THE INVISIBLE

It is said that the meek shall inherit the earth, but, let’s be honest, pretty quickly after they do, someone will come along and swindle them out of it. 

The Meek are a strange group of people who live in the shadows of others, watching from a safe distance before shuffling off to their dwellings to mull over their fate in life, their numbers are unknown as no one has ever really cared to look into it.

I met a meek person once, a while back, she called herself `One of the unseen`, one of the invisible, I was going to ask her if she could see other meek, other invisible people, but I forgot and walked away, and it wasn’t until later that I realised but by then she had gone.

I started an experiment to study them, to keep track of them as I tried to understand their habits and lifestyles. I found that `The Invisible` tend to live in a state of almost poverty, shunning their materialistic needs, for a more simpler lifestyle, they avoid gatherings and parties, so live well on their own without the need of others company. 

As an experiment, I gave up a lot of my social comforts; I reduced myself down to a smaller existence and started to avoid the eye contact of others. Initially, people tried to talk to me, to check and see what was wrong, but after a day or two they left me to it with only a small few of my friends who tried to maintain some form of contact, but even they eventually left me.

I have to say, for the first few weeks I felt so isolated, so alone that my life turned dark and soulless which surprised me, in a city of half a million it is amazing how alone you can feel, how insular you become.

After a month, and my experiment completed and I tried to return to my normal way of life I found my path removed, I tried to talk to my friends but my voice was weak and they walked by without acknowledging me, so, after a day I returned to my existence.

It seems that once you turn invisible, it is very difficult to break free, to gain the strength to pull yourself out of the reality you have created round yourself.

So, now I write this down in the hope that someone will read it, someone will take the time to understand my predicament and help me.

I don’t want to be invisible anymore.

Please help.

I HAVE NO EYES TO SEE YOU.

It's not often I do poetry, usually they just drop out of my head when I am working on something else.
Most are turn out slightly mad and funny, but then, once in a while, something like this drops out.

I HAVE NO EYES TO SEE YOU.

I have no eyes to see you, my love my life of mine.

I’m living in the darkness that your light has left behind.

You leaving cause a pain that no mortal man can bear.

My love is with me solely, no other with which to share.

I miss you now my love, my dearest sweetest wife.

The colour in the world has gone there is no sign of life.

I spend my days in darkness now just sitting feeling cold.

I always thought we’d be together, sweethearts getting old.

But I have no eyes to see you, my breath is getting short.

Maybe I will see you soon, much quicker than I thought…

I CAN'T DO IT

“I know I have to try. There has to be away, some way to actually do it, some way to actually finish a flash fiction without someone dying.” I tell myself as I pause at the keyboard.

It’s not easy.

Behind my eyes people die, people explode or get crushed under falling debris, but not tonight, tonight, no one dies.

My friends have told me I’m odd, weird, a freak maybe. Unable to process the world without seeing death at the end of the tunnel, but I know there has to be a way. I can feel my fingers twitching as I type, trying to make me kill someone, to tighten round their imaginary necks. It wouldn’t matter who, I wouldn’t even need to name them, I could just kill them, and slowly watching as their life leaves the now dead shell I hold by the throat.

“Stop it!” I clench my hands into fists. I must do it; I just have to make it to the end without a blood curdling scream. `You’re, special. ` I’ve was told, but they paused on the word `Special` for a few seconds to long for it to be in a good way, the addition of the `Very special` a moment after, whispered under their breathe for fear of what I might do.

I suppose I should be please, fear is a power, a power I can use if I can focus it. I know I’ll never write children’s fiction; even my poetry is dark and soulless. Its not that my life leads me to it, on the contrary, my life is good. A good supporting family, a beautiful wife and two wonderful children, so its not there that’s the problem.

I did fall on my head as a child; recently I’ve almost cracked my skull on a piece of steel. That’s a story for another day though; I need to focus on the job at hand. I just don’t know if I can do it, I really don’t. It’s starting to worry me a little, even my dreams contain murder most foul, or death by gerbil.

The problem is though, if I’m honest, that I don’t really want to be fixed, to be made normal. Normal looks so dull and boring, so… so very… well, normal. I don’t know if I can live in a world where there’s no death, no Ninja squirrels hell bent on destroying the world, no small bed bugs ready to lay eggs up your nose or behind your eyes.

