THE LIGHTNING

“Did you report the death?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, “it said on your web page not to.  I kept her in a freezer, put her in there when I ...” his voice faltered, “when I ... found her.”
I felt sorry for him.  He looked so heartbroken.  A well presented sort in a Saville Row suit.  His tie was knotted perfectly, but his hands shook and his wide, sad eyes were red rimmed.
“How did she die?” I enquired more gently.
He stared at the floor; “She couldn’t sleep.  She made a mistake with barbiturates, took too many, mixed them with alcohol – so easily done.  They should never have prescribed ...” he broke off again, then added, “can you bring her back?”
“You saw how much it would cost.”
“Money is no object.  I’d spend anything, do anything.  I love her so much ...”
“We must wait for the lightning,” I said, “keep her preserved.  I will call you.”

The thunder was rumbling in the distant dark when he pulled up outside.  I helped him carry her in and we laid her out.  It wasn’t her beauty that took my breath away, it was the look of pure peace on her face and even in death you could tell she’d been a sweet person.  He gazed intently down at her; then at me, with such an expression of hope that I knew I couldn’t bear it if it didn’t work.  Lightning flickered through the windows as he helped me wire her up.  Every now and then he suppressed a smile of nervous excitement as if he didn’t want to raise his own expectations.

The storm came overhead and the lightning struck the conductor in the tall tower.  We stood well back, watching the current passing through the tubes and running through her body.  The monitors sprang to life, her heart was beating!  The machines I’d made forced oxygen into her lungs and administered the necessary chemicals to resurrect her.

“It’s working!” he cried, “I thought it was a con, but it’s not!”
“Don’t touch her yet.”  I disconnected her body and gave her an injection, “she will wake now.”
He leaned over her with a tender expression.
I saw her complexion warm up, heard her sigh, then she opened her eyes and that beautiful look of peace on her face turned to one of horror.
“It’s OK,” I said hastily, “you’re safe.  We’ve brought you back.”
“No!” she screamed, “oh God no!”
He put both hands round her face; “Sylvie!  This time it’s forever.  You won’t run away from me again.”
I recalled his explanation of her death – a mistake involving barbiturates and alcohol and her look of despair and fear on waking.  As I turned to him, the storm crashed overhead, the lights guttered and dimmed, but I could still see his hard bright eyes and the evil triumph of his smile.

BURY YOU

It gave me such a shock when you clawed your way out of the ground and appeared in my garden.  I had forgotten I had buried you there.  Luckily I was planting new shrubs in the flower bed at the time and so had a spade in my hand.  I swung it round and cracked open your skull.  While you lay there, I stripped you of your armour of grey flannel suit and shiny, creaky shoes.  I wanted you to be cold, because you made me feel cold.  I tied you up and I set about digging your grave.

You regained consciousness as I pushed you into the hole.  You lay on your back and stared up at me silently as I began to rain the mud over your body.  How ridiculous you looked, all wet and dirty, trying to spit the soil from your mouth and call for help, but you couldn’t.  I’m sure you remember that I had no dignity and couldn’t ask for help either.

The last thing I covered was your face.  I wanted to remember a new expression on it.  You see I was a child and you enjoyed yourself so fully.  Now I’m grown and you’re an old, dead thing trying to resurrect itself.  I see no trace of your smug expression now, I only see you choking and dying as I consign you to obscurity again.

I pour the cement and lay out a patio.  I keep watch through the long, lonely night.  There is a gun in my hand, loaded with a single bullet.  It is for me if you manage to come back because I can’t do this again.  Surely the deep hole and concrete will prevent your return, but I can never be sure, never know if evil can really die.  I like to think of you rotting down there, of the worms eating your flesh, of your body disintegrating, the putrid chemicals seeping into the earth and making the world what it is.

THE PRIVATE SELLER

“Welcome! ... Yeah, having difficulty selling my house, buyer backed out, cost me a fortune, trying to sell it privately now. It’s newly decorated in magnolia as instructed by the late estate agent.  This is the living room, lots of space, with an original feature – the fireplace ... Yes, that’s a human head you can see dangling upside down from the chimney space.  The chimney is blocked so I was able to cement in a hook, from which the estate agent I referred to is dangling ... He told me this property was worth £140,000, so I went with his company.  An insulting offer was made, but he told me I’d get no more than the £125,000 because any higher and they’d have to pay stamp duty. He didn’t inform me of that during his sales patter.  I subsequently used his tie to strangle him unconscious and gag him, then I hung him upside down.  It took him some time to die.

“May I steer you quite insistently to the dining room.  I’m glad you’ve noticed the giant target I put over the wall.  My uncle was a knife thrower in the circus, taught me all he knew ... The guy stuck on there, suspended by the long bladed knives?  He did a valuation for the buyer, charged her a fortune, then told her I had subsidence.  He was so intrigued by my circus skills, I decided to show him, unfortunately my aim’s not good.  I’ll have him removed when I’ve plastered over the crack in the wall he's hiding ... You’ve gone ever so quiet.

“Into the kitchen, lots of units, let me open them.  Do forgive the smell.  These body parts stuffed in the cupboards are of my solicitor.  If he’d acted quicker I might not be in this situation, but he dragged his feet.  I thought it’d be funny to cut them off and watch him bleed to death, after all, he was bleeding me dry ... then I went a bit mad with the saw ...

