Flash fiction: When Time Stands Still

 A hurricane lashes Pershing Square

That night I went to meet Cara, it was October and it was raining. October is great in New York City; the humid heat of summer is gone, fall’s not here in strength yet and the sun and skies are mellow. But now and then in September and October there’s a tropical storm or a hurricane in the Caribbean and it moves up through the Mid-Atlantic states and on to New England. That’s where hurricanes go to die sometimes. But they’ll lash out, full of spite, one last time on the way and it’s us that catch that.

M.Robbins

So I walked from my office to the cocktail bar at Pershing Square, right opposite Grand Central. The rain was like horizontal and the wind whipped at  my umbrella, it was one of those small ones you buy for four bucks at the newsstands, and it blew inside out and of course I couldn’t get it straight again.

I do love Cara. I always did. I met her in the eighth grade. I was little, short, nerdy. She’d grown fast and was adult height and strong and all the boys were after her already for her deep grey broad-set eyes and high cheekbones and even then she moved like a dancer. I guess I was always dazzled, always in awe.

But she’d be rough sometimes.

That was how I got to know her. She’d never seemed to notice me but then Gina the class animal had me in a corner and was stealing my Metro card and I was going to have to walk home, and it wasn’t the first time and I guess Cara must have noticed because she came over and she pinned Gina against the lockers and spoke to her very quietly and I didn’t hear what she said but Gina had this look on her face like she was just about to be dragged down to hell. She never laid a finger on me after that. Cara didn’t say much then but I sort of felt she was always there and as we grew older we became friends. But she was out of my class. Just such looks and charisma. The guys clustered round her like flies and she loved that, and she was always full of attitude. Me, I just got nerdier by the month. The boys passed me by.

But she had time for me somehow. Not always. She was a people magnet. But now and then she’d shake everyone off and find me in whatever quiet corner I was in and just hang out. She’d ask me how I was doing. When we were in sophomore year at high school I was confused and upset and desperate and I knew she was already having sex and I asked what I should do and she said “Nothing till it happens. You do you”, and hugged me.

Now and then she came round to our place on the Upper East Side and my parents always liked her and said how pretty she was, but she never said much when she was there. I knew where her folks lived, between Amsterdam and Columbus around 100th St on the West Side. I never went there. She never asked me. And now and then I sensed a hole in her armor but I never searched it out, why would I. People do that, don’t they? They search out each other’s weak points, even when they love them. I do that. But I’d look at her and remember that animal Gina backed up against the lockers, her eyes open wide as she stared at the demon that was about to disembowel her, and I’d think no, this one’s on my side.

Then we graduated high school and I went off to Wellesley. Mom and Dad were pleased I suppose, though they didn’t really say so. Not proud or anything, they just sort of felt that going to Wellesley was what one did. Hillary Clinton went there, and Madeleine Albright, and Nora Ephron. Good for the strong Democrat woman they’d brought me up to be. Then I got this job with the Senator. Cara went off to a college somewhere in the Midwest, dropped out and came back to work in sales. She moved into real estate and did OK. Not great, but OK. But she was always in some scrape or other, often with someone else’s husband. I can’t blame them I guess. She got more and more beautiful as she reached 30. And somehow her life got more and more chaotic.

Anyway, that wet night I got the wait staff to put me by a window. She was late and I looked out at the sheets of rain blowing under the Park Avenue underpass. I got stuck into a margarita, and then a second. I’d sort of drifted away when suddenly she sat down opposite me. Then she half-rose and leant over to kiss me. She leaned back and I saw she’d tinted her hair, a mild mauve on top and green down the sides where it fell on her shoulders, and her skin was a perfect ivory and her mouth strong and funny and her eyes seemed bigger and greyer than ever though there were slight creases at their corners that I hadn’t seen before. She asked for a glass of red wine.

“You want small, medium or large?” the waitress asked.

“Enormous,” she said.

“You got it.”

We made small talk for a minute or two, but there was something on her mind. She looked at me. “I just got fired,” she said.

“Oh God, again? What for?”

“Bringing my employers into disrepute,” she said. Her wine arrived quickly and she took a big slug.

“Oh Cara. What have you done this time?”

“I had sex with a client, his wife found the pictures, she put them on Porn Hub and sent the link to the other clients,” she said.

“Oh God,” I said.

Fact was, Cara sucked at life.

“Cara,” I said, "you suck at life.”

“I suck at life,” she said.

We looked at each other and started laughing. She drained her wine. The waitress reappeared. “You want another big one?” she asked.

“Humungous, please,” said Cara.

“Sure,” said the waitress. “You want I use a fire hose?”

“I hope the pictures were good,” I said.

“They were epic,” she said, and laughed. And then she didn’t.

