Friday Flash for Friday 3rd September.

You Have No New Messages

Ten stirred milk and sugar into her coffee as she awkwardly scrolled through the address book on her phone with her off hand. On the tiny screen, the time flipped to 14:53. Sarah was never late, and Ten really wanted to make her call before Sarah got here. Sarah was a good friend, but there were some things that she just didn’t understand, and Michael was one of them.

Ten hit the green “call” button, and waited as the phone rang. And rang. The time flipped to 14:54, and Michael’s familiar voicemail message sprang into crackling, noisy life. “Hi, this is Michael. I can’t get to a phone right, so leave a message after the beep.”

Ten sighed. It was hardly the most imaginative message in the world.

“Hi Michael,” she said, still stirring her coffee. “It’s just me. Checking in … I just wanted to let you know I’m doing fine. I’m meeting up with Sarah today, just for coffee. Everything’s fine and, well … I miss you babe. Get in touch, OK?”

Ten hung up, and quickly took a sip from her coffee, hoping the cup would somehow envelope her face her hide the tears that had slipped traitorously from her eyes. 14:57. She didn’t want to be crying when Sarah got here. On an adjacent table, an elderly woman pretended not to be looking at Ten, and Ten pretended not to notice. She hated crying in public, but it had been so difficult lately, since Michael had come back into her life.

It was 14:59 when Sarah walked in. If Ten had had a stop watch, she could have marked it as exactly 14:50 when Sarah dropped her handbag on the table. She truly was never late.

“Hey, you OK?”

Ten took another sip of coffee. “Sure,” she replied. “Coffee’s hot, burnt my tongue.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Sure. Well, maybe I’d better get myself some of that. In case, you know, I want to burn my tongue as well.”

Ten watched as Sarah breezed over to the counter and ordered. She watched her wait. Ever since Michael, she had become fascinated by the most mundane things. She wondered what was going on in Sarah’s head at that very moment, what thoughts might be occupying her as she waiting for her cup of coffee. Ten’s mind, at all times, as consumed with thoughts of Michael. She wondered, perhaps, how other people coped without him in their lives.

“He left you too, you know,” Ten blurted the moment Sarah had returned. Sarah’s coffee cup clattered the last two inches down onto the table.

“Excuse me?”

“Michael,” Ten continued. “It’s not just me he left, is it? He left you too.”

Sarah sat down. The elderly woman ceased even to pretend not be paying rapt attention to the scene between the two young women. Ten couldn’t believe she’d said it. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t talk to Sarah about Michael. She’d promised Michael that she wouldn’t talk to Sarah about Michael.

Ten’s phone buzzed in her handbag.

“Don’t tell me that’s him,” Sarah said sharply. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“He wants to see you,” said Ten. She tried to keep her voice level, passive, persuasive. “He misses you too. That’s why he came back.”

Ten’s phoned buzzed again, and she reached for her handbag.

“Don’t!” snapped Sarah. “Just … don’t.”

Ten slid her hand across the table towards Sarah. “Sarah, you two were so close. Maybe if you …”

Sarah pulled back, out of Ten’s reach. “Listen, Kate,” she said, “Whoever it is you think you’re talking to, it isn’t Michael. I mean, you haven’t even spoken to him, it’s just text messages. It’s some sick bastard’s idea of a game, and it’s being played on both of us. Michael’s not back. He’s not coming back. Ever. It can’t happen.”

Ten’s phoned buzzed, seeming more insistent this time than before. Ten didn’t reach for it. She didn’t reach for Sarah. She just sat, motionless and utterly alone in her own thoughts. She had had the same doubts at first, of course she had. But Michael had left so suddenly, there was bound to be unfinished business. Unfinished business with Sarah, unfinished business with Ten.

“I don’t go by Kate any more,” said Ten, finally breaking the silence. “My name’s Ten.”

“His name for you,” said Sarah softly. “His ‘Ten’”

Ten nodded. “How would someone else know that, Sarah?” she pleaded. “How?”

Sarah pushed her coffee away and picked up her handbag. “I don’t know, Kate. I don’t know how someone would know that. I don’t know why someone would do any of this. But someone is. And you’re letting them play you. You’re letting them win.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

Sarah stood and turned away. Ten could tell from the quaking in Sarah’s shoulders that she was crying.

“And if you’re wrong, Sarah?”

“My brother is dead, Kate,” said Sarah, her back still turned. “Michael is gone.”

