Waiting in the Rain (Flash Fiction)

Hello, friends!

It’s been a long time. I promised a piece of writing and here it is. I should (*coughs*) be using this more in the coming months (HINT: pack your bags for a trip to Devon).

It isn’t going into a university portfolio or entered into a competition because, quite frankly, it isn't good enough. It’s just a bit of fun. I started it in a seminar the other day and, with a bit of editing, I have managed to make a presentable piece out of it. It’s only a short one but I'm happy with it like that.

It’s not written in my usual tone or style but I wanted to try something different…

Waiting in the Rain

A country lane. It’s always on a country lane, always dark and always raining. This is where the stories start. A woman, it’s usually a woman and I don’t know why, is sitting in her clapped out car. Waiting. Waiting for a midnight rendezvous or something. Then, from out of the woods, a mad axe man or a mental farmer with a shot gun comes along and turns her into soup. And she screams. Oh boy does she scream. Maybe that’s why it’s a woman. Well, I am not a woman. I am a man. And cannibals don’t like men. At least, not according to ITV.

It’s been half an hour since I phoned. The lights keep flashing past. Each time I hope and each time I get let down.  I should go out again but I’ve already ruined the shoes and I don’t want to ruin the trousers. I’ll just wait, sit here and wait. And ignore the imaginary man who keeps peeking out of the bushes.

Doctor Who: An Average Morning (Fan-Fic Short Story)

Of course. I'm a Whovian. This features the Eleventh Doctor and his companion Adam, a character I have created. I've had this idea for a long time that the Doctor has a son and they share adventures together. I don't know why, it just seems right. I know how I would introduce him and I'm currently writing that now (Possible upload in the future) at the moment, I'm just testing out the character. This is an early version of him. He has more emotional depth now. I hope you enjoy this because I sure as hell enjoyed writing it. :)

Ps- there are a loads of references to earlier Doctor Who episodes... Please excuse my lack of originality with some quotes and locations.

*

An Average Morning

I awoke to the gentle, soothing hum of the TARDIS. Groggily, I made my way to the console room. The corridors seemed to go on forever. Until finally, at last, I was there, at the heart of the ship. The Doctor was flamboyantly dancing around the console as he piloted her to our next distant destination across the stars. He looked me in the eye and gave his most wild, broad grin. It was like he hadn’t slept; to think of it, I had never known him to sleep. I walked down the stairs and leaned against the console

‘Where are we off to, then?’ I said, wiping the sleep out of my eye.

‘Further than we have ever gone before!’ He declared triumphantly . He threw a lever and the machine roared into life. The moans and groans of the ancient engines made me feel strangely at home. Every way to describe the TARDIS makes her sound violent. Maybe roaring is the wrong word. She sang. She sang as we flew into the vortex.

I had been on the TARDIS for so long, yet it all seemed like a bizarre dream. Or nightmare. The planets and the stars, the aliens and the monsters; I couldn’t imagine any other sort of life now. I was in love with the travelling, in love with the TARDIS and held the Doctor so very dear. He was so often preoccupied with his past, and his future, that he would often forget about me. His own son. But that didn’t matter; I knew I would always come second to her. Nothing could ever come in between them. She was magnificent; she could do anything. There was something special about the Doctor, though, and just by being with him, made me feel more special. Well, before I even stepped foot on the TARDIS. I thought there was something unique between us. Then he showed me the funny little police box which was to become my home. At once I knew I was not magnificent.

 ‘Barcelona!’ He said, straightening his red bow-tie and throwing on his tweed jacket. ‘A planet, not too far from Earth, with huge oceans! We can visit the Horseshoe Island and go to the home of the dogs with no noses!’

It seemed impossible to believe a thousand year old man could run with such a gleeful air, especially over something he does every day. He darted towards the door.

Undoing the lock, he looked back to me and waved.

‘One problem, Dad…’ I said, ‘I’m still in my pyjamas.’

He remained oblivious and unfazed by this.

I darted back to my room, rummaged through my wardrobe and found out an outfit suitable for a beach planet. At least, I assumed it was a beach planet. Oceans and islands Let’s hope it’s not like Space Florida, I thought. That was a let-down.

