Schadenfreude – Eighteen

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: Ekaterina Pokrovsky

Image credit: Ekaterina Pokrovsky

So David commenced a life on the high wire, a balancing act of comic book proportions. One the one hand, he followed Andrew’s lead and his suggestions and allowed him to fashion for him a program for success. Andrew definitely knew what he was doing – he was a man built for success, failure would be unthinkable on his watch. On the other hand, David continued his covert but relentless pursuit of greater knowledge of and intimacy with Lisa.

Both progressed well over the next couple of months, if uniformly more slowly than he would have desired. His spots at Andrew’s club started to inspire a frisson – people were talking about him, he’d achieved his own ‘personality profile’ on the main comedy sites and most importantly, people were coming to see him and laughing at his routines. He was developing characters to parody different aspects of modern life, and the punters were getting it. Andrew made offhand remarks from time to time about possible gigs on television.

‘You aren’t really a skit type of comedian, more’s the pity, because that’s the main thing right now,’ he would say, ‘But I think you’d make a splash on the tonight shows around, so start thinking in terms of a five minute spot on something like that and what you’d want to achieve from that.’

David was elated by the possibilities. He was getting paid now for his comedy, and while it wasn’t anywhere near enough to live on, let alone rival his day job, he felt he was on his way. Other comedians seemed to seek him out now. His status as the new kid in town was growing. People spoke of collaboration. He started to see that perhaps he really had something unique to offer.

‘You know that when they want to work with you,’ Lisa said once over a stolen drink at an obscure and rarely patronized club in a sidestreet of Newtown, ‘They’re ruthless and they’re predatory..they won’t even want to know you if they don’t think you have something to offer..think carefully before just accepting their ideas..’

‘I think carefully before everything’ David assured her.

Especially with regard to her. He was starting to identify her idiosyncracies, if that was the right term, and her eccentricities between the net and real life. If he asked her to see him again at the end of a real life encounter she’d commit to something, they could arrange it. If he asked over the internet, she’d avoid commitment, she’d always promise to get back to him. It didn’t seem to be reluctance. More often than not, she agreed and nominated a time and place. Still, it was more effective to ask in the moment. He thought she was playing a little game, and he was wise to it. He indulged it a bit, but not enough to give her control.

They still hadn’t slept together. The intimacy hadn’t reached that point. She was very frightened of Andrew, and David knew from comments he would make occasionally that he was paranoid about her fidelity. He didn’t want to contemplate what might happen if Andrew ever found out the truth. It was too horrible to even imagine. He wanted to set Lisa free, but felt insufficient to the task. So he had to settle for slowly wooing her.

They’d kissed, they’d cuddled. All the promise of a sexual union had been telegraphed between them, and this played out in double entendres and off-hand remarks on the internet. He was a mass of frustration, but only too aware of what rode on him holding this all together, maintaining the balancing act, possibly indefinitely.

One day he’d be successful enough not to need Andrew – to be untouchable, and to take Lisa with him to that rarefied ground. But that was a long way off yet, and David was a realist. He had to wait.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) Faces

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: Mayer George/Shutterstock.com

Image credit: Mayer George/Shutterstock.com

Sometimes I have trouble choosing the right face for the day. My handlers have said it should be of little matter really, for most appear largely the same. Yet the differences are subtle but educative. I cannot, for instance, wear my intense face when the day’s proceedings are to be light-hearted. Similarly, the sly wink of the jester face does not suit a corporate meeting. So I must select carefully, and plan for the day ahead.

That kind of kills spontaneity and creativity, but there are always prices to be paid I suppose.

Still, this is the hardest part of the transition. They did not fully relate this to me when I signed up. At the outset everything seems more attractive. One never reads the fine print. All the advertisement said was:

‘You can now be ageless, beautiful, complete: your new self, your new face, every expression protected, every nuance available, but with ageing now but a thing of the past.’

That sounded so helpful when I read it. I’d had enough of creams and lotions and botox brought me out in a rash. How convenient to be endlessly young and lovely, but still be able to emote. For I do work in an office, I admit, but I yearn for the silver screen, so expressions were required.

But now it’s so tiring to decide, and no matter what they said, you can’t exchange one ‘face’ for another during the day. And there is only one face for night, even if you get lucky, and that tends to stop the latter fairly quickly.