And with that, Sarah was gone as well. Ten sat and watched her go, in doubt this time as to what thoughts were in her head. She hadn’t wanted to upset Sarah, hadn’t wanted to scare her. After Michael had died, she had been Ten’s only link, her only connection to any of Michael’s family or friends. Ten didn’t want to lose her.

The phone buzzed again, this time shaking the whole handbag.

“Alright, alright,” said Ten, plucking the phone out. A tiny envelope spun around on the screen, the words “4 NEW MESSAGES” flashing underneath. Her hand trembling, Ten read them aloud one by one.

“Tell her that it’s me. Even if she won’t believe it.”

“Make her believe, Ten. I need her to believe to.”

“This isn’t a game, please believe in me. I need you to believe. It’s me, Ten, it’s Michael. Please.”

“I’m not gone. I’m not. Please believe.”

Ten stopped. She had realised that the elderly lady from the next table, now on to her second cup of coffee, was listening so intently that she had slowly drifted forward in her seat. Before Ten could say something to her, another message rattled the phone in her hand. Ten’s brow furrowed as she read the message, then she smiled. Michael had always had a wicked sense of humour. She turned to face the woman head on, and read the last message.

“And tell the old bat on the next table I’ll be seeing her. Real soon.”

Haven’t written a flash fiction in a while, thought it might be good to get my hand back in!

Paul was an only child. He was also small for age, a little sickly, and blond. None of this, however, was important. What was important was that the was an only child, a lonely only child, but that it had not always been this way.

Because Paul could remember a time when he had had brothers, and a sister. He could remember a time when he had had cousins who came to visit for the summer, and a best friend who lived two doors down. Paul remembered when there had been a school, instead of a quiet, empty building which was called whatever you called a school without children in it. The adults didn’t seem to notice, and if they did then none of them would talk about it. It was as if every other child Paul had ever met was some elaborate imaginary friend, a complex delusion that seemed more real to him than the possibility that there were no other children in the village, and that there never had been.

What convinced Paul more than anything else though, was the forest. Just as all the other the children had disappeared from the village, so the forest seemed to have crept undoubtedly closer. Vast, dark, and teeming with un-quiet and malevolent life, Paul was sure that the forest had somehow swallowed up the intervening fields that had once sat between it and the village, that it had crept somehow closer while no-one was looking. He would go it, sometimes, when the adults were busy doing whatever they did that preoccupied them enough that they could ignore the fact that their children were vanishing. He would creep along its outer edge, where the grass in the fields turned dry and brown and papery, where the gnarled roots of the ancient trees twisted up around each other like snakes grasping for Paul’s ankles. He wondered how trees so impossibly old could have moved, or sprouted here where once there had been only open, grassy fields. He would listen to the strange noises that emanated from within; the popping of branches, the crunch of leaves, the rasping whispers of wind squeezing between the densely backed trunks. He would listen in the hope that there might be an answer in there somewhere, that somewhere in the deep dark bowels of the forest that he dared not penetrate, might be the reason that the children and vanished and that he was so utterly alone.

It was a nondescript day in August when the forest finally answered.

The sun was high overhead, and it was one of the days when Paul found moments in which he could enjoy his isolation and forget for a moment that he was the only child in the village, the only child in his whole world. He was laying on his back in the long grass, a light breeze running low across the ground and turning the tiny patch of field that remained between the forest and the village into a bright green sea. He dreamt of being a pirate on the high seas, but had long since forgotten the faces of the other children that would have crewed his mighty pirate ship. They were nothing but blurs now, thick limbed creatures of his imagination with faces made of formless pink sponge.

He was boarding a French trading ship when he became of the eyes in the forest, the eyes that were watching him. He caught a glimpse of them from the corner of his eye at first, freezing him where he lay. His pirate ship, and his sponge-faced crew, vanished in an instance. Captain Paul the Terrible was once again Paul the boy, and he was at the edge of the forest that took children.

And it was looking at him.

Painfully slowly, Paul stood up. He didn’t turn his back on the forest for a moment, keeping his eyes on the patch of tangled roots a few feet below where the eyes were. The eyes did not waver, and did not blink. They just stared, two silver almond shaped eyes, staring out of the woods. Eventually, Paul lifted his gaze and looked directly into those strange eyes, those eyes that were right there and yet so very far away. Eyes from inside, looking outside, eyes from wherever it was the wood came from. Eyes that were fixed on Paul and did not move.

