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ISSN 1757-5419

Issue 10 – October 2010 Editorial Page 2 The Cure By Joseph D’Lacey Page 3 Illustrated By Martin Blanco Human Services, Inc. By Spencer Wendleton Page 7 Illustrated By Charlie Zacherl This is Dishonest Clay By Colin Meldrum Page 14 Awake By Craig Hallam Page 17 No Vacancy By Gary Reynolds Page 19 To Dream By E. Mockler Page 23 Illustrated By Candra Hope The Sphinx Next Door By Tom Cardamone Page 29 Illustrated By Mark Bell The Cruekus Effect By Andrew Hook Page 33 Illustrated By Mark Anthony Crittenden My Unshaped Form By Nicholas Day Page 38 Illustrated By Douglas Draper, Jr Evelyn’s Flames By Wayne Summers Page 44 Illustrated By Ian Welsh Cover By Matthew Freyer - www.matthewfreyerproductions.com Proofread By the Morpheus Tales Proofreaders – www.morpheustales.com/the%20team.htm All material contained within the pages of this magazine and associated websites is copyright of Morpheus

Tales. All. Rights Reserved. No material contained herein can be copied or otherwise used without the express permission of the copyright holders.

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Welcome to the tenth issue of Morpheus Tales Magazine! There have been times when I wasn’t sure we’d make it this far, launching a specialist fiction magazine in the middle of the worse economic crisis ever isn’t always the best idea. But we’re still here, and at the moment we’re still going strong. But we need your support. Subscribe to the magazine! Buy an extra copy of the issue your work appears in! Buy your mum a subscription, or a friend, or treat yourself to those missing early issues you missed out on. Go on, give in to temptation. All available issues of the magazine are available to buy on our website:

www.morpheustales.com The writers, artists, reviewers, proofreaders, and everyone else who helps work on the magazine deserve my heart-felt thanks. Without you Morpheus Tales Magazine would not be here, and it certainly wouldn’t look as good, or read as well, as it does. Morpheus Tales Magazine is your magazine! If quarterly isn’t enough for you, remember to check out the regular blogs on myspace:

www.myspace.com/morpheustales You can also get your genre fiction fix with our range of special issues. Just go to the Special Issues page of the website to see what’s on offer, including free magazines! Morpheus Tales #10 marks the beginning of year three for the magazine, and we hope that you’ll stick with us for the next three years. Enjoy the magazine, and Happy Halloween!! Adam

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The delicate needle gleamed in his slender fingers. He held it against the skin of the

patient’s forehead. After a deft flick, the tip of the needle disappeared below the skin. The patient didn’t move.

“Any sensation?” “Nothing at all.” With a gentle touch he revolved the copper handle of the needle, pushing and pulling it in

and out of the skin with a languid rhythm. “Anything now?” “It’s tingling. Feels nice.” “That’s good. Very good.” Another half an hour and the treatment would be complete. The woman on the treatment

table was beautiful. She lay on her back wearing only her bra and panties, pure white against her tanned skin. At various sites on her arms, legs, body and head similar ultra-fine needles penetrated her skin, protruding upwards like tiny markers. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was deep and easy. He couldn’t look too closely, couldn’t let himself think about her smooth skin and her soft raven hair. He lingered a moment longer before leaving the room.

“There’s a buzzer just by your right hand. If you feel any discomfort or distress don’t hesitate to use it. I’m right outside.”

“I’m fine. Very relaxed already.” He moved on to the next consultation room where a young mother waited with her five year

old child. He could sense the sickness in the child immediately. The little boy had leukaemia. He guessed the facts too: the hospital could do nothing for him. No marrow donor could be found. Without help he would die soon. The mother was strained to the point of breaking. The child was pale and silent, saving its human energy for death but his mother couldn’t hold on any longer.

“He’s the only… the only thing in this world… that matters. I have nothing else.” Her sobs were choking the words. Still she tried to stay in control. “No one else can help. Can you do something? Oh please God, save him.” Then she was weeping, letting go. “Let me take him.” His voice was so soothing, so compassionate. Almost eagerly, she let go of her boy and he,

with great care, laid her doomed child on the treatment couch. Moments later he escorted the mother out to the crowded reception area to wait while his handiwork took effect.

