Fiction

The common mosquito has long been known as a pest.  It has brought discomfort and disdain anywhere in the world where it can stick its disgusting, barbed feet up, and then drain the blood from honest, hardworking animals.

But now - apparently unsatisfied with crop decimation and itchy sores - the mosquito has such a dangerous trick up its “sleeve”, that even politicians are looking up from their expense receipts.

Scientists recently unearthed a dangerous change in the mosquito genome, dubbed the Nile Mutation.  If left unchecked, it’s set to send the biosphere hurtling into oblivion like an errant, beer-soaked cue-ball.

Clues to the existence of the Nile Mutation were spotted back in August 2010, when traces of plutonium were found in the River Nile.  There were very few explanations.  Either somebody had let off an atom bomb and nobody had noticed.  Or, someone was running a secret nuclear plant on Egyptian soil, and was cheerfully throwing the waste down the drain.

Meanwhile, a separate group of scientists were studying Mosquito cadavers in the same area (the project had no particular goal; people just like to gloat over dead mosquitos).  

Something very odd showed up under their microscope.  A new organ had developed in the frontal thorax, closely related to the digestive system.  This new organ was unlike anything seen before in evolution. It was a tiny, perfectly-formed nuclear reactor.

The explanation wasn’t hard to find.  Due to the slow march of climate change, mosquitos in remote areas had been slowly starving to death.  When times are hard, you have to adapt.  Nobody could really blame mosquitos for finding an alternative (though sadly non-renewable) source of energy.  An onboard nuclear power plant was apparently essential for the species to survive.

The scientists didn’t dare publish their findings, because it all seemed too silly.  But the pressure built until the lid blew off, and finally, this morning, the world heard the news. One international leader quipped that “it’s bad enough Iran having nuclear ambitions.  But at least Iran doesn’t fly into your face, or lay eggs in your food.”

Fears of a terrorist ‘dirty bomb’ lessened in favour of the new threat.  The Terrorism Threat Level rocketed from Tangerine to Beetroot - described as “New-Underwear-Scary”.  Scaremongers predicted biblical swarms of miniature nuclear missiles, armed with proboscis warheads.

Even North Korea seemed to offer help, by cancelling an important cruise missile strike on the South.  Unfortunately this was not a conscientious gesture of peace.  Spy satellites revealed that all efforts were diverted to the Great Shining Mosquito of Pyongyang Project - an attempt to splice genes from the Nile Mosquito with those of synchronized swimmers, in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Clearly it is time for all countries of the world to forget their differences and work together.  Option One (“Kill All Mosquitos”) has already been ruled out: they breed faster than you can clap them to death between your hands.  Option Two (“Leave Planet Earth”) is infeasible: it would feel too much like defeat and besides, space is kind of dull.  

This leaves only one solution: Negotiation. The crisis talks are underway, but the doors are closed.  Pundits chew over one solution - effective, yet morally treacherous: a heavily-guarded mosquito net to segregate the dangerous species from humanity.  

Whether the “Berlin Net” will see the light of day is unknown.  But an answer must be found fast, before a simple bite on the ankle becomes a fatal bullet in the head.

Submission for The Writer’s Cramp competition on writing.com. Featured in the editors picks of the May 11th 2011 writing.com newsletter :)

For the first time in - oh, about 25 years - the fortune-teller’s mind was a complete blank. 

The cards lay before her on the table, resplendent in their dazzling designs and colours, but completely devoid of meaning.  This was … deeply unsettling.

Megan reached one bejewelled hand towards the velvetine table, and her black fingernail marked one corner of the next unturned card.  With a flourish, the card was overturned and then slowly placed into its proper position among the others. “Six of Pentacles,” she said aloud. 

The image on the card was the one she had seen countless times since she had first dabbled in the paranormal at the age of fifteen, and which had somehow become her career.  Upon the card was a smiling gentleman in red robe and head-dress, handing gold coins to two beggars at his feet.  The image was deeply personal to her by now.  It had come to her in dreams on several occasions, and both times its particular significance had been obvious upon awakening.  It had never been just a picture on a card.