“You loved me for something good I’d done,” she said. And her face sort of froze, and she put her glass down, and she looked at me and that mouth was out of shape and that’s when time stood still as I wondered if she would get a grip, not caring about anything, as she never did; or if something was different this time. It was different. I suppose we stared at least other for thirty seconds max but it felt much longer, and then she was all right.

“You should worry. No-one would put me on Porn Hub,” I said.

“You’d be surprised,” she said. And we both laughed but we knew we were different now, and she needed me.

M.Robbins

More flash fiction from Mike:

A Man For All Seasons Net zero.The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip

A History Lesson Why do we study it?

The Creatives Meeting a tech bro

Homecoming A sort of love story

Solitude A Cold War memory

Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography

Hiraeth A yearning…

Strange Places A spirit in the sky 

A Sideways Journey Things might have been different

Displaced Encounter on E94th Street

Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 

available as a paperback or ebook. More details here.

Flash fiction: A History Lesson

Why do we study it? 

It was the last lesson of the day. Mr Balcombe donned his mortarboard and his gown. White chalk powder adorned the latter. This was from the Latin class after Assembly; he had flung the blackboard wiper at Brockley Minor, an especially dense member of the Remove who failed to conjugate the verb manere. The missile had missed, hitting the rear wall of the classroom with a dull thud and releasing a white cloud that caught the morning sunshine as it streamed in through the high sash window. “Since you cannot conjugate manere, you will, er, remain in detention after supper this evening,” said Mr Balcombe, delighted with his own wit.

Perhaps he’d been a little hard on Brockley; after all, the boy was a useful fly-half. He sighed, and entered the classroom where Mr Lawless was teaching the fifth form History. Mr Lawless had joined the school at the beginning of the term. He was a slim, rather quiet man in his 30s who said little in the staff room although he was always polite. But Mr Balcombe had noticed that when he supervised a table at suppertime, the conversation was a little louder, a little brighter, and sometimes the boys were laughing.

He also had the overpowering sensation that he had met him, at least briefly, years before.

“I understand, Balcombe, that his lessons are a little – er, unorthodox,” the Headmaster had said before lunch. “Sir Rodney Bush and one or two others have enquired. It seems their boys have mentioned them.”

“The lessons worried the boys in some way?” asked Mr Balcombe. He sipped his sherry.

“Well, no,” said the Headmaster. “They said they enjoyed them. So you might sit in on a lesson or two and check he is teaching properly.”

If Mr Lawless thought this unusual, he gave no sign of it. Mr Balcombe seated himself by the window and watched his colleague write on the blackboard, then turn to the class. On the board he had chalked:

EMERGENCE

And in a smaller hand:

Of what? When? Why? What happened? Then:

DID WE KNOW?

“Last week I asked you to consider these, with reference to a change, or incident, of your choice,” said Mr Lawless. “You have written essays. Bush. Tell us of an age and its emergence.”

“I thought of the Black Death, sir,” said Bush.

“Very good. The emergence of – what? A disease yes, but of what new phase or age?”

“Men asked more for their labour, sir,” said Bush. “So farming changed.”

“It did. The Acts of Enclosure, the arrival of sheep – what is emerging, Bush?” 

“A prosperous new world, sir.”

“Indeed. For some. But as the plague raged, none knew of that; only of the terror they felt. So. Thorpe. Your essay. Most original. Tell the class what emerged.”

“The age of steam, sir. Newcomen’s engine.”

“Yes. But did we know what was happening?”

“A few Cornish miners may have done, sir.”

“Exactly. The rest did not know,” said Lawless. He was walking back and forth before the class, stroking his chin. “That was in the 1690s. Two hundred years later, we cannot imagine life without the train. The cotton mill. And now the Dreadnought.” He looked around the class. “Now, someone – Bush, I think – asked me earlier this term why we study history.” He looked at a spotty youth at the back of the class. “Grimbly, tell me why we study history.”

“So that we can spot it happening, sir?”

“Precisely,” said Mr Lawless. “Tell me, everyone; is an age emerging today? Now? In this year of our Lord nineteen hundred and twelve? And how shall we know?”

No-one answered, for there was a hullabaloo from an adjoining classroom; and then a noise appeared from outside, a clawing, ripping sound, and doors banged as boys poured through the corridors and out onto the terrace that led to the playing fields. All turned their heads upwards, eyes shielded against the late afternoon sun; the noise grew louder and a shadow crossed the First Form cricket pitch and there it was, an assemblage of sticks and wires and stretched doped linen, a trail of black smoke behind it, drawn across the sky by two spinning discs that caught the sun. It drifted past them, perhaps a hundred feet above, the ripping, tearing sound assaulting one’s eardrums, the boys cheering and tossing their caps in the air.

“Well I’ll be damned!” Mr Lawless chuckled. “I do believe it’s the Daily Mail aeroplane!”

