SALT

“Would you give it a rest, woman.” I didn’t mean to get angry but it just happened, it was just that recently everything I did seemed to be wrong in some way. Ever since the doctor told me I had slight health issues, slight he’d said… He even told me not to worry to much about it, just to be careful. The worse thing I did was tell my wife.

            Since then, she’s watched me like a hawk. `Don’t do that, Dear.` or `Let me do that for you.` like I’m some sort of old man already. Don’t get me wrong, I know she means well, I know she’s doing it because she cares, but I have to be allowed to do things, I can’t spend the rest of my life covered in cotton wool. I just wish she’d back off a little and let me breathe.

            I’ve already cut down on all my fatty foods. I used to love a plate of sausage and chips, or a bacon and egg sandwich. But now, it’s down to salads, or muesli, ack.. Bloody muesli, squirrel crap it is. Not enough meat for a real man, although I must confess to being a little more regular now, but that’s besides the point.

            “You have to let me live a little. I’m going to go crazy if I can’t have the odd pleasure.” I purposefully twist the grinder over my poached egg as I stare at her, a little to angrily to be honest, but she was winding me up. “For the last three weeks now…” I twist again. “You’ve been on at me…” and again. “I’ve given up bloody smoking haven’t I?” twist, “I’ve got rid of the chip pan.” Twist, “all I want to do now, Is have a quiet breakfast. With my Bloody low fat newspaper.” Twist, “ and have a peaceful weekend.” Twist. “Without you going on and bloody on about my diet.” Twist.

            “A little salt will do me no.” Twist. “Bloody” Twist. “Harm…” She sat silently before me. Anger welling up being her eyes as she places her knife and fork quietly next to her unfinished breakfast before standing up.

            “I was going to tell you that you’d picked up the `Pepper pot`, you ungrateful prick!”

THE RAIN-MAKER

Permission to display the artwork granted by the wonderful artist Chris Larkin.
(http://www.facebook.com/ChrisLarkinArt?ref=ts&fref=ts)

REFERENCE ART FOR THE STORY:

The Rain-Maker.
By Ian Hawley

A slight mist rose from the pavement as the rain drops exploded against it and a roar filled the air, this wasn’t a regular downpour on any level, this felt more like war but Malcolm didn’t mind it, in fact he’d grown accustomed to it over the years, the late afternoon downpour could almost be planned.

Malcolm liked to plan, he liked things to be just so, a place for everything and everything in its place and he smiled to himself as he stood in the shop doorway, watching the rain dance outside. His cigarette held carefully between his fingers as he drew in the calming smoke, holding it for a moment in his lungs, letting the heat burn slightly before he released it. He used to smoke a lot, almost sixty a day if not more if he was honest with himself, but it had done him no good in the end. Now, well now he saved them for special occasions, those moments when he could stop and just enjoy the moments.

He tapped the ash into his gloved hand before taking another pull, listening as the sound of the fire burnt closer to him, the feeling of peace and harmony all wrapped up into a little role of paper and dried herbs, such a simple thing that should bring so much pleasure.

He looked at his watch. The rain would continue for another five to ten minutes yet, keeping people off the streets or at least, keep them moving quickly along, heads down as they rushed from one place to another. This was his time; his moment, and he allowed himself a little smile as he broke the end of his cigarette off and placed the filter in his pocket before flicking the still burning end into the street where it was quickly extinguished before being carried away to the drain.

With one final look back into the shop he turned the open sign round and pulled his coat up around his neck before stepping out onto the pavement, letting the door close behind him.
It was only a small walk to the bus stop, and from there he could mingle with the other unseeing people as they tried to protect themselves from the elements.

By the time they found the body, he would be gone. No trace or evidence would be found again thanks to the weather and it would be chalked up to "The Rain-maker" once more.
He quite liked the title the press had given him.
After all, he liked the rain.

THE INVISIBLE

It is said that the meek shall inherit the earth, but, let’s be honest, pretty quickly after they do, someone will come along and swindle them out of it. 

The Meek are a strange group of people who live in the shadows of others, watching from a safe distance before shuffling off to their dwellings to mull over their fate in life, their numbers are unknown as no one has ever really cared to look into it.

I met a meek person once, a while back, she called herself `One of the unseen`, one of the invisible, I was going to ask her if she could see other meek, other invisible people, but I forgot and walked away, and it wasn’t until later that I realised but by then she had gone.

I started an experiment to study them, to keep track of them as I tried to understand their habits and lifestyles. I found that `The Invisible` tend to live in a state of almost poverty, shunning their materialistic needs, for a more simpler lifestyle, they avoid gatherings and parties, so live well on their own without the need of others company. 

As an experiment, I gave up a lot of my social comforts; I reduced myself down to a smaller existence and started to avoid the eye contact of others. Initially, people tried to talk to me, to check and see what was wrong, but after a day or two they left me to it with only a small few of my friends who tried to maintain some form of contact, but even they eventually left me.

I have to say, for the first few weeks I felt so isolated, so alone that my life turned dark and soulless which surprised me, in a city of half a million it is amazing how alone you can feel, how insular you become.

After a month, and my experiment completed and I tried to return to my normal way of life I found my path removed, I tried to talk to my friends but my voice was weak and they walked by without acknowledging me, so, after a day I returned to my existence.