But now - she felt like a complete rookie, with only dry superficial facts from books to aid her in her deductions. “Six of Pentacles: a gift, a fleeting opportunity - “.  Megan trailed off, and slowly closed her eyes.

Where was her talent?  Where was the quirky skill which had been the shame of her adolescence, but had always kept her at least one step away from trouble?

There was of course one difference in this reading.  She opened her eyes and stared glassily into the space where the client would usually be sat. The chair on the other side of the table was empty, and for the first time ever.

She had always been superstitious about doing readings for herself.  There had been a forbidding warning about self-divination in one of the manuals of paganism she had read many years ago: some dire threat about horrors which would surely come in her dreams, and cast her into oblivion while her vacated body slept on.  Nothing to be trifled with. 

But that fear had come in her teenage years, and all these years later it seemed ridiculous that it had affected her so. Oh, the irony.  A psychic who can’t see into her own soul, despite the countless clients who had walked away happy.  The starch-shirted businessman who came to her without fail each quarter of the financial year, and whose famous name she had sworn to never speak for fear of his association with the paranormal.  The tall, grinning spanish guitarist who found inspiration for compositions in her readings. 

And now herself - one unhappy customer. Megan Wainright stretched both arms above her head and spoke in melodious tones: “I respect and accept all the information the universe is free to give me.  If the cards do not aid me, then I request that my unconscious mind give me the answer I seek in some other form.” And then she fixed the image of her predicament in her mind.  The house she wanted to buy, the one with the towering conifers and hedges cut into animal shapes.  The one with the original rustic wardrobes built into the walls.  The one which was more than a smidgen too pricey for her kind … but she just had to have.

The following morning at the breakfast table, Megan’s mobile phone suddenly rang and in her fright, she nearly drowned it in skimmed milk. It was Stacey, her red-haired pal from yoga.  The usual pleasantries were exchanged, and then the conversation got onto more serious subjects.  Megan recounted the previous day.  “Oh the reading!  That was weird, it was just a complete mental blank.  A bit like when you’re so tired, and … Well, anyway it was really simple in the end!  Such a silly oversight.”

The quick, metallic chatter of Stacey’s reply came over the earpiece.

“No, it wasn’t that!” replied Megan.  “People do self-readings all the time, it’s only me that was superstitious about it.  And I’m definitely sure I’m over that now.  No, it was a slightly more subtle insight.  I went and sat in the client’s seat on the other side of the table, and suddenly it all made sense!”

Again came the breathless electronic reply over the phone.

“No it was nothing to do with the room.  You know, when I do a reading for someone else - which is all the time - I’d always deal the cards so the other person could see them.  So I’d see them the wrong way up.  This time, for some reason I dealt them the right way up.  It just seemed weird to do it the normal way with no-one there to see them.  So when I sat on the other side of the table and saw the cards the usual way, suddenly everything fell into place …”

“Stacey - I’m only psychic when the cards are upside down!”

Submission for Daily Flash Fiction competition on writing.com The philosopher took another sip of warm brandy, then rested his bearded chin on linked hands. The light from Sol glinted in his eyes as it refracted through the skin of the Biodome many miles overhead. The icy plains in the distance looked as forbidding as ever, teeming with pests which fought humanity for survival on this wretched planet. So much was changing upon Uranus: the various civil rights groups had different words to say, but all preached from the same book.

Submission for Daily Flash Fiction competition on writing.com

Jack Frost opened one eye, surveyed the inverted scene above him, and snarled. 

The wrecked toboggan lay upon him like a heavyweight wrestler; below him was frozen ground.  He was trapped and could not move. His breath was the only sound in the snowy copse. 

Moments earlier, there had been guttural shrieks and lashings of branches as the demon crashed headlong into a tree.

