Living a Lie Part 1 of 2

Living a Lie Part 1 of 2

By Janet Baldey

‘You’re going to Hell, you know.’

         The Reverend Arnold Turvey‘s eyes fluttered, then rolled back into his head as he sank back into his dream.    He reached towards a tumble of golden curls and stretched out his legs, sighing as the sheets whispered against his bare flesh.

        

‘You’re going to Hell, you know.’   The words were a bit louder this time.

        

With a start, Arnold woke up and lay gasping, there was a heavyweight in the centre of his chest.   He couldn’t breathe.  Wretched cat!  

‘Get off Fluff.’

He flailed with one arm and felt, not fur, but something rough and leathery.  There was a clumsy scrambling movement and his chest felt lighter.   He took a deep breath, sat up and peered around the room.   It was in semi-darkness, its furniture spectral in the gloom, but as Arnold’s eyes adjusted, they were drawn to a black and deformed shape clinging to the bedpost.  Its hands were clawed and its monstrous body ended in a tail that twined around the bedstead’s ornamental brass flowers.

Again, Arnold had difficulty breathing.  His eyes popped and, clutching a twist of sheets, he lay back and tried to slide down under the covers.   The creature whisked its tail and its crimson eyes blazed.  It opened its mouth and Arnold interrupted hastily.   He was pretty sure what it was going to say; it seemed to have just one topic of conversation.     

‘Who, who’’, he squeaked.   He cleared his throat.   ‘Who are you?’  He managed at last.

‘I come from beyond the grave.’  The thing intoned. 

‘What do you want?  Why are you here?’  Arnold squealed, like a third rate soprano.

‘It’s our bicentennial stock take. Every half century or so, our assets are inspected.’

Arnold didn’t like the way it looked him up and down and apart from that, its voice needed oiling.   A cross between a squeaky gate and nails scraped down a blackboard, it made Arnold’s throat hurt.     He stared.    As it spoke, it never blinked; instead, a slender forked tongue darted in and out of its mouth.   This didn’t help its diction and it took Arnold a few minutes before he worked out what it had said.   With guilty dread, he thought back to his dream.

        

‘Are you the Devil?’ he whispered.

        

 The thing cackled.‘Oh no!   The Devil’s much worse.’

Then, with a puff of lurid green smoke, the demon disappeared, leaving behind a strong stench of sulphur.

For a long time afterwards, Arnold lay not daring to move.   After a while, the room lightened and he heard the first tentative cheep of a sparrow.   The smell had faded and Arnold sat up.

‘Just a nightmare.’  He muttered.   ‘Nothing to worry about. Must have been the gorgonzola I had for supper.’

By now the birds were screaming at each other.   Arnold’s head started to ache.    Uttering decidedly un-Christian expletives, he reached for his gun and slid his bony feet into worn slippers.    He shuffled towards the window, this time remembering to open it.  After a few blasts of his shotgun, he felt better.  

        

It was time for a cup of tea. Downstairs in the large, square kitchen he stood shivering at the sink listening to the pipes groaning as he filled the kettle.   With a crash, the kitchen door burst open and his wife charged in covered with blood.

        

Arnold regarded her with a benign smile. ‘Had a good night Alfreda dearest?’

        

`       ‘I should say so!’ She bared her teeth at the cracked mirror as she sluiced the gore off her face.  

        

‘Caught a good dozen of the little blighters napping in their den.  Guts and fur everywhere.’   She cackled with laughter.   ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,  Eh?  What?’

        

  The moon-like surface of Alfreda’s rump yawned, threatening to split her jodhpurs as she bent to take off her boots.  Her nose was almost at floor level when she spotted a dried dog turd lying on the floor.   With an oath, she kicked it under the table and there was a flash of silver as she rose and hurled the teapot at the door.   With a startled yip, the hound that had been scratching to come in fell silent.

        

‘Damn dog’ she roared.   ‘And where is that dratted half wit of a maid?   Skulking in bed, I’ll be bound.  Well, she’ll be lacking a few more brain cells, by the time I’ve finished with her.’