“It must be,” said Mr Balcombe. “I did hear it might come this way; how splendid! I suppose that’s that Grahame-White chappie conducting it.” The latter’s hunched figure was just visible as the aeroplane passed over the Headmaster’s house and proceeded in the direction of Great Billingham. In the quad a horse neighed and whinnied between the shafts of the Chaplain’s dogcart and Cook craned her neck at the sky saying “Well I never! Well I never!” over and over again, twisting her apron between her hands.

When the aeroplane was out of sight the two men rounded up their charges and chivvied them back to the classroom. As they followed the last stragglers across the terrace, Mr Balcombe said: “I did say I was sure I had met you before you joined us and now I fancy I know when. Were you ever in the Cape Colony?”

The other frowned. “Yes. That was some years ago.”

“Indeed. During the South African War. Were you serving there? I met you, I think, on a visit to the Second Hampshires.”

“Yes, I served with them. I remember now. We left for the Transvaal about then.”

“How was the Transvaal?”

“We were engaged in farm clearances,” said Mr Lawless. He was silent for a moment, then said: “I resigned my commission not long afterwards.”

“Oh.”

As they reached the door Mr Lawless paused for a moment, then turned and looked at the sky. “I wonder, Balcombe. What has just emerged… and what sort of new beastliness will we commit with the machine we have seen today?”

More flash fiction from Mike:

A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip

The Creatives Meeting a tech bro

Homecoming A sort of love story

Solitude A Cold War memory

Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography

Hiraeth A yearning…

Strange Places A spirit in the sky 

A Sideways Journey Things might have been different

Displaced Encounter on E94th Street

Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 

available as a paperback or ebook. More details here.

Flash fiction: The Creatives

Meeting a tech bro

Mandy had seen most of the building now. It was striking; a series of inverted V-shaped spars, roofed to halfway down, so the whole resembled an upturned half-built ark with the planking built out from the keel. There were windows in the roof, scattered at random and interspersed with solar panels.

“We say it’s the best newbuild in the Valley,” said Amrita as she led Mandy through another large open-plan office. “It’s sustainable too. The wood came from a stand in Washington State that’s sustainably managed. And we have enough solar panels and battery storage that we don’t hardly need the grid so the power supply is sustainable also.”

Serpent labret, Aztec
(MetropolitanMuseum of Art/Creative Commons)

Mandy wished her feet were sustainable; she should have worn better trainers today. She snatched a glance at her watch.

Amrita saw this. “Frey’s running a little late,” she said. The phone in her hand beeped. “Ah, he says about five minutes. Let’s go through the chill area.” They passed through an oblong room with a central drinks dispenser; there were low, deep cushion seats and soft bright couches. “Like, this is where we come to chill and it’s where we swap ideas. Frey says the idea is cross-fertilization.”

“Literally?” asked Mandy.

“I’m sorry?”

“Workplace romance?”

Amrita looked puzzled. “I don’t know. I guess I could check with HR and see if they have some figures.”

“Never mind.” There were several men and women sunk into the deep cushions but they seemed to be looking at their phones rather than each other. Mandy decided fertilization was improbable.

And then they were in Frey’s office. Its minimalism was aggressive. Its occupant sat behind his glass desk, coiled like a serpent.

“Sit down,” he said; it was not an invitation. “How is business? Your site is being read in the Valley, that’s for sure. And your tech blog’s the hottest part of it.”

“I hope so,” said Mandy. “And everyone’s curious about you. They want to know what you are doing here.”

*What have you been told we’re doing?”

“Everything, Frey. From germ warfare to Bitcoin mining.”

He chuckled darkly. “Those are kid’s stuff,” he said. He paused, frowned and seemed to think, in a way Many found mannered. “Have you heard of the Blue Brain project?” he said.

She had. “You mean those guys at Lausanne? They wanted to simulate a rat’s brain? And the Human Brain project followed?”

“That’s it. We’re beginning to understand the way the brain works – its neural networks, the way it processes emotion. But that’s just the hardware. If we can build that into a simulation, then add the software – “

Mandy frowned. “Is AI part of this?”

“Oh yes. That is why we are breaking new ground. Imagine an avatar that both functions like a human brain and is capable of learning. We can create a virtual ecosystem populated by virtual beings that can interact with humans. Imagine: You have a problem with your car or your tax return. Your virtual adviser can not only find the answer – that, in theory, is not new; they can also figure out how they can communicate that answer to you in a way that fits your personality. If for example it has understood that you are not neurotypical, it will speak accordingly. But better still, it will form relationships with other avatars within the virtual environment and you can interact with them too.”

“Hang on. Are you suggesting that I will soon have a virtual friendship group?”

“Yes. At first you will feel guilty, creeped out by it,” said Frey. “But then you will ask yourself, Why is this worse than the so-called real world? Why would it not be the real world?”

“The imitation of life,” she mused.

“No,” he replied. “Not its imitation. Its duplication.”

He paused a moment, then said: “Come with me.”

They went into a small room nearby; it was furnished with the same low couches and cushions she had seen earlier, but it was in semi-darkness. Several operators sat before banks of screens that lit their features from below, reminding her a little of paintings of witches or of hell. “Kelly here is team leader on this particular sim,” said Frey. “They’ve laid down the groundwork. It didn’t take long, did it, Kelly?”

The young woman turned from her screen. She was about 25 or 30, her slim face framed by Mont Blanc glasses with a bluish frame; she wore pale new jeans and a white cotton blouse, cowboy boots and discreet jewellery. “Sure didn’t,” she said. “I worked with Paul for the first day and we laid down the basic parameters. We’ve got light and dark, and a monoseasonal set up with equal daylengths; it simplifies things. Next was the physical environment – water and land etc., that was day two. That took us a bit of fiddling about with the graphics interface though. But we got round to plant life on D3. Jeff over there is setting up the taxonomy.”

“And now?”

“We’re in the testing phase. We got the animals done on D5 but we’re finding their interaction with the humanoids a bit glitchy. They were doing some unnatural things together.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Mandy.

“I don’t think Kelly meant that exactly,” said Amrita.

“That’d be radical,” said Frey. “But hey, why not. We can do anything with these sims. Anything.”

A human-like figure crossed Kelly’s screen. She was obviously female, with clear sexual organs. “We haven’t clothed them yet,” said Kelly. “What happened was one of the reptiles gathered fruits and gave them to Female 1, who ate them.  We’ll have to clothe the humans now so that we could code the animal-type sims not to see them as animals too.”

“Tell me,” said Mandy, “do you think the avatars are sentient beings?”

“Excuse me?” said Kelly.

“I mean, do they have consciousness? When something happens to them in the simulation, do they feel it?”

“Well, in the sense that a part of the code is activated.”

“Which is what happens to us, isn’t it?” said Mandy. “I mean, we function according to a genetic code that is not so different in principle from the binary code that activates your avatars and defines their behaviour. So who is to say that they feel nothing? Could there be an ethical question here?”

“Ethics”? The other three looked at each other.

“I don’t think there’s a problem there,” said Frey, after a pause. “Like every startup, we conform to State guidelines and our stock is traded according to SEC regulations.”

“I’m sure that’s so. That isn’t quite what I meant,” said Mandy. “But never mind.”

Later Amrita escorted Mandy to the car park. “There’s one thing I meant to ask him and didn’t.” Mandy paused as she opened her car door. “Lots of people are asking – What is Frey short for? It isn’t his given name?”

“No. His name is Godfrey. We call him Frey for short.”

“Oh. Well, thank you for today, it’s been great.”

“Sure, Mandy. Thank you for visiting Genesis LLC, it’s been great to see you.”

Lucas Cranach the Elder:
Adam and Eve Diptych, c1533-37 (detail)

More flash fiction from Mike:

A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip

A History Lesson Why do we study it?

Homecoming A sort of love story

Solitude A Cold War memory

Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography

Hiraeth A yearning…

Strange Places A spirit in the sky 

A Sideways Journey Things might have been different

Displaced Encounter on E94th Street

Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 

available as a paperback or ebook. More details here.

Flash fiction: Cold

Everything is cold here 

“Dammit.”

“What?”

“This form. It wants her place of birth.”

He was a compact man of 30 with slicked-back hair and wore a white silk shirt bought, at some expense, in Jermyn Street; the stripes of his tie were a little bright.

A.Dombrowski/Creative Commons

“You could leave it for now,” said his wife, fingering her pearl necklace. 

She glanced at the window, admiring her reflection. There was a windy wet squall outside and a spray of rain hit the pane and glistened briefly in the light from the gas fire across the room. She turned towards it; Great-Aunt Lisa was hidden by her armchair, the back of which was towards her. But she could see the old lady’s hand on the armrest, the skin pale and mottled and papery with age.

“I can’t leave it. We must get the power of attorney and sort out the will,” he replied.

“Darling, that sounds awfully mercenary.” She mauled her pearls.

“It’s not mercenary,” he said. “Everything is ours really. We don’t want her leaving it all to that wretched Thai maid or something.”

She looked across at the maid, who was sitting on the footstool in front of Great-Aunt Lisa. She was reading aloud from the local paper; every now and then she looked at the old lady and smiled.

“I don’t think Maria’s Thai,” she said. “I think she’s a Filipina.”

“For God’s sake, it’s the same thing.” He leant back in his chair. “Where the hell was she born? Not Maria. Great-Aunt Lisa. I’m sure she told us once.”

