User 9100's Stories

clarity

2008-05-09T08:03:20Z

The factory was more than a production line. Its workers thought of themselves as creators, not drudges. They made the world a different place – if not an actively better one.

The research and development guys hid out in an air-conditioned sanctuary tucked away at one end of the factory. Not that they felt they had anything to be ashamed of – they were only fulfilling a demand after all, and creatively at that. No, they weren’t hiding; it was just difficult to mix with people who didn’t see the world as they did; as clearly as they did.

Sometimes they discussed their moral and philosophical standpoints, usually over long, lazy games of poker while ideas for new creations brewed away undisturbed in the back of their minds.

As far as they were concerned, there were two kinds of people in the world regardless of whether you were from Hong Kong or Edinburgh.

You see, it all boils down to problems and problem-solvers.

night out

2008-05-08T20:05:29Z

Bic cradled the remains of a pint and wiped his fingers across one of the tiny-paned pub windows to clear it and peer out into the empty street. “Fog always puts me in a bad mood,” he mumbled to no-one in particular.

James dumped another round, their third, on the unsteady table. “Really? You’re inability to know when to shut the fuck up tends to rank higher in the irritation stakes for me.”

“Litter,” Jack mumbled from the other side of the table. “And Nazis.”

James pinged Jack’s ear. He was well-practiced in the art of irritating every one of his three friends gathered round the table. They’d known one another since nursery. “Well, of course Nazis. Nazis are a fucking given!”

Jack shrugged his big shoulders. Just once and slowly, but he was so big it looked like an impressive mountain range rippling through a heat haze.

the last night

2008-05-08T19:42:46Z

He got up from his comfortable place lounging on the sofa and went to make them both coffee. He could be magnanimous, he thought – but he made sure that the coffee was just a little stronger that she would have normally liked and that she got the blue mug with the chipped handle which dug into your hand as you drank.

She thanked him, even smiled a very little but to his disappointment she drank with the mug turned so that she cupped the body without ever touching the handle. He suddenly remembered that she always held her mug that way and that he had forgotten. It made him sad that he would eventually forget everything that had made him love her in the first place and then a little resentful when he realised that she would perform the same unconscious excision of her memories of him.

She seemed to want to part on a good, if subdued note. “I did love you, you know,” she said quietly.
    “Yeah,” he agreed quickly. “Me too.”

temp. job

2008-05-08T19:39:54Z

There’s a bright circle of light in the middle of the hotel room. I raise my eyes for a moment to watch the cheap glass shade shake a little from movement on the floorboards above. I’ve been in plenty of rooms too cheap for a light shade.

The woman, one of my regulars, has brought scented candles with her and stacked them on the narrow shelf above the bed. With the curtains closed and the perfume from her and the candles thick in the air, it’s becoming an effort to breathe. Even the plaster wall at my back feels warm, like something alive. In this place there are floors of lost people just like me and the walls sweat along with us.

There’s a tiny sink beside us, beside this middle-aged woman and the sweetheart she pays for by the hour. I’d like to wash my face in the cracked, dirty basin but I would have to push her away from me to get to it and I know without trying that I just don’t have the energy.

turning point

2008-05-08T19:37:21Z

Cheery people who look like they’ve never had cause to sweat in their lives keep saying that it’s the hottest summer since records began. It’s repeated inside every news bulletin and the weather forecasts that come every half-hour are bragging about the long, dry weeks that are going to stretch into Autumn, like it’s somehow down to them how high the country’s thermostat goes or something.

The grass in the park across from my place is tinder dry, arid as an imagined veldt under your feet. The water fountain in the middle of the park was turned off weeks ago and the water in the concrete paddling pools has shrunk into pockets of dust-coloured sludge. Too hot to work, too hot to eat, too hot to breathe.

wicked night

2008-05-08T19:34:52Z

Not for the first time tonight, I wonder what the fuck I’m doing here. The cold’s biting at my fingers and I shove my red-raw hands down further inside my jacket pockets, trying to seal out the draughts. Icy rain thumped down on me on the walk up to the bus stop from home, so I’m freezing cold now and looking forward to getting a heat on the bus. I’m not looking forward to what’s going to come afterwards though.

I check the deep inside pocket of my thin jacket. The cold handle of the little knife bumps my fingers; it’s a reminder of what I’m going to be a part of tonight and suddenly I want to sink back into the darkness behind the bus shelter. I’ll melt into the grey dark and the driver won’t see me. He’ll drive on and I can say that I was just seconds too late to catch the bus. But I see now that the bus is only a few yards away and I move forward to be ready to step up.

true vocation, my arse

2008-05-08T12:39:55Z

“Jesus Christ! Can’t a man get some fucking peace in this place?”
“You need a drink, Mr Minister,” Dave grinned, taking his friend by the elbow and leading him neatly into the haven of the local pub.
“Just because I’m a Church of Scotland Minister, it doesn’t follow that I have to be an alcoholic. Anyway, what have I done that’s so fucking wrong?”
“You’ve just got them talking, that’s all,” Dave laughed, nodding to two old gents who all but made the sign for the evil eye in return.
“About what? My penchant for wearing black and white on a fucking Sunday?”
“No, no, they’re o.k. with your fashion choices. It’s more your walks that bother them.”
Silence. A grimly determined one, spoken with hands shoved deep into coat pockets.
“Aye. They wonder why their minister goes out walking at three in the morning when he has a nice, warm wife at home.”

the one that got away

2008-05-08T07:09:08Z

The station bar was busy, but only with temporary customers. People drifted in, in one’s and two’s for a hurried drink with one eye on their watch or the station clock. Peter and Liz were the only two who lingered over their drinks. He ordered two malts without stopping to consider that she might prefer something else nowadays, but luckily Liz didn’t seem to mind. She nursed her single drink through three of his – Peter thought he could see amusement in her expression over his obvious nerves. He wanted to impress her, make her realise that his career and personal life had not suffered from the lack of her presence, but what was so impressive about his being an academic librarian and having a pretty wife and a small son? He could only see the smallness of his life; he didn’t see anything in it that she might find fascinating.

dream

2008-05-08T07:08:02Z

Patrick was already inside the dream, waiting for her. Sorcha gave him a sharp nudge with the point of her elbow to make him move the dead weight of his head from her shoulder and he sighed and rolled his head away so that it sagged against the back of the sofa. In the deep red crack between his lips was the slick shine of drool. The buzz coming from the unit tucked just behind his ear was muted, like traffic heard through layers of glass but it still irritated like a wasp grizzling around her head. Patrick had said that they would meet up in the dream, but the truth was you never knew quite where you would end up until you opened your eyes and were staring at the weirdness around you like a newborn.

one fine day

2008-05-08T07:02:32Z

Something was definitely tickling his cheek. Kenneth reached up to rub his face, his sleepy eyes still closed. His fingers soon found the culprit – the prickly/fluffy stub of a feather poking through his pillowcase. He pulled the feather through the candystriped cotton and opened his eyes to look. A beauty, the feather was mottled brown and white and was curved into a smile. Kenneth was sure that it was a good sign for the day ahead. He jumped out of bed, pulling at the blankets and sheets in a valiant stab at neatness to please his mother. He opened his bedroom curtains and nodded to the blue sky outside. Underneath his Spiderman pyjamas, his chest was suddenly tight at the thought of all the excitement this new day might hold.