The post An Autumn Love Story, Told in The Last Days of Summer appeared first on Neverwhere.

The post A New Home For The Audio Stories appeared first on Neverwhere.

The post An Out of Universe Commentary – The Short Collections appeared first on Neverwhere.

The post Lucid [A Very Short Story] appeared first on Neverwhere.

The post Life’s Adventure [A Short Reminiscence] appeared first on Neverwhere.

The post Summer Sun, Winter Sun [A Very Short Story] appeared first on Neverwhere.

She looked up and saw the last of the rain, its brief cascade complete. The skies were now cloudless and blue, the raindrops already drying on her palm. Across the city, shining and slick with the sudden rain, the sun gleamed on steel and glass. Windows winked at her, the city smiling its private smile. Overhead something glimmered and she looked higher into the heavens.

The rainbow was vivid and she counted the colours, then paused and counted them again. Five times she counted and five times she was presented with a different result. Some of its colours she could not name.

She smiled, and she did not know it – but her smile shone.

He watched her, the book in front of him forgotten. Its pages’ damp, the edges of the printed letters expanding as if the ink had conspired to consume its whole world.

He closed the book and some part of him realised it was useless to him now. As its pages dried they would cling to each other in a death rattle of ideas, curving and coiling into something unrecognisable.

He didn’t care.

He watched as she raised her hand, fingers long and slim.

His eyes drifted to her face as she turned it to the sun in salutation.

A dozen steps separated them, and if the sudden downpour had not pulled him from his book he would never have noticed her as she passed. She would have swept by and their lives would have remained untouched by each other’s passing.

But it had rained, and - as dots of fine rain had obscured his faded paperback – he had looked up to see her standing there with her hand raised, and her eyes wide.

A person’s mind and soul are not one and the same. The soul knows things the mind has yet to learn. He knew that, at least his soul did, his mind had yet to catch up. So when he rose from the low wall he had used as a seat, his footsteps surprised him. His courage surprised him, the moment surprised him – but still his feet moved as if of their own accord.

She heard the footsteps before she saw him, sensed his body just outside of her view. She knew it was a man, but she did not know how she knew.

She counted the colours again, and received another total.

“How many colours do you see?”

His voice was as gentle as summer rain, quiet as if it was reluctant to be heard, but it was strong, as though it’s reluctance was born of choice rather than necessity.

“Five, eight, twelve, fourteen.” She said, accompanied with the slightest shake of her head.

“Maybe more.” She concluded.

“Thousands.” He said.

“Perhaps millions.” She replied.

She turned and smiled, feeling for a moment a fraction of her true age. He smiled back, and she thought she saw herself reflected in his eyes.

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 10

The post Summer Rain [A Very Short Story] appeared first on Neverwhere.

This time it was a reporter for local radio who had clear blue eyes, but he remembered nothing else about her. When she asked the question and he replied with the lie. Then she smiled and asked a follow up, but he was ushered on and he raised a glove to her in salute.

The square circle received him, and though there were spectators he saw little of them. The lights blurred their faces, and they were little more than blobs of grey in the darkness beyond the spotlights glare. He had learned long ago that this was a good thing. He knew that often their cries were just socially accepted bloodlust, no different from the reaction to gladiators from a bygone era. They could only be a distraction, and any distraction would result is his loss.

The Fighter slipped off his robe, blue with gold trim. The trim had originally been a trio of plaited threads that ran around his robe, and down the seam of his shorts. One night he had spent four hours picking off one thread until only two remained. That night his fingers felt raw, and one fingertip bled, but when he saw the duo of gleaming gold remaining he felt far better for it.

He shifted from foot to foot, swinging warm up blows to an imaginary opponent, and thought of his Grandfather laughing at his labour. He shook his arms, and waited. There was no pomp and circumstance here, he had far further up the ladder to climb before that would be a burden. Here there was a darkened gym, the smell of sweat and smoke, and the occasional dark smear of dried blood.

There was a murmur and across the gym a square of light folded open as a door let in his Opponent. He knew the other man’s name, knew his reputation, but he would acknowledge neither. From when the bell rang to when it chimed in the fights conclusion he would acknowledge nothing that marked his opponent as anything more than that; his Opponent.