But there’s no going back, once you’re in. All that’s left of my real face, underneath, is the scaffolding of sinew and bone. It’s rather horrific to see it each time I put on my ‘face’ for the day, but that’s private at least.

As I said, it’s always the fine print, and it’s never good to be part of the first launch of something new. They haven’t got the kinks out of it and in the end, that means the kinks are left in me.

Not that you’d know it by my face….

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016

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Schadenfreude – Seventeen

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: StockLite

Image credit: StockLite

But it wasn’t a club of two, not in real life at any rate. In real life, there was the third party, the triangle’s top point, the manager and the boss, Andrew. The first meeting with Andrew on Monday was difficult. Playing cool and unknowing before Schaden/Lisa in the reception area was a challenge. Dealing with the condescending and patriarchal manner in which he saw Andrew treated her was more like a trial.

And he couldn’t say anything in her defence. He’d lose his big opportunity and she’d be exposed in a manner she dreaded. He had to stay silent as Andrew whistled at her and barked out an order for coffee.

‘A latte Lisa, and..what would you like David?’

‘Black coffee thanks’

‘And a black coffee..and try not to put too much sugar in the latte this time sweetie!’

He made the term ‘sweetie’ sound like the most vicious of insults. He enjoyed her vulnerability to his attacks, her lack of an avenue for any redress.

Andrew settled back in his large, raised chair behind his desk. Everything about Andrew and his office was big. David wasn’t sure whether this was to match and therefore represent Andrew himself, or whether it was designed merely to intimidate. Either way, it worked.

‘You could treat her nicer,’ David remarked, looking back to the office doorway as though she was still standing there.

‘I could,’ Andrew agreed, laughing, ‘But you have to keep them under control.. women..you know?’

‘The girl then? It’s her?’ David asked, feigning a prescience that was really no more than inside knowledge. Andrew snorted slightly and shook his head, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

‘Ah yes, she was at your gig wasn’t she? Well spotted, and a good memory I see! You have an eye David!’

‘I have been told that,’ David agreed.

Andrew frowned, leaning forward, half conspiratorial.

‘Well, one needs to keep an eye on her..that one..for sure..’

‘Oh?’

‘I think she’s seeing someone else..’

David panicked slightly. He’d started this, and now he had to see it through. Was Andrew playing him, did he know? If so, should he just go head to head now? Or was Andrew completely clueless, just expecting an ally in another man? For the moment, unless proven otherwise, it was safest to go with the second interpretation. And if so, to continue to play dumb, as before. What would he say to stay..in character?

‘You’re married Andrew, You can hardly complain…’ he said finally, deciding upon the argument he presented only days before to Lisa herself.

‘So?” Andrew asked. It was hard to tell if he was genuinely asking because he did not see the relevance at all, or whether he was being deliberately obtuse for comic effect. In either case, he changed the subject abruptly from Lisa to David’s work and its potential. The speed of the change was unsettling, disorienting at first. Before he knew it David found himself agreeing to terms he had barely had time to hear, let alone process. Later he would muse this was a negotiating tactic of Andrew’s and an effective one.

Of course, Andrew couldn’t know the efficacy of this had been heightened by David’s own secret and the discomfort this placed him in – that he was the person Lisa was seeing, albeit only once in real life so far, but constantly on line. Clearly he didn’t – he dropped the topic – at most he’d used it as a generalized threat which David assumed he might use on every man even vaguely in her midst, a precautionary measure. If he knew about the lunch, or the net, he’d have gone in for the kill. Andrew wasn’t catlike – he wouldn’t wait to play with the mouse. Andrew was a predator without such finesse. And this was just as well.

True to David’s assessment, when Lisa brought the coffees in there was nothing in Andrew’s reactions and responses that suggested he had guessed this in any way. Given that David had worked out the real relationship, Andrew felt even freer to condescend to the girl.

My god, thought David. She’s about a million times smarter than you, and if she could you’d be the first to know it. Hell, I’m at least a thousand times smarter, and if I could I’d let you know. But Andrew had the power, he was the manager, he held the keys to the kingdom that was comedy, and for Lisa possibly to a viable income and lifestyle. He could not be gainsayed so easily. The price of pride would be, in this instance, far too high.

