[Flash fiction: stories in mere handfuls of words.]
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Among the bushes and the leaves, I crouch, waiting. It's night, but dawn is just showing on the horizon. There's not much time left.
I'm waiting for the golden stag. It only comes out once a year, and only when the sun is down. It's said that one look at it will change your life forever. But I've been here all night, and I haven't seen a thing.
As dawn breaks over the horizon, I mutter a curse. I head home and go to bed - I'll need rest for tomorrow.
If only I knew which night of the year the damn thing appears.
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"Democracy isn't working," it was announced yesterday. "Instead, one person will be in charge of everything. We'll have a lottery, with everyone having an equal chance."
The selection was done that very night. On every TV and computer monitor in the entire country, on every billboard, in every headline, on every posted on every bus stop, in magazines, flyers, leaflets and handouts - there was my name.
That was a whole 24 hours ago now. I made it to the woods before everyone found me. It's cold here; cold and wet. I'm hungry and alone.
But I'm never going back.
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When he heard about the approaching forest fire, Gerald fetched the gasoline.
"Don't worry," he promised his family. "This is truly for the best."
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"Can I have a go?" he asked.
"No, of course not," she said. "Utterly out of the question."
"Oh come on. Why not?"
"Some things are just impossible," she said firmly.
"Please?" he begged, "I really want a go. Can't you make an exception?"
She looked at his eager face, and couldn't help but cave.
"Well, okay," she said. "But just this once, alright?"
He nodded, grinning ear to ear.
They found the aeroplane's wreckage three days later, washed up on a beach in Mexico.
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I see Charles writing in his diary every night. He went to work one day, and I guiltily looked inside. Every entry was nearly the same. "I didn't do anything today," the first one said. "Today was a blank," said the second.
I was shocked at first, but when I thought about it, I realised that he was right. Five minutes later, when I left the flat for the last time, I felt pretty bad. But then I thought - maybe today's page would finally be different.
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"Wake up! You're late!" I yell.
The door opens and something that looks like Robert walks out.
"Hi," it says.
"Umm...."
"Isn't it cool?" the real Robert calls out from within the room. "It can do everything for me! Work, walk, eat, talk. Living, loving, everything. I'll never have to get up again!"
The new Robert smiles.
"So you're just going to stay in bed?" I ask, but there's no reply. He's already gone back to sleep.
The new Robert stares at me, beaming incessantly.
"Hi," it says.
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My disease: whenever I fall in love, I turn completely invisible. This causes terrible problems with the women in my life. They always leave; every single one. It's OK now though - I have a new girlfriend.
She's totally blind. We're getting along great. It's perfect because she has no idea that I'm still there.
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The genie zooms out of the lamp. "You get three wishes," it says. "But they have to be things that no-one has wished for before."
I think hard. Money, fame, immortality - all already taken, of course. I try smaller, simpler things. A sandwich. A free haircut.
"Already taken, I'm afraid," says the genie.
I'm there for hours, racking my brains. At last, I think of something.
"I wish I was more of an individual. I wish I had a bigger imagination, with more hopes and dreams. I wish I stood out. I wish my mind worked in a different way to everyone else's. I wish I was special."
"Already taken," the genie says, yawning.
23/08/09
tube escalator
overgrown steps
oporto
on the steps of st. paul's cathedral
lady, the dog with the full-body mohawk
"love isn't always on time"
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