1st Draft - The Devil

I know where the Devil lives. I don't mean a metaphorical devil, that is to say, a person who perpetuates evil acts under the guise of helping humanity/individuals (although I do know more of them that I would like, as well), no, I mean the actual, literal Devil. The pitchfork, the horns, the twisted goatee, the whole shebang. I met him when I was eight years old.

When I was eight, the world was a much different place and not just because I was looking at it through the innocent eyes of youth. There was no internet. Mobile phones were clunky beasts tethered to businessmen and women. Music came on cassette tapes and movies came on VHS. I grew up in the Dingle area of Liverpool which, even today, seems to be a neglected area of the city. A microcosm of time suspended, forgotten. I would later learn that the Dingle used to be a heavily green area, with lush valleys and streams crisscrossing fields, but was almost entirely urbanised at the turn of the 20th century to provide accommodations for the rapidly expanding population of Liverpool. What was once a verdant paradise became a grey squalor and has remained as such ever since.

What is the relevance of the Dingle's history, I hear you ask of me. Well, I reply, it's to do with tragedy and religion. Many of the early settlers of the new housing project were fanatically religious Irishmen, who'd emigrated to Liverpool to work on the docks. Later on there would be an influx of people with similar fundamentalist Christian beliefs from the West Indies and the Caribbean. That's the religion, the tragedy was that they were fooled into coming. The industry dried up. The jobs disappeared. They were trapped in a land not very familiar, that was bleak, desolate and full of crushing hardships.

I was born more than a few decades after the initial arrival of so many immigrants and I never knew anything other than the toil and the antagonism certain groups felt toward one another.

               "We might have nothing but at least we're not the Irish!" or replace "Irish" with whatever group, "Blacks" "Italians." "Protestants." When you haven't got much what you do have has more emphasis.

Despite this, I grew up relatively well adjusted. My mother, to her credit, looked around and saw the inhuman conditions and decided that her family would have none of that. So, before I even got to school age I was able to read and write. She taught me how to do maths, how to question and think critically, how to apply logic to the world around me. Her one failing, or at least the most major one (and one that is perhaps in contradiction to the preceding sentence), was her unwavering belief in the supernatural. A belief that she passed along to me.

Consequently, my childhood was one filled of ghosts, bogeymen, goblins and ghouls. When I was a child we moved from haunted house to haunted house. Things going bump in the night, the whole family sleeping in one bed because of what was out there in the darkness. There are many stories about that as well, oh so many happenings, but the one that concerns us now is the time I met the Devil.

(BREAK)

As mentioned, I was eight years old at the time. My family was living on the ground floor of a ring of tenements (ever too proud, my mother would forever label these buildings as "maisonettes") opposite of which was a building locally known as "The Florrie". Or to give it its full title, "The Florence Institute for Boys." It was a grand building. Built by a grieving father, it become a beacon of light in the eyes of many a deprived children living in the south docklands of Liverpool in spite of its imposing gothic look. For over a hundred years it stood, providing these children a place to play sports, games, to sign up for camps away from the urban muck of their homes. It was a place that inspired and allowed escape from the drudgery of everyday life.

It closed down a few years before I was born and I never got to see it in its proper light. Abandoned, it became home to rats, pigeons and other assorted vermin. Naturally, we broke in. The children, I mean. Me and my friends. It was too alluring a proposition to turn down. I should probably back up a bit here and explain. My friends and I were not thieves. We didn't break into houses where people lived, well, maybe they did, but certainly not when with me. I only ever broke into abandoned places. Derelict houses, abandoned shops, forgotten churches. Have you ever been in a place that once thrummed with life but is now quiet and deserted? A school after dark? An early morning street when no one else, not even cars are about? I live for those moments. Those little, absurd moments when one can stand still in a place that should be busy with life, surging with noise and action and see, hear and feel nothing. It's otherworldly.

And that otherworldliness is what drew me to those places. As much as the supernatural scared and terrified me, it enticed me and I felt that these neglected places would be the best places to bump into an apparition or two.

To break into "The Florrie" would require a bit more planning than my group were used to. As I mentioned, it was a grand building and I mean that in the true sense of the word. The windows were high off the floor, the front doors into the building were made of thick, strong wood and bolted firmly. We decided the best way in would be to climb a tree overlooking the back wall and try a find a way in from the yard, though, from what we could see the back of the building offered nothing much in the way of entry either. We were sure we'd find something, but the more pressing concern was that we were equally sure that the building was alarmed.

Earlier in the year was the only time we'd ever nearly been caught. We'd gained entrance into a dilapidated church (coincidentally at the top of the same road The Florrie is located on) and I was walking about admiring the chipped gold painting on the pew handles, when my reverie was broken by the blue light of a police car and an angry voice calling us to come out of there at once. For whatever reason, whether it was just because they knew we were kids and didn't want to catch, just scare us, or they were stupid, or there was only one of them, the police had nobody cover the back yard of the church and so we scrabbled over the back wall, split up and melted back into the warrens of the Dingle.