The Opponent climbed the steps and through the ropes, and the Fighter took an involuntary half-a-step back. There had been a mistake. There was a whisper in his ear and he almost swung out, but caught himself. It was his Second, his words intelligible, the Fighters brain slipping into the familiar flight-or-fight space where words had no meaning. The fighter looked at the Opponent again. Did the man step over the top rope? No, the Fighter clearly remembered him ducking under the third rope. Was he sure about that? He seemed far too tall to have slipped under any of the ropes, far too broad to fit between them.

His Second held out his black gum guard, and he bit down on it. His tongue slid over the slick plastic, and he wriggled his lips until it was slicked with his saliva. He chewed on the guard gently until it sat as it should, and he felt more at home.

It doesn't matter, the Fighter told himself, and then he told himself his lie.

The referee stepped out of nowhere, waving the men forward, and the Fighter dutifully complied. He didn't hear the words, he knew where to nod and when to touch gloves. It was ritual, nothing more, and when he looked into his Opponents eyes he saw that they were not blinking from the lofty heights of a giant, but from the height of a normal man.

His heard his Second leave the ring, and three of them remained.

Three people.

The number stung, and – again – he told himself his lie.

He took a step backward and then turned into his corner, only turning his back when he knew he was far from the Opponents reach. There were only seconds now, the last few seconds that would remain coherent before the bell. Then the adrenalin would rush in, and those seconds would degrade from an ordered march into a jumble of moments.

A round lasted three minutes, with a respite of one before another one hundred and eighty of these fragmented seconds – these broken moments – would descend.
Three.

Three people died every second, of every moment, of every day. His Grandfathers face flashed before his eyes. One round seeing the final breaths of over five-hundred people. His Grandfathers breath harsh as it rattled through tubes. Twelve rounds, a minute between them.

Forty-seven minutes, two-thousand, eight-hundred and twenty seconds.

Eight-thousand, four-hundred and sixty people gone.

When the first punch hit him, it stung far less than the knowledge that so few lasted the distance.

The Fighter beat the average, four rounds. Nine minutes and thirty-six seconds. Five hundred and seventy-six seconds in all, with no more than fifty of them making any sense. Any plan had evaporated less than a minute in, leaving him at the mercy of his instincts.

Thankfully, the Fighters instincts were good, humans were apex predators for a reason.

The Fighter saw his Opponent favour his left side, it was nothing more than a drop of the glove, a meagre twist of the body as he approached, but it was all the Fighters instincts needed. His mind drew a circle around the second rib up, and with each punch he imagined the rib splintering.

He did not want to win by concession, the proverbial throwing in of the towel, but a win was a win, and the Fighter was not a proud man. Well, that was except for the lie of course, he knew the lie was a matter of pride.

The reporter with the clear blue eyes met him ringside, and this time he noted that her hair was short, shaved along one side in a fetching cut. He did not hear her words, but he knew what was expected of him. As his second busied himself with the Fighters’ split and bruised skin, she asked the question and he told what he thought was his lie.
“Nah,” he said, “life moves too fast to feel afraid.”

posted by Alan Preece
on November, 10

The post Three [A Very Short Story] appeared first on Neverwhere.

One moment I find myself drawn back to again and again is one such memory, a little thing that should have been easily forgotten, but persists and haunts even to the point where genuine misdemeanours could be forgotten behind its shadow.

I was born on a winter’s day in 1970 to a mother who was little more than a child herself. When she should have been contemplating her life, a child was growing inside of her that would eventually dictate it. As – I suppose – all children must to their parents.

Assuming, of course, that their parents are good ones.

When the child was born, she became an embarrassment, as I suppose the child did as well. They were expelled from the family and the little girl, now a mother, was forced to grow up faster than she should have been.

I suppose that it’s right that someone must pay for their mistakes, but when that mistake is loving a child enough to bring them into the world in spite of all the negativity surrounding the act, it’s a mistake I’m very willing to forgive.

Of course, I’m biased.

Extremely so.

So, this little girl worked to raise the money to give her boy a life. Taking work wherever she could, working two or three jobs, or more if she were able. Cleaning houses of a morning, shopwork of an afternoon, only to retire back to her tiny apartment where she worked her fingers raw with needle and thread.

Eventually the family relented and after many trials the little girl was once again back in the fold. I don’t think this made the little girls’ life an idyllic one, as I think a family bond can be as much a burden as a release, but family – as we all know – is family.

The baby grew during this time of course. By all accounts, the little boy was a strange child, introspective and sometimes much older than his years. Sometime later his mother told him a tale that illustrates this.

