The Spinetinglers Anthology 2011 Read online

  Sometimes I forgot she wore it at all, it was the only thing she cared for, besides me, and all she truly owned.

  Her arm hooked through mine as we walked to the car made me feel on top of the world.

  Time flew by, as was often the case, and it seemed that no sooner had the lights gone down then we were applauding as the curtain fell.

  Now came the part I secretly dreaded; running the gauntlet of friends and colleagues, their eager curiosity and barbed questions.

  I felt a little better for holding Shari’s hand in the darkness of the theatre, such a daring and delicious slice of intimacy. The lights came up and we filed out as quickly as we could, but as I feared in the foyer we were spotted and someone called my name.

  Hiding my grimace we were swept up by the crowd. One or two of the fellows were amiable enough, but pomposity and arrogance were sadly in abundance, there was laughter and innuendo at my beloved’s expense and I forced myself to go along with it.

  Shari and I were separated, the wives of the gentlemen taking her to one side.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t listen to the ladies’ conversation; Shari was a guarded person, shy and uncomfortable when pressed as she was now.

  I could just imagine the snide remarks and comments; vindictive for no other reason than she was more beautiful than they were, and she a stranger in their court.

  I cannot speculate on what was said and, in truth the details of that scene are ill remembered, perhaps she looked to me for aid and saw me laughing along with the gentlemen’s crude swagger.

  Perhaps in acting the façade I lost my temper and raised my voice to someone, for an instant when she needed me the most I was no longer the person she had fallen in love with.”

  My Great Uncle paused once more and thanked me as I refilled his brandy glass.

  “When I noticed she had gone my panic fluttered like butterflies in the stomach, wrenching myself free from the crowd and the shouts and hands of those I once thought of as friends and colleagues now nothing more than bitter obstacles in my path.

  I searched frantically for her but by the time I realised that she had fled she was nothing more than a blur of movement up ahead.

  If I had been a younger man I may have run and caught her but sadly I was not, I followed with all my haste but arrived just moments too late to prevent it.

  My hurried footsteps and shouts scared off her attackers, two young men not much older than she was herself, it was a mugging, I had seen them before and prayed she was unhurt.

  When I reached her she threw her arms around me and sobbed my name, at that moment I vowed never to leave her side again.

  She could not, or would not stand, all she could do was cry and she cried hard enough to break my heart, to shatter it as one shatters glass.

  She held me as if I were a rock in a turbulent sea and her sobbing pained me so, finally I could pry her free to look her in the face, feeling my own tears fall as I did.

  Such a shock I had that it almost stopped my heart and cooled the tears on my face like ice water. My beautiful Shari was as old as I, older, her face lined and hair white.

  With great effort she brushed my cheek with her hand as she had done a thousand times before, her touch now roughened by age, I noticed they had stolen her choker with the tiny ruby in; and it was the death of her.

  She grew thin and light every second I held her and when her sobbing faded and her breath whistled to a stop my tears started anew, I wailed like a child as I held her desiccated corpse in my arms.

  I longed to embrace her remains but they were so brittle to do so would have been to crush them.

  Grief swallowed me whole, I remember little of the days after except wanting to be with her, a pain I had never felt stab so sharply ever before and a great many tears, so many tears that I have been unable to cry properly ever since.

  The choker was her mother’s and that was why she never took it off, it was also her mother’s curse passed down to her and if she ever took it off…”

  He never finished the sentence.

  “Magic and love are the two greatest mysteries of the world.”

  I sat astonished, numbed almost as his tale was ended, a tear I admit in my eye.

  “A man can be haunted by failure far easier than he can be haunted by ghosts.” My Great Uncle concluded. “I am weary now.” He said, turning away to hide the pain and sadness in his face.

  That was the last time I ever saw him, you can die of a broken heart but slowly.

  It eats away at you like a cancer over the years and I know now what a true and faithful love is but I have never had anything like it, and I’m not sure if anyone ever will.

  Kirlia

  By Tony Walsworth

  Carlos chuntered a few expletives under his breath and then threw the dregs of his vodka to the back of his throat. He hunched over his laptop in the dimness of his home office, his round face a pallid glow in the screen light.

  He had writer’s block. He'd been sitting there for the past two hours faced with the end of all nightmares for a middle aged man in his profession; a blank document. Getting drunk usually helped. It encouraged his dark side. But not today.

  He stood up. His stiffened neck muscles tore as he moved. He found the vodka bottle and poured himself another measure or two of liquid inspiration.

  His eyes were dry and tired, which didn't help. He wore contact lenses; had done for years. He'd started with the hard plastic ones and never had a single problem with them. You could clean them with washing up liquid, bleach them, whatever you wanted. Just give them a good rinse and you were off.

  His optician had recommended that he change to a different material. Something to do with gas transfer apparently. Bollocks! New stuff comes in, old stuff goes out. That's the way it is. Which one was he, he wondered.

  The new lenses had been a pain in the arse since day one. They grabbed at his eyes like fucking Blu-Tack. He wanted to go back to his old ones but after a two week trial period waiting for his eyes to 'adjust' to the new ones he found that he couldn't tolerate them anymore.