We knew it must have been a silent alarm that gave us away because no one in the Dingle would really care enough to call the police on a group of kids breaking into an old building, even a church. And if a tacky old church had a silent alarm then a fine building like The Florrie would certainly have one as well.

In the weeks leading up to the adventure, people started telling stories about The Florrie. From out of nowhere it seemed, everybody. Adults, other children not part of the group, teachers. At first we thought someone must have spilled what we were going to do to a parent or something and this was their way of trying to put us off our attempt. But, being kids, we knew better. Still, every day on the walk home from school (which took me and my brother past The Florrie), we'd peer through the letter box and gaze into the dark hallways of the building. We couldn't see much from that angle, just a staircase leading up to shadows. It was very clean and there was never any movement. Which, looking back, I should have found odd.

The day finally arrived when our nerve held and we decided that we were going over the wall. I climbed the tree and leaped down into the yard behind The Florrie. Only one of my friends joined me, the others left. Chickened out. I forget the name of the friend who did come with me. I didn't see him much after this.

We poked around and found a small window set at ground level. I picked up a rock ready to smash it open when my friend tried pulling it and found that it opened easily, if creakily. We slipped through the now open window and landed in what looked to be a storage area. An inch thick layer of dust covered every surface. Taking care not to breath in too deeply, we pushed past a collection of leather sporting bags and, opening a door, found ourselves in a dark, shadowy hallway. As we always did, we split up. He moved deeper into the bowels of building whilst I went up a small stairway. I had it in my mind to find the entrance hallway, the one I'd seen through the letterbox. The stairs curled in a spiral as I ascended.

Cautiously, I opened the door at the top of the stairs. The floorboards creaked as I entered what looked like a classroom. Lazy afternoon light spilled onto the mildewed books left open on desks. A dented plastic globe sat forlornly in a corner, the dust that was everywhere below was everywhere here as well. I picked my way between the desks and then, gingerly, clambered on the one nearest the high window so I could peek through. I saw the familiar street below, the one I would on every day to go to school and back. Which meant if I went....

I jumped off the desk and exited the room following, in parallel, the street outside. I arrived at the entrance hall. Eagerly I ran over to the stairs. Finally, I would get to see what was at the top. I climbed the stairs. I was about halfway up the stairs when I first heard it. The slight, tinkling notes of a song, but when I strained my ears I lost track of it. My first thought was that it was the local Ice cream van, playing its plinky plonk tune as it sounded very similar, yet not at all so, and that I couldn't hear it when stopped to listen because it had stopped its siren to serve customers. It became louder and clearer as I reached the top of the stairs and I realised that it wasn't the ice cream van. The music was coming from inside The Florrie itself. Taking care to make as little noise as possible, I crept down the first floor hallway.

I can't describe the music and not just because I've never had an ear for instruments. It was beautiful and melancholic, at the same time boundlessly happy but also infinitely sad. It raised my spirits with one bar and dashed them in the next and then repeated the process again. On tip toe I crept behind each door and listened until I reached the penultimate door. An angry, discordant note rang out, the music stopped and a horrifying scream came from down the stairs. I paused for a moment, torn between investigating the room with the glorious music and what was obviously my friend in trouble.

I decided to do both.

I opened the door, more quickly than I had planned and there he was. The Devil. He was sat on a plush green chair, His fingers knotted in contemplation of me. He smiled. It was a horribly beautiful smile. On a table next to him was a fiddle, the strings of which oozed a thick, black oily looking substance. His hoofed legs were crossed, one on top of the other, and were covered in a dark, shaggy fur. He stared at me with his eyes, those deeps, flame-specked eyes and let out a short bray of laughter.

I turned and I ran. I ran and I ran. Down the first stairway, through the classroom, down the spiral stairs, back into the dusty storage room. As I was climbing out of the window I suddenly remembered my friend, but then there he was, climbing out after me, frantically pushing me out of the way. We collapsed against the wall and stared at the small, open window.

               "Did you...did you see..." I stammered.

               "I saw...something..." my friend vomited at this point.

I never did learn what he actually saw. Whether it was the same thing, the same Devil I saw, or something else entirely. He moved away not too long after that. The rumour was that he hadn't slept since we'd gone into The Florrie and his parents decided to move him out of the city. I suppose I should be thankful, if that is the case, that I wasn't affected in such a way. My parents did find out about my breaking and entering though. I was grounded for a long while and made to promise to never break into abandoned buildings again (and if my parents are reading this, I never did, honest).

