Ad Hoc Fiction

Before the Fall
“Rock!”

Frrrrddddhhhh...

A fist-sized stone whistles past my shoulder. “That was close!”

Frost is your friend on the Eiger Nordwand, cementing shattered blocks to the face. Last night we bivouacked beneath a pelmet of icy tassels. Come dawn, meltwater spattered our sleeping bags as a cloud blanket nuzzled up with treacherous warmth.

As we climb, the bombardment continues: some of it speculative, like grenades tossed into a trench; the rest targeted, like sniper fire. A sulphurous smell hangs over this tilted no man’s land.

We could retreat, abseiling down our spider threads to green pastures, then stroll shamefaced past Grindelwald cemetery where the fallen stay forever young. Instead, we advance – not as conscripts but as regulars, compelled by manly duty.

Now the sky darkens from a fusillade of tumbling cornices, columns and corbels. A cathedral collapsing on its worshippers. Prayer is futile. 

“Rock!” my climbing partner yells, out of habit.

It's A Small World After All
They say the world is getting smaller.
To my daughter, it is massive. 
I bought her a globe and she can sit for hours, spinning the planet on its axis as she slides her fingers across cities, countries and continents. 
She skips vast oceans with a single leap of her digits and asks which country it is she has landed on.
There is no hot or cold. 
There are no borders or prejudices.
There is no terrorism or fear.
There are colours and names of exotic places and a fascination in her eyes as she sees it all with a simple turn of her palm.
She is an omnipotent observer with a future of dreams, the world literally in her hands.
The world is the same size that it’s always been and always will be.
But to my daughter, it sits on her desk and is as vast as infinity.

Hindsight Party Invite
To: 

Date: That summer night, katydids and the shimmering air, and when I came to the door, you a "plus one" in a red floral summer dress standing rosy cheeked from the sinking sun, gift in hand. 

Time: Minutes brought bodies, brought heat and all moved like molasses through the night, you a red blur in and out between dancing strangers, their hair sweat-stuck to glistening foreheads. Your date left the party late with the thinning crowd, drunk and mad that you did not follow.

Place: My fetid house chased the stragglers out to the pool where you sat, feet dangling. I handed you the whiskey, you pushed me in and followed. And when it began to rain we danced drenched on the lawn to the The Beach Boys and Glen Miller till the sun came up.

R.S.V.P: You were there. I wish I'd asked you your name.

Fuji
When I knew Kay, she used to say she lived three blocks from Tokyo. That is, we lived three blocks from the train. Take the train all the way out to the airport, take a flight to anywhere. 

We would stand on the bridge over the expressway and watch the passing traffic. "One day, I'll leave," she told me. "Get on a jet, fly away. I'll walk down Harajuku. I'll watch the sunrise over Mt. Fuji, someday." 

She walked down Paris runways. Her face sold perfume and champagne. Now, I look for her in the lights of the city, watch the jets come and go. Who knows where she's living now? The trains run everywhere.

Undelivered
They call us for breakfast in the half-light. Four more empty chairs today, Ma.

We scramble first around seven, back, refuel, rearm. They bring us sandwiches. We scramble again, then a third. At dusk, those of us who are left stay on readiness. They want us to fly at night now we are so few. Porter nodded off in his cockpit. When I do sleep, my mind still flies.

Peter presses his wedding ring into my hand. “Send her this,” he says. “I know I won’t be coming back.” 

I visit Harry. His feet are burnt, and his hands are burnt. His nose, eyes, lips. 

I watch Burrell nosedive into the waves.

We say we’re not scared, but who in England ever prayed for bad weather? We pray very hard. The sky stays blue as eternity. 

I will never send you this, Ma.

Glorious weather. That’s all I can say.

The Box
My father kept Ireland in a sealed tin under his bed. We weren’t to peek. Blue grass grew there and tall brush crops, a dejected wind beat ‘til that tin were fit to burst. The chocolate voice of a fiddle played dark tones, lonely tones and I saw a baby in tannin-stained rags dumped on a church doorstep in The Diocese of Kerry. I saw a jigsaw of boy-shaped pieces. A bearded man drank bitter in a welfare club, finger-painting surnames in spilt amber slops. An old woman with the same blue eyes as his, she shook her head, closed her door. I saw the man drunk, fallen in slant rain. The bride at his wedding put him in the doghouse, bent him, muddied him with blackberry bruises. Three babies got lost, small as your pinkie. My father kept Ireland in a sealed tin under his bed. I never peeked.