“You can stop worrying now. In a few minutes he’ll be better than he’s ever been.” Some of the people in the reception area had noticed them and were whispering. “- That’s him!” “- talking to him yourself soon enough… ” “- Dr. Äckler, miracle man…” “- doesn’t hurt at all… ” “- greatest healer in the world… ” He could hear them all and hated their meaningless chatter. Yet he pitied them too, so

deeply. They were ignorant fools skating over the surface of their lives, disconnected and understanding nothing. But he was changing that now. He would heal as many as he could before the news of his work spread too far and then he would disappear again as suddenly as he had come.

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Letter to Tyler Grove from Human Services, Inc. Dear Mr. Grove, You have been selected for the yearly harvesting campaign. You are one out of two million

chosen for this process. Please fill out this comment card accurately; there will be heavy consequences for falsifying information. Human Services, Inc. urges you to begin working on your essay as to why you should be spared the harvesting process immediately. In the meantime, keep a steady diet of red meat and fats until otherwise directed. The postage is paid on the comment card. Please return within 3-5 business days.

Best Regards, Jules Redding Human Services, Inc. Marketing Manager Completed Comment Card Name: Tyler Grove Sex: Male Weight: 235 Age: 32 Married or Single: Single Exercise: Four to five times a week, I run at the track in Cider Creek Park. Have you ever received a blood transfusion? No. How many sexual partners have you had? Answer honestly. Seven. Have you ever given blood or received a blood transfusion? No. Please list any of the follow diseases you have or have had (Hepatitis A, B, or C, AIDS,

Gonorrhoea, Syphilis, Gout, Diabetes)? Diabetes. Do you drink soda, and if so, how many glasses a day? Yes. Five to seven a day. How many times a week do you enjoy fast food? Three to six. Does your family have any history of heart disease, hypertension, or depression? No. Other comments: Please don’t eat me. Text Message from Tyler Grove to Best Friend James Unger Those people sent me a piece of paper that said they’re going to eat me unless I write a

damn good essay. I’m a goner. It’s been nice knowing you. Excerpt from “The Origin of Modern Day Sub Homo Sapiens” In Tyler Grove’s Book Collection The Sub Homo Sapien label is a true misnomer. The classification of “Sub” indicates

they’re below humans, but in truth, they’re advanced human beings. Over the course of fifty years, what medical professionals considered a birth defect has now been proven to be an advancement of the human body. We’ve turned a new page in evolution. The Sub Homo Sapiens enjoy a twenty percent larger brain. They carry three more pints of blood than the average human being and they have three hearts instead of one. If one heart has a heart attack or stops, the other two act as “reserve hearts” and can turn on when the other heart shuts down. This lends them triple the life expectancy of the average human being. Blood flows in their circulatory system at twice the speed of ours. They excrete digestive matter on the hour every hour.

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Qufu, China. He blew on the fresh carving, smoothed a finger over its beak, and passed it

like an egg to my hands, which were gloved in grey claywater. “Fenghuang,” I whispered in grateful admiration. It looked anything but delicate with its hybrid beast-parts: the neck of a serpent, the breast and wings of a goose, the muscular hindlimb of a stag on one side, of a doe on the other. I unfolded my legs and stood, hanging it over my head opposite the serpentine, wooden dragon that hung over my apprentice’s head. He watched, smiled unsociably, clapped the wood dust from his hands and went to working his clay.

A girl entered my hut from the August grass of the village. She looked around. Mine was the abnormal home of an abnormal woman, and this was an obsessively normal girl. The hut was wooden and real, brown and white, not painted. The girl was brown and painted white. Her blackened eyes goggled at the upper corner of the hut, where the wooden dragon danced in the August breeze. Then her chin floated towards the opposite corner. Her lips puckered and wondered at the fresh, imperially symbolic sculptures.

I recognized the girl immediately. Her lover was a client of mine and would soon be a student. She looked away from me to her right and said in the language of the new Qin Dynasty, which I only vaguely understood, but that was enough. “Your house is like a palace, Master… ” And she bowed low, making an impressive angle with her body.