The Florrie itself is still there, though it's been renovated now and is once again fully open to the public. I've never been though and I suppose, I lied at the very start of this story. I don't know where the Devil lives, only where he once spent an afternoon scaring an eight year old child. I would still never go back there though, just in case he was still there. Just in case.   

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From soup to suicide: The true story of Maggie Lark

"Okay, interesting title, so, what's it about?"

"I don't know man. I figure I've got the title, I'll just work back from there."

"So no characters, no locations, no plot, no anything, just a title?"

"There's a character! There's Maggie, Maggie Lark."

"And who is Maggie, what does she do, how does she act in certain situations? What's her dog's name?"

"Fuck, I don't know, I'll make it up later."

"You always do this, you know? You make up a title for a story that sounds really intriguing, possibly quite interesting and then that's it. It never goes any further."

"That's not true, remember 'The tear of death: A rope of sand'? I got that published."

"I do remember that particular title. You did get it published, chapter one of what was to be a twelve part series, if I recall correctly? How did the other eleven go?"

"Don't be snarky about it, okay? I'll get around to it eventually, I've got all the characters and plot details up here."

"It's no good them being up there, they need to be on paper."

"I will. I'll get around to it."

"Before or after chronicling the adventures of Maggie and her suicidal soup."

"It wasn't suicidal soup, don't be daft! I think it'd just be cool little story, how the world passes by and people don't really stop to think that one day you can be sitting there, happy and content, enjoying a bowl of a soup and then the next day, or even that evening, be suicidal."

"And that's what happens to this Maggie character?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I figure I could work in this angle where she's eating different soups on different days to match her mood."

"What? Like 'gazpacho soup today - feeling cold' 'minestrone - feeling confused.' Or something."

"You're just taking the piss now, aren't you?"

"A little bit, yeah."

"Well, fuck you then."

"Oh come on, don't be like that. I'll be good, I swear. So what do you mean about the soup thing then?"

"Actually, to be fair, it was what you just said...only much less sarcastic. Like she eats creamy soups on days she feels content or noodle soups on days she's feeling grumpy or whatever else and she notes it in her diary. How she was feeling, what soup she was eating. And she does this every day until she commits suicide."

"You've literally, emphasis on literally, literally just come up with that on the spot now, haven't you?"

"Is it good?"

"It's half decent. Could certainly go a lot of ways with it."

"Then does it matter if it's something I've been working on or only just come up with it now?"

"I suppose not...you'll never finish it though, you never do."

"Maybe. Maybe."

Food Noir

This is a portfolio piece (that I'm going to have to either edit down or abandon as it's quite a bit over the word limit). Based on tastes/smells, we were tasked with keeping a food/drink diary for a day and then writing it into a story or poem. For some reason, I couldn't get it out of my head, I did the whole thing film noir style. So...yeah, read it in a Bogartian voice or something. 

8 AM - I woke up and immediately wish I hadn't. I'd been asleep for over 12 hours, my mouth was dry and the tongue fuzzy. The taste of stale air permeated. I reached over and had a long chug of the lemon and lime fizzy drink beside my bed and instantly felt revitalised. Back from the dead.

9 AM - I brush my teeth. The toothpaste is bland and promises "Extreme whitening action." I'd trade all that for some mint freshness. Why did they stop putting mint into toothpaste? Mint causes insanity in some mammals, are they suggesting it causes madness in humans too? The cold tap water washes away the blandness.

11 AM - I break my fast late today, a bacon sandwich. The bacon is off and slight too burnt. I don't care, bacon is bacon and so it goes down well anyway. The animals gather for scraps, but as it was bacon, there are none, sorry kiddos.

7 PM - It's been a long day, there's nothing in the refrigerator and I decide that I don't want Chinese again so I head out into the rain to get to get a sandwich down at the subway. The rain follows me into the store, the help as eager as ever to help. "What can I get you sir?" "A sandwich, meat." "What kind of meat sir, would you like some chorizo? It's our special today." Sure, whatever, I answer, waving him away. I've never had chorizo before, but whatever animal it's cut from has got to be one of god's favourites, spicy, in all the right kinda ways, that's for sure. I hope He don't get too angry with me for enjoying this sandwich. I treat myself to a glazed donut from A's da's place, as it's been a while, and it leaves me feeling good enough to box God if he is upset about the whole chorizo business. 

Mary Longnails

*skitter skitter skitter*

When I was a child, every other week (or so it seemed), my mother would take me to a step aunts and uncles house. I was never really loved by my step family and I was already a nervous child, painfully shy, afraid of his own shadow, that kind of thing and they helped to nurture that so much so that much of my youth was spent as a quivering wreck.