  The jelly ones also cost a bloody small fortune and if his writer's block continued he wouldn't be able to afford them anyway.

  He sat at his desk hoping that a few more minutes of mental distraction might help him crawl out of his stagnation. He launched his internet browser and typed 'contact lens suppliers' into the search bar.

  Google did its thing and presented him with the first ten of nine hundred and sixty six thousand listings. He grunted to himself. You'd think that with all their cash and brain power, they'd be able to narrow it down a bit fucking more than this.

  He tried the top six or seven links. The prices were so similar it was as if they all knew each other. He could practically hear them all bloody sniggering in the background.

  He moved on a few pages and picked one at random, kirlia.co.ua. Somewhere in Eastern Europe by the look of the address suffix.

  The screen went blank for half a second and then filled with several small pictures surrounded by Cyrillic text. He copied a few chunks into an online translator. It was all the usual claptrap about 'special coatings' and 'you to see in sharp clearness what is the real'. Not worth the effort. He trawled down through the page until he got to the price list. He was pleasantly surprised. They were less than half of what he currently paid, including shipping, and let's face it, the vodka told him, so long as he entered the prescription correctly a lens is a lens, right?

  He took the risk, filling in the dialogue boxes from the details on his current lens package as best he could and ticking all of the check boxes. He made his payment, which was courteously accepted, and then sat back feeling happy at having stuck it to the man.

  Remarkably, his consignment arrived only eight days later. Now that's fucking service, he thought to himself. That's what happens when you pick a company that actually wants to do business.

  As luck would have it his current lenses were the two weekly variety and wer
e about due for the dung pile. He pulled open the packaging as he mounted the stairs heading for the bathroom mirror.

  The manufacturers had even seen fit to include a small bottle of rinsing fluid. No extras. He liked that.

  He fumbled about with the individual foil sealed containers and, after carefully rinsing each lens, he popped them in.

  “Wow!” He exclaimed aloud. Talk about comfort. He really couldn't feel them at all, and as for clarity, it was like watching HDTV for the first time. He stared around him, hardly daring to blink in case it all went pear shaped. Everything that he looked at had a real hard edge to it. Even the smallest and most distant objects seemed to stand alone, with every line diamond sharp, almost sparkling.

  Carlos smiled to himself as he left the house.

  He had a meeting with his publisher that morning and things always went the same way. He turned up on the dot, and she didn't. He'd brought a sandwich with him to pass the time, and anyway it would give him a chance to chat up that receptionist of hers. The blonde one with the nice arse.

  He strolled into the reception area noticing details around him that he'd never even known were there before. The receptionist greeted him with her usual fixed and pearly smile.

  “What can we do for you today Mr. Soames?” She asked cheerfully.

  “A cup of strong coffee wouldn't go amiss gorgeous.” Carlos replied quickly. “I'm here to see Claris.”

  Her face didn't change, but something did. It seemed to Carlos that maybe a light had gone out further along the corridor. The place just suddenly darkened. She turned away from him.

  Carlos shrugged lightly to himself and then wandered off in search of somewhere to sit. Even the chairs looked different, newer somehow. They had a kind of brightness to them. He sat down in a random seat and pulled a plastic sandwich bag from his jacket pocket. He looked around him for something to read. As he scanned the reception desk a light came on from somewhere behind the divider. It was bright, multicoloured and cloud like. As soon as it came, it vanished. Then the telephone rang. Each time the phone chimed, the lights came back, dancing over it in flashing hues, in time with the ring tone.

  The receptionist rushed to answer it with Carlos' coffee in her hand and then patched the call through before replacing the receiver.

  “God.” Carlos commented. “That must get right on your tits after a while.”

  “What?” The receptionist answered, gathering up the coffee cup.

  “That bloody phone.” Carlos answered. “Specially designed for deaf people is it?” He almost slapped himself across the face. What the hell would a deaf person need a telephone for? The receptionist gave him a quizzical glance before walking around with his coffee. She put it onto the small table in front of him.

  He watched her bend over, trying not to look as if he was staring in at her cleavage. He nodded his gratitude and she turned to leave. This was the best part, Carlos drooled inwardly. God, that arse was a fucking work of art. He watched her buttocks sway back and forth but found himself being distracted by something in her lower back as she walked. There was a kind of otherworldly glow about it, as if she were being lit up from within. He looked harder, forcing his eyes to dissect the image.

  There really was something else there. A small iridescence that moved inside of her. His focus sharpened and he could make out lines in the light. The lines defined a tiny foetal silhouette.

  He blinked hard and the image faltered. He should have been amazed but the only thing that occurred to him was that some bastard had knocked her up before he'd had a chance to get in there.

  His head began to ache and he felt a little dizzy. Maybe these lenses needed some getting used to after all. If Claris didn't show up soon he'd go home. Five minutes later she arrived but Carlos was too distracted by now to offer anything productive. They decided to postpone for a few days.

  Carlos walked out of the office. The receptionist, who was on the phone, gave him a tired smile.

  “Congratulations by the way.” Carlos called out.

  “What?” She answered, almost dropping the receiver.