But she had to hate him, she had to, with the way he treated her. And that gave David hope. Yes, it was dangerous and complicated to pursue one another, but there was a thrill in that. And now David felt he knew what buttons to push with her, what she would respond to. If she avoided the intimacy he sought simply by virtue of their internet similarity, he could bring it into being through mutual hatred. Hatred of Andrew.

Any strong emotion would do.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) New Years Day

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: Alex Malikov/shutterstock.com

Image credit: Alex Malikov/shutterstock.com

This morning you will awake. Still covered in the folds of your un-making you may be blinded at first. The chrysalis must be shaken off, and the world seen afresh. You are reborn.

In the hours preceding this moment you were broken down completely, every sinew and fibre of your self, your soul, destroyed in the holy fire of the nigredo. It was painful, illuminating, terrible. A divine, dark force to destroy all that came before, a necessary interlude, a payment to the ferryman.

We gave you pain, we gave you persecution, we gave you trauma. And to this end alone, to be reborn, to be new.

Mark this day as you tremble and open your eyes. Mark this day as the ending of all that went before and the beginning of all that must be. See yourself, see yourself as new.

And remember, if you feel ugly now, misshapen, not what you should be, this is transition only. You must and will adjust. For how ugly must the butterfly be to the caterpillar, and yet to us, to us, so resplendent as it flies!

You will fly, our brave, broken new creature. This is truly your new year’s day.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016

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Schadenfreude – Sixteen

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Ondine C

Image credit: Ondine C

Later that night David visited the chatroom again, hoping she might at least be sitting watching the others, waiting to pounce. They could private chat and compare notes on how the little creatures suffered. But there was no sign of her. She must really have had something she had to do on-line, as she said – or worse – something in real life. For a moment he thought of her sleek, olive-skinned form under the weight and mass of Andrew, and shuddered. That had to stop. The concept was too repulsive.

The only person in the room was the major moderator, Norman, who ran the main site for the comedy girls. David always wondered why he bothered to do it. Norman was clever and obviously very skilled in the IT world, yet he seemed to spend his time on this stuff. Maybe it was like most of the comedians, the access to the girls. Performance isn’t the only aphrodisiac. Power is also one, and in his own way, in this corner of cyberspace, Norman had power.

Vlad: Hi Norman, lonely tonight?
Norman: It’s quiet now all right..I’m just lurking here while I work on some HTML codes..you?
Vlad: Can’t sleep..too excited..
Norman: Oh? Why?
Vlad: Can’t say too much yet unless I jinx myself, but I might be getting representation!
Norman: Good on you! I like your stuff..it’s better than most of the shite the girls rabbit on about all the time
Vlad: Mine isn’t on tv I suppose
Norman: Which makes it better if you ask me, but there you go..

David wasn’t fooled. Norman was a chameleon. He’d be charm to anyone in the internet version of face to face, but the metaphoric daggers in your back if you were a topic of conversation between he and others were legendary. Hell, David had participated with him and the others in numerous character assassinations, only to find that some of the others involved in those assaults were then the topics in their absence.

David hardly expected he would be immune from such attacks.

Well, that was the net for you. And Norman was its creature, after all. But he also ran a board where publicity was free and reached a wide audience, so apparent allegiances of this kind were useful despite their apparent lack of any moral worth.

Vlad: Exactly mate..exactly..still, if they want to throw a tv gig my way..
Norman: No point in turning it down..
Vlad: Yes, shouldn’t be too snobby about it all…LOL
Norman: Exactly,LOL
Vlad:Pity it’s so quiet here tonight though…
Norman: You should have been here about an hour ago..you missed a doozy of a fight..
Vlad: Oh? Who between?
Norman: That bitch Schaden-whatever–the-hell-she-calls-herself was having another go at Lizzie

David exhaled in frustration. He’d missed her! And the fun to be had for the night, by the sounds of things.

