Issue 3

He pronounced his name, ‘Gee’, like the French name, Guy. That’s what he said when I hired him as a dishwasher. But, he left the plates greasy. And, he kept breaking the glasses as they slipped through his hands. I was ready to fire him, but Gee begged me to let him cook. So, I relented. And, our food acquired an unimaginable richness. Word of mouth spread. Curious, I spied Gee at work in the kitchen. There I discovered his secret as Gee dipped his jaundiced hands into a steaming pot, and his ‘butterfingers’ melted away before my eyes.

To stay safe and free is a constant battle. Wherever I land, wherever I hide, human hands plunge into reeds, rushes, and bushes - thorns or not. To smear pond weed and carrion blood on my golden feathers is of little use - the slightest glint during daylight hours and the hunt starts all over again. Once, I wished treasure-hunting would fall out of fashion, but I fear it never will.

Now, I pray for meteor showers to flood the world with precious metals, to render my plumage as worthless as chocolate coins. Only then may I live in peace and obscurity.

The media liked to call it ‘the Boomerang Probe’, whenever they could be nudged into reporting on its progress. More prosaically, the team of scientists and engineers behind its development had named it the Non-Euclidean Curvature Remote Observatory. It was a marvel of twenty-first century technology, designed to cruise through deep space at near light-speed on a long interstellar loop. The aim was to settle the debate over the origin of dark energy once and for all. Everyone expected it to come back laden with novel and exciting scientific discoveries. No-one anticipated that it would return carrying an unwelcome passenger.

Black was slimming; red-and-white stripes, not so much. I guess black would make me look like the Grim Reaper. Not a good look for a hospital volunteer.

“You’re early,” Hunter, the pharmacy supervisor, said, his bearded lips shiny from a half-eaten Wendy’s burger open-faced on the counter.

“Here.” He handed me a package that looked like a bunch of little gray submarines from Battleship. “Separate those, please.”

“Like this?” I tore one off and asked, “Hey, how do people swallow these?”

“Um…what?”

“Are these like horse pills?”

“Uh, no, they’re suppositories.”

I waited.

He blinked. “They go through Door #2.”

On the fifth anniversary of his father’s heroic death in a far-off jungle, a nine-year-old boy pleads and screams as he’s dragged into a tool shed by his drunken stepfather.

On the twenty-fifth anniversary, the boy, reeking of cheap whisky and cigarettes, staggers into his daughter’s bedroom while the young girl cowers against the wall.

On the fifty-eighth anniversary, that girl collapses into her lightless closet, and as her fury-laced glares and impaling shouts become anguished sobs, her teenage daughter sits alone in the bathroom and once again glides the thin, comforting edge of a razor blade across her thigh.

Mum pointed at the grass, still lush-green despite the summer.

“Tread softly,” she said. “The dead soldiers lie just under the surface.”

She loved highlighting hidden dangers.

Everything came with a warning, another test for Charlie. Easy on your feet. Mind your position.

“Trust your instincts,” said Dad. “We’re with you.”

Mum and Dad. Here to help.

The wind hushed in Charlie’s ear. Faint voices, still breath in them after so many years.

“Go on.”

Charlie dropped the ball and raised himself onto his toes. He breezed across the grass, gaining speed, flanked by his two defenders.