In a World of Thieves...

Through glances caught in the shattered glass

the man recoils in fear,

in the mirror’s surface what would come to pass,

reflected, a future near,

so, in fear the man flees, with fateful steps,

terror he had come to find,

as onwards the sands of time slowly crept,

while fate grimly clouded his mind,

with images wrought from a vision of hell,

a future he just could not bare,

upon those torturous scenes his mind did dwell,

as down he dove, down deep into despair.

The leaves are green, my dear,

the flowers in bloom,

blossom falls from burdened branch

as the wind breaths

a contented sigh of relief,

while, warmed by the sun’s blaze,

a cat lounges lazily in the long grass

and bees fly from flower to flower,

their buzzes mingling

with the cicadas chirp,

while birds wheel away at speed

against the cool, clear blue sky,

save for a few lonely wisps of cloud

that languidly float on by

as nature sings a summer song

of birth and youth and plenty,

thoughts turning not

to autumn’s approach,

that, with bare and barren fingers

of twig and root and branch,

upon summer does steadily encroach.

The Watcher (1365 words)

Gregory clocked in at 08:30, sat down at his terminal and watched. The monitor’s glare screamed at his bleary eyes as he tried to bring them to focus. On the screen, in fuzzy black and white, a couple argued, gesticulating wildly as they stomped around their up-scale apartment. Gregory leaned closer, trying to read the words yelled from their lips, waiting for any signs of escalation, but in moments the fight had subdued. The screen flickered and continued on it’s cycle. After a series of warehouses and shop floors, he landed upon the police station. A man was being hauled in with some difficulty. He spat and fought every step of the way, before a swift punch to the face floored him. Later, he saw a hit and run accident, a taxi cab shot through a red light, running down a man in a sodden suit fighting his way home through the rain. Gregory pressed a few keys on his terminal and notified the ambulance service, before sending the footage from the feed to criminal investigations for digital enhancement. When he looked up the screen had switched again, an elderly woman sat in her kitchen and wept. Today, Gregory felt like a voyeur.

It had been raining all through the night and well into the new day. Gregory slumped into his chair and flicked on his terminal, sniffling as he tried to get warm. The first feed of the morning was from the municipal pool, as a class of school children splashed happily, receiving their first swimming lessons. He smiled inwardly at rising memories of his own childhood. The screen then switched to a bakery, bustling with early morning commuters buying pastries and coffee, before landing upon a bank. It was early and the bank was largely deserted, but for a lone security guard and one yawning teller. Gregory’s hand hovered over the button that would declare an emergency situation, but, predictably, nothing happened and after thirty seconds the screen switched once more. After hours of day to day drudgery flashing by in half minute bites, he was struggling to keep his eyes open. Over a dull and tasteless lunch, Peterson from HR told him about the girl who quit last night after witnessing a homicide. The camera had a perfect view as the thugs beat the homeless man to death. Today, Gregory felt strangely jealous.

The next day Gregory stared and stared, seeing only people at work, cars speeding by, empty homes, busy streets, and silently he despaired. Soon, his eyes had lost focus, blankly looking at the screen but not seeing what it displayed, as Gregory daydreamed. He snapped out of his reverie and noticed an hour had passed. Careless. What had he missed, he wondered? He rubbed his tired eyes and returned to watch the screen with a new resolve that was almost shattered when confronted with another empty loading bay. But then, after thirty seconds had passed, the screen switched. In a bright and airy apartment a woman glided, holding up dresses to a full length mirror, examining how they hugged her frame. With a start, Gregory realised it was the woman he’d seen arguing two days previously, although now she was alone. Perhaps she dumped him, he thought, and was trying out dresses for a night on the town. Or perhaps they had patched things up, and she was deciding what to wear for a romantic dinner. He stared intently, soaking in every drop of detail from the scene. The way her hair, damp from the shower, cascaded over one shoulder, her hand sliding across the curve of her hip as she held up another dress for scrutiny. The screen changed. Today, Gregory felt desire.