When returning home from work the mother purchased a bag of penny sweets, a mixture, and when she placed them in the boys hands on returning home the little boy threw a tantrum, as they were not to his liking, and the young mother – little more than a child herself remember – had a moment of justifiable anger.

She took the bag of sweets from the child and threw them on the back of the fire.

Then something interesting happened.

The child’s tantrum ceased, and she watched the boy’s eyes moved from the burning bag to her face and then back again. Then the child nodded, once, as if acknowledging something, and after that day he never threw another tantrum.

An understanding had been forged, one without words. Actions have consequences, sometimes immediate and unchangeable ones. The child learned, and the mother was pleased and more than a little surprised.

But this is not the “little thing” of which the title to this piece refers.

Unfortunately, the “little thing” that weighs on my mind happened much later, when I was still young but old enough to know better, which – I suppose – is why my actions still sting. This tale, in conjunction with the previous one, illustrates something that the boy would not learn for a few more years still. Even though as a child he was already a living example of it, and he grows more of an example with every passing year.
To put it plainly, sometimes youth is not foolhardy, and there’s often little wisdom with age.

It was 16th November 1984, and it was a Friday. Back in the early 80’s Tuesday was new release day, when new movies would see the shelves of rental stores, so the movie that my mother had rented had only be out three days.

I can picture it clearly, even though I was oblivious to it all at the time. She must have heard about the release, possibly from someone at work, and had made an infrequent visit to our local video store without my knowing. She had brought the movie home and had waited until I was distracted long enough to slip it into the player and hit the chunky rectangle of plastic marked “play”.

I can imagine her grinning inside with anticipation, knowing – just knowing – how happy I would be when I saw the name of the movie across the top of the screen as the copyright notice scrolled below, as was the style on videos from CBS/Fox. She would sit back and watch my utter joy at seeing this movie for the first time, a movie I had not seen on the cinema a few years earlier, even though I had been desperate to.

Of course, this is how it all happened; right?

Not quite.

This is the “little thing”.

I had been watching something on TV at the time, well, not really watching it, but it had been on. It couldn’t have been anything important because what it was is the one detail I have never been able to remember. So, when I realised the TV had changed channel I reached forward and hit the button to put it back. Even as I saw the title of the movie fade in and a part of me knew – knew with utter certainty – that I was making a huge mistake, I still hit that button.

And when my mother said to me, “But its Empire Strikes Back”, I turned to her and spat out the words, “I don’t care.”

I…

Don’t…

Care…

Perhaps you think this is a silly tale, perhaps you don’t see the point of it. Perhaps you think there are such evils in the world that the silly insensitivity of a thirteen-year-old boy isn’t anything to get concerned about. Perhaps you think this is just what you’d expect from a little boy.

Perhaps you’d be right.

But not when that little boy was me, and not when the person I was so insensitive to had once been the little girl who put her very life on hold when she knew I was growing inside her. Not when the first thing she did when she knew she was pregnant was buy a large piggy bank, one made of China and glazed a deep black, so she could save money with which to treat me. Not when her faith and love had never wavered.

In this case, those words were a weapon.
My regret was instant, though I’m certain I did not show it, and this regret remained.

I honestly don’t think it ever went away, and if it ever did it didn’t travel far. It has been a constant companion, a strange little shard of self-imposed childhood trauma. Nothing a therapist would see much of a point in treating, nothing most could see any toxic value in at all. But it’s my personal poison, concocted specifically for my DNA.

I sometimes think I should speak to my mother about it, apologise to her, but I knew what she would say. “It’s nothing Alan,” she would smile – perhaps even laugh – and continue, “it doesn’t matter.”

She would not do this to dismiss my feelings, she would do it because she wouldn’t understand the depth of them. She knows she doesn’t understand me as she would wish to, and to her great credit she has never pretended to. She would say this because, to her, it would be nothing, it was one small cruelty in a lifetime of small, and not so small, cruelties.

But it does matter, it may be a little thing, no larger than the needles she used so skilfully all those years. Little, like those needles that would litter the floor of her workshop at home, tiny shards of metal that may draw blood, but could do no lasting damage. But to me, the memory is like a needle in my blood, just waiting to stab me in the heart.

posted by Alan Preece
on April, 27

The post The Little Things appeared first on Neverwhere.