Somehow, he was able to contort one arm to scratch an itch upon a bony growth that passed for his collarbone.  As Jack Frost’s face knotted into a caricature of concentration, there was a sound.  A scurrying right beside one of the demon’s livid ears, inches from the ground. 

Suddenly a furry creature moved into the demon’s eyesight.  The sight of the warm, vital body before his eyes was maddening.  But the beady-eyed rodent stood still.

“Free my brothers and sisters from this chill, and you will live,” it squeaked.

“Hah!  Go back to your burrow, four-legs!  Or I’ll seal you in ice forever!”

But the tiny creature did not move, except to look to one side.  “But I couldn’t chew through what’s keeping you stuck if you did that,” it proclaimed with a nonchalant twitch of its nose.  “These little teeth will save you, but only if we have a deal.”

Jack Frost’s face twisted into a new grimace.  “Then what?” he growled.  “You live happily ever after like lazy pigs in the sunshine, and I melt.  It’s not FAIR!” 

As the demon’s voice rose in volume like an old engine, the itch came again.  No, more than an itch now - tiny claws working their way up his neck.  And now teeth upon his flesh. The screams of terror and hatred poured from the ruined toboggan as the sun began to rise.

I stood unbelievably still in the empty kitchen as the fire alarm fretted at me. I might have felt more urgency had it been the continuous “ding-a-ling” cacophany of steel, but in this case there was only a recorded female voice calmly informing me that a fire had been reported. With an uncertainty that had to be shared, I strode into the main body of the office, feeling a hint of animal instinct press me to movement.

It began in a moment.

To the minds of those who knew it, it had already lived and died before its presence was registered - it became an instant memory.  But the sound had a life to live, and it had only just got started.

It was born as a blossom of air.  The gaseous embryo shuddered and oscillated as if extending petals into its new world.  Its direction of propagation was encoded into its genes indelibly; save freak gusts of wind or impassable physical structures it would continue its journey as long as it lived.

It was not a soul-less thing.  Its character and temperament were expressed by its timbre, magnitude, frequency, modulation; if you could see, each vibration contained a fingerprint of further oscillations, and another microcosm within each of those.  If any one of those folds or pinnacles was disturbed it would be entirely different.

It had been born well.  The turbulence of its initial hatching settled in a few moments of its life, and it cruised through the air unspoiled and yet folornly unheard.

What it was, was a message.  The information it carried was destined to be heard, but long travels and troubles would need to be surpassed before it could come to rest.

The years as it knew them passed with a dizzying series of events, each one modifying those which would follow.  On one occasion a corner of its being was cleaved off by a stone balcony on a brick building.  The dismembered limb it now dragged behind only lended its message greater weight, like a world-weary wisdom.

Much later in its fleeting life it suffered greatly when its extremeties were dashed hard on the ground beneath it, and also against the walls to its sides.  This had been a terrible time, and even the main body of the thing compressed tightly in morbid sympathy for what had happened.  That compression was not merely a flinch or shudder however, for the compression continued wholesomely when its battered parts rebounded and returned swiftly back towards the torso of the thing, yet again changed for good.

These glancing episodes continued throughout its life, and they did get easier over time.  It started to understand how it in fact needed them, so its message would be believed.

After a while, the approach of its destination could be felt.  As it grew nearer, the thing felt its age ever more and the compression which had begun in the trauma of its younger life began again, this time from head-on irrevocably.  It approached its target with no means to retreat.  It did not resist this new crisis because its most frontal extremeties were already drumming their message into its quarry. 

Soon the waves and loops of its body would follow, and its journey would be complete.

Already - beneath awareness - its quarry was aware of a change in perception.  The outer-reaches of the sound had primed a neural tuning dial and whatever came to follow would be keenly observed. 

The main field of awareness was not yet able to receive this new information but that did not matter.  The most timeless and naturalistic structures would not fail in their receipt of the message at a subliminal level.

