Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Posts

Agatha brought the food from stove to table, laying the plates on the bare wood. The room was plain, with the wooden walls of the self-built house unadorned by paint, or decoration, except for the Christ figure on his cross, looking down sombrely upon the family gathered for their repast. Now the only sounds were the occasional clatter of cutlery on the plates and the chewing of food.

At the head of the table, William ate in precise movements, cutting the meat into small chunks and chewing until it was well masticated. He looked at his family from under lowering brows. Agatha ate as he did, she had learned to appreciate what food the Lord gave, as had all his flock.

The children were young and yet to fully understand this precept, and he watched Joesph as he pushed his green beans around the plate. Agatha had seen too; he saw her look of concern. Well, the boy would have to learn that waste was not tolerated.

There, that was the last of it. She poured the bleach down the sink, the bottle giving a few asthmatic wheezes as she emptied it. She hoped that would do it, but it had been a couple of weeks since moving in and she still couldn’t get rid of the smell.

It had intruded on her notice by degrees, the olfactory equivalent of seeing something in the corner of the eye. Just a whiff every now and then as she walked past the kitchen door, or in the hall, or the bathroom. The suggestion of overripe cabbage, or a piece of fish left too long or spoiled meat. She had tried white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, down the plugholes but that didn’t do anything. She graduated to bleach which seemed to work, at least at first. She had checked the kitchen, the fridge, the most obvious culprits for rotting food, then the oven, which she scrubbed so thoroughly she broke through the baked-on crust to the shine of metal. She thought that had solved it, but over the next few days, the smell had grown more persistent, evolving from a faint hint to a definite statement. The smell evoked childhood memories – the dead mouse found under the stairs; a bird, lying broken among its scattered feathers; a sheep in the fields near the house, that announced its presence on the wind long before the encounter with its wretched woollen carcass, the cavernous stomach putrid with ooze…

Some of this is previous work and the middle piece is new. This is the rough order, but with other chapters to be added.

Pages 1-3 are previous work some of you will have seen.

Pages 4- 7.5 are New

The part ‘A later chapter’ is also previous work.

The Attic

‘Are you going to be ok?’ Joe put his arm around Mags’s shoulder and squeezed.

Mags nodded, her eyes on the floor, whispering ‘I’m fine’.  The sleeves of her jumper were frayed where she’d plucked at them. If she told him what she was thinking, he’d get worried she was unravelling again. Nevertheless, wasn’t there an inevitability about this flat? She felt Death had been close to her, all her life. Not close like a friend, because who was friends with Death? No one living, anyway. Death was nearby, then, like she could put out her hand and touch it and here yet again, death had been present when the previous tenant had killed himself.

‘Well, I’m not sure I am’. Joe turned to Mrs Hardy, the estate agent, ‘Bit of a climb that, wasn’t it?’ he laughed, and Mags felt a rush of affection for him, always stepping in to lighten the mood.