The Strictly Writing Award Shortlisted Story for December - A Little Bit of Soul by Gavin Wilson

Congratulations to Gavin Wilson, whose story is now on the shortlist for the Strictly Writing Award. 

There is only one more month left of the competition, so if you haven't entered yet, give it a go! Details of how to submit your story are available here.

A LITTLE BIT OF SOUL

by

GAVIN WILSON

It is a winter month but I don’t feel the cold that whistles through the house sending dust spiralling in darting, dancing gusts as I stand looking down at the woman lying in her bed. Her eyes are closed now, the faint traces of a lingering smile on her face. Whether this is due to a last happy dream or the beginnings of rigor mortis I wouldn’t know: I would love to say the former.

Cause of death hypothermia. The poor old girl had lived on her own since her husband passed, with no kids to come and visit. Her guilty pleasure had been the odd game of bingo but after her hip had gone the random weekly draw had drawn to a close when she couldn’t get around as much. Only the weekly visits from her friends at the church had carried on to give her something to look forward to.

As I turn to leave I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror: the raven black I think looks good on me, stylish perhaps in a Presbyterian way, but the collar is always too tight, a reminder perhaps of my servitude. I glance back at the old lady. She at least has gone to a better place now. The prayer for the dead has been said, her immortal soul has left its mortal body. Case closed.

Next job, so soon; ah well, no rest for the wicked. A young driver has stolen a car and I give chase. He’s driving like a maniac swerving in and out of the traffic; at any point he could lose control. I always wonder why some people do this, what thrills they get from driving this quickly.

It happens fast; the front tire blows and the car slides sideways briefly before it flips. A cacophony of tormented metal and glass spins and rolls in balletic carnage before it ends on its roof, golden sparks shooting out across the road like a firework as the steel grinds across the asphalt leaving a bloody smear behind it.

Mercifully quick…. one easy job; death by driving!

I’ve been watching this one for a while now, but I have time. The man in the smart suit has spent some time looking out over the city, clinging to the tall chimney, tears streaming down his cheeks; for what reason I don’t know.

He’s stepped closer to the edge, looking down. From this height the fall would certainly kill him.

I understand the desire to end, but why this way?

I approach him and he turns around still crying. I have no words for him, nothing that will take away his pain or make him feel better.

He jumps. Maybe he will land in a friendly place.

It’s morning now for some people, but what does it matter? I enter a grocery store: the shop keeper is being held up by a masked man holding him at gun point. I stop and watch but no one notices me, intent on their own predicaments and petty crimes.

“Where is the safe?” The masked man yells.

The shop keeper stays quiet.

“I will blow your head off old man.”

The shop keeper goes for the bat under the counter.

Bang!

The masked man dashes past me and I walk around to the other side of the counter.

A pool of blood is flowing in viscous finality across the floor, the old shop keeper left staring blankly up at the ceiling with his one remaining eye.

There is little I can do other than watch and wait as he takes his final breath.

Murder: it happens and always will.

    

I need a break but it doesn’t seem like I’m going to get one anytime soon. I sit in the chair looking at the old woman lying in the hospital bed. Her husband sits beside her holding her hand.

Bashed over the head because she wouldn’t hand over her purse; it only had a picture of her dead son and a small amount of money. Was it really worth holding on to it? To her, it was.

The heart monitor flat-lines and her husband looks up in disbelief. She can’t be dying; it was just a bash on the head. Medical staff rush into the room and they try their hardest to resuscitate her but to no avail.

In the quiet and lonely aftermath I walk to the side of her bed. Her soul eyes open and she smiles at me. It's not often that happens: I place my hand on her hers and smile back.

“I always wondered,” she says, the ghosts of her words whispering into my ears. “You look a little different to how I thought you would.”

“Are you ready to go?” I ask.

As she nods, I sever her soul from its mortal cage and stopping only to brush a kiss across the cheek of her grief exhausted husband, she rises to the glow above her.

Another day: another death. The prayer for the dead has been said, the soul has left the body. Rest in peace.

When will it be my turn to rest?

I am different now, so different from the being I used to be. I have been known by so many different names. Gone is the scythe and flowing cloak, the gloom and skeletal form.

The mirror never lies. A man to those of you who see: dressed in raven black. Tie, suit, shoes, shirt: although the collar of the shirt is always too tight for some reason. Tall, distinguished and calm, the silver scissors that sever secreted in a jacket pocket. No scythe to terrorise with apocalyptic dread.

Not yet.

Only when the fires fall from the sky and the dead rise will I truly know an end. That will not happen yet, so I continue endlessly. While you believe, I endure. I long for the sanctity of death; an end, but that cannot happen while you are all still here believing and dreaming of your sad little ends. Your sad demises mean little to me.

One day I will know rest, but until then I will be there at every cessation of life. If you see me, you will know me.

For I am Death.

It will be my pleasure to meet you. 

The Strictly Writing Award Shortlisted Story for September - 'My Burglar' by Carys Bray

Congratulations to Carys Bray, whose story is now on the shortlist for the Strictly Writing Award. For more information about the award and how to enter, click here.