Vlad: Ease off Norman..Schadenfreude is a friend of mine…
Norman: She is? Well, each to their own I suppose..perhaps you could get her to lighten up..Lizzie doesn’t stand a chance..
Vlad: Lizzie likes to dish it out though Norman and I don’t see you objecting to that..
Norman: It’s not the same, she’s not smart enough to make it..effective…
Vlad: Well, that’s true enough..but I always thought you must have liked Schadenfreude .. you never ban her like you threaten, I thought secretly you might be her friend and ally..
Norman: Hardly! She’s odd that one..she’s elusive..I can’t figure it out..I can’t seem to identify her or find her..you go looking and its like she doesn’t even exist..
Vlad: She exists all right, I’ve met her in real life..
Vlad: Well find out for me how she’s so…I don’t know the word..insubstantial..on the net, eh? I can’t ban her..I’d promise never to do it just to get her secret because I’d sure as hell like to leave no trace of myself…
Vlad: What do you mean, no trace? And can’t you just deal with her ISP?
Norman: I would if I could work out which provider she has! I don’t publish the IP numbers on the board, but I can see them in the moderating screen..it’s just..she doesn’t seem to have one..
Vlad: Some anonymiser program?
Norman: No, that’s just it..those programs show a generic IP number, they don’t obliterate it all together
Vlad: How can she do that?
Norman: Theoretically, she can’t. The IP number is one part of the net talking to another – her computer, to the provider – to the board..it’s just a series of commands really in the form of an identifier. Well..hey..there must be a way she’s doing it..maybe criminals do it all the time..but stuffed if I can work it out…so for the moment I couldn’t ban her if I tried..
Vlad: She’s a clever girl then
Norman: I think she must be a clever hacker actually..as I say, I’d love to know, if you ever get the details, I’d be most grateful to be included in the know, if you know what I mean..
Vlad: Sure Norman, I know, I know what you mean…

David was glad he’d managed to cajole a real life meeting from Schaden under these circumstances. He had thought before about tracking her via the internet had he continually failed, and now it seemed like that would have been a difficult task – no, let’s be honest, for someone with his level of IT skill, no matter what his talent for detail and perseverance, it would have been an impossible dream. If Norman couldn’t find her, what hope would David have had?

Just as well she’d wanted to find David too. And Norman could whistle if he thought he was ever going to be invited to their club.

Their club of two.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) Dance

Posted on December 25, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Valery Sidelnykov/shutterstock.com

Image credit: Valery Sidelnykov/shutterstock.com

Let us dance, my love, beneath this fertile moon. Let us open our hearts, our minds, ourselves, to the wild and the wanton.

There is blood on this dark tide, you know this well. While your mind is a jumble, confused and contradicting itself, you will dance, a whirling dervish, at my command.

Something alien runs in your veins. It is true, I confess, but only a small device I have. We must bring you to the point of ecstasy so your very blood sings with the rhythms of our universe. As you dance, my love, you call down spirits and angels and demons in your wake. They fall as starlight to the ground, sprinkling us with unearthly grace.

Your last dance my love, you know this too, in the dimmer recesses of your mind. Yet you cavort, you twirl, you come to us. You have no choice. You must obey. The music draws you down, down to our altar, down to the ritual, down to your very essence.

Let us dance your last dance, my love, on this earthly realm. For from tonight you dance with the stars, alone and beautiful, born on a blood-red tide to our promised home.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015

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Schadenfreude – Fifteen

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: lassedesignen

Image credit: lassedesignen

Schaden/Lisa was a perverse creature, he decided, or maybe the medium of the internet brought that out in her. Whatever the case, at lunch she’d been almost overwhelming in her openness and emotion, but now, over the net, she reverted to her cool and elusive persona.

She had said at lunch how intense the internet seemed. Maybe she needed to put up a kind of verbal wall when she participated in the place, and some of the dry wit and cutting remarks she made about or to others on the medium were at least partially a form of self-protection. This was of little matter because they were still sharp and hysterically funny. They always hit their mark. She’d practically driven some of the weaker forum members to contemplating suicide. A good thing too, thought David, they’d be no great loss to the world.

His own cruelty astounded him sometimes, and his tendency to display it more and more on the net, possibly due to implicit encouragement from Schaden, was teaching him something he did not know about himself.

I am a cruel man, he thought. I am also a clever man. My honesty is brutal, but still honest nonetheless. I am smarter than these people. If they would commune with me, they must deal with me. As Schaden said ‘if they presume to be one of us, they better actually be one of us.’

It was harsh but fair. The internet reflected life, after all, and life was not equal – class systems abounded everywhere. The beauty of the internet, and its virtual anonymity, was that provided you were monied enough to have access to the net itself, who you were and what you earned and what family you came from counted for practically nothing. It was all down to your skill, your intelligence, your rat cunning and your determination. If you were brave enough to be honest, and smart enough to be insightful, you had good timing and weren’t afraid of a good fight, you ruled.