I wasn't just alone in the building, with everyone else outside in the garden, which was not that unusual. On this day I was completely alone, and as far as I remember, this only happened twice in the whole time I lived there. Once on the day in question, and one more time for a whole week some years later. One day I might talk about that painful and eventful week, but for today I want to talk about that spring day when I met the old man.

Though I had my own TV in my room - as well as the essential VHS recorder - I was in the living room watching movies on this day. It had been a movie I had seen many times before, and I was only half watching, so this was why I saw the man standing with his hand on the wrought iron gate that led to the property.

At the time I thought he was old, but it unsettles me now to realise as I write this that he was probably no older than I am today. He was greying around the temples and had a broad belly that did not make me think of slovenliness, but rather of a man who once had muscle that he no longer needed. The term that comes to mind is "barrel chested", and he looked over to the house in which I lived with an intensity that I initially found quite concerning.

I know now that I should have listened to that feeling, but I was young then, and had the confidence of youth. I the unfounded certainty that nothing bad could happen on this lovely day where not even a cloud deemed to mar the sky.

I switched off the movie and went to the door where I saw his shadow in the frosted glass that took up half its length. I opened the door before he knocked, and he stood in surprise with his fist half raised to the thick blue paint of the door.

We stood in tableau for a moment, me with an entirely fake smile on my face, while he stood a little like that famous still from Citizen Smith. He realised he held a perfectly useless fist in the air, lowered it, and asked to speak to my grandfather. He was not home, I replied and told him he should return soon. It was just then that I made what could have been a grave error in judgement. Though I knew nothing about the barrel-chested man I asked if he wanted to wait a while, and he agreed.

Discomfort was the keyword for the better part of the next hour. I offered tea and then made him some and we sat and made small talk. This was much harder than it might appear. I was in my early teens at this point, and he was fifty if he were a day. My usual topics of conversation being Star Wars and comic books were not suitable, so the conversation moved in curious circles around the uncharacteristically bright sunshine we had been having, with occasional musings on the possibility of a hosepipe ban so early in the year.

Scintillating conversation, it was not.

We spent half an hour exhausting ways to describe a sky devoid of clouds and I had begun to deeply regret my unusual sociability, but I was nothing if not a polite boy, so I determined not to leave my unusual guest with a poor impression of my grandfathers’ family. After all, by his own admission the man had come a great distance to visit – though he did not disclose from where or for why.

Eventually the man said he had to leave and thanked me for my hospitality. I smiled, this time with sincerity – as the man was finally leaving – and I led him to the door. The man paused and asked me to tell my grandfather of his visit, leaving a name that – to my irritation – I have long since forgotten. I watched him walk through the gate and down the hill in the direction of the City Centre, and the train that would take him home, wherever that might be.

The house was not empty for long, I suppose it’s a natural law of some kind that someone you have awaited will arrive only moments after you have left, and there was the usual warzone of activity before people settled into their accustomed places. My grandfather is in his chair in the corner of the living room. Within moments the lights on his beloved CB radio lit up and his mic – a candlestick style beauty made of polished chrome – glistened in his broad fist.

This is when I told him he had missed a visitor and told him the man’s name.

This all happened a long time ago, and memory is a strange beast. Sometimes I wonder how much I remember is not a memory at all. Perhaps they are dreams I had confused with reality. Or tales I had read and incorporated into my own unsatisfying life.

I would like to think that this moment was one of those moments, a lie told by a fragmented imagination that I have confused with truth, but I don’t think any of that is true.

I think I saw my grandfather's face drain of colour as he said words that made my own blood run cold.

“You didn’t let him in did you?”

And this is when I learned my first lesson on lying. Lie fast. Lie so fast that you aren’t even aware of the lie on your lips. Lie with such speed that any indication your face betrays is so swift that it escapes the person you are lying to.

“Of course not!” I replied, and my mind immediately went to the two cups, washed but still wet on the counter next to the sink.

My grandfather stood rigid for a moment, and then let out a long breath.

“Who was he, Grandad?”

“Nobody, but if you see him again just walk away.”

As he answered me, I realised the second rule that day concerning the art of lying.

Some people did not know the first rule.

I never learned who that old man was, and I never asked. I understood that some things are best left unknown, and some people are best left in the distant… distant past. When I think of that day, I still feel a shiver run the length of my spine, and I am not sure if that shiver is inspired by the man I met, or the knowledge that my grandfather had secrets that he was desperate to bury in his own murky past.

posted by Alan Preece
on September, 06

The post Nothing but Lies appeared first on Neverwhere.