Paul swallowed, mustering his courage. “Well,” he said, his voice never more that of a lonely, little boy than in that moment, “Are you going to take me too?”

Without an answer, the eyes blinked, and were gone. No arms encircled Paul, no trees moved to grasp at him with their rough, wooden boughs. The earth did not open up, there were no thorny vines whipping out from the darkness to take him. There was nothing at all.

Just a boy, and a forest. A forest that didn’t like sickly, lonely boys. A forest that liked a challenge.

Written Sy Wyatt at the now infamous MWM Live! in Bristol, May 2009.

Pressure. Emmett had dealt with pressure his whole life. Pressure to deliver. Pressure to perform. Today, however, he was concerned entirely with the pressure on the outside of his deep sea exploration suit. The soft pinging in his ear told him he was safe, and still attached to the survey ship, thousands of feet above, by the umbilical.

“Can you see it, Emmett?”

“I’m pretty much on top of it. Another hundred or so feet and I’ll have contact.”

Emmett imagined the whoops and back-slapping going on on the ship. After months of searching, they had found her.

Emmett’s heavy boots hit the shell of the wreck. There was no give, ships like the Inca Queen were built to last, built to keep their cargo safe. Emmett couldn’t speculate what kind of ordnance could have sunk her.

“Can you see it? Emmett, can you see it?”

Emmett turned slowly, the high powered lights on the shoulders of his suit skimming along skin of the hulk. They reached a ragged gash, a hole punched in the side of the majestic Inca Queen. Inside, gleaming under the powerful spot lights, was her cargo. Untouched, perfect, preserved by intense pressure and cold of the Inca Queen’s deep grave.

Row after row of containers, their contents still a perfect, creamy white and, along the sides, a tell-tale flash of gold.

Emmett smiled. It would be biggest haul of his career.

“I have it. There’s at least eight thousand pints of gold top down here.”

Emmett flicked off the radio link before he was deafened by the cheers. Since the bovine flu epidemic, milk had become the most expensive commodity on the planet. The contents of The Inca Queen, once the star “milk float” of the global “Creamy Corporation”, was worth enough to make Emmett and his crew richer than God.

For the #fridayflash crowd, and a little limbering up before doing some “stunt fiction” at the British International Comics Show.

As always, I started off with some random factors from http://shortstoryideas.herb.me.uk. Today’s kicker was “A School is the location, anticipation is the theme. A deckchair is an object that plays a part in the story.”

From this we get … Football Town.

He had been at the school as long as anyone could remember. Some people in the town even joked that he’d been out the field, already shouting at some long forgotten quarterback, as they built the school around him. Some people didn’t even know his real name. He was simply “Coach”.

But this was a football town, and being called “Coach” was second only to being called “God”.

This year however, had been different. The team had been knocked out of two cups already and had had to resort to friendly games just to fill the schedule and keep the people in the bleachers on a Sunday evening. This was a football town. It’s team didn’t get knocked out before the quarter finals, and they didn’t play friendlies. Ever.

Some people in town were starting to say that maybe, just maybe, Coach was past it.

That was why the team was out on the field for the sixth night in a row, running drill and drill, with Coach sitting in is quirky old deck chair, shouting instructions through a rusty megaphone. The voice of God commanded, but the flesh of his flock was undoubtedly weak.

“Come on you weaklings!” he roared, the megaphone crackling. “Pick your feet up!”

Bryce, the new quarterback, fumbled yet another throw and tripped himself up running to pick up the lost ball. The Coach sighed.

It was true, he had been here a long time, maybe even too long, even by his standards. He had to admit though, he loved football, and he loved to win. He had hoped this year that he might be able to do it without calling in any favours, but another crop of weaklings like these and he would be finished. Thankfully, second to coaching, the other thing that the Coach was good at, was favours.

“Come here, Son,” he said, a rare note of compassion entering his voice as his no-star quarterback limped to the touchline. “You know what kind of life you could have, with a football scholarship? You know how they treat a star quarterback in this town?”

“Yes Sir!” replied the boy.

“Then tell me,” asked the Coach, getting out of his deckchair, “What you give to have that life?”

“Coach,” the boy replied, “You know I’d do anything. Anything …”

“Good,” said the Coach, “Then I think we can make a deal.”

In this town, being called “Coach” was second to being called “God” …