DANCE MACABRE by Dorothy Davies

Dorothy Davies twirls back onto the TKnC arena - words a-waltzing in this toe-tripping tale...

DANCE MACABRE

The silent figure on the gurney twitched, moved, sat up and looked around.  The tag on her toe said JANE DOE which annoyed her very much.  I’m not a Jane Doe, I’m Lydia ... Lydia ... The rest of her name escaped her, much as her memory seemed to have done. 


Why am I on a gurney with a tag on my toe? Why am I cold and my veins look blue and stark and my flesh look like marble? I am NOT dead!


But – one chilled hand at her throat said otherwise.   There was no pulse, no heartbeat, no warm blood rushing around a body that was beginning to sag. That annoyed her too.  My boobs never sagged! Now look...


Look.  She looked around, this dead Lydia, and saw she was in a morgue.  A cold lonely desolate morgue that held no comforts for anyone, least of all those who were delivered there on a gurney and left overnight because the staff had gone home and not bothered with yet another stiff.

She swung her legs over the side and stood up. Well, I can still do that. Now, can I walk?

She could. Dead Lydia staggered across the room, round the dissecting table and got to the cabinets.

I need company!  She pulled and tugged and reluctantly the first drawer slid open.  The man inside, elderly, lined, haggard and half starved, blinked and looked up at her.

Is it time to get up?

If you want.

I do.  It’s boring lying here like that. Nothing to look at. I need the company.

The man sat up and pushed himself off the tray which had been holding him. 

That’s a good idea.  Let’s find some more people.

With two of them tugging at the handles, the drawers came open a good deal easier. The young girl, anorexic and pathetic, clawed at their arms as they lifted her up. Look at me, look at me, aren’t I elegant and slim and beautiful?

The truthful answer was no, but they did not say it.  You are, you are!  She beamed and spun round, her flimsy hospital gown billowing around her.  I can dance!


We all can but right now we want company!

Lydia pulled at another drawer with the help of the old man and the anorexic. A dark handsome youth smiled with shockingly white teeth as he sat up.  Thank you! I thought I would be stuck in there forever! One easy movement and he got up too, swaying to an unheard rhythm.  Is it time to dance?

Let’s get everyone out first.  Lydia was in charge and didn't know how she had become in charge, it had just – happened.  She liked it though, she had never been in charge of anything.  Always the underdog, always the low paid worker following orders.  Now she was issuing orders and these people were obeying her. It was a miracle and she was not about to let go of the good feelings it was generating.

I'm naked! The shock ran through her but no one had said anything, no one had ogled her, no one had touched her.  Maybe, but it isn’t right! She went back to the gurney and took up the sheet lying there, wrapped it around her body and tucked the end in securely under one arm.  That felt better.


Oh, elegant, the old man observed, without a trace of sarcasm.  You wear it well, dear lady. Swan-like, I would say.  What’s your name?

Lydia.

Now if I remember my Greek mythology, there was a swan who went to Leda, which is close enough to your name, dear lady.  I want to change that. You are a swan, wrapped in white as you are, as elegant as you are and as thoughtful as you are.  Let’s call you Leda instead of Lydia.  It sounds so much more romantic.

Leda. Lydia. She turned the names over in her mind. Leda will do fine, she said eventually, with a big smile. Thank you.  No one has ever said anything that nice to me in my whole life.

Well, they should have done. I mean, there you are, you had every chance to walk right out the door and leave, instead you opened drawers and let us out.

Well, it was because I wanted company, she confessed, rather than take credit for something that was not right.

He shook his head.  Maybe, maybe, but you had your chance and you chose to stay. Now, let’s get everyone else out, shall we?

Combined effort, they all worked at it, opening the drawers, releasing a white cheeked old lady with sharply knowing eyes and a loving smile, a middle-aged man still looking for his pens and papers, the reason for his existence, the little girl who had collided with a bus or a bus had collided with her, either way she was not pretty any more but no one said a word, they took her hands and they all danced round the dissecting table and laughed a great hollow laugh that no one else could hear but them.

The dark man told them jokes at which they all roared with laughter, the old lady told them of her children which brought tears to their eyes, the old man spoke of sunny days on a river bank fishing with grandchildren and some of them grew nostalgic. Then they danced again to refresh their senses and their spirits and their energies and told one another this was the best night they had ever had in their entire existence.

Dawn touched the sky with pink fingers.  One by one, without saying a word why they were doing it, they climbed back into their drawers and one by one Leda, still in her white robe which made her look like a swan, closed the drawers with a supreme effort.

When they were all sleeping again, she gracefully danced a solitary dance around the room, remembering the feel of rhythm making the feet move, the thrill of a tune running through the head, the sway of arms and hands.  Then she grew tired, it had been a long night and an exhausting one, but oh what fun she had experienced!

She climbed back onto the gurney, laid the sheet out and stared up at the ceiling, remembering how it felt to dance.

            
Just before she fell asleep forever, she wondered what the mortuary attendant would think when he found her tag on the floor.


_______________________


BIO:

Dorothy Davies
Author and editor.
Amor Vincit Omnia

Check out my websites: www.oneinspecyal.com and www.circle-of-light.co.uk

BACK WHERE I BELONG by Dorothy Davies

Dorothy Davies submitted Back Where I Belong to TKnC quite some time ago. I wickedly held on to it, and she graciously agreed for the story to be included in the Hellicious Halloween showcase.

Dorothy is an editor, a prolific writer of horror short stories and author of frank historical novels. 

Her tale creeps and crawls, twists and trembles. Scrape forth...


BACK WHERE I BELONG by Dorothy Davies

It’s dark in here. Too dark for me to see anything. I’m restricted in my movements, why can’t I sit up, move my arms about, lift my head ... and what is this strange silky stuff I am lying on? What is this hard pillow I am resting on...

I don’t like this. Any of it. Not one single tiny miniscule scrap of it. Something's wrong and I want to know where and why and how and what and I want to know now. Not tomorrow, or next week, or next year, but NOW!

TALK TO ME!

Nothing. It’s as if I’m in some kind of box...

I am, aren’t I, in some kind of box. A coffin, to be precise.

What else is lined with silky stuff and holds my arms and legs and body in a rigid position where I can’t move around and...

But I’m not dead!

Hold on, think this one through. Sensibly, logically, one step at a time.

I was...

Where?

In my car. Right. First step, in my car. Driving from/to?

Work. I remember. Driving from work, after a long day. Tired. Trying to keep my eyes open. Remember ... some idiot cutting in front of me and me too tired to react quickly and I smashed into him. I remember nothing else.

So, did someone declare me DOA? If so, I’ve been a long time waking up, there would have been an autopsy – hold on – can I feel – yes I can – and then a funeral and they don’t happen very quickly and –

I guess I got buried, because I'm not burned up and ash and scattered somewhere or left in the bottom of the incinerator or stuffed into someone else’s urn.

But you see, I am NOT dead.

I need to get out of here. So, how do I get out of a) the coffin and b) the grave...

By sheer hard work.

Wow, that was hard work too!

Oh hell. I have been dead longer than I thought. The headstone’s in place already. No, not already, look at the date, look at the date ... I've been dead a year. A whole long empty wasted do-nothing year.

But I look all right, what I can see of me, anyway. Not much rotting going on here, feet still got shoes on and nothing leaking out of the seams. The socks don’t feel soggy either, so ... the feet must be intact. Right? The legs, let me look at the legs, tug up the trousers, well, would you look at that, pink flesh and blue veins and come to think of it, what about the hands which did the tugging? Well, would you look at that, too, all my fingers intact and heavens, she buried me with my wedding ring, too! I thought she would have had that off me and sold it immediately. Or do I do my cheating wife an injustice...?

Right. Head. Hmm, seems intact. Eyes, yes, nose, definitely, mouth with teeth, yes, and at least now I can say I will never have toothache again, hallelujah! Ears? Yes, I have ears. Hair? Longer than I normally have it but who’s arguing about a small item like that?

Looks me as if I'm pretty well intact. Not bad for my age, as it happens. My age plus one year – obviously lying around underground does wonders for the body. Look, no paunch. That’s the death starvation diet for you, works every time. I might market that, when I get myself back into civilisation.

And the bitch’s house.

Now, let me orientate myself.

This is the large new burying ground, so my home is – several miles away. Well, I obviously can’t drive there, and equally can’t hire a taxi either; there is no money in these pockets.

Hold on, you fool, you’re not thinking straight.

Would you, after a year underground? Asleep?

No excuse. Come on, think! How did you get out of the coffin and the grave?

By thought.

Precisely.

Now think yourself at home.

Ha! Is it that easy, I ask myself... there is only one way to find out... isn’t there?

And here I am walking up the path. She’s made a few changes, that black-hearted wife of mine. The flower beds are all shrubs, no colour, no charm. Where’s the central rose bush gone? Pride of my life, that was. What’s a conifer doing in its place?

The door’s a different colour. I preferred the green, don’t like this – this wishy washy blue. That’s not a colour for a front door, that doesn’t say ‘look at me, I am proud to be the entrance to this home.’ This one says ‘I am all delicate pastels and femininity and be kind to me.’

I will, when I get in.

Sudden thought, no one appears to have seen me yet. Was I lucky or am I invisible? I will find out when I-

Shocked look, smashed dishes, hand over mouth, eyes like saucers – I thought that was a stupid expression until I saw her eyes go as big as saucers when I walked into the (disgustingly yellow) kitchen.

‘You...’

‘Me.’ I don’t think I have a voice, leastways I didn’t hear anything. Telepathy, perhaps, because her eyes got even bigger, if that was possible and it had to be, because they did.

Stop it with the foolish thoughts.

‘It is you.’ She’s shaking head to foot, nerves, fright, love? Never the last one, never, never. I know my wife and a lot of memories are creeping back. Well, I’ve only been out of the grave for – how long? Half an hour? Taking me a little while to get myself together. Only natural.

Let’s think about the reason I was so tired and couldn't react properly in the accident. Let’s think about the flask she gave me to take to work, the drink which tasted just the tiny bit wrong, think about the look of sex she carried from time to time when she hadn't been with me. Think about the lies ... oh the lies ... I uncovered from time to time without her knowing.

Think about how she'll react when I say the next words to her.

And smile.

‘Darling, I got tired of lying in the grave. I decided to come back where I belong.’

____________________________

BIO: 

Dorothy Davies
Author and editor.
Amor Vincit Omnia


Check out my websites: www.oneinspecyal.com and www.circle-of-light.co.uk

SNOW DANCER by Dorothy Davies

TKnC welcomes Dorothy back with a chilling tale of regret.

Snow Dancer

Snowflakes dance, don’t they, as they spiral down from the thick rich darkness of the clouds, pirouetting and sashaying and even tango-ing with the others as they fall. Blown here and there by the thermals, they create a magical image before sliding into the white death that is their fate, stacked one atop the other on any available surface, no matter how slender, there to rot until the time comes when they melt away, their final ending, returning to the matter from which they came.

The man rested his large forehead against the cold pane, staring out at the whiteness. He had heard you could go snowblind if you stared too long but what did he have to see if he lived, anyway? Nothing but the unheeding world, the bustling people who had no time for a man alone.

What was wrong with being alone? Why did everyone have to have a partner of some kind? ‘Not even a pet?’ Eyebrows were raised as the question was asked. Who needed a pet? Who needed the sycophantic love of a dog, the arrogant independence of a cat, the silent needs of a goldfish when there were –

Ah, when there were places to go and people to see beyond the imagination of those who questioned his living alone.

He turned from ever changing display of snow dancers and looked around his room. The piles of newspapers were threatening to topple; if they did, they would resemble a snow scene like the one outside, albeit one speckled with soot. Or ink. Or dirt. Living alone, he thought, meant he could do just that, stack up the newspapers, ignore the dirt and stand and look at the snowscape for hours if he wanted to without someone nagging him to clear this, eat that, take a walk, take a bath...

Did the newspapers rustle? Did the dust on the table lift and fall? Had she at last come in from the cold to be with him? He could see nothing, no hint of movement, no sense of another presence. How long did he have to wait before his love returned to him? Had she not promised, with her last breath, had she not said in that gentle way of hers, 'believe - I will be back.'

Was the problem that he did not believe strongly enough?

