#fridayflash – Harmony

Man, that Subaru’s sweet. I’ve never had a drive as wild. Metallic silver, black tinted windows, and a cheetah growling in the engine. Everything about her in perfect tune.

The day we met started badly. Gramps was grumpier than usual, said he felt too ill to go down the mine. Mam sent him back to bed, didn’t bother reminding him again that the mine closed years ago. Then Dad started on at me about exams and ‘what do you want to do with your life?’ He wants me to go to university. I told him, again, I didn’t plan to waste time playing smart-arse with middle-class monkeys, so he thumped me. Again. Mam told him to leave me be. I left early for school, the discordant sound of Dad’s meaty hand on Mam’s face following me through the door. There’s never any harmony in our house.

Davey Evans was behind the newsagent counter, so no baccy for me. Davey wants to be a policeman, he sticks to the law. As I turned to leave, a man in a grey pinstriped suit pushed past me to grab his morning dose of the Daily Mail. He slammed a handful of coins down and headed for the door in a hurry.

Hey, shouted Davey, that’s 5p short!

I stuck out my foot and tripped up the suit. We don’t like smart dressers around here. Davey pounced and went into a raucous rant which offended my eardrums, so I left.

Then I heard her, calling me with a throbbing intensity, like velvet stroking the surface of my brain. Mr Suit had left his Subaru Impreza half-on the pavement, door open and engine running. Music that made my heart pound. As soon as my backside made contact with her bucket seat, we were off quick as thought down King Street.

We nearly ran down Matt’s granny outside the Spar, then whipped round the mini-roundabout and onto Colliers Lane. Ollie and Matt were on their usual stone bench outside St Mary’s. I pulled a handbrake turn just to show off. Their goldfish stares cracked me up

I rolled down the darkened window so they could see it was me.

Come on then, get in, I said

Ollie yelled Shotgun! and leapt into the front seat. Matt climbed slowly into the back, muttering about travel sickness. He always took the joy out of joyriding, but he usually had some smokes, so we let him come.

I caressed my new girl into gear and we headed for the hills.
Give us your shades, Ollie, I said.

You got to be kidding, man, can’t hardly see through these windows as it is, said Ollie. But the driver’s the boss, it’s our rule. He handed them over.

Rally wheels stuck her to the road, even round the Blackthorn Hill hairpins. Matt’s terrified yelping clashed with the sweet screams of tyres painting my mark on the asphalt. I need harmony, and Matt was not harmonious, so I slammed the brakes and threw him out. Ollie said I was harsh. Maybe he’s right, but the driver’s in charge. I gunned 0-60 in five seconds flat. Ollie shut up after that.

After ditching Matt, we really had fun, stretched the Subaru to her limits. I took her up to 150mph past Prospect Quarry, and tested her suspension on the cattle grid. Actually, I forgot to slow down, but I didn’t tell Ollie that. She floated across, humming like an angel.

I headed for Hangman’s Bridge. Ollie drove a Ford Focus over the hump at 100mph once, totalled the car and nearly killed himself. I reckoned this girl could do it, easy. When Ollie saw where I was going, he wanted out. I let him go, but kept his shades. I was still the driver, still the boss.

I hit Hangman’s Bridge at 120mph. I know, because I was watching the speedo. I should have been looking ahead, but I wouldn’t have seen that sheep through two layers of tinted glass anyway. Man, we made a mess, me and the sheep and the Subaru, all tangled up together, burning brighter than the gorse on the hilltop, singing flames licking the sky.

Now the bridge is covered in flowers. Ollie keeps trying to tell people I don’t like flowers, but they don’t listen.

Me and my girl don’t care. We’re speeding over the hills together, in perfect harmony.

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Ghosts (again)

This isn’t a real post – still not going to have time for that till tomorrow or Sunday. But I’ve rewritten Ghosts, and thought I’d post it just to prove I’m still here. It’s hopefully even more disturbing (those of a nervous disposition probably shouldn’t read it), and I’ve experimented with changing the point of view throughout.

Any comments welcome.

Ghosts

Do I live here?

Concrete stairs circle above and below. Bright colours on rough brick walls try to tell me where to go. I don’t understand the language of the spray can. Dismal passages march away in impossible directions. Everything smells of piss.

Perhaps…

I look down at my feet, tell them to take me home.

They seem to know where they’re going.

I need to keep my bearings in this angular world. I cling to the dark wooden hilt, hold the sensuous curve of metal before my face. It reminds me I have a destiny.

The door is a tongue fitting snugly into the mouth of a narrow damp tunnel. There isn’t enough light for me to be able to tell what colour it is. The walls and ceiling are moving inwards, dripping.

I knock twice. She will let me in.

* * *

I’m playing with the children in the living room when he knocks. No-one ever visits us here. A visceral fear I haven’t felt for over a year wraps around my shoulders like an old friend.

I put the chain on before opening the door.

He pushes so hard the chain breaks, then advances slowly. He’s waving a glittering crescent. A knife.

I scream at the boys to hide, and run through the kitchen. I hope he will follow me, as he did many times before. There is a French window leading onto a balcony. I stand to the side, behind a dark green plastic chair, and wait.

That pot plant needs watering.

* * *

I don’t get it. What was that massive bang? Why’s Mum telling us to hide? She sounds scared. I poke my head into the hall.

The front door is wide open and there’s a man with a scary scowly smile walking towards the kitchen. I run back into the room and hide behind the sofa. Billy is already crouching there, making patterns in the dust.

I hope the man doesn’t find us.

* * *

Flashes of betrayal strobe through my mind. Her blood, her bruises, her doctors. Dark uniforms. A room full of people, she stands in a box, I sit in another box, alone. She tells lies. Years in a small room, alone. My blood, my bruises. No doctors.

Where’s the bitch? My knife is slavering, begging me to sink its fang into her chest, slice the over-ripe flesh away from her rotting bones.

* * *

He bursts out of the kitchen, knife lifted high. Cold stones fill his eye sockets, his mouth is tangled in a knot of hatred. I scream and cower. I don’t dare defy him again.

Maybe if I say I’m sorry…

Snarling, he advances. No human lives inside his skin. I tried to pour my humanity into him once, nearly became an animal myself. I use that part of me now. I dive for his legs, lift, feel my muscles tear, topple him over the balcony railings.

* * *

I fall, tumbling over and over. Violent bloody spirals stream from the tip of my blade, painting my rage on the clouds.

* * *

My sons run into the kitchen, laughing.

We hid, like you said,’ says Stevie.

‘Has the man gone?’ says Billy.

‘Yes, darlings, you’re safe now.’ I kneel down to clasp them to me, I want to hold them so tightly they become part of me again, safe within my womb.

As they approach, I look at them, properly look at them.

Billy’s blond hair is matted with gore. His cheek is ripped open and he has been stabbed many times. Stevie’s throat is gaping and he has a dark red apron of blood.

I can see through them.

Wordle generated image

(generated at Wordle – a great place to spend a few hours)

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