Twilight had arrived in the world of the thing.  Its central torso no longer existed as it had.  It coarsed effortlessly into the end which it was given at birth in a sonic splash. 

As its energy was given away and transferred, the soul it had represented was cast out and revealed.

The recipient of the sound was changed forever.  The unnumerable vibrations altered the beholder’s own structures, complexities upon complexities which would exist eternally.

The buses never ran on time in Lenchworth. Nobody even bothered with them any more, not since that wiry, bespectacled basket-case of a man took over their management. 

It wasn’t his fault - he would say - that his chequerboard-coloured cat had claimed his favourite easy chair as its own, and rigged the gramophone to announce each hour of the day with ear-splitting military anthems, and draped itself in lavish jewellery, and generally established martial law in the household.

The creature’s coat was a genuine chequerboard design, somehow acquired on its night errands the day before it turned authoritarian. Its movements were like athletic clockwork, as if the reflexes and grace of a prize gymnast had found their way into a rare timepiece.

Its eyes were nothing special: green orbs sliced by jet-black pupils.  But behind them lay a soul which knew and wanted so much more than it had yesterday.

There had been no warning of this sudden change in character.  The previous day, the cat had been a skittish tabby by the name of Murphy, and the only wonder it inspired was at the diverse ballistic talents shared by all felines.

The fact that it never came home with a torn body and broken pride was explained away as there being no other animals in the area it could fight with.  Indeed, it had never suffered a scratch in its known lifetime.

The morning the cat changed was never fully understood; it’s never easy to remember exact events when all hell breaks loose.  The tall man who brought the creature meat each day after overseeing the buses had left the house and could not be found anywhere local. His wife had flown into a panic and would not go outside.  Children would make wagers on which hour of the day her screams would be heard.

An unlikely tale was doing the rounds.  The man who brought the milk each morning to that strange house had coaxed some words from the lady, perhaps aided by familiarity. Apparently the cat had calmly padded into her room and asked her where the jewellery was kept, while noisily working a wad of chewing gum in its mouth.  She had darted out and hid behind the shower curtain. 

Frozen still, she could only listen to the sounds coming from her room: the adolescent grumbling the cat somehow managed, the zipping exclamation of a gold chain being snatched by needle teeth through a scant gap in the drawers, the precise skittering and obscene chuckling as it surveyed itself in the dressing table mirror.

This apparent theft is perhaps less criminal when we learn that the dressing table did not belong to the lady, but was an heirloom from that despotic moggy’s deceased mother, Gertrude II.

Back to the buses.  They did not run because the supercat - self-dubbed King Kolin - insisted that all public transport be axed and their funding diverted to Kolin’s swiss-roll house.  The cat had demanded a mansion built from sponge treats and it would rule from its topmost reaches, its jewellery flashing in the sun.

The quiet pensioner laced his fingers at his breast, his woolen pullover furrowing like a fertile pasture. 

If you spied him now amid the porcelain mugs and tattered volumes you’d think him asleep, his workman’s boots anchored on the chair opposite, face at once restful and studious.

The watchman’s cabin huddled beneath the main body of the metalworks, somehow always submerged in its shadow as though protected by a secret charm. 

An autumn downpour gently assailed the hideout, collecting on one side of the corrugated roof and coursing down one starkly painted wall.

Outside, the din of the factory is distant and exotic.  A staccato electronic chime calls across the empty spaces, its echo redoubling its strangeness like spice.  An amplified voice calls out, its message arcane.

The watchman stretches one arm out to clasp a steaming night-time drink, his seat groaning like old houses.  The sight through his window is a liquid assembly of raincloud hues and he liked to stare directly into it, watching as the colours swap and shapes chase one another, knowing he need do nothing to earn such a show.

But he was tugged by the knowledge of his papers before him: they seemed superior, more questions than he could answer tonight yet more would appear tomorrow.  His lips pressed together tightly and his breath became hasty as he wondered if this time his old mind would fail.