It was over a week before he saw her again. He had put her out of his mind during the day, but at night he saw her in his dreams, although they too were seen from behind a camera’s lens. In frame he saw himself approach her as she stepped from the bathroom, towel clutched about her, only to drop to the floor, exposing her nakedness as he swept her into his arms and tasted her lips. Today she sat at her dresser, raven hair tied in a bun, wearing a waitress uniform as she applied her make-up. She turned from the camera as her boyfriend stepped into frame. His countenance was unmistakably furious as he yelled in her face. She yelled right back and he slapped her hard. She went down and Gregory hammered furiously at his terminal, alerting the police. The screen flicked on, but Gregory wasn’t paying attention. He wondered if she would be all right, if the police would arrive in time and save her from the bastard. Not knowing was almost too much to bare and for the rest of the day he found it difficult to concentrate until a few hours later, when he received confirmation that, based on his timely alert, the police had made an arrest. Today, Gregory felt just.

Gregory called in absent the next morning, feigning sickness. Sleep had eluded him for most of the night, and when he did sleep, his dreams were of her. She stood in the shadows of his room, hair haphazardly arrayed across her brow. Rain poured from the ceiling, drenching them both. He tried to call out to her, but she didn’t hear him, didn’t see him. The boyfriend appeared from nowhere, muscled form grotesquely exaggerated amid the dream-scape as he began pummelling her mercilessly to the ground. He awoke that morning with a jolt, encased in a cold sweat and the grip of dread, foolish, but insistent all the same. He had recognised her waitress uniform, so now here he sat, waiting for her to appear at her place of work as busy commuters passed him by. He ran through his head what he was going to say and came up blank. He couldn’t tell her about his job, as disclosure meant termination from the program. And besides, he could hardly tell her that he had been watching her for days now without sounding like an utter creep. And then he spied her down the street, arm in arm with her boyfriend. She hadn’t pressed charges. As they neared the entrance to the café, the boyfriend leaned in and kissed her. She went inside and Gregory suppressed a shudder of revulsion as the boyfriend walked past him. Today, Gregory felt like a fool.

Over the next few weeks, his terminal brought him back to the apartment on a number of occasions, the images on his screen repeating the same story as if he were watching a recording. They fought, they worked, they loved, all in thirty second bursts, and as Gregory stared he couldn’t help wonder at why she stayed with him. Why she allowed herself to be treated like that. Why she was attracted to a man like him, but surely wouldn’t bother to give a guy like Gregory a second glance. As his thoughts festered, he found his distaste for her growing. It wasn’t just the boyfriend that was the problem, but her also, he decided. As his screen cycled through the feeds he tried to put her out of his mind and, for a while, things returned to normal. He watched the people, aware and unaware at the same time, knowing themselves watched, but never by who. It was simply now a part of life. And then, just as Gregory was about to leave for the evening, his terminal brought him back once more to the apartment. There the girl lay, sprawled on the bed in the clutches of her boyfriend. They slept soundly, a perfect picture but for the rising bruises about her face and her arm, splayed across the bed and dangling a still-lit cigarette between sleeping fingers. Gregory leaned in close, staring at the burning cherry of flame on the screen, finger poised over the button to set off the buildings sprinklers. He watched. He waited. And did nothing as the cherry fell and the carpet caught alight. The screen flickered and the feed was gone. Today, Gregory felt like a god.

Frayed

Like dancers, taking breathless steps upon the edge of a knife’s blade,

out into the darkening night they sped

with a strange mix of elation and dread,

almost anticipating that fatal moment, when broaching a subject forbade

by years of petty fights where emotions had welled

and the poisoned waves of anger had swelled,

trapping them, inexorably, in the grasp of a whirlpool haphazardly made

to be a prison of their own hateful design,

their relationship the arguments had come to define,

happy wedding day left far behind, lives worn, frayed and faded to grey.

Stone (1211 words)

Isobel closed her drowsy eyes and allowed the feel of the place to wash over her. The wind whistled against the still of the night, prickling her skin with every salt tinged breath, while the waves gently whispered as they caressed the shingle shore of the cove far below. In the distance, a boat called on the midnight tide, far out at the edge of the horizon. She gazed up at the moon, fat and round, hanging high in the midnight sky, obscured here and there by a few faint wisps of cloud that were slowly dragged along in the wake of the evening breeze. Inside, she could hear Mark clearing away the remains of their dinner and shortly he came out to join her on the porch. They stood, leaning upon the smooth wooden rail, sharing a companionable silence as they both took in the scene arrayed in front of them.

“I can see why you love this place” she said, breaking the silence.

“It is wonderfully peaceful out here” he replied. “I forget that when I’m at home.”