        

Picking up her whip, she galloped up the stairs.

        

         Arnold stared out of the window.   A dreamy smile played about his lips as the image of an angelic face drifted across its grease spotted surface.

                                                         *  *

         Clarissa melted into the lilting melody of a waltz drifting into the room.   Stretching out her arms with swanlike grace, her body clad in a shimmering gown, she swayed to its rhythm.   As the music died away, a thunderous burst of applause broke out, followed by an unctuous voice.

        

‘And there you have it, ladies and gentleman.   The American Smooth, performed to perfection by…..’

        

 Clarissa lumbered towards the television set and clicked it off before she could hear the rest.  That could be her.  If only people recognised her talent instead of writing her off as just the Vicar’s clodhopping daughter.   Well, just wait.  
She’d show em. She looked at her watch.   Golly! Time to go!  

        

Bent low over the handlebars, the perfumed evening air streamed by as her stubby legs pedalled, with reckless speed, along the winding lanes.   Several heart pumping miles later, she jumped off her bicycle and entered a wood, dodging from tree to tree until she reached her destination.        

        

Dropping to her knees, she crawled until she had a good view of the clearing, fringed by gorse bushes, their yellow flowers gleaming like small lanterns in the moonlight. There they were.   She looked at the humped figures with satisfaction.   Crouching even lower, she slithered forwards.   As she did, spears of grass tickled her nose and suddenly she was overwhelmed by the urge to sneeze.

        

Crikey, no.  Not now!  They were getting to the good bit.

        

She held her breath until the feeling passed.   With close attention to detail, she took in the scene before her, especially the various items of clothing strewn over the forest floor. She giggled.    Who would have thought it?   Her headmistress and the village butcher.   It was amazing what one could find out by keeping one’s eyes and ears open.    Perhaps now the Head could be persuaded to show sense and choose her as the lead in the school’s end-of-year musical.

* * *

        

High above the village, the church spire pierced the sunset as it flooded the sky with red and gold.   A few yards away, the vicarage clung to the hillside glaring down on the village below.   The vicar, an insomniac since his meeting with the gremlin, stood watching as amber lights sprinkled the valley.   As the hour grew late, one by one the lights winked out.   Except for three that burned defiantly, holding back the night.

        

Behind one of the lights, Gordon, the grocer, looked down at his son; asleep at last.   With loving tenderness he smoothed the boy’s blond locks, his heart aching as he noted the silver trail of tears tracking down his child’s fevered cheeks...   He ground his teeth as his mind flashed back to the terrible scene earlier that evening; remembering how his beloved son had wept and clung to him as he begged not to be sent back to the vicarage for his weekly piano lessons.  A seething volcano raged inside him and threatened to erupt as he dwelt on the reason for his son’s distress.     With a shuddering effort, he controlled himself and when he finally felt able to look at his wife, his face was carved from stone.

        

‘I’ll kill him.’

        

‘No!’   She placed a restraining hand on his arm.

        

‘We both will.’

         Not far away in another lighted cottage, Miss Golightly, the librarian, bent over a blood-soaked carpet cradling her pet Pekinese, her bowed body trembling with grief.

         ‘Those hateful, hateful hounds.   They’ve torn poor Feng to pieces’.

        

Then her eyes glowed. ‘It’s that evil woman.   The vicar’s wife.  She’s the one to blame.’

Miss Golightly’s property abutted the vicarage and nightly she lay, unable to sleep, listening to the fearsome baying of the hounds and the hideous screaming of the foxes as Alfreda wreaked destruction on all that dared to slink, scamper and skulk on her land.   Miss Golightly couldn’t imagine how she had put up with it for so long;   after all, she was a fully paid up member of the League.   Her spine stiffened as she stood, she would hold her tongue no longer.    The time was long overdue; she would lay bare the woman’s despicable hypocrisy.  