“She said in the east somewhere, I think.”

“Oh God, somewhere turgid like Norwich or Ipswich or Harwich I suppose.”

“Harwich,” said Great-Aunt Lisa, quite suddenly.

“I am sorry?” asked Maria. She looked over the top of the paper.

“I’ll put Harwich then,” he said, after a moment.

Great-Aunt Lisa had been listening to Maria read an item on the toilets being refurbished in the Market Square. But now she looked from side to side and nodded slowly.

“Harwich,” she repeated. “It was Harwich.”

Maria put down the paper. “Would you like to go to bed now?” she asked.

“Yes. Yes, time for bed.” She smiled back, a little vaguely.

*

Later, Maria straightened the coverlet and made to turn out the bedside light. As she did so her phone chirruped.

“See who that is, dear,” said Great-Aunt Lisa. “Maybe it’s your mother.”

“I will call her later, in the night. The time difference…”

“Yes.” Great-Aunt Lisa looked back at her, suddenly focused. “Are you ever sad, dear? Are you angry?”

“Why, madam?”

“Leaving your family. On the other side of the world. Leaving your mother to care for someone else’s. Isn’t it sad?”

Maria felt her employer’s gaze. Every now and then she would be lucid like this and you could see what had been – sharp, kind, shrewd.

“Yes,” she said. “But it is what we do.”

Great-Aunt Lisa nodded.

“People are cold here, aren’t they,” she said. “Everything is cold.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Maria, surprised. She blinked once or twice and sat slowly down on the bed. Great-Aunt Lisa was looking past her, straight ahead.

“My parents. They were on the platform waving. I was nine. My little brother Willy, he was four. She held him up so he could wave. Bye, Liese, they were shouting out, good luck. It took hours and hours in the train and I was seasick and then I came to Harwich. Port of Arrival, it said on the card. Harwich. There were all these ladies on the quay and they gave us tea from a big beige urn and it tasted funny. And this horrid cardboard box. You had to carry that all the time. I never opened it though. It had my gas mask in it and it looked so evil. Like a horrible insect.”

She looked at Maria. “Do you see people again when you pass over? Are they waiting?”

“We think so in our church,” said Maria.

Great-Aunt Lisa closed her eyes. “I’ll sleep now,” she said.

Maria pulled the counterpane up so that it would cover the old lady’s shoulders. She picked up the empty glass and cup from the bedside stand and turned down the light. As she did so Great-Aunt Lisa murmured:

“I never saw them again, you see. Mutti and Vati and Willy. I thought they would follow. But it was the last train.”

“Oh,” said Maria. She waited a moment, but the old lady said nothing more; after a while she fell asleep, her breathing regular. Maria went down to the kitchen. From the living room came the sound of voices.

“We must make sure the will is correct,” he was saying. “After all, we are family.”

“Yes,” his wife replied. “Of course. How funny that she was born in Harwich.”

Maria looked through the kitchen window. Another brief gust scattered raindrops on the window. Yes, she thought, it is cold here.

Harwich Memorial: Safe Haven,

by Ian Wolter

More flash fiction from Mike:

A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip

A History Lesson Why do we study it?

The Creatives Meeting a tech bro

Homecoming A sort of love story

Solitude A Cold War memory

Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography

Hiraeth A yearning…

Strange Places A spirit in the sky 

A Sideways Journey Things might have been different

Displaced Encounter on E94th Street

Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 

available as a paperback or ebook. More details here.

Flash fiction: Solitude

 A Cold War memory

“Nikolai Ivanovich, it is time.”

Nikolai stood, steadying himself with a hand on the luggage rack; the they were still moving a little. There was a loud hiss from the engine, a carriage ahead; a cloud of steam passed the window, lit by the dim lights from the platform and the news kiosk. On the platform was a knot of men in valenki and ushanka hats, their heavy winter coats flecked with snow. They carried machine-pistols.

“Are those necessary?” he asked.

“Yes. The other side may try to trick us. Besides, we have no reason to trust you.”

Wikimedia Commons/Sealle

“No, I suppose you don’t.” He lifted his coat and valise from the luggage rack; he had nothing else.

“Why did you do it?”

“What?” He paused and looked the other in the face. “Alexander Pavlovich, we have talked of this for so long.”

They had. The long hours in the bleak interrogation room with its single bulb; the genuine puzzlement on his boss’s face. He asked again, for the last time: “I thought I knew you so well. And you had such a life of – of privilege. We all did. Because we defend the people. So why did you betray us?”

“I didn’t,” he said quietly. “The revolution was betrayed long ago.”

Alexander said nothing for a few seconds, then nodded briskly; he was back at work.

“Leave the car by the nearest door,” he said. “They know where to take you.”