“Fenghuang,” I provided. She jumped at the sound of my voice, and turned to look at me and then looked away and then looked back at me. “You may speak to my face,” I told her, watching her from the floor where I now worked the grey clay with my hands. “My name is Fenghuang.”

“Oh,” she whispered, looking up at the birdlike animal over my head. “Then this is the Fenghuaaang… ” She approached the carving above me with quick, short steps. “Beautiful as the Empress. Fenghuaaang… Then this is a house of honesty.”

“ I am Fenghuang,” I reinstructed, and then, gesturing to the wooden creature, “This is my likeness.”

The girl was quite near now. “Oh!” she gasped. “You are so white, mistress. So white.” Then, whispering skeptically, bending at her elegant angle again and staring as if to penetrate the outermost layer of my face, “Is that not paint?” But she noticed my transparent eyes and caught sight of my red insides, and like skipping lightning, she looked away at the ceiling.

She stood straight after a moment, twirled in a pitter-patter on her toes and bowed to her right again. “Master, forgive me. Am I in the House of Scribes?”

“You are,” I answered. She looked at me and looked down at my muddy hands as I thrust a thumb into my clay

piece. “You, your wrists have the grace of a… scribe, mistress.” “Mm-hm.” The girl paused, lips scrunched nervously. She watched me out of the corner of her eye and

then flung herself at my feet, sweeping dust and clay with her wide sleeves. “I am in the House of Scribes?” she hissed.

I nodded, not looking up, rubbing the length of my neck and letting my breasts swell deliberately with a long sigh.

“They say in the streets that the House of Scribes is the House of Gods,” she contradicted.

6

A single column of light spears the darkness, dancing with a thousand motes of dust. Your

eyes twitch and shriek painfully. That old familiar taste of tin fills your mouth and you wretch against the stench of your own breath. A sob shakes your frame.

Not again. Dear God, please let me be dreaming. You scramble around the earthen floor, feeling the dirt begin to stick to your hands. You

know why. There is a lantern, and matches. You should know; you put them there. Somehow

candlelight doesn’t seem to hurt so bad. You turn your head against the first flare and soak in the smell of phosphorous. Guttering at first, the lantern eventually lights. The flickering luminescence does little to penetrate the darkness, but basking in its glow makes you feel somehow more human.

A cloud must cover the sun because the agony in your eyes dwindles and the room swims into focus. You have never been here before. Then again, you are used to waking up in places like this. After a while they all became the same. They are your hotels, your hostels; they are your womb when the sun begins to climb.

You move aside the old dresser that had been your sanctuary for the day. It scrapes like a tomb lid but you are not afraid. The house above is not empty, but they will not hear you. Not any more.

The cellar floor is decorated with a gruesome Rorschach. You see faces in its pattern. Faces whose owners you did not know but with whom you have shared a fatal intimacy. You see yourself dancing there, spinning in drunken ecstasy. You see yourself through a haze, the fog of gluttony heavy on your mind.

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Malcolm stood motionless, rain pouring down his face, as the spectral man in the long black

coat and Stetson somersaulted towards him. The man seemed oblivious to the weather, expertly weaving in and out of the un-noticing commuters rushing to catch their trains home; newspapers held above their heads. Steadily, the somersaulter approached him; head, feet, head, feet, head, feet. Spray flicking high into the air with each rotation.

A drain cover to Malcolm’s left rattled noisily, wobbling in its casing, then blew up into the street with a loud pop and a long, drawn-out hiss of steam. The somersaulter twisted, executed a perfect dive and disappeared down the hole. The cover clattered back into place.

Malcolm grabbed the nearest commuter, a young man - no older than twenty-five - his long grey raincoat affording him little protection from the heavy downpour. He yanked him, perhaps too roughly, by the arm, extracting him from the stream of homeward-bound human traffic.

“Hey, d’you see that?” The man blinked, eyes vacant for a split second. “Hey, get off me!” He released the man’s arm. “Sorry... but you must have seen that! The acrobat... he

disappeared. Down the drain.” The commuter stared at him for a moment then shook his head, turned and integrated

himself back into the stream of commuters. Another bleedin’ nutter. # # #

Martha Saunders stared out of the seventh floor window of NLTech. The same window, in the same office, that she’d had since the project first went live a little over two years ago. Traffic on the freeway was quiet this morning, as it always was. Only now was she beginning to get used to the emptiness of the world.

She turned back to her desk and looked at the photo of Arthur McGann hanging on the wall directly behind her chair. The project creator. The man who had solved so many of the world’s problems with a single idea. A genius who, when the moment came, refused to embrace the benefits of the technology he had created. She respected him for that, even if she didn’t fully understand his motives.

At first, there’d been a number of glitches with the system, the same as you’d expect from any new installation. Emergency patches were rolled out, data recovery points set in case anything went wrong during the upgrades, but it never did. They’d been running bug-free for over twelve months now and her job for the last year had consisted mainly of monitoring, checking and running reports; mundane tasks that most people would find boring. Martha felt differently. This was a job where she could really make a difference to millions of lives.

Idly, she rattled the space bar on her keyboard. The machine whirred back into life following its brief hibernation. She opened her browser and flicked to her favourite news site, scanning the headlines hungrily. The first browse of the day was always the best:

“China population static at 34.2 million” “Arizona re-forestation project complete” “Tax on 2nd child rises to $100,000 per year” Martha nodded slowly to herself. A lot had been achieved, and in such a short space of time.

Things were definitely moving in the right direction. # # #

.

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“The dream always starts the same,” I said. “Tell me,” he prompted. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing my eyes. “I’m in a coffin. I can feel dirt

under my fingernails and something is squirming against my knee.” “And then?” He was sitting at his desk, fingers pressed together in a steeple. I couldn’t see

his eyes, they were hidden behind the glare on the lenses of his glasses. I could only see the arcs of his eyebrows, faintly raised, urging me on.

I told him. # # #

“I’m sorry, we’ve run out of time,” he said about halfway through, clearing his throat. “Oh, yes, of course,” I said, looking in surprise at the clock. I must have lost myself in the

dream. “I can call in a scrip for valium to help with your sleep until the next time,” he said. My shoulders slumped. I was looking for help, not drugs. But I didn’t protest. Maybe we’d

get to it. # # #

The rest of the day, I tried to shake my dispiritedness. It was a beautiful late-spring day and I watched the ducks swimming on the pond in Boston Common, with the giant swans and their loads of passengers gliding by, and the squirrels chasing each other around the trees. Children cried, fighting over the brass ducklings, hiding their tears in their mothers’ skirts.

Eventually I made my way home, the sun playing hide and seek with me, shuttering behind tall buildings on its evening descent. I found myself growing wearier with every step. I couldn’t drag myself up the stairs so I took the elevator up to 6B - to the same empty apartment, the same dark stove, the same cold bed to which I had been coming home for the past year and a half. Inside the door, I collapsed on the couch and fell down, down, down, back into the darkness.

# # # Into the coffin. I pressed against the lid that hovered two inches from my face. It opened easily - not buried

yet. I sat up and dirt fell in little rivers down the front of my suit. I looked around and saw that I was in a cellar or basement. Everything smelled dank, and I was so cold.

A rat scuttled up the side of the coffin, regarding me with a gimlet eye, its whiskers and nose twitching. I started, and it gave a surprised squeak, losing its grip and falling back to the floor. With my sudden movement, a grub stopped squirming, squashed between my knee and the narrow side of the old-fashioned coffin, which was cut closely to fit the occupant.

I struggled to climb out of the coffin, which was not designed for graceful exit. I guessed it wasn’t designed for an exit at all. There were no windows and the floor and walls of the room were dirt. I couldn’t figure out how I’d gotten into this place, never mind the dirt on my suit and under my fingernails. Then I saw a shaft of sunlight dying on the floor. Dust motes floated like fairy lights, illuminated by its brilliance. Brushing myself off, I went to its source and saw a door above me. I pushed on it as I had pushed on the lid of the coffin. It rose, letting in a little more golden-red light. Instinctively I stepped back into the shadows as they grew with the descending twilight. No one was out there.

I poked my head into the purple gloaming. A bat circled and dipped above, doing an interpretive dance, led by the thousand winged insects wheeling blindly through the night. I watched, fascinated.