        

Copyright Janet Baldey

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

By Peter Woodgate

This is your daily update

Within the doors of number ten,

I know that you have seen the graphs

And you're gonna see them again.

They speak of a magnificent job

In protecting the NHS,

They had to, for in the last ten years,

They left it in a mess.

Boris went on holiday

The stable door ajar,

The horses ran at Cheltenham

With spectators in the bar.

And as for vital PPE

They sold lots of it abroad,

Then found out that we needed it

Right across the board.

But never fear because, I hear

They asked Turkey for a lotta,

Alas, it seems that it’s no good

It arrived via Del Boy Trotter.

They say, of course, we’ve done so well

In following the rules,

Except for “His Mate” Dominic

Because all of them he rules.

So, now they move to questions

And may answer you inline,

But no, they don’t, move on, then say,

Sorry we’re out of time.

Before they leave, they tell you this

STAY ALERT, CONTROL THE VIRUS, SAVE LIVES,

And we will promise to keep you informed,

WITH FACTS, WITH FIGURES AND LIES.

Copyright Peter Woodgate

The Host

The Host

By Phillip Miller

The day started with a simple enough sign.  One hand sliding back and forth a few times, directly in front of the patient’s eyes, then a click of the fingers and a clap of the hands; still no response; same routine he’d carried out for the last two years. He paused to observe himself momentarily in a mirrored closet. The years had not been kind; neither had he. The days of playing with her were over now; cameras everywhere.

Chetin had observed the same routine every morning. It baffled him: no accident, no OD, no trauma, no disease and no identification. She fascinated him.  Her dark hazel eyes had remained open since the day she was discovered.  Her body had been athletic and tanned, but was now pale and weak; growing weaker by the day, it seemed. He finished his scheduled care programme and opened the blinds and window. The sun’s rays filtered through; light and dark ribbed across the patient’s bed. Something glistening caught the male nurse’s eye on the floor, just below the head support actuator. Chetin got down on his knees to investigate.  Obesity was playing havoc with his knees and the inguinal hernia was proving more painful by the day.  After picking the item up he placed one hand on the bed, to help himself up, and froze as he felt the warmth of human contact. Stilling his breath heightened his senses. Fear gripped him, he could not lookup. “What the hell!” he said, as the object in his palm pulsated and burnt into his flesh, his screams trapped within his mind, his voice locked in as the silver object expanded into a chrome veined Icosahedron shaped vessel.

In an instant, he was gone.

Alicia Wright flinched, the colour back in her cheeks for a fleeting moment, before her eyes slowly rolled back.

The track looked very inviting from where he sat, oblivious to the crowd that had slowly formed behind him. A cool breeze blew as a familiar tune came into his head,  and so he started to hum along to it. Then, in the distance, he saw the pin-prick main light of the 7pm to Nottingham, and so steadied himself on the cold, damp capping stone, ready for the big push.  He felt the pressure again, heavier this time, bearing down on him. His hands were shaking but the nicotine was calling and so rolled one last cigarette.

The click-clack of the oncoming train had an ominous rhythm to it and the timing was perfect. The crowd grew steadily larger. Some asked him to “come down!” or, “don’t do it!” A man holding a Rottweiler said, “Not yet mate!” as he reached for his phone and took a selfie.  An elderly woman raised her hand to touch him but then thought better of it.

The unshaven, unkempt vagrant turned his head slightly; the crowd stepping back in unison with the odd gasp here and there.

Jay Beeson had a date with destiny. He had tried hard; not hard enough it would seem. He knew the train would fly past this stop. If he timed it right then he would hit the ground just as it reached the bridge.

“Jump then, you arsehole,” said a gruff voice over and above the rest. “I’ve been here for nearly twenty minutes and my salad’s getting cold.” Most people cussed him into silence, but a few couldn’t help but laugh.” Jay shuffled forward slightly. It ends today.

“Go on then, fuckin’jump!” came the gruff voice again. The speeding commuter train was visible now. Jay felt happy. For the first time in years, he felt at peace. “It’s finally over,” he whispered. There was a quietening in his mind. Thirty seconds; twenty seconds; ten seconds.

