Heart

‘I still keep seeing hearts, and it makes me feel like smiling when I do’, she said.

It was over a year since he’d gone, she realised, and things had been hard. They hadn’t discussed anything, it was so unexpected.

About a week after he had died she found a pink, heart shaped petal on her pillow, she had left the window open for some fresh air and it had just appeared, probably on a gust of wind.

She spoke to her sister again. ‘it seems to happen about once a week, I will spot a heart shape somewhere. Daft things like a bubble in the bread was a little heart, heart shaped crisps, presents with them as decorations, stones on the beach, it just keeps happening’.

She remembered the heart shaped cloud that had floated over the house for an hour, just above his shed. Above where he had worked on his bikes and train sets. She knew he was still with her, keeping an eye on her. Maybe one day they would be back together.

Drip..

The car doors are closed, the windows are up, the air vents are off… But I feel a drip of water on my hand, a tiny spot, a speck… But I don’t understand? How did it happen. I could really feel it. So how. I think it came through the windscreen. … Through, like there was no glass. I hadn’t coughed or sneezed? Then a few seconds later… Drip, I lift my hand from the steering wheel. There is a definite droplet of water, rapidly shrinking on my hand. What is going on..

Then it happened, a WAVE, crashing through the car, but the glass was solid. It was like being in a goldfish bowl. I skidded to a halt and pushed the drivers door open. I was safe, the water evaporated. What would happen next?

I don’t know this world I am in, the place is strange, surviving is becoming difficult. Odd things happen. Last week a glacier appeared then snapped out of existence as I slammed my brakes on.

I’m giving up this job, continuum deliveries has just lost their driver!

Quizzical

What’s happening? She thought. A noise murmured in the night, voices whispering, almost below the level of hearing. Then… A tapping noise, but quietly, hidden.

In the morning, on the little footstool, a small pair of red shoes, deftly tacked together, leather and small nails and stitching. Where had they come from…?

That night she tried to stay awake, ears straining. She let her eyes get used to the dark. She saw, a tiny old man, an elf? sitting on the footstool. There was a shoe last in front of him. He was expertly turning blue leather around the last. In a few minutes a new left shoe was finished. It shone like sky blue. He laid it down and created a second shoe, righthanded, crystal blue as was the first.

The girl sat back, she was entranced, impressed by the skill of the tiny fairie. She fell asleep in wonderment and amazement. In the morning the blue shoes sat proudly on the footstool, a label pinned to them. ‘for Lucy, with love, we shall not visit again’. She never wore the shoes.

Growing

It’s still growing, she shouted…

He stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up.

Oh, it’s pushed the top off the jar!

She ran down the stairs….

What have you been feeding it? She asked him.

Just nutrients, he said.

As he spoke, the stems pulsed and coiled. Pink and red cells seemed to glow. Each second the plant or creature was getting larger. Then like a coiled spring toy, a slinky, it tumbled down the stairs…

Run she said. As trailing vines skittered across the floor… But he was rooted to the spot, a tendril found his ankle.

She ran and slammed the door behind her….

Medusa

Medusa sat and waited, it had been years since a human had visited her caves and she was simmering with anger. People had been told to keep away. They knew she was dangerous, no one that came into her lair ever escaped. She was surrounded by cowering statues that had looked at her face surrounded by writhing snakes and had turned to stone. She chuckled to herself as she heard echoing footsteps in the antechamber. Her next victim, probably a man, was on his way.

A glimmer of light struck the rocky walls. The man was carrying a flaming torch. All the better for her, the light would shine in her eyes and make her more visible. The slithering snakes were writhing in anticipation. A broad grin spread across her face. ‘Soon’ she whispered to herself.

A shield was the first thing she noticed as the man edged around the corner. He held it high to hide his face and literally shield his eyes. Then she saw her own reflection. Before she could breathe, whimper or scream the spell caught her. Ancient flesh transformed into stone. Persius was victorious, Medusa was lost, into infinity.

Portal

Step through the portal and walk into another time, another continent perhaps?

That was the challenge she faced one night on the way home from visiting friends. The dark was split by a hole or tunnel glowing with blue white light and paved with what appeared to be stone. A gentle voice emanated from the apparition. ‘Choose your destiny’ it whispered, ‘travel in the fourth dimension to wherever you wish’.

She thought about it. Gift or curse?, ‘One Question’, she asked. ‘Can I return back to here, to now?’ ‘I cannot answer your question’ said the voice. ‘That would depend on if this time continuum continues in its present condition’.

‘Nah!’ she said, ‘not a chance’, and walked away…

Still coughing

I don’t want to worry you doctor, but I don’t think the tablets you gave me worked? You see I’m still coughing, and I keep wheezing, and I feel odd…

Thank you for examining me. So you can hear the wheeze? Oh, more like a purr? How odd.

Now look doctor, I don’t understand. What do you mean, feline blood? No my family keep cats, they aren’t actually cats!

But it doesn’t make sense, I am not licking my cat! How can it be? A Furball? That’s what I’m coughing up?….. That’s Mad! And why have my pupils suddenly gone from round to slits? Oh doctor, am I turning into a Werecat!? Is that your diagnosis?

The cat stared…

Moira had noticed her cat kept staring up in a corner of the room. She could not see anything herself but she knew cats had better senses. Keener eyesight, a more acute sense of smell, hearing that was so much more able to notice small sounds.

Each night the cat would curl up to sleep, but then become alert, aware, interested in something. It would watch the ceiling for a few minutes, then close its eyes again and relax.

Moira started checking the time of each encounter with what was going on. Ten past eleven until seventeen minutes past. A precise time every night? Very strange.

Moira suspected that someone or something was playing games? She had friends that could do tricks, they had pranked her before, could it be them? But when she contacted them they denied any involvement.

It was on the eleventh day that she finally saw something. A drip of red running down the wall, slightly hidden by a picture. Could it be mould? Some old houses had problems with fungi? She decided to ring a builder if there was anymore problems the next night.

She sat down to watch TV the next evening. At precisely eleven ten pm the cat stretched and looked up. Then it did something new, it hissed! Moira looked up too, just as a disembodied foot pierced down through the ceiling. Slightly transparent, it paddled the air, not touching anything, floating, then simply vanished. The cat settled down. Moira didn’t!

Hotel view

Looking out from the hotel over the Channel she worried about her son. Where was he? Anxiety weighed like a heavy stone on her heart. What if she never saw him again?

The dinghy had not been seen since sunset, when it had been out on the sandbar fishing for mackerel, but no one had called the lifeboat and they were not that overdue. Still, a mother can have a sense about these things. She knew in her bones… Something was wrong.

A shadow fell across her as the sun started to set again. She turned her head to look. She heard his voice…

‘Mum?’….

‘Can you do my washing this weekend?’

Misty morning

The trees sat in a thin mist rising up from the pools. Moss making the paths slippery. Branches and twigs had broken off in the winds of the night before.

What walked out of that wood was not alive. It had risen during the darkness, disturbed by the roots of the trees. It looked out through the mist and watched for anyone passing close by. It waited without thought. Without intelligence, but with quiet patience. Darkness had started to fall again when it heard the sound of steps. Steady and strong. The steps of a man walking home through the wood. Taking a shortcut. As the moon brightened the pathway a figure lurched in front of him. And then they both sank down into the pool. Together forever.