9

Occasionally my neighbour’s mail gets mixed up with mine. When this happens I simply

slide the envelope under her door. This time it was a package. I could knock; she’s always home. But my neighbour is a Sphinx and best avoided. All those riddles. At first I imagined she was too large to leave the apartment, but realized this was ridiculous because she would have been too big to fit through the door in the first place, though who can say how much a Sphinx grows, or what they eat, although our assumptions of the eternal intuit a certain constancy. Dieting can not and should not be an aspect of immortality.

The package was the exact size of a box of checks, and equally nondescript. I told my boyfriend about this conundrum over lunch. Since I had moved to Brooklyn lunch

had become more significant for us, and for me at least, a bit strained. We don’t see each other so often anymore. Not unless I stay the night at his place in Manhattan. He refuses to stay over at my apartment and in the three months since I moved he has come over just once, to my housewarming party. That night, he placed the plant he brought as a gift on the kitchen table and launched into an invective against the length of the commute. I ignored it and let my martini settle in. He left early when I’d expected him to stay the night. I had invited the elves from accounting and they arrived late. I wanted to see how he would interact with them; my place is so small it would have been virtually impossible for them not to co-mingle. The party was a success. Friends I hadn’t seen in years came. Everyone complimented my new place; even for a studio it is more spacious than most Manhattan apartments. They deposited gifts, bottles of wine and funny napkins, in the kitchen. While I made drinks people looked around, laughing if they had the same Ikea furniture.

# # # We both work in Midtown, so meeting for lunch is easy, routine. I told him the plant he had

brought died. “Likely from over watering,” he said, coolly. “They have wings, don’t they?” He turned his fork. A purple vein of radish slithered

between two chunks of lettuce. “No, that’s a griffin.” I sipped Diet Coke through a straw, annoyed. He probably knew that,

but always feigned ignorance or disinterest when the subject of Faery Folk came up. “Anyway, this is the Post Office’s fault. Let them take care of it.”

I brightened. He had a way of seeing past a problem, straight through to the solution. He effeminately dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin, an affectation he knew bothered me. One eyebrow arched in exaggerated surprise as I paid the bill. He is insistent that we always go Dutch and keep things even. I think there’s nothing wrong with the occasional exuberance to counterbalance our mutual thriftiness. And I bet deep down he agrees. After all, he’s the first man to hold my hand in public. Whenever we cross the street he grabs me, offering a sure hand, watching traffic while pulling me toward safety.

# # # When I arrived home, the package seemed discoloured at one corner. An oil stain appeared

to be spreading. I held it to the light. Was it already like this? I could wait until the weekend. On Saturday I could explain the mix-up to the mailman, and

let him put it in the Sphinx’s box. And it was a good excuse to not stay at my boyfriend’s place. Let him miss me for a change, and maybe motivate him to, at least consider, coming out to visit me. The mailman is taciturn, however. Rude. Once, in passing, I casually tried to fish out my mail while he sorted letters. He violently slammed the mailbox shut, forcing me to quickly recoil. Holding my fingers in mock-injury, I swallowed my complaint as he shot me a withering look.

Was the package this heavy yesterday? This was a ridiculous error on his part. Her mail is addressed so singularly. Sphinx. Not even

a street address or a zip code. And anyway, the weekend was several days away. I couldn’t wait for the mailman.

10

When she said cruekus, it all fell apart. We couldn’t have known, but that simple

mispronunciation led us down a road that hadn’t prior existed. We slipped headlong into another reality, one that didn’t know we were there and where we didn’t belong. It took us a year to realise what had happened. And by that time, of course, it was too late to go back.

Mandy was three years older than me. A social worker in her mid-thirties. I’d only just turned that way, and was still finding myself, wondering when life was supposed to begin. Mandy suggested that it was hitting thirty rather than forty, contrary to the popular saying, but that was only because she thought she’d turned herself around. And her saying that made me feel good, because I knew I was part of that. Part of her new life.

She told me she’d turned to social work because of experiences she’d had in her past. I never questioned her about them, the fact that they had such an effect suggested that they were well left alone. Anyway, I wasn’t interested in her work, I was never one for caring. So long as she was happy and content that was enough for me, I didn’t need the specifics. Although I did like hearing her say how much she loved me.