Jay pushed off with both hands as the crowd screamed in horror.

It seemed, however, that someone else had the same idea. Just as he was about to crash to his death, a figure leapt from the almost empty platform and smashed into his side, breaking Jay’s fall and knocking him sideways onto the stretch of ballast that lined the bank.  The unwitting tormenter was obliterated. His body smashed and ripped to pieces beneath the two hundred tonne flyer.

It was over in a flash and the sorry subject that was Jay Beeson picked himself up, brushed himself down and looked up at the stars.

“Please,” he raised his arms to the night sky and screamed, “let me go.”

Sirens could be heard in the distance: the image of Grandbrooke House fixed in his mind.

Never going back there. I’d rather be dead. I can’t be dead. she owns me. He walked along the train tracks for a few miles before reaching his makeshift home; a large disused, galvanised water tank that sat on the dilapidated ruin that was Fribett’s Cradle.

After climbing up the old wooden ladder and lifting the cutout lid he fell inside. His stomach grumbled as he took a slice of mildewed bread and leftover tuna from a torn haversack, chewed slowly, and then wept.

Copyright Phillip Miller

No hope in our hell!

No hope in our hell!

By Rob Kingston

Facial lines paint pictures on the road side of their hell. 
From the first day they bleed as the key is turned for the final time.
Not dressed for the journey, each step harder than the one before. 
Each sunset sees the reaper, his call, the devils smarting roar. 
Every new day like no other they will have experienced,
Each new dawn the mist of many spirits aloft,
 those remaining, feeling that no one cares. 

Aspirations gone, Dignity lost, food,
water and shelter harder to get,
the queue lengthens
the questions get louder
 the queue lengthens the questions
get LOUDER and LOUDER and LOUDER and LOUDER.

Fences are being erected,
borders closed,
armies lined ready to stall the growing flow,
the title of human, lost !
Hidden in a politicians pack.


The questions get louder.

There is no way back.
 

© Copyright Robert Kingston 19.9.15

Summer Skies

Summer Skies 

By Sis Unsworth

We wait so long for summer skies, through winter’s darkest hours,

To watch the trees unfurling leaves, and celebrate new flowers.

To glorify the early dawn, with the suns unveiling light,

Stimulating life on earth, as it rises to full height.

Sometimes the skies may be darkened, by invading showers of rain.

Then Mother Nature takes a hand and skies are blue again.

The wonder of the evening sky, as the sun descends below,

Leaving then an artists dream, the sky in such a glow.

Then the summer night sky comes to complete the day's endeavour.

You can almost see the universe, as the stars go on forever.

The moon in all its glory concludes the perfect day

As summer skies give pleasure with winter far away.

Copyright Sis Unsworth

THE LETTER

THE LETTER (For those at home, alone, without modern technology)

By Peter Woodgate

It had landed on the mat,

in amongst the pleas from charities,

news that I had won a prize

and the bank informing me that they

had increased my credit max.

Another from the company

that supplied me with my energy,

was glowing red.

I’d scooped them up;

It had caught my eye,

the envelope with a proper stamp,

you know, the sort you lick with love,

although, I think this has been banned

in line with H & S.

My name and address, handwritten,

flowed through the ink, to illustrate,

that I was not,

just one more bit,

within this world of megabytes.

I’d held it close

and stroking it I’d thought,

“of all the people in this world,

I am unique,”

a letter that was just for me

and not a standard, dull copy

with adjustments to a word or two,

then, with emotion, scanned the stamp

that showed a kangaroo.

He had been sent across the world

with love from someone far from home,

I’d opened up that letter

and, no longer was alone.

Copyright Peter Woodgate

Flamingo Podnyalsya Ch 8

Flamingo Podnyalsya Ch 8

By Phillip Miller

Chapter 8

Mika sat on the first floor of The Sheeshal bar and restaurant, Brentwood, quietly sipping at her Vodka and Tonic. It had been a while since she had visited. A melodious Turkish love song played in the background. Her mood was melancholic as thoughts of her past flitted in and out of her mind. She was having difficulty sleeping, the stab wound aching and throbbing still, despite the tablets.