My Burglar

by

Carys Bray

The best time to think of hiding places is before you need them. It’s no use hiding things under beds or in mattresses; they’re the first places people look. Unexpected places are best. Sometimes I surprise myself with my ingenuity. Once I discovered my wedding ring in the bread bin. What a marvellous hiding place. Who would think to check there? Certainly not my burglar.

He always comes at night. In the thick of dark. In the solid, black stillness. In the quiet. In the smothering, pitch silence that stifles the house. I hear the pattern of his feet in the wide hush that packs each room. I hear the snap and creak of the floorboards. The whisper of his hands on the banister. The tide of his breath. I smell the stale tang of urine, of sweat, of wide, yawning pores.

I don’t scream. There’s no point. I’m alone. I sit up in bed and push my back to the headboard. I keep still. Sometimes I hold my breath and then let it hiss out of the corner of my mouth in a slither. I strain my eyes as I try to separate the swirling spirals of yellow-black, red-black and blue-black into something static and penetrable. The streetlamp outside has not worked for some time. I must call the council and mention it.  I peer into the squid-ink darkness, searching for a partition of shadow and form.

So far he has left me alone, been content with trifles: my Accurist watch, an emerald necklace, a pen, my address book. But I watch television. I know about burglars. A man from Birmingham said he was burgled twenty three times last year. He claimed for twenty three televisions and the insurance company was very angry about it. I saw it on the BBC. Burglars keep coming back.

I am beginning to suspect that my burglar is looking for something. I don’t believe he is creeping about my house on the off chance. I think he is after my locket.

‘Don’t be silly Mum,’ says my daughter Charlotte, on the telephone: very bossy and officious. ‘How on earth would anybody know about your locket?’

But I wear it don’t I? How easy it would be for someone to catch a glimpse of it around my neck in the grocers’. Or see it sparkle in the large print section of the library. How straightforward it would be to wait with me at the bus stop, board with me, alight with me. How simple it would be to follow me down Topsham Road and watch me enter number forty. And how effortless to return later, in the dark, to search for the locket.

‘You are being ridiculous Mum,’ says my daughter, Charlotte, on the telephone: unsympathetic and sceptical. ‘You lost that set of keys, they’ve not been stolen. You keep saying you’ll get the locks changed and you haven’t. I’m going to have to look on the internet; send someone round to do it. There is no burglar.’

Charlotte lives in Ireland. She’s been very rude recently.

Night doesn’t fall in the late autumn, it plunges. It catches me unawares. It crashes around me, throwing itself through the house like an unstoppable, black breaker and I chase after, switching on lights in its wake until the whole house is shining like a warning flare. For all my burglar knows, I have guests, a party, family visiting. I feel like Cinderella, safe until the clock strikes twelve. No-one of my age would be entertaining after twelve. I always turn the lights off and hurry to bed before midnight strikes. The only thing worse than hiding from him in the darkness would be confronting him in the full glare of light.

My television breaks the broad silence of evening. So many channels. Just enough time to make a cup of tea during the adverts, so long as you remember to switch on the kettle after filling it. I like programmes about Americans with obesity. They do these operations on them to stop them from eating. Sometimes they suck the fat out of them with a tube like a vacuum cleaner. Afterwards they all cry and hug each other. It’s very entertaining.

Tonight I am not watching television. Tonight I am looking for a hiding place for my locket.

My locket is silver. It is Victorian, oval-shaped. It belonged to my mother. It is such a long time since I took it off that it was extremely difficult to undo the clasp. But it’s done. Here it hangs, in knotty fingers that I can hardly believe are my own. The locket is worth a lot of money.

‘For God’s sake don’t lose it Mum,’ said my daughter, Charlotte, on the telephone: impatient and brusque. ‘You seem to be losing all sorts at the moment.’ I dare say Charlotte is looking forward to inheriting it.

The kitchen is a good place to hide things. The locket dangles as I examine the worktop: breadbin, biscuit tin, kettle. I plop the locket into the kettle. He will never look there.

Midnight.

The chimes of the dining room clock carry up the stairs. If there had been time I would have changed the bed. There is nothing like sliding into sheets that have been dried on the washing line, soaked in the season, fragrant and fresh. Perhaps tomorrow. The darkness presses me flat to the sheet. I breathe softly. I listen.

Morning.

Morning perforates the darkness, prickles across the daybreak sky. Morning and the shadows would be relieved if the streetlamp were working. I must call the council about it today.

He has been. He has been and the stench of him fills the space where the darkness was. Fetid urine. The sheet is moist. Perhaps it was still damp when I changed the bed last night.

I clean the teeth that are mine, insert the teeth that aren’t. Stare into the bathroom mirror at the bloodshot eyes and furrowed face reflected there.

My locket!

I check the bed. Pull off the sheet. Perhaps it came off in the night. But no, the clasp was far too tight. Oh, the smell. He has been here, in my room while I slept. He has fumbled sweaty fingers around my neck, removed my locket and stolen it.

In the kitchen the water tinkles into the kettle. I watch it boil. I make tea and dial my daughter’s number. Her name is Charlotte. She lives in Ireland.