He looked for her every spring when the new grass thrust its way through the unremitting coldness of the earth chilled by the winter winds, in the summer amidst the brightness of the flowers and the bustling busyness of the animal world going about its ongoing need to ensure the survival of the species, in the autumn, waiting for someone to disturb the leaves that covered his lawns and still they lay, still in silent glory. How many years now? Five, ten, how long could he stay watching, waiting, whilst his mind narrowed to nothing more than the need to see her again? From time to time he would ask himself how long the money would hold out, then he would dismiss the thought. When it happened, someone would tell him, they would hammer on the door; say they had come to reclaim the place from him. Then they would look around and see the towering piles of papers and the dirt and the dust and they would put their hands over their noses because of the smell, the smell of things rotting.

Sometimes he thought he should remove the corpses, bury them beneath the lawn, but if he did that he would have to disturb the leaves which had fallen in such an artistic way, or he would have to disturb the fresh fallen snow and that would not do either, for had she not said, 'I love the way nature arranges itself.' Her wishes could not be undone.

He turned back to the window to see that the snow had stopped falling quite so heavily, the individual flakes could be seen, dancing for his eyes alone before becoming trapped in the white death.

One of the corpses was hers. In what moment of madness had he struck down, in what second of insanity had he snatched up the iron and crashed it into the side of her head? What had she said that had so enraged him? Long gone. Long, long gone. Did she forgive him in her dying moments? Did she say ‘believe – I will be back’ because she loved him or ‘believe – I will be back’ because she sought revenge? Sometimes he thought one thing, sometimes he thought the other. Either way he welcomed and feared her return.

And the other corpses? Those who had come looking for her.

He could not understand why no one had actually tracked down the fact that his home had been the last call for the people who came and never left. Perhaps it was because they were not 'authority' and perhaps because he had no neighbours. The only living beings who would have seen relatives come looking were the birds, the fox, maybe the badger who snuffled and slunk his way around the garden at night, half seen in the moonlight and ignored. Just as the visitors were ignored, until they became persistent and then they were added to the corpse room. With the door shut the smell was not too bad. After a while you didn’t even notice it any more.

The snow had stopped falling. Silent white world, nothing moving.

Nothing but the snow slowly lifting, lifting, lifting and transforming itself in a shape, a familiar shape, a once loved shape, one that was walking soft and cold over the packed snow and not leaving a single impression as it passed, and as it passed the cold blankness on the front of the head changed and moved and became the once loved face and then, for the first time, he was truly afraid.

He had no choice. It came closer and closer, it pointed to the front door. As if motivated by something he could not understand or resist, he negotiated the piles of papers, knocking some of them over into the ink stained snowscape he had imagined, and went to open the door.

She stood there, smiling, completely white and frozen.

He stepped out to meet her, against his will, against his entire logical mind. He had no choice. ‘Believe – I am back.’ Did she speak, did she project, did he form the words in his own mind? Before he could decide the door slammed against the side of the house and the snow, precariously perched on the slates, cascaded over him as she caught him in her snowy arms.

Together they went down into the white death.


Bio:

Dorothy Davies, Author and editor. Amor Vincit Omnia
Check out my websites: www.oneinspecyal.com and www.circle-of-light.co.uk

THE BLOOD MAKES ME WHOLE By Dorothy Davies

Something a little different...

The Blood Makes Me Whole

Did not ask come.  Did not want come.  Do not like here.  Do not like people.  Do not like planet.  Air heavy -- make sick.  Ship damaged. Cannot go home.  No ship come for me.  Need own food.  Food here make sick.  Do not like language.  Words hurt.  Need something stop words come me.

            Universe endless.  Home many times away, many, many times away.  Home pretty colour, pretty sound, no words.

            Two legs found me.  Two legs frightened me.  Two legs say I very big, I scare, I frighten, but two legs not run.  Look with orbs in head speak with slit in head.  Sound comes from slit hurt.  Two legs not know I scared of two legs.  I want stop two legs speaking. I afraid what I do so do nothing.

            I take from head of two legs words to say what I do, why I here, I do not know all words, I do not know who two legs is.  More come look at me with orbs in head and speak to selves point speak I not speak back.  Not know how speak back.  Not possible.

            Stand.  All two legs run and stop.  All two legs look me shake like ship when it damage.