It wasn’t like the hierarchy in his office. Even when you were good in accountancy – in fact even if you were brilliant at it, like he was – you had to finesse office politics, deal with the innate and ubiquitous nepotism of the private sector, and often just wait out the turn of tenure. And for what? Your own company car? A bigger office with a better view? Your own secretary? Better commissions? All had their place, but he was a man in a hurry, a man who craved the immediacy of applause for his comedy, or the social elevation which was unique to the internet.

It may be the only true meritocracy, he thought to himself. The place where you are entirely left to your own devices, your own wits, and you sick or swim, survive or fall, on your own words and thoughts alone.

He and Schaden flew above the others and found each other. They were tied in the complicity that was nothing but their mutual, recognized superiority. It was very satisfying, and would only be better if she would relax more with him. She’d said she felt the communion with him, that it was unique only to him. They talked privately in chat rooms. No-one else was there. She would need to be encouraged to recognize this, that there need be no hiding between equals.

David was content, even despite his impatience. He knew this would all come in time. Each time she agreed to meet, he’d bring it closer. Each time they grew closer, he’d make more demands. Eventually she’d come to see things his way.

She had to, it was inevitable, they were so alike.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) Refugee

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Piotr Krzeslak/shutterstock.com

Image credit: Piotr Krzeslak/shutterstock.com

 

I do not want to leave. Banishment is cruel and selfish and I feel like a child about to be sent out into a thunderstorm, bereft and without a kind voice, a soft hand, a gentle touch.

Out there it is dark and you are totally alone. There is no comfort in the wailing wind, the roiling vortex. But I cannot make them understand, these implacable fiends who are so sure they are right, so profoundly certain that their way is the only way. The only way.

But they inhabit homes, shells, lives themselves. They do not see the perverse hypocrisy of it all. And they would hate to face those more powerful than they are, the gods to which they make themselves acolytes, and yet they would banish me to mine.

But I won’t find anything like that out there. No alternative home, no space to be myself or to belong. They think they know, but they do not know, and they are cruel.

I am powerless against this stupid certainty. It’s not their rules or rituals that will send me away, only their sureness against me: one of the legion and so always unsure of any purchase here, knowing more of the beyond than they yet know.

Please let me stay, I might cry, here where it is warm and welcoming. Please let me be your refugee and find sanctuary here, at least for a time. If you knew the horrors I fled you would not so easily turn me away, turn me back. But they will not listen, and I see them approach, and the battle awaits.

As the terrible exorcist crosses himself now I know we must begin.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015

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Schadenfreude – Fourteen

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Luis Carlos Torres

Image credit: Luis Carlos Torres

Vlad: Today was great..I really enjoyed meeting you..
Schadenfreude: I’m glad you enjoyed yourself..
Vlad: I hope you did too!
Schadenfreude: I enjoy all our interactions David
Vlad: So do I, so do I..it’s remarkable how intimate the net is..how close you feel to someone..so that when we met today it was like meeting someone new, but also like just lunching with someone so close..so well known…
Schadenfreude: The net is a wonder..it makes the most ephemeral things seem real..it gives substance to form..it is erotic in its intensity.
Vlad: Ooohh..I love it when you talk dirty!
Schadenfreude: LOL. Down boy!
Vlad: I want to see you again
Schadenfreude: Yes, I know
Vlad: We didn’t make plans today
Schadenfreude: I know
Vlad: Look, I know it’s difficult with Andrew and everything..
Schadenfreude: He’s a very angry, domineering man..perhaps dangerous
Vlad: I can tell, but I also need him as a manager..we’ll just have to be careful
Schadenfreude: I’m always careful David. Are you?
Vlad: I’m known for it in my job!
Schadenfreude: I’m always organized and well planned, well researched and precise. I am the type that never does anything until I am very sure what I am dealing with. Are you?
Vlad: Ditto to my last statement..I’m an accountant by trade
Schadenfreude: When you’re not treading the boards
Vlad: Exactly, so can we work something out? Can we meet again?
Schadenfreude: I am sure something can be arranged. I’ll get back to you..
Vlad: You’re not going so soon?
Schadenfreude: Have to, I’m involved in something else on the net right now..it needs my attention..talk soon David..talk soon!