I walked through the same corridors as before. They felt distinctly shorter… The TARDIS has a nasty habit of switching rooms. I half-expected to walk into the swimming pool, rather than the console room.

Thankfully, that hadn’t happened.

Yet.

I was there again. The sheer scale of the room never ceased to startle me.

And there he was. My father. He was sonicing a clump of hardware with his ever-so-trusty screwdriver. Noticing me, he dropped what he was holding and ran to the door. He threw open the door, presenting me with the world outside. Nothing is constant here, I thought as I walked out onto a new front garden.

‘See you later, sexy,’ the Doctor said, winking to his machine as he closed the door behind him.

Memory Scrapbook (Short Story)

OKAY. SORRY. THIS ONE IS BEING USED FOR SOMETHING ELSE SO I CAN'T HAVE IT ON THE INTERNET ANY MORE.

Eleventh Commandment (Short story)

Okay, this is the first short story I've published to my blog. I based it on some poems by Richard Siken (who I absolutely adore) and there are a few lines in it are quite Isherwood (Who I adore in equal measure).

I really enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoy reading it. 

Eleventh Commandment

I remember that day like it was yesterday; the day the blond boy in red trunks tried to kill me.

Pushing me under and under.

Deeper and deeper.

Until I couldn’t see anymore. Through the muffles of splashing water and laughter, I heard my salvation. A long, shrill blast on a distant metal whistle.

And I surfaced again.

Breathing, panicking, I settled back in the pool which nearly killed me.

But I was saved.

Not safe.

 The lifeguard, however, was most unforgiving. When he saw it was me, he gave the other boys a look.

 Good work lads, he thought. Kill him. Kill the queer. The others shared his thought, too.

And they were right to try and kill me. I am wrong and unnatural… But I saw that bulge in his red trunks under the water. So I knew that I wasn’t the only one. The blond boy was unnatural too.

I dragged myself out of the water. A thousand glaring eyes were watching, silently stalking me. I was to be their prey, dripping wet, baiting them almost, like a deer before a lion. They were ready to pounce and I was prepared to die. All it would take is one to pull me back under.

And this time, the whistle wouldn’t blow.

*

Folded arms, grey beard and podgy stomach. The principle was no hero. He will never rescue me or anybody like me. I was an infection, that must be destroyed, a parasite.

But he can’t. He would if I was anyone else. If I was on the street, or in another school or state or country.

His father made a kill once. No one spoke about it but everyone knew it. He got away with it.

And so he should. He wasn’t the one at fault.

*

Outside the school, there was the blond boy again, this time not in red trunks. Dressed. Sitting on his father’s old pick-up truck with a girl on each arm. No bulge.

But he was strong, so he would never say.  He was better than me, so he could never say.

*

I grew through this; the teething pains of life.

A year later, I met this brown-eyed boy, bruised on a street corner with ripped clothes. I helped him home and tended to his wounds.

He wore the scar on his stomach like a medal.

As we grew, we healed. We built our lives around each other, spending and sharing every moment.

And we had no hesitations about falling completely in love.

Our summer dates smelt of cheap wine and cigarettes. As we walked through Central Park on our vacations to New York, we planned our lives together. We would buy an apartment and watch each other grow old, while growing closer.

Or, at least, that was the plan.

*

I went home, expecting to see this boy.

My boy, with eyes like golden autumn leaves.

We had been through a lot during our time together. But he ripped open old wounds when I realised he didn’t love me as much as I loved him.

There was a note on coffee stained paper left in his place, saying he had gone to New York with the intention of starting a new life.

In desperation and isolation, I clung to the good memories because they don’t hurt. Words from the past echoed to me: you need to acknowledge the bad times to make the good ones better.

This, however, works in reverse. The good memories make the bad ones so much worse. And this was the worst of times.

That night, I packed up my things into an old suitcase, the battered leather showing its age. I threw it into the back of my car and drove down to the cliffs. She was running out of petrol but I didn’t fill her up.

I had no intention to make the return journey.

*

Nevertheless, I’m lying here now, with a wound from a rock that I could have only got from the fifty foot cliff I flew from, thinking of these memories as I take my final breath and saying hello to the incoming tide, reassured by the sirens that will never arrive.