She thought of Tolyatti, the shit hole city where it all began and which still caused her to wake in a sweat now and then during the recurring nightmares: the stench of piss-stained, drunken men taking their turns with her from the age of thirteen, whilst those who were supposed to take care of her just pocketed the rewards.

She fingered the top of her glass in a circular motion causing it to sing. A large champagne bottle was uncorked some distance away, causing her to jump as another image flashed through her mind. She remembered her overweight uncle laying on her as a young girl, but it was after he brought back another younger, petrified girl, accompanied by five Russian military men, that her future was to change forever. She was shaking, but this did not matter. They just laughed and plied her with drinks. She started to cry and was immediately smacked around the head. They turned her around and around until she fell, then stripped her naked. Mika sat and watched as they played with her, like cats toying with a mouse, before forcing them together to perform the most degrading sexual acts on each other and themselves.

They were abused for almost three hours. By the end of the evening, when all was played out, all five men had collapsed into a drunken stupor, naked and exposed.

The younger of the two girls sat staring, zombie-like. It was a familiar scene to the soon to be enlisted secret service agent. Mika indicated to the young girl to get dressed and touched her lips with her index finger, whispering softly,“let’s go, come now.” They made for the front door of the run-down flat, tip-toeing over the soldiers as they went. When they opened the door, Mika stopped suddenly and broke away. “Go, don’t look back.” She closed the door and walked quietly towards the men that had brutalised them both.

The moment felt so surreal to her. She felt calm and light, light as a feather. She touched the small pendant that hung around her neck and remembered the softness of her mother’s hand, which just compounded her rage.

Military garb had been flung on to the floor in their eagerness for pleasure and so Mika rifled through the first army bottoms she came across. She took some bank cards and some cash. Inside one of the jackets, she found a Knife. The inscription read Vityaz. There was no emotion and no fuss as she went around quietly slitting the soldier's throats one by one. They were all so intoxicated that despatching them was easy. The last one was special. He seemed to have enjoyed the games more than the rest. She decided he should get special treatment. Her slender, bruised and abused frame squatted over him. She needed to take a leak and so raised her dress and urinated over his face. He stirred, moaning and spluttering, blinking, wiping away the warm liquid. Then he saw her, but it was too late. She sank the Spetsnaz preferred weapon of war into his left eye socket. He was dead instantly. She sat back, covered in blood. It was a further 10 minutes before she lost control completely, her inner rage unrelenting; the mutilation lasted almost an hour.

She heard the click in the door and ran at it with full force just in time to catch her uncle off guard. She left the knife embedded in his groin, screaming in agony, then sat and waited for him to slowly die.

When Captain Kaspersky was called to the scene, he immediately recognised the potential of the young girl; the execution of five of his top agents without a shot being fired was testament to that; it took her five years to become no.1.

A light tap on her shoulder jolted her back to the present.

“Excuse me, there is a gentleman to see you. He is in the VIP suite,” said a young waitress.

“Thank you.” She held onto the chromed balustrade and made her way up the glass steps to the mezzanine floor. The sumo sized frame that was one-eyed Bob remained seated, his demure and petite Thai wife sat beside him, fanning herself.

“let’s get down to business,” he grunted, mopping his brow.

Mika sat and ordered drinks and food via the menu pad screen on the table.

“There is a hard drive and laptop locked away within a data facility on the Isle of Dogs, Harbour Exchange. Nobody has access to it apart from my husband. The data hall is impossible to get into without authorisation so that will be needed also. It operates under fingerprint recognition. My husband’s fingerprints, middle and index finger of both hands. I will get the authorisation sorted. I Need that hardware.” She pulled a nail file from her small pineapple yellow Prada handbag.

“How much?” he asked, as his wife sat casually observing the slim, raven haired agent.

