Bohemia Village Voice

Astronomical Clock

There were only a few minutes left to wait when there was an explosion, followed by several loud bangs and everyone around me started screaming and running off in all directions. Men in uniform had appeared and were shouting commands at us, waving their guns around and lining the men up, rounding up everyone else. My mother grabbed my wrist and held on to it so tightly it hurt, but she didn’t seem to hear me when I tried to tell her. All around me, people were screaming, shouting and crying, the women mostly. The queuing men were silent and their faces still. One man grabbed my hand and pulled me into a narrow alley, barely visible from the street. He bent down to my height and  put his forefinger to his lips, a signal I took to mean to remain silent.

He led my mother and I down the darkened path with five or six others in front of us. I looked for my father but couldn’t see him through the darkness and my own tears. We were shown through a small wooden door and down some steps, into another corridor where the walls were stone and cold and felt gritty to the touch as I ran my hand along it. The man opened another door and lead us into a small, but crowded room.

I caught only snippets of the conversation with the strange man and my father. “This attack was unexpected, many lives have been lost today and it is neither the first time, nor the last.”

“May God be with you Rabbi.”

“And with you.”

 

Counting

The twisted branches of the bare oak thrashed violently as the wind forced its way through them, threatening a darkened fate. She could barely see through the small glass window with the thick condensation trapped between the two glazed panels, but the eerie, wailing sound the scene produced couldn’t have been clearer.

The dark room received no benefit from the unnaturally large crescent moon, which curved a watchful eye over both her house and the woods behind, instead it was dimly lit by the glow of a solitary table lamp. She liked it that way when she was suffering from such feelings.

She settled down, cross-legged on the misshapen armchair with her jumper pulled down tightly over her bare knees and once again, her thoughts advanced to her absent father. His frail, now elderly figure was clearly visible in her mind, his hunched frame hugged only by the familiar orange jumpsuit.

It was his eyes that haunted her most though, his faded grey irises and pin point pupils had fixed on her so firmly the last time she had seen him. She had thought that he had been begging her with them, pleading for her help, for his life, but it was not what she had first imagined, it was something different and it was something that disturbed her even more. It was acceptance. He had no fear, no hope, no life.

The twenty-four years were not long enough to come to terms and now, there were only four days left. For years, the prospect hadn’t seemed real but now, they both realised, it was the end.

 

December Morning

I could just about hear my own footsteps as my soles crushed the frosted grass beneath them. Each single step sending a chill down my body as the fresh December air bit at my face and enveloped around my un-gloved hands. I thrust them deeply into the pockets of last winters’ coat and my fingers traced the outlines of the objects, but my mind didn’t register as to what they were, it was somewhere else entirely though where, I couldn’t quite decide. It is amazing how trivial observations can provide such a relieving distraction.

After all that has happened, is still happening, my only interest is how the bare branches of the trees resemble the long, bony fingers of death himself. Pointing upwards towards the ominously stark white sky, as if promising a different fate, or perhaps threatening one. It was impossible to decide. I felt numb, the chilling morning air emphasising my mood and encouraging it. I continued to walk, not going anywhere in particular and barely even aware of my own existence, seeing everything around me except myself.

It’s cold now, I feel it, but it isn’t refreshing. I can see the wind blowing through the branches of my haunting tree but it escapes me.

They say that when you die, there is a bright light or a tunnel or maybe the said reaper comes. That didn’t happen to me but as I walked down the deserted streets and across the familiar fields and paths, I knew that I had died.

 

Melancholy

In the kitchen she filled the kettle and took her favourite mug out of the handle less cupboard, filling it with coffee. She heard a soft padding heading down the concrete hallway towards her, with a gentle yet rapid tapping sound. Happily she was greeted by her calico, inspirationally named ‘Cal’. He leapt up excitedly on to the kitchen table, brushing himself against a misplaced alarm clock, knocking it off on to the floor. Claire scooped up the overweight cat, cradling him like a newborn baby, being careful not to catch on his claws. Silently she made her much needed coffee and sat down at the kitchen table with Cal curled and purring in her lap.

Not for the first time she looked around the room, taking in her surroundings. It was dark, the light bulbs had blown but she was getting used to the dark and she could still see every detail: the magnolia walls cried out for attention and tobacco stains jeered from the ceiling. She closed her eyes tightly and imagined her dream kitchen. The one she would have one day when she had got away.

It had cheerful terracotta walls with wooden cupboards, washed with blue. A round table would be in the centre with a gingham tablecloth. Flower boxes by the lattice windows and a wooden spice rack mounted on the wall. A large, old- fashioned agar, with a copper whistling kettle would sit proudly on the top and sprigs of lavender with lilac ribbon would hang from the beamed ceiling.

She could almost feel the warmth from her imaginary house.

 

Premonition

She could feel the presence, thick and heavy in the air. Unfriendly, threatening. She wiped her hand over the steamed mirror and a reflected image stared back at her. But it wasn’t her, at least not then. The girl’s eyes were sullen and black and sunk deep into her face that only years can produce and it was then that she knew how she was going to die.

It would be a single blow to the head, her death instant or maybe it would take time, maybe she would bleed slowly to death, as her eyes turned to stone she would see her killer wipe his hands and smile over her body, watching her until each breath has passed through her lungs.

She didn’t know when or why or who even, but she knew how and that was enough.

It was known as ‘the shining’, her gift, wasn’t that what Mr Halloran has called it? It didn’t feel much of a gift now.

 

Temporary Insanity

They say that she never meant to do it. Some say that she temporarily lost her mind, others say that she just saw red, but mostly, they just say that she’s mad. I’m not sure what I think about it all. If I’m honest, I can almost understand it. Not that I’d do the same mind you, but I can see how these things can happen. After all they do happen and when they do, there’s very little that anyone can do to change it or understand it even. I’m not sure what she would’ve claimed in court but it’s all just pointless speculation really, since she isn’t here any more. Though where she is, I don’t think anyone knows, maybe not even her if you believe the rumours. Not that I do.

It was a tragedy really, for both of them, though no-one knows what goes on behind closed doors. Who can say what really happened? There are only two people who would ever really know and one of them can’t be asked. Not until it’s too late at least and by then, I don’t suppose it’ll matter much anymore. I know it was a knife she used, that much is common knowledge and that she used it only once. But everything else, even the police couldn’t tell. Passion, I think was what they put it down to. I suppose it had to be, neither of them had much money and if its not one it’s usually the other. Even so, one does wonder.

 

The Cent

It didn’t gleam, nor did it shimmer brilliantly with flecks of sunlight dancing off its surface. There was no magical presence surrounding it, in fact almost nothing about it stood out at all. Yet, somehow, its dull, dirty exterior caught her eye.

At first, she thought it was a penny, with all the delicate promises of luck and fortune. Instead, it was a single cent. A plain, average, seemingly mediocre American cent but somehow, it instilled something within the girl. What, she couldn’t quite explain; how, fathomed her but still, the cold copper coin warming in her hand and between her fingers as they lingered over its surface.

‘In God we trust,’ it told her. ‘Liberty.’ Somehow, while the penny made promises of luck, the cent offered her hope. Hope for the future, for dreams not just acknowledged through the Gods of fate, but recognised for what they were and inspired through their own individual importance. It held faith for the past, understanding and forgiveness, empathy and sympathy.

His face, the great President of the past, all knowing and learned yet still a student in his own right and by his own admission she imagined. Through her ignorance she was unaware of his history, of his reign but in his face, through the coin, she was shown all that she was needed.