As Nikolai opened the door to the car, Alexander called out:

“Nikolai Ivanovich, you will be alone over there. No-one will love you. No-one will trust you. It is not your own soil. You will know solitude as you have never known it before.”

Nikolai turned back for a moment, then turned away and stepped down onto the platform. The guards nodded to him and indicated that he should follow them; two walked behind. They passed the enormous engine, wreathed in steam, the low electric light gleaming off its green matt paintwork, the white-rimmed wheels standing out in the gloom. It was snowing – a thin, wet, bleak veil, as if the snow itself were tired of winter; it was nearly March.

I wonder what summer is like over there, he thought, I wonder what they do; and for a moment he was back beside the Baltic in the sunshine, the sand warm underfoot, and Ekaterina was throwing bits of driftwood for Viktor, and Viktor was charging around with little barks, and he called out: “Be careful! He is a running dog! He may be a traitor!”, and she laughed and called him a bloody idiot then chased after Viktor, leaving a long line of footprints in the sand. I wonder if I will ever see Ekaterina again. I am sorry, Katyusha. Now I wish I had told you. I wonder if there is someone like that for me over there. But it won’t be her, will it. He remembered her shock when they came for him, in the early evening; when the doorbell rang she thought it was the laundry. Why are they here? What has he done? He is a good man.

The station was only really manned when a train was to cross the border, and then the passengers would pile out with their baggage and would be there for hours. Tonight it was empty. They went through the archway into the forecourt and got into a black GAZ saloon. He noticed a dent in the door, then wondered why he had noticed it. They only went a few hundred metres, past several booths, and barriers that opened for them; then a last barrier opened, but they did not drive through.

“Get out.” He did, and stood uncertain by the car. He could see the shapes of several vehicles about 400 metres away. The driver flashed his headlights several times. One of the cars opposite did the same.

“Go now. Walk straight ahead until you reach them. Do not look back.”

He did not look back. He walked steadily – not too fast, and he made no sudden movement. This was not a time or a place to confuse anyone as to one’s intentions. He built up a sort of rhythm, feeling the snow beneath his feet; it was still scrunchy, but the falling snow was getting wetter, the west wind more bitter so it stung his face. He saw a figure approaching from the other side; walking deliberately, like him, so nothing would happen suddenly. He was a tall thin man, dressed in tweeds with a Homburg hat with a long wide woollen scarf below which a white collar and dark tie were just visible; like Nikolai he carried only a valise. As he drew closer Nikolai could see that he had an angular, thin face with prominent cheekbones that stood out in the sodium lights that lit him from above.

Diamond.

Wikimedia Commons/Dödel

He knew the face; from life – but they had only met once or twice – and a hundred grainy black-and-white prints shot with telephoto lenses at discreet meetings in whatever city Diamond had been stationed as he clawed his way up through the Foreign Office, gently encouraged by Nikolai, his handler. Poor Diamond, he thought. You never knew how much of the information you gave us was garbage because London made sure it was, because they knew what you were. Because I had told them. When I was unmasked, London knew they might as well finish with you too. Oh Diamond, you silly little Cambridge man dazzled by the man in your year who went to fight in Spain, shamed by Appeasement, with a vague nagging guilt that a College servant made up your fire. Have fun in Moscow, Diamond. Enjoy our winters. I suppose you’ll miss those summer days at Wimbledon, the strawberries and cream, a colleague’s fragrant wife as company. Those afternoons loafing in the British Museum. Dinners with Labour people at the Gay Hussar, probing their weak points, seeing what they’d give us; you enjoyed that, didn’t you. Don’t worry. They’ll look after you there. A nice flat and warm winter clothes and caviar and Georgian wine and trips to Leningrad to the Kirov and to the Crimea in the winter. But you will always be alone.

They passed each other without a glance.

He walked beneath the barrier. It dropped behind him with a clank of chains and squeal of metal. There were several vehicles. A man smiled and opened the back door of a white Mercedes saloon. “Get in, out of the cold,” he said. He climbed in; there were three others in the car. He couldn’t see their faces. The man in the front passenger seat looked over his shoulder.

“Hallo, Tie-Rack,” he said. “You know who I am.” They shook hands.

“Yes," said Nikolai. “Hallo, Cobbler. We know each other well, don’t we?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “We will look after you.”

But Nikolai knew he would never know the man’s real name. And it was then that he did feel alone.

More flash fiction from Mike:

Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala

A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip

A History Lesson Why do we study it?

The Creatives Meeting a tech bro
Cold Everything is cold here

Homecoming A sort of love story

Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography

Hiraeth A yearning…

Strange Places A spirit in the sky 

A Sideways Journey Things might have been different

Displaced Encounter on E94th Street

Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 

available as a paperback or ebook. More details here.