            More two legs.  Come with strange feeling, feeling hurt.  Two legs not afraid me.  Two legs go in ship and stay long time.  I do not like two legs in ship.  I go in ship.  I see two legs look at my ship.  I know they not know what is.  I know they not mend ship.  I know I not leave planet.  I hate planet.  I take feeling from two legs and know feeling right.

            I hate.

            I take one two legs and drink lifeblood from it.

            I feel good.

            I take more lifeblood.

            I feel good.

            I grow.

            I leave ship and all two legs make loud noises run from me.

            I think -- new for me -- they try kill me.

I take from their heads. They not understand.

            I am now whole.

            I feel sorry for two legs; they not know they cannot kill me.

            I can kill them.

I understand.

I can stay here now.

I can feed.

            The blood makes me whole.

            

-- 
Dorothy Davies,
author of: 'Death Be Pardoner To Me', the life of George, duke of Clarence.

(BH Publishing)

Amor Vincit Omnia

www.oneinspecyal.com
www.circle-of-light.co.uk

LEGGY by Dorothy Davies

Leggy

Legless Johnny we called him. As a kid he was always falling down, tripping over matchsticks. It wasn’t really a joke, if you saw his scarred knees. Because he kept on falling, the name got twisted into a nickname. He wound up Leggy, never Johnny. Leggy Merrick sort of rolls off the tongue, too.

He always hung around with Doug Jameson. Same age, give or take a couple of days, same height, same background. One blond, one dark, the two heads always together, mischief making.

Doug was good at sports. To see the long length of him flying over the high jump bar, throwing himself across the goal mouth, it was a sight anyone would be pleased to see. Leggy stood on the sidelines and cheered him on. As far as we knew, he never envied his friend’s ability to stay upright on two strong legs that hardly saw a graze or a plaster throughout their growing years.

Teenagers together, they roamed the local streets, Leggy falling into the gutter sometimes, as the kerb seemed to get between him and his next step. Doug would laugh as he helped him up, dusting down his clothes, nursing the bruises.

When they were old enough to drink, Leggy’s nickname became the butt of many a bar joke. Not that we ever saw Leggy drunk. He just kept on falling down. And laughing about it.

He was lost when Doug was picked by the trainers for serious training. Doug’s was a talent too good to be passed over; what with running and jumping, he was an all round athlete. Training kept him busy for hours and Leggy couldn’t keep up with him. He tried pacing Doug on a bike but fell off so many times it was a disaster. So he stayed home, watching from the sidelines again, cheering from the safety of a settee in front of the TV set. Never so much as a look or word said he might be jealous.

Leggy joined the Army suddenly. No-one knew anything about it until he came home wearing uniform, looking tall and proud, every inch a man. Uniform suited him, gave him stature, confidence he hadn’t possessed before. We watched and wondered at the change clothes can make to a man. We waved goodbye when he left for training in the depths of Scotland and mailed clippings of Doug’s successes to him.

“Thanks,” he wrote back. “I’m keeping a scrap book so keep ‘em coming. Life here is pretty tough but I’m enjoying it. See you all soon.” It was signed Johnny Merrick. Someone said “Old Leggy’s gone back to his real name.” We started our letters “Dear Johnny” after that. It seemed strange, like writing to a stranger.

Sometimes, when he came home on leave, talking Army slang and reminiscing of places we could only guess at, he seemed like a stranger. But at heart he was good old Leggy, ready to stand another round and grin at the chestnut jokes.

Doug’s training or overseas competitions rarely coincided with Leggy’s leave, so they didn’t see each other much. They wrote and Leggy kept up the scrapbook, cheering his friend on long distance. When the Falklands war started – and we called it a war, no matter what the cocksure politicians said – old Leggy went. We caught a glimpse of him shouldering his pack up the gangplank onto one of the hastily converted ships, envying him his adventure, even if he was going into danger. Good old Leggy, off to do his bit for Queen and country while we stayed at home and worried.

Doug lost a race or two, said it was ‘nerves’ but we knew he was worrying as well. Despite that, the medals framed over his fireplace grew steadily, an impressive display.