*skitter skitter skitter*

I don't like to think of often, because who would like to think of their traumatic upbringing. But, as is so often the case, as I lay here, trying to get to sleep (which would be far easier if not for my noisy neighbours and blasted skittering spiders), my mind wanders back to times past and in particular, those times. They were horrible. Not physically abusive, mostly mental, emotional. My step aunt and uncle lived in a house they'd built themselves. It was part of a new housing development site, so for the time being it was pretty isolated, with only half built shells of houses for company and enclosed by a forest of trees to the north and the river Mersey to the south. It was (and still is, from what I've seen of the area as I've passed through on my travels) a very picturesque location, separate from the urban sprawl that is Liverpool.

*skitter skitter skitter*

I wish that spider would go away. Anyway, the house, as I say, was remote (relatively speaking), and so when I was forced to stay over, that was that, I was trapped with my step cousins whilst the adults did whatever they did. Like I said, they never really loved me, never really accepted me. My step family were (and this might sound biased, because it is) idiots, very tribal and took great and delicate care to remind me in oh so many little ways that I was not one of them, as if I'd ever want to be. They were particularly fond of trying to frighten me with ghost stories. They often succeeded.

*skitter skitter skitter*

One time there was a huge party, it might actually have been Hallowe'en because I remember there being fancy dress, I was in the bedroom with at least ten of my step cousins, trying to sleep. I'm a nervous sleeper at the best of times and being in such close proximity to people who would gladly do me misery if I let my defences down, I was still awake long past midnight. Well, that was one reason why I was still awake. The other reason was that one of my step cousins, a mean, rat-faced boy, had told me the tale of Mary Longnails.

*skitter skitter skitter*

The story he told me was as such: Mary Longnails was a poor girl who had lived, and died, decades ago. Her parents had been fanatically puritanical and had never let her experience any joy, any extravagance, any pleasure aside from that which she could derive from scripture. Mary however, as children will do, found a way to defy her parent's wishes and she developed a massive imagination, particularly in dreaming. She found that she could, in her dreams, be anything she wanted, that she could escape from her crushingly oppressive life. That is until one day, she didn't wake up. Her parents, beside themselves with worry, tried everything they could to revive their daughter, but she remained comatose from that day forward, withering away before their eyes, however, as the days went by, the mother noticed that her daughter lips were slowly curling into a smile. When the mother first realised this, she thought it was her imagination. But day, after day, her daughters lips curled ever more. At first, the mother was relieved, exclaiming that even if her daughter was beyond saving, she was at least happy enough to smile, however, the smile soon underwent a metamorphosis. It changed from a serene, angelic smile to a cruel, menacing sneer.

*skitter skitter skitter*

The mother died in her sleep two weeks after the daughter had fell into her coma. The father had been working late to take his mind off of his daughter's condition and arrived home to find his wife already in bed. He tapped her shoulder lightly and broke down when he saw her open eye completely devoid of life staring back at him. He staggered out of the bedroom and into his daughters, seeking some form of solace he gripped her hand and found it to be stone cold. She had died too.

*skitter skitter skitter*

That was when the dreams started for him. In his dream he was looking outside his bedroom window, and saw his daughter flitting in and out between the thick cover of trees that surrounded the garden. Every so often she'd stop and look directly at him but her eyes held no recognition in them. He called out to her but this only caused her to dart away into the shadowy canopy of the trees and the dream would end. One evening, there was a grand thunderstorm and the father slept fitfully. In his dream he saw his daughter moving between the trees again and again called out to her. This time, however, she moved hesitantly onto the lawn and shuffled toward the house. A loud thunder crack shook the foundations of the house and the father awoke and found himself standing at his bedroom window instead of lying in his bed. He blinked blearily as he realised the oddness of the situation and then glanced down at his lawn where he saw a creature spring lithely back into the tree coverage.

*skitter skitter skitter*

The next night, instead of going to bed, the father stood at the window. He positioned himself in just the right position behind the curtains that he could see the trees but that anything in the tree line would be hard pressed to spot him. Hours passed as he nervously waited. The grandfather clock downstairs chimed three and then he saw her. His daughter was picking her way between the trees, moving with a grace she had not shown in life. He stifled a sob and then his eyes widened as his daughter stopped in her tracks and sharply glanced up at the window. He backed away instinctively. "Surely she can't have heard me?" the father thought desperately to himself. He cautiously stole a peek through the window, his daughter was gone. Then he heard a scratching noise coming from below the window. With great trepidation he pressed his face against the window and looked down. There was his daughter, scrabbling her way up the bricks, the scratching, skittering noise was her elongated fingernails scraping the brick.

*skitter skitter skitter*

They found the father three days later. The doctors declared that he had died of a broken heart following the death of his wife and daughter but they couldn't explain the look of terror on his face.