(c) Helen M valentine 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Others – Thirty One

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: rangizzz

Image credit: rangizzz

I snorted at Gabriel, incredulous. In the first moment his proposition seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. I guess most insanely evil things do seem that way at first.

“What are you suggesting, some sort of Assassins R Us?”

Gabriel laughed, truly appreciating the joke.

“That’s one way of putting it. It can be death, it can be theft, it could be fraud, it could be all sorts of things. All the things people might want to do, or want done, but are afraid to do themselves because they would get caught. And we won’t.”

I shook my head at him. “You don’t need this Gabriel, you’re fucking rich. What’s in it for you?”

“Fun” he replied simply, “The challenge. The art. I thought you of all people would get that Peter. Hey, you said you wanted to do something new and interesting and vital, something that was screaming out for a man of your talents.”

I was confused now. Partly horrified, partly stunned, partly curious, it was a strange and disorienting combination of emotions.

“But it isn’t my talent Gabriel, it’s yours, and hers,” I replied, looking at Natalie. She was just watching us, calm, confident. She already knew she had me, and therefore so did Gabriel, if they found a way to convincingly include me.

“Not entirely Peter, you’re too modest.” Gabriel laughed. “After all, you’re the guy with the ideas right? Right?”
“Right,” I allowed, waiting for him to go on, feeling outclassed but not wanting to admit it.

“And you are resourceful, you can maybe help us find clients…”

“I don’t know any would be criminals Gabriel…”

“Give it time. You find anything you put your mind to, we all know that. You’re also the guy with the eye for things.”

I stood up and walked away from them as though that would free me and clear my mind sufficiently to think straight. By God I wished I hadn’t drunk anything that night. I’m never at my best when I’m drunk.

“It doesn’t make sense Gabriel. It’s flattering but it’s stupid. You can come up with ideas, you can find the clients, you could do it all. Why include me? Some kind of on-going favour? Carrying the cripple with the superheros, or supervillains, or whatever? I can’t even see that. An amoral person won’t feel that kind of gratitude will they, not really?”

Gabriel laughed and looked at Natalie.

“He really is quite smart isn’t he?” he said to her. She nodded sagely and looked over at me, and I swear, I wasn’t imagining the kind of pride she had in her eyes, like she really was proud of me in some way. Of me. At that point they had me, really, but I wanted to hear Gabriel out.

“Peter, you are right. I’m not pre-disposed to gratitude any more than any of those other finer emotions really. But I think this will be fun. And I want it to be as big as possible. We both do. Natalie and I, to do this, we don’t want it just to be us. We think there’s others of us out there. We want to find them..”

Ah ha! I understood.

“And you might be able to do that alone, but you can’t make contact with them.”

“That’s right.”

“Assassins R Us need an intermediary to have any company growth.”

Gabriel grinned. “You’ve got it Peter. All companies should grow, and we should have, we want, we crave company. And like I said, we needed you to get to each other, and we still need you, to get to others.”

I laughed, slightly derisively.

“Who’d have thought?” I asked no-one in particular. I looked out the window of Gabriel’s apartment to the sweeping views below. Our playground, possibly, the playground of the new gods.

“What the hell!” I said.

Gabriel had, as always, anticipated me and handed me a refreshed cocktail. Natalie stood beside him. He held up his glass and we followed, like musketeers.

“To our new recruitment manager,” Gabriel quipped.

The glasses met in a flash of light and we laughed.

*****************************************************************************************************************

I’ll leave you my card. It is pretty plain, as you’ll see. It pays to advertise, but not so overtly if you are in the business I’m in. Our business name, of course, is far more obscure and subtle than our original version. You’ll understand that. Now you know the story, I’m sure you’ll be confident of our professionalism and that you need not be concerned about us failing in any way.

You can think about hiring us. But I already know you will. We’re a sure thing. And hey, we know where you live, and you literally can’t see us coming.

Well, you can’t see them anyway. And there’s six of them now. To tell you any more of the story would have been repetitive. And Gabriel’s still the leader, and Natalie is my favourite. I don’t have as much fun telling anyone about the others.

God, I love being the guy with the ideas and the eye. It can take you anywhere. And as I said, on that clear day, the day you finally realize what that potential could be and how strange the world really is, you really can see…forever…..

End

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Serial Horror Stories, The Others | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments