Centre Of Inertia
Winning Entry by safemouse
Confessions of a conspiracy theorist
“Mind if I sit here?”
“Be my guest.”
“Sure?”
“No-yeah, go ahead. Strangers are just people you haven’t ghosted yet.”
“You looked a bit jumpy?”
“Jumpy?”
“Yeah, jumpy as a roo on the razzle-dazzle I reckon.”
“One must be careful what one thinks these days.”
“Too right. This yours?”
“Yeah, taking a break. Thinking about stuff.”
“Mind if I?”
“Sure.”
“The centre of inertia...three letters...third letter x.”
“Rex.”
“Rex?”
“As in king or queen.”
“Serious?”
“The centre of inertia is the letter ‘r’, often an abbreviation for rex, or regina for that matter. But it’s only three letters. And a constitutional monarchy is inert, so...”
“Wow.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
“Reckon it does. Are you a monarchist?”
“Um...probably. 51%. You?”
“Don’t suppose it matters now.”
“No. Very diplomatic.”
“Did you stay up last night? See the new year in?”
“Nah. I’m 78.”
“78 is old?”
“Some wear it well. Not me.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Our family don’t live to be ‘old’ old.”
“Didn’t think you’d see 2054 then?”
“I never thought I’d end up in Australia. Spiders, snakes, crocs. No thanks.”
“You’re a bit of a celeb in these parts. Can’t have you living in a swamp.”
“Touché. So you...know me then?”
“Came especially. ‘The Stargate at Pine Gap’ is one of my favourite albums.”
“Mine too.”
“Annoying question. Is the stargate at Pine Gap a thing?”
“Well, what say you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know” is a sound philosophy. Once, I was a barman in a pub talking to a regular about life, the universe. I’m for the afterlife, he’s ‘you live, you die, you rot.’ This goes back and forth, da da da. Then a pisshead called Barry pipes in with, ‘Nobody fucking knows.’
“So you don’t know?”
“About what?”
“Pine Gap.”
“If asking questions about aliens and secret bases is your bag remember to price in the whole equation.”
“What do you mean?”
“So, imagine aliens are here but their presence is top secret and that status quo has to be maintained. How would I even convince you?”
“I don’t think you can keep things like that a secret…”
“So why ask if Pine Gap has a stargate if you think stargates can’t be kept secret?”
“Guess I love wild theories. Part of life’s rich tapestry.”
“So many people think they would know if aliens were here. All the jigsaw pieces would be nicely assembled on MSM. But the jigsaw pieces aren’t assembled, some don’t even belong to the puzzle and most are missing. That’s the machinery maintaining the status quo.”
“K.”
“You can’t imagine a scenario where aliens don’t want their presence to be formally announced?”
“Sounds a bit unlikely.”
“You think of all the agendas aliens could have and what Earth’s place could truly be in the galaxy- laboratory, prison planet, place you can stop off to surgically mutilate nice juicy cows- you would know them?”
“So you believe in aliens?”
“What’s your name?”
“Greg.”
“Greg. I sit on this bench every day in the heart of old-fogey-ville watching the world crawl by. If a spaceship landed with little green men who ate Kit-Kats and danced on roller-skates I’d be on a breakfast show later on blabbering about it. And I’d be damn sure about what I saw because I don’t see shit like that everyday. But for balance I’d have to sit opposite a celebrity sceptic telling me I’d no idea what I’d seen. It was a cloud, or Venus or swamp gas or something far more improbable than aliens. And I’d be no different to countless others. Policemen, military personnel, schoolchildren. If the weight of anecdotal evidence holds no sway with you perhaps we’re wasting our time.”
“We’ve had disclosure, no? Don’t you remember Brian Cox announcing they’d found primitive jellyfish on Europa? He won the David Attenborough award. So yeah, I’m sure there’s intelligent life out there somewhere.”
“But not here? Plus ça change. We had a false dawn in the early 2020s. Whistleblowers in congress swearing the US government had alien bodies and spacecraft. Barely made the news in the UK.”
“Aliens crashing spacecraft?”
“Just probes with soulless biologics inside. Done deliberately. Everything is smoke and mirrors.”
“K. And you think Brian Cox is shadow government?”
“Actually, no. The point is a population’s attention is easily diverted. Stories easily killed. Take the 2020 pandemic.”
“What about it?”
“Actually, maybe I shouldn’t say. It might be an infringement of China’s National Security Law, which as you know has global reach.”
“I reckon anything potentially subversive can always have a disclaimer tagged on.”
“Yeah, but. Ah, screw it. I had this mad fever dream that China lied about transmissibility, openly menaced the UK into keeping its borders open during a crucial window, then had the most draconian lockdown itself and refused to co-operate with an investigation of the virus, which bore all the hallmarks of….not being zoonotic. And for that it got scant scrutiny while the UK went bonkers about why a man called Dominic Cummings went to Barnard Castle. How’s that?”
“Yeah, that works. Why would the UK have not held China to account?”
“They had our ass on a plate. By that time China had cornered most of the world’s medical supplies and they weaponised the asset. Plus America was involved in gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and they didn’t want that can of worms- ”
“It’s a bit of a stretch from that to Pine Gap.”
“Look, I couldn’t even convince the doctors that a strange mystery illness I had as a child was an allergic reaction to Benylin. I’m on a hiding to nothing, I get that. But you keep asking so I’m trying to help you conceptualize.”
“A secret alien presence on Earth. It sounds like a TV show.”
“You can learn a lot from TV shows. You remember the Traitors?”
“My Great Aunt was on that show.”
“You know why it was great TV? It showed how hidden hands can manipulate the majority. It also revealed how those on the right track are often afraid to stick their neck out, and when they do…”
“Yeah, best way to win that game is to keep your head down.”
“You’re not convinced, are you?”
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
“You know, sceptics tend to be Sherlock Holmes fanboys, his being an evidence junky. They don’t realise they’re actually Watsons and Lestrades who can make neither head nor tail of the ordinary evidence hidden in plain sight.”
“Maybe if you give me an example of a conspiracy theory that was proven?”
“If the powers that be do their job there’s never any grand exposé. Canonised conspiracy theories are trifling ones. The Gulf of Tonkin, the Reichstag Fire-”
“Any examples of your own country being involved in one? Even a small one.”
“The Horizon scandal was a conspiracy theory, of sorts. Until it wasn’t.”
“Never heard of it.”
“No, well. The Post Office are hardly deep-state but...almost got away with mass false-prosecution. It took a TV drama to expose it after the usual apparatus failed. It’s not aliens but it demonstrates how easily people are gaslit. And if a minnow like the Post Office can do that- extrapolate accordingly.”
“You could use this argument to justify any conspiracy theory.”
“Not without smoking guns. A sudden spike in light-fingered sub-postmasters made no sense.”
“Any examples of conspiracy theories you don’t believe?”
“Some are bananas. The ‘Paul McCartney is dead' theory was genuinely conspicuous by its lack of evidence. And I was never on board with the moon landing hoax, the controversy was astronauts being muzzled about the aliens they saw on the moon. But something like 9/11 has smoking guns. When I was a whinging pomme I saw a BBC documentary debunking the 9/11 conspiracy theory that picked all the low-hanging fruit and ignored the serious points. That’s a strawman argument.”
“And what are those serious points?”
“Now there’s a rabbit hole! The thing about 9/11 is the quality of people who sacrificed good jobs and marriages to question the narrative. Lots of senior pilots said they simply couldn’t fly a plane into a building at that speed if they tried.”
“How was it was done then?”
“The Boeing Honeywell Uninterruptible Autopilot. Not actually patented until 2006 and for good reason. As you may recall, one of the planes didn’t make it to New York but they pulled WTC 7, the tower that plane was intended for, anyways. Not many people noticed three towers collapsed into their footprints that day.”