Then the mood lifted as the muffled roar of a pallet truck filled the air.  The cabin was washed with an electric glare, followed by magenta as it pulled in ahead.

“Easy night of it then Gus?” the visitor asked in faraway tones through the tiny speaking holes in the window.  This was the Union’s day so fully two-thirds of its members were likely dreaming, drunken or both.

“I dunno mate I’m ‘avin’ an ‘ard time of it ‘ere.  Won’t get this finished tonight will I?  Look ‘ere - " and he recounted the blank areas on his forms in rapid-fire.

The driver whistled and grinned, his face framed by a greasy yellow hood.  “Better leave you to it then guv!” he announced before signalling farewell and climbing back into his cab.

At that moment the downpour grew, and the loud fascia of the receding vehicle washed into the ghoulish midnight textures in the window.

“Well thanks for all yer ‘elp” the watchman reproached, cradling his mug in both hands and easing back into his seat.  “Back around again,” he sighed, peering hawk-like at the paper.  “Five Across: Symphony”.

Man Flu.  Man Cold.  Influenza Masculinus. Every winter, whatever you want to call it, this raging infirmity seizes us like a junkyard dog to the throat, and breathes its dead-fish canine breath in our faces. There’s no known cure, yet it is indelibly scrawled across our winters (some unfortunates have been known to fall in summertime). The following account is written by a bona-fide sufferer of man-flu.

I write this in a childish scrawl. It’s hit my nervous system I see, the end can’t be far off. It takes my best efforts to steady my good hand enough to put the pen to paper at all.

Yesterday I noticed a tickly sensation in my ears and throat.  I thought nothing of it; after all you wouldn’t worry about an unusual lump in a tender place, at least not at first.  “It’s nothing,” I told myself, “just some dust in the sinuses”.  Nothing to be alarmed about.

This morning I woke in a different place: that awful corridor of a slow, rotting end.  I’m down with man-flu. The least I can do is write my memoirs.  Even that is hard, the ink is blotting as my body fatally desiccates itself through nose, eyes and ears.

I occasionally drift into a sleep annotated with delusions cartooning my predicament.  Just now I woke from a dream where I was stood on the battlements of a besieged fort, hurling buckets of boiling lemsip onto the invaders below.  The fort was spongy underfoot like a big bouncy castle of angry flesh.

Freeze-frame mid-sneeze.  See that expression?  A bitter scream, warning fellow men of the contagious peril I present. I have chewed up enough throat lozenges to rot my teeth and I wonder what would happen if I ate too many.  Gastro-intestinal distress of such magnitude the house has to be torn down in fear of a latter-day Chernobyl?  Perhaps they are habit-forming: I will be freebasing with the soothing liquid centres before long. Anyway I will find out, as I throw another wrapper onto the growing pile of papery junk beside my bed. 

I think I should tidy up, but I’m gravely ill, I can feel my heart pounding and my head feels full of filthy steam.  One more throat sweet should - oh no, I’ve run out! I shuffle into the cold outdoors all snug and warm in my duvet.  I can’t think of anyone being arrested for dressing in a duvet, although embarrassing exposes in the local papers are the last of my concerns now.  I make a mental note to burn the blankets later, it’s the least I can do for the remining human race.

Need.  Menthol.  Relief. Several OAPs look the other way as we cross paths; the sight of the half-dead in shrouds evidently touching a raw nerve. Here we are, K & M News and Food, I nearly passed it in my delerium.  I draw a hacking breath to greet the proprietor but he pulls his shirt over his face, exposing a pale hairy belly.  “Take everything you want and go!” he screeched through his polo shirt, backing off into his storeroom.  “Don’t come any closer!” I understood. 

I filled the pockets of my dressing gown under the duvet with 2 of each of the cold remedies on the counter before me.  It seemed important to mix the colours for some reason, kind of like you do with your veg.