“Ten thousand sterling,” still filing her nails as the drinks arrived.

The big man laughed loudly then stopped abruptly, his face deadpan. “After the fuck up you made at my farm you think a poxy ten grand is gonna do me? Think again.” He placed the banana sized fingers of his left hand on his wife’s knee, rubbing it back and forth, grinning with salacious thoughts as Mika bent forward to reveal her fine cleavage.

“Sorry about that, but it was out of my hands. Ok! Another ten thousand for the hardware and another twenty thousand for that dump you call a farm. Take it or leave it.” Bob started to sweat more and Mika knew she could probably get what she wanted for nothing. He looked like her uncle, even worse, she thought.

“Leave it to me. I’ll get Credi. He has the right connections for this.”

“If this goes wrong Bob,” she warned, as she picked up a knife from the table, “I will take your bollocks and feed them to that slitty eyed wife of yours then I will play with her. Understood?” Mika sat staring into Bob’s good eye. Bob looked away, took a deep breath, replying as he exhaled, “Understood.”

Mika held on to the table to aid her in standing just as the food was being delivered.

“Leaving so early? At least have some food. I can’t eat all that.”

“I didn’t order for anyone else. It’s all yours you fat bastard.”

She took the steps slowly; pain was worse going down.

One eyed Bob helped himself to a large plate of Halep and started shovelling it into the tunnel he called a mouth. He waited till she was out of ear shot before turning to his torpid wife with a mouthful of kebab meat, “I’m gonna kill that bitch one day.”  

The war room at Command Centre was buzzing. Major Singha and Moreau were preparing for the meeting and Donyevsky had been sent to the armoury to try out a few new gadgets.

The Major finished his discussion with Moreau, clapped him on the back and said, “This is it, let’s go. They are all waiting in the War Room.”

“What about Craig, I think the chiefs of staff should see their man in the flesh, don’t you?” said Moreau, gesturing with open arms. “It’s cost close to ten billion dollars to reach this stage.”

“Not yet! Everything is set. We just need to….” He paused and looked at his monitor, then shook his head. “Wait, did you see that?  A red line, Hang on, I need to get the tech’s in on this,” he said, rubbing his forehead.

“Sir! We cannot delay,” said Moreau with a sense of urgency.

“Gene, get the tech’s in here. Tell them I have some kind of glitch on my screen, a red line.” He cut off and they both headed for the War Room via an electric buggy.

Tom and Cody escorted Craig along to the meeting room. The main door had an armed guard and even though his escorts had probably known security by name, they still had to present ID.

Once through, it was evident that this was no game. The chiefs of staff of the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, sat around a large oval table along with their immediate subordinates and American joint staff.

Craig was taken through to a small office connected to the rear of the War Rooms. Tom was tasked with guarding him and Cody attended the meeting alongside Moreau. The Major began his opening address.

“Good evening gentlemen. As you know, Admiral John Stark was appointed brief and I would like to ask him to address you all shortly. We are at level two. Our allies, Okhrana, have confirmed that Operation Flamingo is at phase Four in the Russian capital and upon delivery of the Tzar, will be de-facto authority of Russia.” Major Singha prompted Admiral John Stark, who rose slowly to address the men that would soon be in charge of the destruction of the ‘old enemy’, Russia.

“In less than 48hrs we will be on the cusp of a new world order. Once Flamingo is established we will have complete control from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea and Caucasus in the south. We, the Strategic Western Armed Response Mechanism, or SWARM, have consolidated our forces to maximum effect. Trojans one, two and three are in place. Telehouse Russia has been ghosted by our technical experts and targets at Novisibirsk, Seversk and  Angarsk, as well as those at Khamovniki, Savyolovsky and Gatchina have been locked on. The religious order of the Russian Orthodoxy has concurred that the man to be crowned has been proven to be legitimate, they support his ascension completely. Operation Flamingo Podnyalsya is good to go at exactly 02:00 hrs on the 14^th of June, less than 36 hours.

Copyright Phillip Miller