Letters from the Falklands were few and far between and then there were none. We wondered, but didn’t ask. When the ships came home, escorted into harbour by tiny tugs and pleasure yachts, we searched our TV screens in a desperate attempt to find old Leggy’s face up there among the smiling sailors on deck. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t – was he? Not old Leggy…

Then we met him, propelling himself down the road in a wheelchair. Old Leggy, face drawn in lines no ordinary life could give, touches of grey where he’d been all darkness and the awfulness of a rug that covered yet revealed all.

Old Leggy was legless.

Not a word was said. We all called him Johnny and bought him a drink, remembering the jokes and saying nothing. It wasn’t the same and he knew it. After the second round he excused himself and we let him go. As the door shut after the wheelchair, someone said:“Let’s all be glad it wasn’t Doug.” And we all nodded into our drinks. Unthinkable. Doug, the brilliant athlete, training for the Olympics. After all, we said wisely, Leggy’s legs hadn’t been much use to him, had they?Leggy didn’t do much at home, just sat around. Sometimes he’d clean his Dad’s collection of antique pistols and look at his scrap book.

The story went round like wildfire, as these things do. Doug had come home with yet another medal and gone round to see old Leggy. As coincidence – or Fate – would have it, Leggy was cleaning the pistols. When Doug walked in and said “Hello. Leggy,” Leggy shot him.

There are those among us who said he should have gone for the heart. The rest of us said it was poetic justice.

No matter now what Leggy might or might not have intended – he shot Doug in the kneecap.

-- Dorothy
Amor Vincit Omnia

http://www.circle-of-light.co.uk/

http://www.oneinspecyal.com/

BEATERS - by Dorothy Davies

BEATERS

See the men come toward us in line with sticks and clubs and guns. Like a line of beaters.
See the men and know they come -
Lord Amighty but I'm that scared I could -

It was Bunce who started all this - or was it Jimmy?
Bunce. It was him who come arunning and said
"Hey guys, there's a spacemen in the woods!" and we, knowing Bunce ain't all there, you know what I mean, the lift don't always go to the top floor, like, we laughed and said: "You've been watching too much Star Trek!"
But he kept on saying, "There's a spaceman in the woods!"
It were a kinda boring day, too hot to kick footballs, torment dogs and cats, too brainstorming to go to school, so we went to the woods.
Well now, like I said, Bunce ain't got all that there is in the way of brains, so we weren't surprised when we got to the woods to find there was not a spaceman there at all.
An alien: not a spaceman.
It was kinda hard to say what he/it looked like, really, green and scaly and like nothing on earth and then it was changing shape, first grey and smoky like my old Dad's pipe smoke, then sort of like a tree, then sort of like a large polecat, then sort of like -
Jimmy.
That's when I got a bit scared and backed off a bit but it spoke with Jimmy's voice and kinda sounded sad and lonely-like.
"Stay with me," and it was kinda hard to go, then. Bunce and Jimmy and me, we stared at it for a while and walked round it and it looked more like Jimmy every minute till even Jimmy was taken to say,
"Damn it all, whoever you be, you looks just like the twin brother I never had!"
"But you don't like me as I am," and it sounded even more lonely, like an old train whistling across the countryside in the middle of the night, rushing headlong to - Nowheresville.
And you feel your heart sort of sink in your boots and you want to go and cry into some bale of straw or sommat.
Then it became Bunce. Just like that, in a twinkle of a will o' the wisp apassing us by, it became Bunce.
And then they were astaring and pointing because it became me.
And I got real scared.
"We'd better get going, guys!" I took off running, fast as I could, sweat apouring under the arms and everywhere, heading for home.
"Dad!" I yelled, knowing damn well him were asleeping off the old moonshine somewhere on the back porch but not caring if I got a licking or not. Somehow it didn't matter.
"Dad!" and he woke and shook the porch with thumping feet and yelled enough to bring down the old lightning struck elm outside.
"What is it, boy? This had damn well better be good!"
And I told him about the alien and how it was first Jimmy then Bunce and then me and how it stared and cried and made us feel all lonely.
"There be no such thing as an alien, boy." He spoke kinda slow and serious. "That there be the work of the Devil himself. I'll just go and see old Sam, downalong" and him peg legged off down the dirt track, raising dust devils of his own.
Good, I thought, the men will come and kill the creature!
Then I got thinking about Bunce and Jimmy and how the alien looked like them and how the men wouldn't know who they be ashooting and I got even more scared and ran back as fast as I could, stitch cutting my side into pieces and gasping like I was a marathon runner done the 26 miles without stopping even for a coke along the way and found three people sat at the foot of the old oak where it was once said a man done hung himself after a love affair went wrong and we thought how stupid to do that.
And I was thinking round in a circle because the three who sat at the foot of the tree were -
Identical.
And something reached out and touched me. I felt cat's paws of tickling all over my head my back my stomach my legs and I felt myself changing and changing and changing -
Into Bunce.
Now we were four.
Work of the Devil.
Satan's children.
No one would believe we were victims of an outer space creature now, would they?