My Wife's Perfect Pitch
My wife has perfect pitch: flush a toilet, she’ll tell you what key it’s in. So when she of all people said she thinks my voice is breaking again, in the other direction, there wasn’t much point protesting. Especially in my embarrassing new falsetto. It’s like one of those snakes in a can, leaps out when you’re least prepared. Since she spoke up, in her even, adult tone, I can no longer ignore the way my colleagues flinch when I’m on the phone to clients. I can’t unsee Des, at the next desk, whose right eye violently tics whenever my jaw drops to speak. 	
	My wife runs a hand over me under the duvet. She tries to make it seem affectionate but I know she’s feeling for smoothness that wasn’t there yesterday. Cups here, gently brushes her fingertips there. I moan a little, politely. The manliest moan I can manage.

Baby Steps
Your eyes roll back into your head like an addict nodding out. I hold you close. You throw up. A milky stream trickles down my back.

Like a punch-drunk boxer, your tiny arms swing jerkily. Fists clenched, eyes suddenly screwed shut, cheeks puffed; you gulp for air before releasing the ear-piercing scream.

I’d heard it before, but this time it was different. Desperate. The hours passed. The screaming didn’t. It was an unusual sound. A shrill high-pitched note followed by a hoarse whine, like an old cam belt on a sick engine.

My eyes sore and red, I try for what feels like the hundredth time to hold you close. Your little head nestles into the crook of my arm, your ear placed on my heart. You give a final, forlorn yelp and drift off into a deep and blissful sleep.

Day breaks. Our journey together has only just begun.

Answering-Machine
I grew up in the countryside, in a bungalow the colour of corned-beef, sandwiched in between two farms. 

We had two dogs, part-lurcher, with bodies lithe as greyhounds. They'd hare across the fields, bobbing up and down in the long wheat. I still like to imagine the farmers shaking rusty rifles, shouting "Why I oughta..."

I told my friends at school I could make the dogs howl on cue. We had this old answering-machine, with a tape that went "Ka-tch, Ka-tch", before broadcasting the family rap:

"The Watson family are not home, so leave a message after the tone!"

I told my friends even my impersonating of the answering-machine made them howl.

I'd lied. The machine unsettled them but the reality was I had to take the lead. I'd bark, they'd bark. I'd start howling, then they'd start howling.

Then I'd sink into the couch, satisfied.

I loved my dogs.

Paper Doll
Nancy makes perfect folds with perfect creases, though the paper is tattered and stained. She cuts along her dotted-line roadmap with a cautious hand; she wants to be perfect, too. The tip of her tongue is just visible, held between lips pursed in careful concentration. 

Her shoulders hover up around her ears, until the final snip, when she lets out the breath she’s been holding. 

A flick of her wrist and, like magic, a perfect family appears. They hold hands, these perfect people. She draws brown hair and eyes on the middle one. Brown hair and eyes like her own.

From downstairs, Nancy's foster mother shouts for her.

“Girl! You better not have my sewing scissors again. I warned you before, that’ll earn you a beating.”

Nancy tucks her new family beneath her shirt for protection and with the scissors held like a sword, she turns toward the stairs.

Intrusion
I wonder what it is my doctor reads.
 	I’ve never really wondered before but now that I’m here and we have a little time between us, I’m trying to distract myself. I don’t go to the doctors often, only when I’m sick – and by sick I mean only when in pain or when I feel like time or plasters won’t see the thing pass. 
This time she is investigating my rectum. I noticed a lump while shaving. If it had been there for a while, I couldn’t answer her. It never pained or smarted. It was only when I lowered the razor to trim around that area – anticipating sex - that I became aware of its existence.
For some reason I don’t want her to read the things I do. I hope she reads something flighty just to tell people she reads. I hope she plays tennis in her spare time.