It seems that once you turn invisible, it is very difficult to break free, to gain the strength to pull yourself out of the reality you have created round yourself.

So, now I write this down in the hope that someone will read it, someone will take the time to understand my predicament and help me.

I don’t want to be invisible anymore.

Please help.

I HAVE NO EYES TO SEE YOU.

It's not often I do poetry, usually they just drop out of my head when I am working on something else.
Most are turn out slightly mad and funny, but then, once in a while, something like this drops out.

I HAVE NO EYES TO SEE YOU.

I have no eyes to see you, my love my life of mine.

I’m living in the darkness that your light has left behind.

You leaving cause a pain that no mortal man can bear.

My love is with me solely, no other with which to share.

I miss you now my love, my dearest sweetest wife.

The colour in the world has gone there is no sign of life.

I spend my days in darkness now just sitting feeling cold.

I always thought we’d be together, sweethearts getting old.

But I have no eyes to see you, my breath is getting short.

Maybe I will see you soon, much quicker than I thought…

I CAN'T DO IT

“I know I have to try. There has to be away, some way to actually do it, some way to actually finish a flash fiction without someone dying.” I tell myself as I pause at the keyboard.

It’s not easy.

Behind my eyes people die, people explode or get crushed under falling debris, but not tonight, tonight, no one dies.

My friends have told me I’m odd, weird, a freak maybe. Unable to process the world without seeing death at the end of the tunnel, but I know there has to be a way. I can feel my fingers twitching as I type, trying to make me kill someone, to tighten round their imaginary necks. It wouldn’t matter who, I wouldn’t even need to name them, I could just kill them, and slowly watching as their life leaves the now dead shell I hold by the throat.

“Stop it!” I clench my hands into fists. I must do it; I just have to make it to the end without a blood curdling scream. `You’re, special. ` I’ve was told, but they paused on the word `Special` for a few seconds to long for it to be in a good way, the addition of the `Very special` a moment after, whispered under their breathe for fear of what I might do.

I suppose I should be please, fear is a power, a power I can use if I can focus it. I know I’ll never write children’s fiction; even my poetry is dark and soulless. Its not that my life leads me to it, on the contrary, my life is good. A good supporting family, a beautiful wife and two wonderful children, so its not there that’s the problem.

I did fall on my head as a child; recently I’ve almost cracked my skull on a piece of steel. That’s a story for another day though; I need to focus on the job at hand. I just don’t know if I can do it, I really don’t. It’s starting to worry me a little, even my dreams contain murder most foul, or death by gerbil.

The problem is though, if I’m honest, that I don’t really want to be fixed, to be made normal. Normal looks so dull and boring, so… so very… well, normal. I don’t know if I can live in a world where there’s no death, no Ninja squirrels hell bent on destroying the world, no small bed bugs ready to lay eggs up your nose or behind your eyes.

The pistol feels heavy in my hands, so cold and solid in a world of thought and death. I wish I could write a piece without someone dying. I really do. I just don’t know if I can finish something without bloodshed. I cock the firing pin and place the barrel under my chin. I just can’t do it…

TIME

After costing him many years of his life on research and almost all of his fortune, Darren had finally realised that immortality itself was not possible. The basic fact when you boiled it down was that the body wore away as time passed, so therefore, the best you could hope for after 300 years was to be a blob of muscle, mucus and membranes that once upon a time was labelled as your body. Each test, each theoretical model he ran ended up with the same, jelly like state.

            He felt a little let down to have spent so much of his life trying to find the answer that actually switching off and having what others would have called a normal life was impossible to him, and, even though he’d tried, the scientist in him always came back to the basics again.

            If only he could slow down time, he reasoned, then a hundred years could be stretched to maybe a thousand or more, therefore the body would survive longer. It wasn’t quite immortality, but it was close, and after so many years, he was happy with close.

            That being said, he’d started to study the passage of time, not only how certain people seemed to get more done in a day than others, how those certain people felt the day lasted longer than the normal 24 hours, but also those that the day blinked passed after what felt like five minutes.

            His theory was that time must be a certain size, and some people would absorb time faster than others and he’d taken blood from those who claimed time went faster for then, and those whose life dragged on and from the blood he’d found a chemical, a single chemical bond that those whose days passed more slowly possessed that the others did not, a simple anti-time mixture.

            The chemical had not been easy to replicate though, but the last of his inheritance and the sale of his estate had finally brought him to this point, this point in time when he would be able to slow time around him. If all went well, he’d be a step close to immortality, the very elixir from the fountain of youth itself.

            The Perspex container he’d designed would allow him to work in the gas, thus giving him more hours in the day and therefore more days in the year. Jubilantly he stepped inside and closed and sealed the door behind him, and with a final smile of satisfaction he sat down with a copy of War and Peace and took a note of the time on the clock outside the container.

If everything went well, he would be able to read the total book in the next few hours, or minutes even. Pressing the button on his console, he flooded the chamber with the chemical and relaxed back as he breathed it in.

As the toxic gas filled his lungs he realised his error, but by then it was too late to stop it taking effect. The irony was that he’d aimed to become immortal, that the gas would keep him alive longer, but, as he started to spasm and his mouth to froth, the next minute actually did last him the rest of his life, so it wasn’t a total failure.