“Well, there’s always something, isn’t there? Work, friends, nights out.” 

“True. Here, everything just seems to move at a slower pace.” he said, his voice sounding wistful as a smile played at his lips. “I’ve often wondered what it’d be like if we moved up here. Just you and me, and our little cottage by the sea.”

“Oh yes?” she laughed. “And do what with ourselves, exactly? Would you go out on the fishing boats? Braving the cold, North Sea, while I sit at home and raise your bairns?”

He smiled at that. “No, the sea isn’t for me. I would write, I expect. You would paint, of course, and the land would inspire us. By day we would walk the cliffs and thickets and fens, and by night we’d curl up in front of the fire and talk until sleep took us.”

“You always were a romantic.” she said, leaning over to plant a kiss on his cheek.

At length, the wind grew chillier, it’s whistles turning in to wails. They were about to retreat inside to the warmth of their fire, when Isobel spotted something down on the beach below. Making slow, wavering progress across the uneven shingle was a lone light in the darkness, it’s eerie orange glow bobbing along as if afloat.

“There’s something down there. Do you think it could be smugglers?” she asked.

“Maybe a hundred years ago” Mark replied, following Isobel’s pointing finger to the little circle of light below. “But not any more. It’s probably just old Jake.”

“Who’s he?”

“Hmmm? Oh, a lobster fisherman. He’s been living here as long as most can remember.”

“Fishing, at this hour?”

“No, the lobster pots would have gone out at dusk. He always walks the low tide shore under the full moon. It’s a rather sad story, to be honest.”

“Tell me?” she asked, failing to mask the obvious intrigue in her voice.

“Well, Jakes mother, and her father, and his father, and so on, were well regarded in these parts as ‘cunning folk’. They read fortunes, countered hexes and spells, provided charms and potions, that sort of thing. Jake learned some of it from his mother, so people say, but there was little call for her skills during those days, and none by the time Jake was grown. So he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a fisherman.”

The light was still now, and Isobel could make out the shape of the old man, hunched over a rock pool.

“Anyway, Jake got married not long after leaving school and taking up his father’s trade. By all accounts she was a wonderful girl, a natural painter as it happens. She loved to explore the countryside, while Jake worked the waves, and would always be there, ready to take care of him when he got home. But one evening, Jake returned from setting the lobster pots and his wife was nowhere to be found.”

“He went to the local constable and they soon roused a rescue party, who set out with torch and lantern, searching the village, the bay and the woods before, eventually, finding her delirious, face down in the field of long grass behind the church. Rushing her back to the village, under lamplight they could see what afflicted her. On her knee, just below the hem of the warm, summer dress she wore, a bite mark sat, angry and inflamed.”

“Jake’s face went pale as he stared down at his wife, her eyes rolling, unseeing, back into her head. The constable talked to him, telling him that they’d have to send out a call to the city hospital for anti-venom, but according to those there, Jake just stared, before turning and running out the door. A full moon sat high in the sky, and as Jake raced towards this very cove, he remembered words he had read in his mother’s books, about a special sort of stone, found only on moonlit nights.”

“Called sometimes a ‘Druid’s glass’, for it’s supposed magnifying qualities of mystical power, it is more commonly known as an ‘adder stone’ and was said to be able to cure all manner of venoms and poisons. It was for this stone which Jake now raced, but it was a stone which proved very difficult to find. Smooth and glassy, the stone must have a hole bored through the middle by the sea’s current, and when dropped into a pool of water, must float.”

“He didn’t ever find the stone, did he?” Isobel said.

“No, he did not. Jake returned home, soaked to the bone, fingers bloody and ragged from tearing through the shingle in search of this one, most lucky of stones, only to find his wife had already passed.”

“That’s awful.” Isobel replied sadly. “So why’s he still looking?”

“Well, some people say it’s a sign that he can’t cope, some that he lost part of his self when he lost her, and is stuck amid the clutches of that last night when he still held out some hope. I don’t agree.”

“Why not?”

“Because Jake copes just fine, and has done for more years now than he had ever spent with his wife. People assume he’s crazy, that he lost his marbles all those year ago, when perhaps this is his way of mourning her? And besides, don’t we all dwell on what might of been, from time to time?”