See the men come toward us in line with sticks and clubs and guns. Like a line of beaters.
See the men and know they come -
Lord Amighty but I'm that scared I could -

--
Dorothy

Amor Vincit Omnia

www.circle-of-light.co.uk

www.oneinspecyal.com

CIRCUS by Dorothy Davies

A warm welcome to Dorothy Davies and this little tale of speculative fiction...


“Mummy, there won’t be real animals, will there?”
“No, dear, they’re all robots.”

“Nice crowd tonight, Mr. Glover.”
“That there is, Ted, that there is.”
“It’s a good thing they still turn out for a show, innit?”
“Isn’t much else for people to do these days, Ted.”
“You’re right there, Mr. Glover.”
“I usually am, Ted.”
I usually am. That’s why I’m, boss around here and you’re just a technician. At this rate it’ll never be any different. Every last one of you bores me to death with your inane conversations. Conversations! Ha!
“Five minutes to opening, Mr. Glover!”
Five minutes. Time for a quick drink or maybe two before I have to go out there and face them. All those people packing the seats, murmuring, talking, pushing, squabbling, shrieking – how I hate people! Don’t much care for robots either, come to that.Let’s get it over with.
“Cue fanfare, Jem!”
“Right, Mr. Glover!”
Here goes.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, to the greatest show on earth! I’ve got elephants, horses, monkeys, lions, acrobats, clowns, trapeze and high wire artists, jugglers, in fact, all the things you ever thought should be in a circus, right here.”
That’s got them, they’ve shut up now. Listen, you could hear a rivet drop in the workroom!
“Well, you’ve paid to see a show, not to listen to me – so enjoy yourselves –let the show begin!”
Music - where’s the damn blasted music - that’s better.
“Mr Glover!”
Patience. Always be patient with the hired hands. No matter how difficult.
“Yes Ted.”
“One of the Flying Olettas can’t be repaired, Mr. Glover.”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“Well, to be honest-”
“Out with it, man, don’t mumble!”
“Well, they’re getting old, Mr. Glover, worn out, in fact.”
“What do you want me to do about it? Am I a technician?”
“No, but-”
“But me no buts, too many of them damned Nobutts getting in around here lately. Do something about it or get out!”
“Yes Mr Glover.”
That’s stopped him for a bit. What happened to the patience, I wonder? Oh shut up!
“Mr. Glover,"
“Yes, Jem.”
“Ted asked me to come, Mr. Glover. You see, there’s a space in the Flying Olettas now.”
“Ted too scared to come and face me again, is he?”
“No I mean yes I mean-”
“Another mumbler! Come on, Jem, spit it out!”
“We’ve taken the dolls’ places before, Mr. Glover, but not up there.”
“So what?”
“Well, they might fall and-”
“So what?”
Nothing. Stupid, like the rest of them. I wish, just once I wish, someone would stand up and fight back. Mind, I’d get rid of him double quick, but at least I’d be sure there were some men left in the world!
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I hope you’re enjoying the show. Our next act, as you can see, is the lions...”
Lions on the loose, coming for me, they wouldn’t ... they couldn’t … they didn’t …

“Mummy, was that a real man the lion ate?”
“No dear, they’re all robots.”
-----------------------------
Dorothy
Amor Vincit Omnia

Dorothy Davies, writer, medium, forum fanatic, lives on the Isle of Wight and loves life.

http://www.circle-of-light.co.uk/
http://www.oneinspecyal.com/