“You think America would kill thousands of its own?”
“I’ll give you that. That’s quite the stumbling block. But the lives of ordinary civilians have always been expendable and what 9/11 ultimately led to was the Iraq War- launched on the flimsiest of pretexts. Many more people died there.”
“I don’t really know much about Iraq or 9/11. It’s all a long time ago.”
“That’s the thing. One day TWA 800 is downed by a navy exercise missile, it’s all over the news, air traffic controllers seeing it on radar, eyewitnesses jamming television networks, loose-lips, amateur footage. It’s a tragic friendly-fire incident. Then the FBI step on the NTSB’s toes, the networks flip the narrative, Boeing do a sweetheart deal to take the rap, witnesses are intimidated, footage confiscated...tick tick tick- given time TWA, 9/11, MH370 and countless other controversies are deep in the bosom of the ocean buried. When Shakespeare said truth will out he was playing the long game.”
“What else d’you reckon on being covered up?”
“Look, it’s a long list. Who cares?”
“Me.”
“Why? What is this?”
“You’ve got an eye-opening perspective I’m happy to listen to.”
“Well, I talk too much.”
“One more story for the road, then.”
“This’ll scare you off, anyways. Animals are biological robots.”
“Biological robots?”
“The lights are on but no one’s at home, your pet is a biological cuddly toy. Well, some animals have souls, those will be family who want to be with you. So be careful. Your cat could be your mother.”
“So...could your Dad come back as your pet goldfish?”
“I see what you did there. Fish don’t get treats and belly rubs so what’s the point? Of course, none of this is easy to research. The wild west days of an unchlorinated Internet are gone.”
“I’ll add that to the list. Michael Gonzales, you’re under arrest for subversion of the Chinese state, misinformation crimes and conspiratorial beliefs for which there is no proof. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may harm your defence.”
“Oh crap.”
“Just kidding. You Gen Xers are something else. Last generation who grew up without Internet.”
“Funny you say that. My UFO quest began in 2000-ish when I, an Internet newbie, met an RAF reconnaissance pilot in a Yahoo chatroom. She didn’t talk shop but I asked her offhand if she’d seen a UFO and she told me a craft tracking her jet took off as soon as she went weapons warm. She and her co-pilot chased it from Scotland down to French airspace and were debriefed by three big wigs the next day, who said NASA tracked the thing leaving the atmosphere above Brazil at 38,000 miles an hour.”
“And you believed her?”
“Someone says they’re raped we take them seriously, someone saw a UFO there’s no evidence.”
“Right, just lots of stories.”
“I think it was Stalin who said quantity is its own form of quality.”
“Don’t you think you might be wrong?”
“I wish I was. I’ve lived a lonely life. Don’t YOU think you might be wrong?”
“I believe we choose our illusions, John. And I believe in kindness.”
“Good project. Respect.”
“Gotta go. Great talking to you. Stay lucky. And...get a shave, man. You’ve let yourself go a bit.”
“Will do.”
“Which way is the bus station?”
“That way.”
“I’m walking. Oh, and John? John’s your real name, isn’t it? Remember, we’re watching you.”
“Mind if I sit here?”
“Be my guest.”
“Sure?”
“No-yeah, go ahead. Strangers are just people you haven’t ghosted yet.”
“You looked a bit jumpy?”
“Jumpy?”
“Yeah, jumpy as a roo on the razzle-dazzle I reckon.”
“One must be careful what one thinks these days.”
“Too right. This yours?”
“Yeah, taking a break. Thinking about stuff.”
“Mind if I?”
“Sure.”
“The centre of inertia...three letters...third letter x.”
“Rex.”
“Rex?”
“As in king or queen.”
“Serious?”
“The centre of inertia is the letter ‘r’, often an abbreviation for rex, or regina for that matter. But it’s only three letters. And a constitutional monarchy is inert, so...”
“Wow.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
“Reckon it does. Are you a monarchist?”
“Um...probably. 51%. You?”