"And that house used to be here. It was torn down but this house is built on its remains. Mary Longnails is still about. She became a sort of vampire" my step cousin said, "only she doesn't drink blood. She eats dreams. She became a glutton for imagination and feeds off it, but especially dreams. So when you go to sleep tonight, make sure you don't fall asleep with your head against the wall, that's how she gets you."

I didn't sleep that night. At three AM I was crouched by the window, keeping a watch out for Mary Longnails. And I saw her, or at least I think I did. A slim, agile shadow slipping in and out of the trees that separated us from the outside world. Or maybe it was a dream and I had fallen asleep, but I still remember that smile, twisted, cruel, hungry.

*skitter skitter skitter*       

The Magician - Part 4

"About time you showed up back here, boy." The old man lounged back into his seat and grinned a black toothed grin.

"How did I? Where?" Spinelli held back the urge to throw up.

"Sir?" said the driver.

Spinelli spun his head around, he was still in the car. He blinked and he was in the abandoned house and the old man was smirking at him.

"You're doing this, aren't you?" Spinelli heaved drily.

"Doing what, sir? Mr Spinelli are you all right?" Spinelli looked at the driver and with one eye he could see him, with the other it was the old man.

"I'm...I'm fine" Spinelli fought back another wave of nausea, "just a...just a...dream, I fell asleep there for a moment."

"Do you want me to drive you home?" asked the driver, with just a hint of professional reproach.

"No, no. I've got to see this through." Spinelli saw the old man guffawing in his left eye.

"That's a good one, 'see', because the eye thing." The old man slapped his knee cheerfully. Spinelli closed his eye but it did no good, he could still see the old man.

He fumbled for the door handle.

"I'll be back in a few minutes." Spinelli said as he exited the car. He lurched forward haphazardly, his legs out of rhythm as his brain insisted that he was standing still, as was the case in the vision of his right eye.

"Come on lad, I don't have all day," the old man looked pointedly at his watch, and then back up at Spinelli, "Well, no, that's actually a lie, I do have all day, and so much, much more. Twenty four hours in a day? It's a wonder that you lot get anything done thinking that."

"You're having fun here, aren't you?" Spinelli sighed as the handle of the front door rattled uselessly in his hand and the door remained firmly shut.

"Of course, of course. It's the highest, noblest virtue, there is, being faithful and true to one's self and it is true that I like to have fun, so...."

The door flung open just as Spinelli charged it with his shoulder. Spinelli fell down face first.

"Really," Spinelli grumbled, "slapstick humour, vaudevillian pratfalls?"

The old man shrugged.

"The thing with humour is that you'll never make them all laugh because it's subjective. Which is why the good comedian only ever tells jokes to himself, that the audience enjoys them is merely a happy coincidental side effect."

"So, you're a comedian then? I thought you were a magician? Or an old man who was bored of what was on television? Who are you?" Spinelli pulled himself up the stairs. His vision split between the derelict hallway and the old man.

"Oh ho, my name is it that you're after, do you think I was born yesterday? Having my name would give you real power." The old man stood up and walked across the room. Spinelli's disembodied eye followed him.

"Tea? I know you'll be here in a moment and I do wish to be a gracious host if nothing else."

"A host who won't even tell me his name?"

The old man laughed a sharp, bark of a laugh.

"I knew I liked you for a reason. You've a cynical wit, a good thing to have." The old man turned around, holding two cups of tea and returned to his seat. He put them down on the coffee table.

Spinelli opened the door of the flat. In one eye he saw it as he remembered it the last time he'd seen it, various moulds plastered the walls and ceiling. A dead family of pigeons quietly decomposing in the corner. The dilapidated couch behind the broken coffee table. In the other eye, he saw it as it was when he first saw it. The picture of the old man when he was young and at the jazz club was on the fire hearth. The couch was worn, but well looked after. A rosy, glow permeated the room, helped, no doubt, by the cream wallpaper and soft forty watt bulbs in the chandelier. He looked with his other eye and saw the chandelier festooned with long abandoned spider webs, a sad little graveyard of insects.

"You have to be told to drink your tea every time you come here?" The old man's voice cut through Spinelli's reverie. Spinelli looked at the coffee table and saw it as both broken and whole, but the cup of tea was the same in each eye. He picked up the cup and sipped.

"You know, not too bad, mould aside."

"It's all about how long you let it brew. That particular cup has been there for two years now."

A dark suspicion came over Spinelli.

"This is...is this my cup of tea from when I was last here?"

"Waste not, want not."

"But I saw it, chipped cup, stuff growing in it, how could it be back like this?"

"Really, all the things you've seen in the past two years, in the past twenty minutes alone, that's the thing that sticks out in your mind? I'll never understand you humans."

"Then...you're not..." Spinelli struggled to think of a more delicate way to ask.