Down on the beach, Jake had set his lantern down, the light reflecting from the shallow rock pool’s water. With shaking hands, he raised the stone before his gaze, peering through the hole in the middle at the glowing form of the moon above. Then carefully, he bent down and rolled the small pebble from his palm and into the rock pool. It broke the surface with a faint plop, and Jake began to let out a sigh, punctuated by a whoop of delight as the stone resurfaced, pale blue and floating in the moonlit water. He snatched it up in his hand before bringing it reverently to his lips. With a kiss for good luck  and a prayer cast, he sent the stone back into the sea.

Upon the coast there sits a house, lonely and dishevelled, it’s skin of blue paint faded and peeling under scrutiny from the relentless wind and spray. In the frames of it’s four quarter windows, no glass remains, the panes long since smashed through, allowing easy access for the bats that nest in it’s rafters and the mice which scurry about it’s creaking, wooden floors. While long since emptied of all the furniture, all the bits and bobs and cherished possessions that make a house a home, upon the mantle a photograph stands, it’s sepia tones faded with age. In it, an old couple sit in front of the house, light reflecting from the windows, it’s boards painted thick and bold, the couple’s pride worn in their contended smiles. And though the years have steadily passed, still their house endures, still their spirit lingers, staring from beyond the grave in those smiling, sepia faces.　

The pebble floated, smooth and cobalt blue,

a serpent’s egg amid a moonlit pool,

while the wind howled against the night

and the waves crashed, sending spray a’flight,

the stone cored by the forked tongue of the sea,

through it’s gaze the corrupt would flee,

a witch’s spells brought down to naught

by the hagstone which the sea had wrought.

The pain that blossoms,

blood red, upon her fingertip

as she goes through the daily routine,

is sometimes all she has

to remind her that she is alive,

save for the small satisfaction

when her Grandkids ring,

or when the nice lady 

from down the street

drops in for a chat and a cup of tea,

just to see

how she’s doing

and if everything’s alright.

She says it is, she always does,

but inside she feels less, 

with each passing day,

no life left to leave a mark,

but for the stain of her blood

upon the testing strip.

The star hangs ominously, it’s light refracting through the atmosphere to appear as a hazy, red orb in the heart of the north-eastern skies. A glittering eye, staring down upon the world from hundreds of years past, it’s gaze evoking fear and wonder in equal measure as priests and scholars confer over the the omens it brings and the prophecies it fulfils. But, for all their heated and impassioned arguments, all agree that if the star holds any portent, it is one of grave significance.　

A broken, twisted thing,

on he stumbles 

with wavering steps,

as if one foot is unsure of the other,

while watchers gawp, 

their eyes fixed in alarm

upon the wreckage beneath his brow,

flesh tightly wrenched

about the mottled scars

of old burns that never truly healed,

lips curling into a snarl as he passes,

and the people recoil, a conflict of emotion

warring across their collective visage,

pity and disgust and horror,

he loathed their gaze.

The dawn light pierced through the windowpane, drawing shadows upon the wall where before there was only darkness, as on the bed you sprawled, languorously arrayed as the light cascaded down, sublimely casting your skin in golden, summer tones that matched your hair’s shimmer, an errant lock falling to flutter softly waking lids, as with a reluctant, yet lithe grace, slumber gives way to the new day.

Almost silently, the waves lapped the shore, a gentle caress for the shingle beach that shifted ever so beneath the water’s touch. Briny fingers drawing back and forth as the wind atop the waves and the water through the rocks softly breathed salt water nothings to no one in particular at all, save for the birds that circled above, before diving with a fatal grace beneath the waves, emerging with thrashing fish caught tight in hungry beaks. The sun glistened on the water’s surface and far, far in the distance, a sail boat listlessly bobbed, it’s emerald canvas pulled suddenly taut, caught in the wind’s grasp and carried out beyond the horizon.　

In a box of forgotten things,

beneath family photos

and letters, to and from,

lies a golden ring,

engraved with notes of song,

carved deep into the golden band,

a simple, yet sombre tune,

evoking winter thoughts

of a land subdued by snow

and the silence the season wrought.

poemsfallfrommycursedlips replied to your post: Earth-2 (1109 words)

ooooo, Is this going to be part of something bigger? if so, send it

Eventually I hope I can expand on it, but I’ve got a number of ideas on where to take the premise, so we’ll see where it goes - I’ll be sure to post any further chapters here once I’ve figured out how to add to it :)