“Don’t suppose it matters now.”
“No. Very diplomatic.”
“Did you stay up last night? See the new year in?”
“Nah. I’m 78.”
“78 is old?”
“Some wear it well. Not me.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Our family don’t live to be ‘old’ old.”
“Didn’t think you’d see 2054 then?”
“I never thought I’d end up in Australia. Spiders, snakes, crocs. No thanks.”
“You’re a bit of a celeb in these parts. Can’t have you living in a swamp.”
“Touché. So you...know me then?”
“Came especially. ‘The Stargate at Pine Gap’ is one of my favourite albums.”
“Mine too.”
“Annoying question. Is the stargate at Pine Gap a thing?”
“Well, what say you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know” is a sound philosophy. Once, I was a barman in a pub talking to a regular about life, the universe. I’m for the afterlife, he’s ‘you live, you die, you rot.’ This goes back and forth, da da da. Then a pisshead called Barry pipes in with, ‘Nobody fucking knows.’
“So you don’t know?”
“About what?”
“Pine Gap.”
“If asking questions about aliens and secret bases is your bag remember to price in the whole equation.”
“What do you mean?”
“So, imagine aliens are here but their presence is top secret and that status quo has to be maintained. How would I even convince you?”
“I don’t think you can keep things like that a secret…”
“So why ask if Pine Gap has a stargate if you think stargates can’t be kept secret?”
“Guess I love wild theories. Part of life’s rich tapestry.”
“So many people think they would know if aliens were here. All the jigsaw pieces would be nicely assembled on MSM. But the jigsaw pieces aren’t assembled, some don’t even belong to the puzzle and most are missing. That’s the machinery maintaining the status quo.”
“K.”
“You can’t imagine a scenario where aliens don’t want their presence to be formally announced?”
“Sounds a bit unlikely.”
“You think of all the agendas aliens could have and what Earth’s place could truly be in the galaxy- laboratory, prison planet, place you can stop off to surgically mutilate nice juicy cows- you would know them?”
“So you believe in aliens?”
“What’s your name?”
“Greg.”
“Greg. I sit on this bench every day in the heart of old-fogey-ville watching the world crawl by. If a spaceship landed with little green men who ate Kit-Kats and danced on roller-skates I’d be on a breakfast show later on blabbering about it. And I’d be damn sure about what I saw because I don’t see shit like that everyday. But for balance I’d have to sit opposite a celebrity sceptic telling me I’d no idea what I’d seen. It was a cloud, or Venus or swamp gas or something far more improbable than aliens. And I’d be no different to countless others. Policemen, military personnel, schoolchildren. If the weight of anecdotal evidence holds no sway with you perhaps we’re wasting our time.”
“We’ve had disclosure, no? Don’t you remember Brian Cox announcing they’d found primitive jellyfish on Europa? He won the David Attenborough award. So yeah, I’m sure there’s intelligent life out there somewhere.”
“But not here? Plus ça change. We had a false dawn in the early 2020s. Whistleblowers in congress swearing the US government had alien bodies and spacecraft. Barely made the news in the UK.”
“Aliens crashing spacecraft?”
“Just probes with soulless biologics inside. Done deliberately. Everything is smoke and mirrors.”
“K. And you think Brian Cox is shadow government?”
“Actually, no. The point is a population’s attention is easily diverted. Stories easily killed. Take the 2020 pandemic.”
“What about it?”
“Actually, maybe I shouldn’t say. It might be an infringement of China’s National Security Law, which as you know has global reach.”
“I reckon anything potentially subversive can always have a disclaimer tagged on.”
“Yeah, but. Ah, screw it. I had this mad fever dream that China lied about transmissibility, openly menaced the UK into keeping its borders open during a crucial window, then had the most draconian lockdown itself and refused to co-operate with an investigation of the virus, which bore all the hallmarks of….not being zoonotic. And for that it got scant scrutiny while the UK went bonkers about why a man called Dominic Cummings went to Barnard Castle. How’s that?”