"Human? Certainly not! Well," the old man laughed a short laugh, "Maybe I was once, long ago. I've forgotten, to tell you the truth. I've lived an exceedingly long time."

"Then, what are you?"

"Mostly, I'm a me. I have fun, going around, mucking up people's lives, making other's lives better, staying hidden, living in the limelight, doing everything at once and nothing at all."

"Why?" Spinelli's eyes widened. As he asked the question, the old man seemed to flit between a number of shapes. Some barely human, others embarrassingly so. When it was over, the old man simply shrugged.

"It's what I do. Would you ask the sun why it burns?" The old man suddenly looked much older and careworn.

"Then why me?" asked Spinelli.

"Why you what?"

"Why did you pick me for whatever this was, this experiment?"

"Experiment?" The old man chuckled, "You think science has anything to do with this? No, this is magic, real magic, real grab you by the boots and make sure you damn well know what's going to happen magic! There are no reasons, there are no rules, or experiments, there is simply what is and what is not. I picked you not because of some grand plan, or because you had some intrinsic character quality. I told you the truth the very first conversation we had, you've even brought it up today. I picked you because there was nothing on the telly and it would amuse me."

"How would it amuse you? I've became a major success, the world adores me, I have fans, money, I have-"

"Yes you do, and so then why are you here?!" The old man stood up quickly. "I can control what you see, you don't think I can't see past your words, your lame and feeble protestations of love for a life that is bleeding you hollow because the one thing you want, to be a real magician, to have the world love you for your tricks and sorceries is nothing but a trick in itself? Your one trick, a simple trick, so simple you don't even know how you do it, gets you plaudits and praise from all and sundry and it eats you up inside, doesn't it?!"

Spinelli flinched and took a step back instinctively.

"So you come here, looking for the man who made it all possible, half hoping it was just a dream so that everything you've been able to achieve was on your own steam. However, and this is truly the part I love most, because as capricious as life is, magic is far more so bear that in mind when you make the choice I am about to give you."

"C-c-c-choice?" Spinelli stammered.

"Yes, choice. By now you've probably wondered why I split your vision, well, take it more broadly, not just vision, it's your perception, or rather, the world's perception. Half of you in one world, half in the other. Do you pick the grimy world, the broken world, where your integrity is intact and every little gain you make or fail to make is attributable only to yourself and the vagaries of society. Or do you keep my gift, not knowing how you do the things you do, and live a lie. Now, since this is the most momentous question you've ever faced in your life, I will give you a very generous ten seconds to answer."

"Ten seconds?"

"Nine now, well eight, actually seven, well actually six-"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Spinelli shouted.

"Yes?" said the old man serenely.

"One question, please, one question."

The old man nodded, then cocked his head to the side and smiled, a wolf watching his prey.

"What choice will I make?"

The old man's smile disappeared.

"Nice try kid, the whole 'logic defeats magic thing, oh I can't guess the right answer, I am defeated and must disappear forever more' shtick, that's just showmanship, can't really defeat magic like that. Anyone who appears to lose like that is just doing it for the drama so they can return just as, if not moreso, dramatically later. Now please, make your choice."

"Either one will give you satisfaction won't it?"

"Yes."

Spinelli gulped.

"Then I choose neither." Spinelli turned and walked away. Half his vision remained on the old man, who looked apoplectic. His form shifted several times, those were definitely not human.

A year later:

Spinelli hoisted the crate up onto the pallet.

"Take her up, Jim." He called out to the forklift driver.

"Right you are, Frank." Jim called back.

Spinelli wiped his brow. It took the world less than a week to get over the mysterious disappearance of Frank Spinelli, magician extraordinaire. Most people couldn't even remember why he'd been so popular in the first place and couldn't describe what the trick was or rather, they could describe the trick precisely, but it was so underwhelming that that couldn't have possibly been it.

From the shadows of a stack of crates, the old man peered out, a look of hatred etched on his face. Spinelli looked over and saw him, with great care that the old man, and no one else could see him, he then took two coins out of his pocket, flicked them in their air and caught three coins.

He looked at the shadows, but they were empty again. The old man would never leave him alone now, he was sure of that, but it was almost worth antagonising him just to see the look on his face. Magic couldn't replace that feeling.   

  

   

The Monster Within

I was about to enter the woods when I saw a sign I'd never seen, though I'd been there many times before . It looked pretty official, had a heading on it that stated it was from the magistrates office. It read (in a horribly lurid font): "Beware the monster within."

That was it, all it said, well, that and it was signed by someone's who surname I assumed (from its presentation) was "Mr Squiggly". I laughed. Surely this was some April fool's day prank, or something, even though that month was far away. Clearly just some kid's prank, so I hitched my heavy backpack and ventured into the darkness of the trees.