Bite-sized fiction

Succulent chunks of fresh fiction, cooked at your table and served sizzling hot, with our special spicy sauce

Over the last few months I’ve posted bits of flash fiction on the blog. They’re usually about 500-1,500 words, and are a challenge to write; as there is little space for context, it must be presented by implication. Flash fiction has a long history, but has become more popular in recent years, driven in part by the Internet – to which it is well suited. It’s a form that I’ve got into since joining a writing group, as when we meet each member presents a piece on a theme set at the previous meeting.

A fun feature of our meetings is the 5-minute writing exercise. Someone throws out a title (we don’t know it in advance) and we each prepare a story in that time. The result is, I suppose, what is now known as micro-fiction; a purist might say that this should be exactly 100 words, but these are pieces of about 150-250 words. I set the first title (The Night of my Downfall), but the others came out of the blue. There is no time to think; one starts writing straightaway. I rather enjoy it.

I’ve been through my notebook from the meetings and deciphered my handwriting (no easy task, I tell you), and hereby present these seven succulent, bite-sized fiction chunks. I have not edited them; they’re as I wrote them, served fresh and, I hope, piquant.

Don't Look Now

"Don't look now," he said. "It's not nearly ready for you to see."

"But I'm interested in how you work," she said.

"I prefer to keep that private. It's like wanting to watch a burlesque performer make up, otherwise. You miss the effect."

She laughed. "Well, let's get on with it." She took her time returning to the chair, letting him see the way she moved. She resumed her pose perfectly, her hand draped over the arm of the chair. The grey, flat light seeped in through the studio skylight. He took up his palette, delighted with the diffuse daylight.

"It is so grey today," she said. "I shall look like Whistler's Mother."

"On the contrary. The flat light will model your features evenly." He peered over the top of his canvas. A smile was spreading from the corners of her mouth.

"My husband knows you've slept with me, by the way," she said.

His hand jerked and a swathe of blue paint ran down the image. 

"It was a sudden inspiration," he said later, when the picture had won the BP Portrait Award. "I saw blue within her and knew she could not hide it. From the public, maybe. But not from a true artist."

The interviewer nodded sagely.

The Night of my Downfall

At about 1AM, I saw Mr Smithers waddle between the tables in my direction. His chain of office glittered in the harsh fluorescent strip lights. The other four were in train behind him. Why are provincial aldermen so fat and pompous, I thought.

“I think we should declare shortly," he said. "Perhaps you might mount the platform.”

I followed the others. A hush descended on the hall, the tellers exhausted, the scrutineers too. I had watched the piles of votes as they mounted up through the night and I knew.

I knew.

Smithers sidled up to the mic and tapped it twice.

“Being the returning officer for the constituency of Much Cursing and Little Gibbon, I declare the votes cast as follows.”

I listened, numb; 20 years as an MP were at an end.

I would have to find a job.

 

Can We Skip Winter?

“Can we skip winter?” she said.

I had been about to load the dishwasher. To do this I had had to lift the cat from the back of the machine. She sneaks in there when I’m not looking; her other favourite is the washer-dryer.

“I want to skip winter,” she repeated. “Let’s go to Greece. Or Italy. Or we could go and see Uncle Sidney in Sydney.”

She was always like that. She never thought of the money.

“We have to have those roof tiles done,” I said. “And I must get Thing over to clean the patio, and there’s the boiler, we’ll have to replace it in the spring. Where is the money coming from?”

She looked up at the skylight over the kitchen; a steady rain was falling.

I looked away to grab the cat, which was trying to get back into the dishwasher.

“I want to skip winter,” she said again, and I remember now – I didn’t notice it then – that she had a faraway look in her eyes. She looked away from the rain-spattered roof and went back to scrubbing the frying-pan. I thought no more of what she had said.

“Let’s watch telly,” she said. “It’s nearly time for the news.”

And yet I know, now, that that was the moment my marriage started to end.

 

The Elephant in the Room

We didn’t discuss it at the Board meeting in January. Or February. By March my patience was exhausted, not least because I arrived late.

“Ah, Sir John,” said the Chairman. “How nice of you to put in an appearance.”

“My apologies,” I snapped. “I was delayed by an elephant.”

“A what?”

“Perhaps he was on a trunk route,” said Peters. Everyone tittered.

“An elephant,” I said, “that has been in the room at every meeting of the Board for the last year.”

I reached into my briefcase and brought forth copies of Autocar, Motor and Motoring Which. I had marked the pages. I began to read.

“The Forsyte 100 2-Litre is a fine car in many ways,” said Autocar. “But every test car we have had has had a faulty gearchange. Do Forsyte Motors not realise that their reputation rests on…”

Peters interrupted me. “As Chief Engineer I am well aware that there is a minor matter concerning our gearbox…”

“Minor!” I spluttered. “I am a Director of Forsyte Motors. I do not expect to call the AA on my way to Board meetings.”