“Yeah, that works. Why would the UK have not held China to account?”
“They had our ass on a plate. By that time China had cornered most of the world’s medical supplies and they weaponised the asset. Plus America was involved in gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and they didn’t want that can of worms- ”
“It’s a bit of a stretch from that to Pine Gap.”
“Look, I couldn’t even convince the doctors that a strange mystery illness I had as a child was an allergic reaction to Benylin. I’m on a hiding to nothing, I get that. But you keep asking so I’m trying to help you conceptualize.”
“A secret alien presence on Earth. It sounds like a TV show.”
“You can learn a lot from TV shows. You remember the Traitors?”
“My Great Aunt was on that show.”
“You know why it was great TV? It showed how hidden hands can manipulate the majority. It also revealed how those on the right track are often afraid to stick their neck out, and when they do…”
“Yeah, best way to win that game is to keep your head down.”
“You’re not convinced, are you?”
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
“You know, sceptics tend to be Sherlock Holmes fanboys, his being an evidence junky. They don’t realise they’re actually Watsons and Lestrades who can make neither head nor tail of the ordinary evidence hidden in plain sight.”
“Maybe if you give me an example of a conspiracy theory that was proven?”
“If the powers that be do their job there’s never any grand exposé. Canonised conspiracy theories are trifling ones. The Gulf of Tonkin, the Reichstag Fire-”
“Any examples of your own country being involved in one? Even a small one.”
“The Horizon scandal was a conspiracy theory, of sorts. Until it wasn’t.”
“Never heard of it.”
“No, well. The Post Office are hardly deep-state but...almost got away with mass false-prosecution. It took a TV drama to expose it after the usual apparatus failed. It’s not aliens but it demonstrates how easily people are gaslit. And if a minnow like the Post Office can do that- extrapolate accordingly.”
“You could use this argument to justify any conspiracy theory.”
“Not without smoking guns. A sudden spike in light-fingered sub-postmasters made no sense.”
“Any examples of conspiracy theories you don’t believe?”
“Some are bananas. The ‘Paul McCartney is dead' theory was genuinely conspicuous by its lack of evidence. And I was never on board with the moon landing hoax, the controversy was astronauts being muzzled about the aliens they saw on the moon. But something like 9/11 has smoking guns. When I was a whinging pomme I saw a BBC documentary debunking the 9/11 conspiracy theory that picked all the low-hanging fruit and ignored the serious points. That’s a strawman argument.”
“And what are those serious points?”
“Now there’s a rabbit hole! The thing about 9/11 is the quality of people who sacrificed good jobs and marriages to question the narrative. Lots of senior pilots said they simply couldn’t fly a plane into a building at that speed if they tried.”
“How was it was done then?”
“The Boeing Honeywell Uninterruptible Autopilot. Not actually patented until 2006 and for good reason. As you may recall, one of the planes didn’t make it to New York but they pulled WTC 7, the tower that plane was intended for, anyways. Not many people noticed three towers collapsed into their footprints that day.”
“You think America would kill thousands of its own?”
“I’ll give you that. That’s quite the stumbling block. But the lives of ordinary civilians have always been expendable and what 9/11 ultimately led to was the Iraq War- launched on the flimsiest of pretexts. Many more people died there.”
“I don’t really know much about Iraq or 9/11. It’s all a long time ago.”
“That’s the thing. One day TWA 800 is downed by a navy exercise missile, it’s all over the news, air traffic controllers seeing it on radar, eyewitnesses jamming television networks, loose-lips, amateur footage. It’s a tragic friendly-fire incident. Then the FBI step on the NTSB’s toes, the networks flip the narrative, Boeing do a sweetheart deal to take the rap, witnesses are intimidated, footage confiscated...tick tick tick- given time TWA, 9/11, MH370 and countless other controversies are deep in the bosom of the ocean buried. When Shakespeare said truth will out he was playing the long game.”
“What else d’you reckon on being covered up?”
“Look, it’s a long list. Who cares?”