“What am I going to do with the gun in my hand?  Let’s see what you think of the rest of the property.  Would you like to do upstairs or see what’s in the basement? ... Upstairs.  This is the master bedroom ... Oh you like the canopy!  It’s made of the flesh of the buyer’s solicitor, the one that told her this house is bound to the religious law of Chancel and she shouldn’t purchase it.  That’s the vicar in the bath of the ensuite, do say a prayer for him, it was satisfying to lure him upstairs and hold his head under water, after he told me I’d be liable for £100,000 to repair the Church roof.  God can decide if he was truly a Christian.

“That’s the guest bedroom, just a box room really ... There’s nothing in that box except the buyer that backed out, I think she might still be alive, I’m currently starving her ... Sue!  Are you all right in there, love?  ... No reply.  That’s it, you’ve seen the garden out the kitchen window, I don’t think you want to see the shed ... Ah, almost forgot, the basement! ... What?  I don’t think you’re giving this property a fair examination.  I’m afraid I must insist that you come to the basement and see what’s there.”

AT EASTLEIGH

Swamped in half darkness, beastly Eastleigh, the commuter station.  Belonging to a town people must live in to get to a place they must work in.  The train stopped there, let people on and never moved again.

The passengers fidgeted and asked themselves questions.  Why was the train not pulling out?  The doors had bleeped their alarms and closed, but why hadn’t the guard blown his whistle?  What was the delay?  They thought about turning up late at work and having to stay on, missing the usual train home and getting the crowded next one.  They cursed inwardly.

I watched from the corner of the carriage, I’d had my suspicions when I’d seen the grey gravel piles and the rusty abandoned trains in the weird near light.  This was where I’d prepared myself for long ago, the place nobody wanted to be in.

An executive cracked first, he paced the carriage, scowling at his mobile phone, muttering that there was no signal.  No network meant no e-mailing the office, no texting his mistress, no spying on the kids on Facebook.  He wasn’t in control.  “What the hell’s going on?” he growled, “even when you’re going to the City, they can’t get it right!  They should give this train priority.  This is a London train.”

“God,” a woman stated, running her perfectly manicured hand through sleek hair, “I shouldn’t have left my car at work, my first house viewing is at nine.  Does anyone have a signal?”
A cyclist pulled a phone out of the pocket of his high-vis vest and shook his head; “Eastleigh’s a black hole.”
They were all agitated now.  How long had it been?  There had been no announcements.  People wanted their caffiene fix and you weren’t supposed to use the toilets when the train was at a stand-still ...

Eventually volunteers went to find the conductor.  The cyclist in one direction, the estate agent in the other, she glanced at me as she went, as if expecting me to go with her.  I kept my nose in my book, wondering how many times I would read it.

“There’s no-one.”  The cyclist and estate agent came back with confused passengers from other carriages.  They lined up and looked out of the windows; as they did, the station lights flickered.  There was no-one on the platform.
The passengers asked each other questions.
“No officials on the train?”
“No signal?”
“No-one on the platform?”
“What the hell ... ?”
“How long have we been here?”
“An hour?”
“How long do we wait?”

Pacing, talking, fidgeting, nervous and suddenly; “Fuck this, I’m getting off!”  The stress was evident on the executive’s face.  If he wasn’t in London to close the deal there would be no bonus.  He stalked to the door, the button wasn’t lit, but he pressed it anyway, as if expecting it to miraculously work, because he was so important.  I almost laughed.  He bashed the door with his fist, swearing and was asked to tone it down, he hotly refused.  Someone had to act; we were trapped with an angry man.  The cyclist and two labourers approached the door and the time dragged by as they tried different strategies to get it open.  Finally, the executive tore the hatchet that smashed glass in emergencies from the wall.  The passengers asked themselves questions.  Could he do this un-British thing?  A few tried to talk him out of it, it would be typical for an official to suddenly appear just as the glass broke and then he’d be in trouble.  They wanted to wait, but he slammed the hatchet against the door window with all his strength.  It bounced off harmlessly.  We all watched as he tried again and again, swearing, cursing, yelling, until, worn out, he collapsed red faced in a seat.

There was a long silence.  We looked out at the commuter station, that dreary between place; the grey gravel, the rusty trains that once had purpose.  The passengers fidgeted, faces sick with reflection.  They asked themselves questions, this time in silence - what have I done?  Can I take it back?

We can never take anything back.  I looked beyond the disused rails and the office buildings, the sun was coming up and in the distance I could see green trees wreathed in silver mist.  Beautiful, distant and forever unreachable.

THIS LOVE

The acrid smell of smoke wakes me at dawn.  The bed is on fire again.  How irritating.  I twist and leap out the side of the bed, staggering across the room for the fire extinguisher.  In so doing I trip over a bag which has been strategically placed between bed and far wall.  I just manage to keep my footing.  Good thing too, I would have fallen on the knife block which has somehow found its way from kitchen to bedroom.  The orange flames reveal that the knives have been reversed, so they are wedged blade upwards.  Funny that.

Naturally the fire extinguisher is missing.  Unphased, I grab the one I hid in my wardrobe and choking on the black smoke which is starting to fill the room, I extinguish the blaze with ruthless efficiency.

You rise from the easy chair where you have been sitting watching me and pull the curtains open letting in the soft light of the rising sun.
"That's another mattress ruined," I complain cheerfully and reach for the glass of water by the bed.  I raise it to you in a toast; "better luck next time!"  I take a long grateful drink.  I only realise my mistake when I see your lips curl into a beatific smile.