“My love for you would melt all the tigers in the world.” “You’ve nicked that from Murakami.” “Have I now?” “You know you have. Norwegian Wood. Come up with something else.” “My love for you would freeze all the bears in India.” “Hmmmm...that’ll do.” When I first met Mandy I was working in a call centre, persuading mostly old women to buy

lottery tickets to help charities. As far as I knew it was a legitimate organisation, and I had no qualms in signing people up for it. The way I saw it, even if it wasn’t legit, the ticket purchasers still believed they were helping a good cause. They got the feel-good-factor, regardless of whether it was genuine or not.

It was Mandy who answered the phone on one of my random cold calls, automatically assigned by a computer. We later laughed that it could have been anyone who took that call. In my more secure moments I even suggested she would have dated whoever called her, but we both knew that it was fate, kismet, however you wanted to describe it that eventually led us into each others arms. I mean, what were the chances of that happening? Next to none.

I liked the sound of her voice. She liked the sound of mine. We had a few jokes. She even bought a couple of tickets into the lottery. Said she was feeling lucky. So was I. When I took her details I saw that she only lived twenty miles away and we agreed to meet for a drink. My supervisor was listening into the call, but she didn’t mind because I’d already made the sale. Sometimes I wonder whether she should have stopped me.

The pub was called the Dog and Bucket, and was midway between us. Mandy had raven-dark hair, a full figure, and a smile that would melt a tiger. She bought the first round of drinks, and I knew that I would fall in love. Not that this was unusual for me. I usually fell in love first, and then took time falling out of it. Sometimes it felt that I lived my life, although not intentionally, in reverse.

I can’t remember what we spoke about, but it was probably her work. She enjoyed it. I’ve yet to meet a social worker before or since who said the same thing. But she explained this was due to her background, that she felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes, then turning to help her fellow man. All I did was sit there and wonder how long it would take to get into her knickers.

So we dated a few months, and then I moved into her place. I had nothing to lose. I let the job go. Found another working in a sandwich bar. There was a disparity between us in terms of the income I brought into the household, but she didn’t mind. I think she enjoyed the fact that she was controlling the finances, and – by default – somehow controlling me.

Of course, I let her think that. And to some extent it was true.

11

“Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge” - Horace Mann

His approach was slow and by the hour, signalled by nothing more than a shadow stretching

across the silent expanse of the American frontier, from one end of the world to the other, from the earth to the firmament.

Dust rose from the baked earth and collected; through detritus his form became recognizable; in the third hour he was but a shapeless mass; then unshaped form took on arms and legs; in the fifth hour you could make out his eyes; his soul; he walked of his own accord; his horse, drawn by reigns, followed from behind.

At such a distance, it is near impossible to say exactly what he wore, though something on his person caused an intense reflection, a brilliant shimmer that served as a kind of beacon across the flat, silent expanse of land. As he draws close, occasional cruel wind whips across the plains, barely masking what could only be the traveller’s whistling.

A hymn? Closer yet, the trod of horse hooves, though it is that bitter reflection that holds the attention

of strangers. A dull and bulbous cloud rolls overhead and as it passes in front of the sun, the reflection

mutes as to reveal its source: a polished crucifix dangles from a chain wore ‘round the neck of the traveller. Next to that crucifix is another and another.

A dozen all in all, hanging from their respective chains. They are gold, silver, copper and wood, a cornucopia of material paying tribute to the vestiges of redemption.

They are worn by Charles Washington Biddle, a young man poorly dressed in haggard looking black slacks held aloft by black suspenders and a once white-collar shirt now stained by sweat, time and indifference, unbuttoned to the navel but tucked into the trousers. The crucifixes rest against his bare chest. He smells of copper and salty skin.

Biddle ceases to whistle and mounts his horse. He rides slack, squinty-eyed and scratches the red stubble on his face. He digs into the pocket of his slacks and pulls out a battered pair of bifocals, which he puts on and glares into the distance. He widens his eyes and leans forward, like a cat on the hunt.

Biddle sits upright and pulls an 1873 Colt’s Peacemaker from a holster at his hip. He pulls the hammer back until it’s at half-cock and then pulls back the ejector rod under the barrel. He opens the loading gate and fills every chamber with .45 calibre death.