“Me.”
“Why? What is this?”
“You’ve got an eye-opening perspective I’m happy to listen to.”
“Well, I talk too much.”
“One more story for the road, then.”
“This’ll scare you off, anyways. Animals are biological robots.”
“Biological robots?”
“The lights are on but no one’s at home, your pet is a biological cuddly toy. Well, some animals have souls, those will be family who want to be with you. So be careful. Your cat could be your mother.”
“So...could your Dad come back as your pet goldfish?”
“I see what you did there. Fish don’t get treats and belly rubs so what’s the point? Of course, none of this is easy to research. The wild west days of an unchlorinated Internet are gone.”
“I’ll add that to the list. Michael Gonzales, you’re under arrest for subversion of the Chinese state, misinformation crimes and conspiratorial beliefs for which there is no proof. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may harm your defence.”
“Oh crap.”
“Just kidding. You Gen Xers are something else. Last generation who grew up without Internet.”
“Funny you say that. My UFO quest began in 2000-ish when I, an Internet newbie, met an RAF reconnaissance pilot in a Yahoo chatroom. She didn’t talk shop but I asked her offhand if she’d seen a UFO and she told me a craft tracking her jet took off as soon as she went weapons warm. She and her co-pilot chased it from Scotland down to French airspace and were debriefed by three big wigs the next day, who said NASA tracked the thing leaving the atmosphere above Brazil at 38,000 miles an hour.”
“And you believed her?”
“Someone says they’re raped we take them seriously, someone saw a UFO there’s no evidence.”
“Right, just lots of stories.”
“I think it was Stalin who said quantity is its own form of quality.”
“Don’t you think you might be wrong?”
“I wish I was. I’ve lived a lonely life. Don’t YOU think you might be wrong?”
“I believe we choose our illusions, John. And I believe in kindness.”
“Good project. Respect.”
“Gotta go. Great talking to you. Stay lucky. And...get a shave, man. You’ve let yourself go a bit.”
“Will do.”
“Which way is the bus station?”
“That way.”
“I’m walking. Oh, and John? John’s your real name, isn’t it? Remember, we’re watching you.”
Featured Entry by Maxine
Stock still.
‘Sorry to bother you mate you got a light?’
Mac, whose gaze had not risen from its customary downwards trajectory, registered the girl by sensory message. The aroma of unwashed body and stale clothes reached him first. Her voice had that raw quality as if she had been screaming or not slept for days. She stood in his path. He could hear a wheeze as she took breath.
Reaching into his pocket for a lighter he lifted his chin enough to see where her hand was and stretched his arm towards her. As she turned her arm over to allow the lighter to be placed into her upturned palm he noticed scratch marks on the pale white skin around her wrist. She was moving from foot to foot, in a sort of excited anticipation as she cupped her hands around a half smoked roll up held between her lips. He saw that she was young and scrawny. She took a long drag ad breathed out a moan of relief. He could feel her expectant eyes on him. His head remained where it had been half raised. She bent down and looked under the peak of his baseball cap pulled down covering the upper part of his face.
‘Why you hidin' under there?’
She made a small child like chuckle and handed back the lighter.
He coughed and looked away. He hadn’t spoken to anyone for weeks. He’d forgotten how much it interrupted his thoughts to have to listen to someone speak. The unfamiliarity paralysed him. It didn’t really matter though because she would be gone in a minute and he could carry on to the shop to get his milk.
‘Hope it stays dry tonight the thing is I’m sleeping in a tent coz I got kicked out of the homeless place they said I was usin' but I was just holding the gear for someone its a nightmare trying to get my stuff dry they won’t let me hang around in the day centre for more than 5 hours so I got to walk around town now til I can face getting back into the tent coz I hate getting into a wet sleeping bag.’
The unbidden words came out of her in a stream between drags on the cig. She did not move from the spot. He realised with dread that she thought that they were in some sort of conversation even though he hadn't actually said anything. By handing over his lighter he had created in her a legitimate expectation that he was capable of doing what normal people did. He searched his mind for something to say.