  “The baby.” Carlos smiled. “When's it due?”

  “You can tell?” She whispered, standing up and holding her stomach in. “Already?”

  “Let's call it a knack.” Carlos replied. “My dad was a gynecologist. He used to work weekends 'cos he liked to keep his hand in!”

  His quip fell on stony ground. He walked out. Some people have got no sense of fucking humour.

  As he stepped onto the pavement it was like walking into a circus tent. Everything glowed brighter than daylight. If he didn't know better he'd suspect that someone had spiked his coffee. The last time he'd seen anything like this was in 1988 when he and his girlfriend had shared an experimental trip. The walls of his room had moved with him as he breathed and he'd spent several hours in bed with her, planting soft paisley kisses on her breasts.

  It was like that now, but without the warm groovy feeling inside.

  Some kids ran past him. Probably playing truant from school. To anyone else they looked like a team of young muggers, but to Carlos' new eyes they rolled along the ground like tumbling jewels, glittering with life. He could barely take his eyes off them.

  Is that what he was seeing? He asked himself. Life?

  There was an old lady across the street, hoisting a Zimmer frame ahead of her and then hobbling to catch up. Her light was muddy, dim and weak. He glanced at her knees, two dark caverns in the barely visible pool of silver grey. She was probably arthritic. Maybe even had plastic knees.

  Yes. That's what it was, he told himself. He could see Life.

  Once home he fired up his laptop and went straight back to the website. He printed the entire content to a .pdf file and then attached it to an email.

  It had been a long time since he'd spoken to Yulia. She was his ex-wife's best friend and had taken her side during their acrimonious divorce. But that was all water under the bridge. Let bygones be bygones he told himself. Especially since she was the only person he knew who may be able to translate all this crap. He still had her email address, and that of his ex-wife, and yet he'd never paused to ponder the significance of this.

  He loaded the email with some bullshit about doing research for a product comparison article and would she please, please do him a favour and give him the English version. He'd be ever so grateful, honest.

  He pushed the send button.

  He spent the next few hours writing down what had happened during the day because you never know when you're going to need good copy.

  He made himself a nightcap and then went to bed. He laid in the darkness, staring at the shadowed ceiling. The new lenses were out now but it was as if there was some persistence of vision effect. He swore that he could still see shimmering lights floating around him.

  The following morning he wore the lenses again, and again he saw the world anew.

  It was supermarket day, and being a family of one he didn't need a shopping list. He always bought the same things and he only went there because it was cheaper than the corner shop.

  His favourite part of the trip was the pub lunch on the way there. He pushed open the pub door and strolled inside. Frank, the landlord, greeted him with a smile.

  “Same as usual Carlos?” He asked, already punching into the cash register.

  “Nothing but the best Frankie.” Carlos replied, taking a stool by the bar. He looked around the room. The place was packed by its usual standards. Two young Goths sharing a pint of lager in one corner and a strange looking old bloke sitting alone by the window. He didn't even have a drink. He just sat there in old dusty clothing, his dark sunken eyes staring into nowhere. He looked like someone had killed him and dumped his body there. He gave Carlos the creeps.

  “Halloween's a bit fucking early eh!” He sniggered, leaning toward the barman. The two Goths immediately finished up their shared drink and walked out, shooting a dirty look at Carlos on the way.

  “Th
anks for that.” Frank muttered.

  “I didn't mean them.” Carlos replied, turning to look at the old man by the window. “I meant...”

  There was no-one there.

  Carlos sighed deeply and then hopped off the stool bound for the toilet. The usual smell of old piss and pine cubes assailed his senses as he entered. He took his place at one of the urinals. When he'd finished he turned to the basin to wash his hands. The old man was standing in the corner, again staring at nothing.

  “Thanks for letting me take the rap for that mate.” Carlos grunted, wiping his damp hands on a paper towel. The man didn't even seem to acknowledge his presence. Carlos pulled open the door and walked out into the bar.

  He looked over by the window. The old man was sitting there.

  “This some kind of joke is it?” Carlos shouted to Frank. “The fucking zombie twins!”

  Frank just shrugged. “Maybe I'll just skip lunch today then eh?” Carlos grunted, walking out of the pub. Frank watched him go, shook his head dejectedly and unfolded the racing pages.

  Carlos felt disinclined to do anything much now that his routine had been so thoroughly disrupted but he needed to fill the cupboards and so he continued on.

  The supermarket was like the loser's club trip. Not a single smiling face. Carlos felt dirty just breathing the same air as these jobless nobodies. Wave upon wave of lager laden sweaty piss heads and thirteen year old mothers with plastic pushchairs and snotty toddlers, piling their trolleys with disposable nappies and rash cream. None of them had a life and they were too stupid to want one. Give any of them satellite TV and twenty ciggies and they were yours forever.

  Not like that woman over there in the wheelchair. He watched her being pushed slowly along the aisle. She had some kind of breathing apparatus on her face. There were gas bottles mounted behind the chair. Poor cow, Carlos thought. Not sure about the funny hat though. He walked a little closer to her for a better look. Bloody weird hat she was wearing. He was about to laugh inwardly, when it moved.