The pistol feels heavy in my hands, so cold and solid in a world of thought and death. I wish I could write a piece without someone dying. I really do. I just don’t know if I can finish something without bloodshed. I cock the firing pin and place the barrel under my chin. I just can’t do it…

TIME

After costing him many years of his life on research and almost all of his fortune, Darren had finally realised that immortality itself was not possible. The basic fact when you boiled it down was that the body wore away as time passed, so therefore, the best you could hope for after 300 years was to be a blob of muscle, mucus and membranes that once upon a time was labelled as your body. Each test, each theoretical model he ran ended up with the same, jelly like state.

            He felt a little let down to have spent so much of his life trying to find the answer that actually switching off and having what others would have called a normal life was impossible to him, and, even though he’d tried, the scientist in him always came back to the basics again.

            If only he could slow down time, he reasoned, then a hundred years could be stretched to maybe a thousand or more, therefore the body would survive longer. It wasn’t quite immortality, but it was close, and after so many years, he was happy with close.

            That being said, he’d started to study the passage of time, not only how certain people seemed to get more done in a day than others, how those certain people felt the day lasted longer than the normal 24 hours, but also those that the day blinked passed after what felt like five minutes.

            His theory was that time must be a certain size, and some people would absorb time faster than others and he’d taken blood from those who claimed time went faster for then, and those whose life dragged on and from the blood he’d found a chemical, a single chemical bond that those whose days passed more slowly possessed that the others did not, a simple anti-time mixture.

            The chemical had not been easy to replicate though, but the last of his inheritance and the sale of his estate had finally brought him to this point, this point in time when he would be able to slow time around him. If all went well, he’d be a step close to immortality, the very elixir from the fountain of youth itself.

            The Perspex container he’d designed would allow him to work in the gas, thus giving him more hours in the day and therefore more days in the year. Jubilantly he stepped inside and closed and sealed the door behind him, and with a final smile of satisfaction he sat down with a copy of War and Peace and took a note of the time on the clock outside the container.

If everything went well, he would be able to read the total book in the next few hours, or minutes even. Pressing the button on his console, he flooded the chamber with the chemical and relaxed back as he breathed it in.

As the toxic gas filled his lungs he realised his error, but by then it was too late to stop it taking effect. The irony was that he’d aimed to become immortal, that the gas would keep him alive longer, but, as he started to spasm and his mouth to froth, the next minute actually did last him the rest of his life, so it wasn’t a total failure.

35 SHADES OF PURPLE

Chris put the rope down carefully with shaking hands, his arms ached from the strain but it had to be done despite the scratch marks down his back. There comes a point when things just go beyond, and then, a man has to act, a man has to show his dominance, to show his power.

                Now, Sally lay before him on the bed, her eyes staring towards the ceiling, she didn’t move, she couldn’t now, not now, now she was the quiet one, the submissive, now she understood the power that a man can have and he wiped the sweat from his brow as he stood over her.

                He could leave her there now, there was no escape, no where she could go, she wasn’t going to leave the bed unless he allowed it and he gently pulled her negligee back down over her legs, brushing an imaginary fleck of lint from the scarlet red material, there seemed no point in it but he hadn’t meant it to go this far, but after the fist initial squeals and the failed attempt at resistance, he’s found he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t stop until he’d finished, despite the noises she made.

                He left the room, looking thoughtfully back at the bed, back at Sally. He’d have hell to pay later, but that was later, for now, the house was quiet again as though the walls had held their breath. His friends at work would understand, they’d discussed things like this before, they’d told him he should take charge, show her who was in charge, at the end of the day he worked the hours and paid the bills, so it was only fair he had his own way.

                He boiled the kettle and poured himself a cup of Earl Gray, the adrenaline of the previous actions still pumping through his veins and the spoon clattered against the side of the china. He’d not meant to be so animalistic, so primal, but the clothing she’d worn had been to lead him on, to soften him up, well, he’d certainly showed her.

                He walked back upstairs listening for signs of movement, but he’d done his job well, and as he walked back into the bedroom, he was pleased to see she was still in the same position he’d left her in. The rope mark round her neck looked deep and nasty, but when she’d asked him to go shopping for carpets, damn her, she knew he hated shopping, and that’s when he’d strangled her, could you believe there were over 35 bloody shades of purple to view, that would have taken hours and there was a footy match on the TV tomorrow.