It wasn't long before I felt myself being watched. I'd only been walking half an hour at most, and the sign's warning that I had so easily dismissed was now praying heavily on my mind. Every little noise from things moving about unseen caused me to jump a little. I tried to take my mind off of things. I thought about my childhood, my friends and that assuaged the fear a little. But then...a different fear awoke.

I began to think about all the little evils, the peccadilloes, the times I'd say I'd do something or another and then not done them. Or the occasions where I'd taken the last bit of food without first offering it to someone else. Gradually these thoughts were replaced with the bigger sins. The time I'd got that person fired not because they were bad at their job, but simply because I didn't like them. The time me and my friends were rotten drunk and kicked a homeless man half to death just because we thought it would be funny and because we could. The time I did that thing that even now, even all these years later, even in my own mind, I can only ever refer to as "that thing"...was the sign that I had seen at the entrance of the woods an illusion preying upon my subconscious guilt? The mysterious sign that I had never seen before though I'd been through here many times and even quite recently, was it just a fevered figment of my own overwrought and sinful mind that was trying to tell me that I was, that I had always been the monster?

And then The Beast bit off my head...I was kind of relieved, in a way, I mean I hate metaphysical soul searching.

The Magician - Part 3

Two years later

"Ladies and gentlemen, will you please put your hands together in a warm round of applause for our first guest this evening, Mr Frank Spinelli!"

Just off-stage Spinelli straightened his suit and stiffly walked out into the spotlight. He waved a half hearted wave toward the audience and smiled laconically as he made his way across to the seat beside the presenter. He shook the hand of the presenter and, awkwardly, bent his bad leg into a comfortable position as he sat down.

"It's great to have you on the show, Frank, can I call you Frank?" the presenter asked, straightening the cue cards in his hand.

"Spinelli, please." Spinelli replied.

"Spinelli it is then!" The presenter said, not missing a beat. "Now, you first came to prominence about what? A year and a half ago, two years now? Where had you been hiding before then?"

"Well, Jack, I wasn't hiding, as such, I was just working on my act, you know. The thing is that in today's society everyone thinks they can get ahead by just being in the right place at the right time and to be fair, sometimes you can, but mostly" Spinelli paused for dramatic effect, and smiled at the audience's silence "but mostly it takes a lot of hard work. A ton of effort. Multiple knockbacks and an indecent number of failures before things finally start clicking for you."

"So what was that click then that worked for you, that moment when things finally started going your way?"

Two years ago

"Mr...Spinelli is it?"

The bright light burned Spinelli's eyes as he opened them. His arms felt heavy and he struggled to lift them and block out the fluorescent light of the hospital ward.

Through bleary vision he could make out the indistinct figure of a woman.

"Mr Frank Spinelli?" the woman asked.

"Yes?" He croaked, his mouth dry.

"How are you feeling today?" As Spinelli's eyes adjusted he could now make out the doctor's coat, the clipboard in her hands, the appraising look of her eyes in contrast with her easy smile.

"Thirsty...how long...how long have I been here? Where is here?" Spinelli asked.

"Saint Jude's hospital. We brought you in about ten days ago now, well, over ten days, closer to eleven now actually." The doctor looked down at her phone, tapped on the screen and then looked back at Spinelli. "A nurse will be along with water in just a moment. My name is Doctor Ingles, this isn't the first time we've spoken but the last time you were in such a dreadful state and then you've been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past week and a half."

"I was? I have been?" Spinelli closed his eyes.

"Mr Spinelli?"

"Yes," he opened his eyes, "sorry, I'm still awake, just the light...it's very bright."

"Sorry about that, I'll get it for you." Doctor Ingles walked across the room and turned a dial, dimming the light. "Better?"

"Much, thank you."

"No problem." She smiled, and then went on, "I'll be back shortly to check up on you."

She left the room and Spinelli pushed himself up into a sitting position. A great pain shot up his left leg and he gasped sharply. Gingerly he lifted the blanket and saw why he'd felt such pain; attached to his leg was a rod a few inches long which was apparently bolted through the flesh and to his shin bone.

"I see you've found your external fixator." said a voice from the door. Spinelli looked up and saw a nurse standing at the door. "Hi, I'm nurse Roberts, I'm here to help clean the open wounds on your leg."

Spinelli nodded grimly and Roberts entered the room properly.

"It's not too bad," said Roberts, "I wouldn't look so worried about it. You just take these swabs and basically gently scrap around the bolts. Stops bacterial growth because, you know, it's an open wound and all essentially."

Roberts opened a pack of sterile swabs and sat at the foot of Spinelli's bed.

"While you're in here, I'll be doing it for you, but I'll show you to be doing it properly for when you get out of here."

"How long does it have to stay on for?"