Back in the house, faced with my infectious ignonomy I could see only one course of action.  It’s my social responsibility to fellow men that I quarantine myself fully.  I lie restlessly counting the days with only pompous radio plays for company. Outside, children point at the X mark I have placed on my door.  Their fathers silence them and hurry along. 

Perhaps somebody will find this diary entry in another time, an age where men can live free from the scourge of man-flu. The author has since made a full recovery.

Article from Organo Musica (Digital Subscriber Edition), April 2098

It’s notably rare for Organo Musica magazine to receive a hefty parcel with the cheesecake-inspired postmark identifying Bella Industries.

Five winters ago we last heard the silvery refrains of a Bella, darting through our offices like sunny reflections on a choppy lake surface.  Back then, we covered how well Bella Industries have implemented artificial nervous systems in the creation of such musical delights.

It still amazes us how much we can learn about rhythm and melody from fish.

The first reactions as the heavy gun-metal and glass unit shed its waxy autumn wrapping were of stunning build quality.  This sturdy little hobby-box will stand up to years of merciless jamming, either subjected to the dusty trials of studio life, or packed off to distant audiences.

The satchel-sized instrument fits snugly in two hands, its serpentine form reminding the user of its pedigree.  The insulated shell allows it to be held in bare hands, although any uncertainty of the core being at the correct temperature is relieved by a nifty electric-blue status indicator.  A glass window reveals the oil-filled interior for an aesthetic finish.

The instant the current was switched on, the hair-trigger sensors within the Trutta seemed to stalk out every scrap of musical material from the mind of its player, no matter how mundane.  Before full contact was achieved, our efforts at preparation- kicking cables free from our feet, shying away from the afternoon glare – resulted in icy flurries and funereal drones.  These artifacts – though a product of technical limitations – could be argued to augment the performance as they are artfully filtered and blended (unlike the shrill catcalls and belches which betray cheaper models).

Once contact was achieved however, the unit cast its delicate hooks into the imagination of its partner, drawing us all closer to hear the delicate clockwork chatterings we didn’t dare expect.  In fact this is the chief difference in this updated model.  In Bella’s words:

“The emotion in your finest music is driven by the ebb and flow, the call and answer.  The ingredient you need to achieve this is rhythm, or more generally time.  Bella Industries have invested heavily in chronologics to give you the edge of rhythm in your compositions.”

The bewildering synthetic mind at the heart of the Composer Pro is painstakingly modelled on all major cerebral structures in its target species (again, Brown Trout!) which far exceeds the minimalist design of other models in the same price range.  Instead of saving time in the workshop by reducing the model to several key brain areas, Bella have remained loyal to the neurological journals which claim there is no one ‘musical centre’ to isolate.

Although Bella products are modelled on a simple species, the choice of an aquatic organism is a wise one.  Making use of the superior sound propagation properties of their aquatic environment, swimbladder-bearing fish are highly sensitive to auditory stimuli.  This gives rise to interesting properties when the nervous system is studied and kicked into reverse gear to generate playful harmonies or delicate refrains by the sense-impulses of a skilled musician.

Theory aside, how does the Trutta really sound?  Put in the hands of our very own Brendan Synaptik (check out his tutorial on wet and dry scales in this month’s interactive content!) stole the show, winning instant friendship and co-operation with the Trutta.  With an infectious ease he conjoured a seascape of meandering whale-song and seashell percussion, perhaps teasing out archetypes from the mind of the creature at its heart.

However, new users should feel no qualms about diving right in.  Even bread-and-butter studies in concentration evoked unexpected delights.  For example, a steady visualisation of a sycamore tree yielded an ascending series of diabolical tritones, cleverly balanced by a catchy lyrical hook.

With heavy hearts we pack the Bella back into its box for the inevitable return.  If only we could afford one of our own!

Given the constraints of the target species, the Trutta Composer Pro is an aural treat.  Both serious hobbyists and heavyweight performers will see no end to its musical gifts.  We believe this Bella will not be matched, unless by something very special indeed.