Was it paranoia? Perhaps it was, as the train pulled away from the station which was a three-minute walk from Frazier Street maternity hospital, with the little bundle of joy she cradled, sat looking out of the window. Was she being observed? Somebody had been following her she was sure. A man who looked like he slept on the streets. A scruffy individual of no fixed abode. She didn’t like to stare straight at him. In fact...
He stared out from behind the glass of a small frame, the picture taken 22 years ago as he stood on a beach, the sea behind him beneath a cloudless sky. She wanted to feel emotion at his passing, wanted to shed a tear, but couldn’t. He hadn’t been a bad husband, and he certainly hadn’t been good, but then neither had she. Yet he had seemed to treat her as though she wasn’t really there. She had been someone he could fall...
As he watched the football results in an electrical retailer’s window, he saw that the only goal scored in the Denwick-Whitelaw match was scored by Tristan Simian, a Swedish striker. It didn’t surprise him one iota. Tristan played for Denwick in the third division, and at his current firing rate, his team were heading for the top of the league. They were fourth. It wouldn’t have surprised him if talent scouts had already...
To everyone in the room, she seemed like just a normal girl wearing Vans, bluejeans, and a red hoodie. But looks can be deceptive; the clothes chosen deliberately to conjure up that very word—normal. The volunteers saw only what they expected to see; what they were meant to see. Don’t look here—nothing to worry about; nothing unusual. Only if you observed more carefully would you notice anything abnormal. If you were a li...
The girl walks down the sidewalk from the direction of the school. She's familiar for some reason. You don't know her but she seems like someone you have known. Makes no sense. You stumble, then continue approaching. It's hard not to glance up. Girls hate when creeps stare at them. You pass, she speaks. "I know you, Mister?" "Maybe." Soon you have left a diner and enter your apartment. Set down the coffee tray, smile, an...
He squeezed his eyes tight and placed his palm over his ear in a vain attempt to shut out the noise that felt like a hammer blow to his brain each time it ricocheted into the bedroom. He lay in his bed, in the darkness, facing the window, the warmth of the duvet cocooning him like a caterpillar. Rain lashed the window, and thunder rumbled away in the distance, but the shed door continued to bang away in the wind, and his...
The book on speaking Italian was of no interest to him, despite looking at it with apparent interest. He was in fact, surreptitiously looking through the shelves of books in the library at the computers where he had a good view of what people were looking at on the internet or just in general. Michael Booth was 62 years of age, and looked quite a few years older. He had grey, wavy hair, and was fairly plump. His belt was...
It was brilliant. In fact, it was genius. He surprised himself at just how great his idea actually was, and it led him to ponder whether or not all great ideas came from the murky depths of a mind fuelled by alcohol. He was fast on the way to becoming drunk, as he certainly wasn’t sober. Did all great philosophers and inventors get their ideas from the shadowy realms of the subconscious? he wondered, presented to them in...
Telephone poles whipped past her, each separate in her headlights but blurred and indistinct. The girl was traveling north. She drove the speed limit along the two-lane federal highway. Into the night she drove once more. Alone, heading towards the big city. The highway stretched out ahead and ghostly phantoms of imaginary treelines wavered in her peripheral vision alongside her route. Occasionally porch lights shone out...
I can't believe the cheek of him, bold as anything, staring out at me with his stupid face. Well, there's no way I'm putting up with this. No way. I've never liked him, never trusted him. He's smarmy and sly, and now here he is, a face on a poster outside the small Shaftsbury theatre, in the town where I live. He's appearing in a pantomime in a kid's play for God's sake. This man killed an old woman in a drunken hit and r...
They had planned it as the holiday of a lifetime, but Jen had known all along that it was her final attempt to save their marriage. She'd had very little help from Alex, as usual, other than a few affirmative nods and grunts over his evening bottle of Scotch. Now here they were in San Francisco, in a lovely boutique hotel with a balcony and a magnificent view of the bay. It had cost and arm and a leg, but she'd worked so...
I have become suspicious of everyone. It is not something I particularly wanted, but it has become this way. I’m an inventor, you see, and I have invented a machine that everybody wants, especially corrupt, paranoid governments and dictators. They all know about it, and all want what I’ve got. Even normal people want it, from teenagers to the elderly. It can make me rich if I knew how to market it properly. If I knew what...
I could not help remembering the old homeless man who explained that he possesses psychic abilities. I thought him nothing more than delusional when he told me he could see into the future, glimpsing visions of when and how others would die. I scoffed, for surely no one ever believed him. That exchange and his grim face were my last thoughts as I bled out on the street in front of the truck that hit me.
I watched my copper mailbox dangle from the door of my bar through the blurs of my windshield wipers. The rubber gripped the glass, not a forgotten drop or streak. They were new. The car was new. The mailbox was rusted and tarnished. It was Sunday, I’d just gotten out of one of those fancy Catholic Cathedrals I’d found in inner-city Moscow, and as I trudged through the rain, I begged God that the mailbox be empty. I...
SHOTS FIRED James Connolly never wanted to be a police officer. However, after receiving the final results of his G.O.A.T. evaluation the powers that be had made the decision for him, much to his dismay. The police sergeant had always found it funny that the government would at least wait a couple of days until after what was supposed to be a celebration of life be...