"Can't really say," Roberts said, putting on a pair of surgical gloves, "however long it needs to be, could be a month, could be six. Could be even longer. Can I be entirely honest though?" He looked around conspiratorially, Spinelli followed his gaze and then nodded. "To be honest, I'm surprised you've still got a leg in all fairness. I was here the night they brought you in, your leg was mangled to bits, I've never seen a leg in as bad a shape as yours without the person losing it. Don't know what was going on with the surgeons, normally with something so bad they'd have just chopped it, maybe they just felt like a challenge or something. Seriously good luck that it's still attached and doing so well."

"It doesn't feel like good luck." Spinelli said through gritted teeth as Roberts started dabbing at the first bolt.

"Well, relatively speaking it's good luck." Roberts picked up a new swab. "What were you doing out there anyway, they say they picked you up in the middle of a deserted street."

"I was walking home, it was a shortcut..." Spinelli paused, thinking about the old man in the house, he decided not to mention that detail, "I thought I saw something in one of the abandoned houses but I must have imagined it. The staircase fell in when I was coming out and I gashed my leg pretty badly, I guess, though I didn't think it was this bad. I made it out and must have made a call but I don't remember."

"See, that's the weird thing, people have been talking," Roberts looked around again to make sure they were alone, "an old man made the call to the ambulance service. Mate of mine works up in the dispatch room, said it was right weird. An old man, sounded welsh, called and said something like 'the idiots injured himself, can you get up to Prendergast Road, he's bleeding out on the pavement. Now the call came from a landline, but like you said that entire area's abandoned, has been for years. Right spooky it is, if you ask me."

"It was probably just a passerby or something," Spinelli grimaced as Roberts wiped the pus from the open wound. "If he was old probably didn't have a mobile phone, must've hurried home and made the call."

"Maybe, maybe." said Roberts, sounding sceptical. "Still bloody weird though. They found you next to a suitcase of magician crap as well."

"Ah." Spinelli turned crimson, "That would have been my case...I'm something of an amateur magician. I was actually on my way back from a gig."

"Really?" Roberts said, enthusiastically, "I love magic, always have done. Would you be against doing a trick for me?"

"What, now? And also, I'm not very good, it was mostly coin and card tricks, I tried doing an animal bit and I was actually..."he tailed off as he saw Roberts rifling though the pockets of his scrubs, "what are you doing?"

"You said coins right," Roberts handed Spinelli a couple of coins, "do a trick!"

"Seriously, I've only just come out of a coma or whatever?"

"Please, come on man, I'm cleaning your wounds for you."

"Yeah, but that's your job."

"I know, but still..."

Spinelli looked at the pleading look on Roberts' face and sighed.

"Fine, one trick." and to himself he added "I'll just do a piss poor trick so he'll not ask again."

 He picked up the two coins and presented them. Waving one hand over the other he dropped one of the coins into the passing hand as it went by, then opened the first hand to reveal one coin had gone missing. He then threw that coin up into the air and caught it in his other hand. He opened his hand to reveal...three coins.

"What..." he glared at the three coins in his hand, where had the other one came from.

"Hey, that's pretty good. Where'd you get the other coin?"

"I...a magician never reveals his secrets." Spinelli said, handing the coins to Roberts.

"Do you mind if I get some of the others in here to see you do that?" asked Roberts.

"I...no, I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind at all." Spinelli said, before realising that he had no idea how he had performed the trick.

Within ten minutes, Spinelli's room was filled with patients, doctors, nurses who all gasped and marvelled at his trick. They clapped enthusiastically each time. They hung onto his every word, laughing with, instead of at, him. He smiled, he had no idea how, but he was finally where he wanted to be.

Present day

"Before you go, Spinelli," the presented beamed a smile, "it would be remiss of me to let you leave without asking to see the trick that made you so famous in the first place."

Spinelli smiled a plastic smile.

"Of course," he said. He stood up, and performed the same simple trick, the only trick his audience wanted, the only trick the audience ever desired from him. Still, they loved and applauded him for it and still, he had no idea how it worked.

"Thank you," said the host to Spinelli, and then turning to the audience, "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Frank Spinelli everybody!"

The audience clapped furiously and Spinelli bowed slightly and limped off stage. The second he was off camera, his face took on the haunted, grim look it wore when no one was looking. This was not what he had wanted, this was not what he had wanted at all.

He left the studio. The driver tipped his cap to him as he opened the door of the car that was to take him back to the hotel before tomorrow's journey to London, and then to America, Germany, Japan, the world was his and everyone loved him for something he had no control over. He looked at the future and despaired when suddenly, it occurred to him.

"Driver?" he said.

"Yes sir?"

"...Before the hotel, can you take me to Prendergast Road?"

"I don't know where that is, sir." replied the driver.

"Don't worry, I'll give you directions." said Spinelli, reclining into the back seat of the car, it was finally time.