips and loudly loudly licking my mind from his fingers. “Why must there be a now?” I ask. He stops sucking his fingers and wrist and ponders for a moment. Then he shrugs, “Figured you’d u’d want there to be a now, that’s that’ all.” “Why?” “That’s for you to decide. I can eat you out all day, but eventually I’ll have to crawl inside and I don’t think you want me in your head.” He points a thumb over his shoulder, “Not with all of them anyway.” A giggle from the third grade class whispers from from the black wound like fingernails on a chalkboard.
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A distant radio station hissed and between the static was a voice claiming to be one of the living. Then a rhythmic clanking from the scullery interrupted me. I had left my keys in the trousers I had put into the washing machine and the lining of the drum had torn; so it was I came to fall in love with one of the damned. The indignity of having to trudge shivering through the snow to a working-class working neighbourhood and enter the public laundrette was compensated when I saw her for the first time. Amid the stench of sweat and detergent I was struck immediately by her difference differ from the other women there. They were laughing bags of blotched skin and fat pressed into colourful frocks, but she was calm and graceful in a simple black dress, her skin white and flawless. Like alabaster, alabaster I had told myself, having only the vaguest idea of what alabaster was. “Your machine broken down too, too citizen?” I asked smiling, knowing that someone in her station could not have afforded a washing machine but wanting the attention of those black eyes. I was trying not to stare at her breasts or the bundle of plain white underwear in her laundry basket that I found so alluring in its simplicity. “I have no machine,” she said, “I’m afraid I must come here often. Once a week. At just this time.” She had only the odd musical accent of twenty streets or so away. We didn’t say anything after that but exchanged eye smiles from either end of the long gallery that formed the launderette. When she left she turned and smiled fully as she revealed her name: Irena. ### Over the next few days I tried to get on with my job. I didn’t want to be infatuated with one of the damned. The very presence in our part of the city of their émigré colony was considered suspect. They were even regarded by some to be a fifth-column fifth column come to infiltrate and corrupt those of us who were alive. Those suspicions were typical of the character of that era of phoney war when only the odd street would occasionally change hands, would fall to them and become dead. The undercurrent of paranoia formed part of the rationale of my own work monitoring broadcasts from distant cities. It was believed that life might still exist somewhere else, beyond the wide expanses of the dead, and that we might find allies there. But now I found it hard now to concentrate on my work. I paced around. I looked ooked up ‘alabaster’ in my antique etymology. Hydrous sulphate of calcium; calcium White, almost translucent; Used to fashion the effigies on tombs in the era when such edifices had been necessary. Oh yes. ### I didn’t telephone and ask for a repairman to call. The washing machine lay idle and within a week I had another pile of dirty clothes to take to the launderette. She was there at the far end again and when there was no one too near her I left my machine and sat next to her. “How long have you been here?” I asked. “A little while. Not long.” She only looked at me when she had finished speaking. “I meant,” I said, realizing that I might have been misunderstood, “how long have you been on this side of the city.” 11
By the beginning of August the worst of the heat wave took the city hostage. Milford Pedri strolled down the streets, aging face dripping wet, and tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Given the amount mount of water he’d surely lost already, liquor was the last thing he needed in him, but he still stepped through the door of Red Lights and ordered a beer at the counter. Emil Runk was already there, hunched over his own drink, greeting Milford with a nod of the head. Only three or four others milled around the back end of the un-air-conditioned un bar, probably bums who got a lucky hand out or unemployed men taking a break from their search for work. Few others bothered with bars at four in the afternoon. Milford Milford had always preferred it, the lull before the office crowd poured into the streets. Ruth Kale, the owner and main bartender for the place, handed Milford his drink and returned to one of the few working fans. She leaned back and let it blow directly onto her face. Milford brought the wet, cold glass to his forehead, smiling at the feeling. “You seen Saul lately?” Emil asked. Milford took a swig, frowned, and looked around as if Saul might be hidden somewhere. “Can’t recall.” “Good riddance then,” Ruth called out from her perch under the fan. Both men ignored her and her well-known well known dislike of Saul Polosky. No one actually liked Saul, though Milford had to admit a certain appreciation for the man. He would never really admit it, none of them would, becausee it was just expected that a person would dislike Saul. The overweight ex-army army man was loud-mouthed, loud foul-tempered, tempered, and quick to lord his time serving his country over everyone’s head. No one knew if he’d actually served in the army, or if it was just one of the more elaborate lies he told to boost himself above those around him. Really it didn’t seem to matter, because even if he was called on a lie, he’d keep spouting it the next time he came around. For all Saul’s terrible traits, Milford had to admit the the man was interesting, something Milford couldn’t say about most people he knew, or himself. He’d grown a little more attached to Saul as the years progressed and the reality of his own mediocrity dawned on him, the opportunity to do something big with hiss life lost thirty or forty years in the past. No one could accuse Saul of marching slowly and unenthusiastically through life. “Usually in at least once a week,” Milford said. “Wonder if anything happened to him.” “Only forty-seven,” seven,” Emil said. He smiled dryly. “Compared to us he’s practically a child.” “And he probably weighs more than the two of us combined,” Milford said. “Well, two of you anyways,” he added, frowning at his own growing gut. “Besides, he’s had heart attacks before.” “Well, if you can believe lieve him.” Milford shrugged, did his best to finish off the beer quickly. In truth he actually hoped to find something wrong, something to make his day different from the hundreds that had preceded it. How often does one find a dead body? Not like Saul had had a lot of friends, people who would come looking for him. “Come on,” he said, swallowed his last gulp, and pushed back from the bar. Emil sighed and did the same. “If you do find him alive don’t bring him here,” Ruth called after them. The two stepped outt into the blazing sun, hats on to protect their faces as they walked down the street and towards the patch of suburbia a few blocks up where Saul lived. They had dragged him home enough times after late nights to know the path to his home by heart. 12
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