“Peters had assured us that this is under investigation,” said the Chairman. “I propose that we proceed to Item 1 on the agenda, which is Directors’ Emoluments.”

I slumped back in my seat. “Gentlemen,” I said, “our gearbox is the elephant in the room. And we are discussing our emoluments!”

“Of course, Smithson,” said the Chairman smoothly. “Everything is under control. We are a great British car company.”

 

What Was Here Before?

During the morning session, my wife called.

I was quite glad. I offered the facilitator an apologetic shrug and slipped out.

“Darling, thank you so much,” I said. “You’ve rescued me from Advanced Diversity Training Module Seven.”

She chuckled. “What’s the Wilford Conference Centre like?”

“The usual. No smoking, digital keys, a gym and overcooked breakfasts.”

She hung up, and I decided I needed a cigarette. It had been raining, but the clouds were clearing and patches of pale blue spring sky appeared.

“Wilford,” I said out loud.

“I beg your pardon?”

I looked behind me. A pleasant middle-aged lady in an overall held mountains of washing.

“Wilford,” I said. “I am sure I heard the name when I was younger. The conference centre is quite new though. What was here before?”

Roger Cornfoot/Wikimedia Commons

“Not much in my time,” she replied. ”But in the war. I know what was here them.”

It clicked. The areas of broken concrete at the back, the remains of an old Quonsett hut.

“Of course. This is the aerodrome the secret agents flew from.”

“Yes, that’s right.” She nodded. “That’s what was here then. What are you doing here?”

“Diversity training,” I said.

She smiled, and bustled on her way.

 

Stuck

We got stuck. I knew we would. Woldejesus was good, but the Chief Driver had given me Salim for the day. Salim was OK provided A) he was sober and B) it was the dry season. Today there was a faint whiff of araki on his breath. As for B), it was in the middle of the rains, and the road to Atbara was like the Somme.

The Land Cruiser made a satisfying splat as the right side bogged down in a rut the size of the Marianas Trench. Salim tried to power out of it. This just made the car dig itself in like a terrified vole that has seen a sparrowhawk.

I left Salim to it and squelched away through the black cottonsoil. I lit a cigarette. All around me the baked-earth plain, so arid and brown, had burst into life with the rain. Green shoots were everywhere. The sky, usually an empty pale blue or white, had taken on a richer blue and the white clouds billowed across the landscape. I almost felt I was in Norfolk.

“Do you know,” I said to no-one in particular, “I’m glad we got stuck.”

 

Fun

I had my usual meeting with P.J. at 10 on Tuesday. As always, I reported the receipts and outgoings for the previous week, gave the running totals for the month and summarised the liabilities.

Meetings with P.J. were at least safe. I could walk in there in a micro-skirt and leather boots if I wanted, and he wouldn’t notice. Other men were different and I had learned not to go into the office kitchen with more than one of them.

Today was as normal. He sat there in his dark suit and subdued tie. I was answering a question on our ground rent for the next financial year when the devil took me, and I said:

“P.J., have you ever had any fun?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Mick Garratt/Wikimedia Commons

“I mean, have you ever gone on a fairground ride and enjoyed it more than the kids? Or run naked through a wood in spring, loving the bluebells?”

“Why on earth would I do that?” he asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. The ground rent…”

“No, I haven’t really,” he said. “Had fun, I mean.”

He had turned away and was staring out of the window. It had been raining, but the sun had come out and the leaves, bright green, glistened against the blue sky.

“No,” he said. “No, I never really have.”

 

Heartstopping

“Well now, what happens when you call the IT helpdesk?” she asked.

“I guess they usually say, have you tried switching it off and switching it on again?” I replied.

“OK. Well, that’s pretty much what we’re gonna do to your heart,” she said.

I gulped.

“Er, what if it won’t reboot?” I blinked.

“It’ll reboot,” she said. “Like, your heart, it ain’t still running on Windows 7, is it?”

“I think it’s an Apple Mac,” I said.

“Then it’s been downloading patches for the last 60 years.” She grinned. “Relax, OK? You’re gonna be just fine.”

I recounted this conversation to my wife over dinner.

“Knowing you, your heart’s probably full of viruses from porn sites,” she said. She giggled.

“Hey, give me some support here,” I said. I’m frightened.”

She stopped smiling.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’ll be there. I love you.”

More flash fiction from Mike:

Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala

A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip

A History Lesson Why do we study it?

The Creatives Meeting a tech bro
Cold Everything is cold here

Homecoming A sort of love story

Solitude A Cold War memory

Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography

Hiraeth A yearning…

Strange Places A spirit in the sky 

A Sideways Journey Things might have been different

Displaced Encounter on E94th Street

Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 

available as a paperback or ebook. More details here.