In the tenth hour, Biddle rides slowly onto the desolate farm of Gideon Low. Gideon is a stocky man, grizzled by time spent in the elements. He looks impossibly old, though nothing about him seems frail. He is as hard as the ground he sows.

The old farmer claws at the earth with a homemade garden hoe. In the distance behind him stands his house, built of a dry and splintered wood, though there is no tree on this plain as far as the eye can see. Gideon halts his labour to take a drink from his canteen but stops before the first drop can touch his lips. He smells the air. Something bitter lingers in the wind, like copper and rotten clothes.

A young man’s drawl cuts through Gideon’s calm, “If only they were wise, if only they understood. They would know their future.”

Gideon takes his drink. He raises his hands and turns to his inquisitor. Charles Washington Biddle stands no more than twenty feet from the old farmer, his arms

crossed at his chest, the Colt in his right hand. He studies the old farmer from head to toe. Gideon’s dress is similar to Biddle’s, except Gideon’s trousers are tucked inside knee-high leather boots and he wears a ragged duster.

12

Evelyn flicked the cigarette butt into the air, sending it cartwheeling into the tall grass

further down the river bank. For a few brief moments it flared red against the blue sky, its wispy trail of dirty grey smoke disappearing into the breezeless afternoon.

Having dispatched the last of her cigarette, she snatched her school bag and pulled the flaps open to reveal a battered file, a couple of dog-eared text books and a slew of crumpled pages, mostly uncompleted homework. Finding the small bottle of Poison she had swiped from the chemist, she took the lid off and gave her neck and wrists a good spray. She screwed up her nose and coughed as she put the lid back on. It wasn’t her favourite scent, but it was her favourite price, free! And it did manage to cover the smell of cigarette smoke better than other fragrances she had tried.

She looked up at the slothful clouds, at the great mountains of cumulus that were drifting aimlessly across the vast blueness above her. She pulled a face and decided that she hated clouds. They reminded her too much of herself, aimless. Beneath her, a small beetle struggling over and around the flattened grass, caught her attention. She tapped it on the back, bringing it to a halt. No doubt it was wondering whether it was going to be something’s dinner or not. After a brief pause it started moving again, each small blade of grass an obstacle. Evelyn must have appeared Himalayan to the tiny insect.

She picked up her lighter and started playing with it. Bright sparks and small orange-blue flames appeared again and again before she held her finger down and gave the beetle a taste of its heat. The small black bug made a hurried dash but Evelyn’s flame stayed upon it. Seconds elapsed before the bug keeled over, its body charcoaled, its tiny legs bent above it, singed to stumps.

“God, I’m bored,” she groaned. In the back of her mind she wondered what the point of cutting school was when she ended

up being more bored than if she had gone. Yet the thought was fleeting. Of course this was better than school. Anything was better than school. At the end of the year she would leave and get a job somewhere, perhaps in Jones’ Supa Valu. It was only a small supermarket, but it was better than frying chips.

Sighing, she pulled another cigarette out of the packet, lit it, and stood up. After slinging her bag over her shoulder, she trudged up the side of the riverbank and across the car park, which separated Jim’s Motor Shop from Newtown Grower’s Market. The market was owned by a Vietnamese family whom she never tired of harassing. But she wasn’t prejudiced. She hated everyone in equal measure regardless of their ethnic backgrounds.

Mr Nguyen was turning some tomatoes over so that any imperfection was hidden from public view. It was an old trick and one that assumed the general public was too stupid to inspect the fruit for themselves.

Evelyn smiled. My Nguyen looked up smiling, though the corners of his mouth soon turned southwards

when he saw who it was. A frown clouded his face. He regarded her through narrow eyes. Realising the effect she was having, she lingered, pretending to inspect some bananas, her

every move scrutinised by the middle-aged proprietor. She dragged on her cigarette and held the ash-laden remnants over the bananas, her eyes watching Mr Nguyen for the reaction she so loved. She lifted her forefinger as though to tap the ash off the cigarette.

Mr Nguyen inhaled sharply. Evelyn moved her hand away from the bananas and tapped the ash so that it fell on the

concrete footpath by her feet.

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