‘Oh fuck my feet suddenly feel really heavy I was only going to the shop for milk see I haven’t been out the flat for 3 months my sister was bringing my shopping but now she’s gone away for a holiday and I’m on my own so I was feeling hungry I tried cornflakes with water coz I ran out of milk but it tastes like shit I can’t talk to anyone I need to feel safe and that’s why I never come out of my flat she’ll be back next saturday but I needed to get the milk and I thought it would be ok if I came out late at night coz there’s no one about.’
These thoughts went through his head but the only sound he made was a low groan.
Now she was rolling another cig. The adrenaline pumping through him triggered his nicotine addiction. He’d smoked the last of his tobacco. He was gonna get more with the milk. He held out his hand and she placed the almost too thin to smoke roll up in his palm. That chuckle again, they were complicit in something now. He didn’t know what. By the time he’d lit it and taken a deep lung full the scratched forearm with open palm motioned for the lighter.
‘Thing is Frank will be looking for me now he will need some gear for tonight he knows where my tent is so I gotta stay low coz I don’t feel like working sometimes I just can’t be arsed with blow jobs and weird guys in their cars I know he’ll kill me tomorrow but so long as I can keep out of his way til he gets something I don’t know where he’ll go but he knows plenty others who can sort him out so that’s his problem anyway.’
The girl took another drag and looked over her shoulder. Her words came out just as fast but she took a couple of pauses to suck on the cig.
Mac felt a pang of something. He wanted to protect this skinny girl from her life. Images of her in his flat floated across his mind’s eye, all soft cushions, low lights, breakfast in bed, cosying up to watch films on his laptop. And locking the door to keep Frank and all the bad stuff out. She’d need to have a shower thought, the smell of her arm pits was stronger than the tobacco.
‘Whats your name?’ He surprised himself that he could dredge up what used to pass for a chat up line. He didn’t fancy her but it was all he could think of to say.
‘Its shit being on the street hiding from everyone if its not Frank its the other girls they hate me coz I’m younger and if I’m out they don’t get any business so that’s how come I said yes to Frank when he said he’d protect me see this bruise around my eye that was Kate she landed a fist on my head one time was I was out.’
She shuddered as a chill wind blew over them. He noticed that the skin on her face had an unwashed weathered look - she lived more outside than in. The faint outline of blue/black on some skin that was slightly raised around her left eye. His fingers felt the heat of the end of the cigarette as it burnt down.
‘So what did you say your name was?’He didn’t really want to know but felt he should say something. It was ok to remind her he had asked. This was an achievement for him. Something about practising the things he found difficult was registering in the back of his memory from some online CBT shit his sister had made him watch.
Then from down the street came a man’s voice.
‘Jemma! where the fuck you been? Frank’s looking for you.’ Before Mac knew what was going on she leant forward and grabbed his belt buckle. She was tiny but she leant into his body and he felt her push. His mind was freaking out but his centre of gravity was powerless to resist her force in pushing him towards the alley bending them. She waved her arm behind her. She had manoeuvred him so he had his back to the road. Mac Looked over his shoulder. The man was hovering at the end of the alley.
‘Make like you’re enjoying this will you?’ She whispered to him and knelt down so her head was in front of his groin. He tried to step back but the guy was still pacing.
‘He’ll fuck off in a minute. Stay still.’
Mac let the heaviness he’d felt earlier take over him so he felt as if he were sinking deep into the ground. He really didn’t want to be here with this smelly girl but he was incapable of moving.
‘For fuck’s sake all I wanted was some milk and tobacco why did I have to get mixed up with all this shit I want to be back on my sofa with a cushion over my head closing out all this that’s what you get for having feelings when you let someone talk to you fuck all the CBT shite I’m not doing it any more fuck what my sister says about getting out of the flat this is all her fault for going away I don’t need anyone I’m not letting her into the flat again.’
He had closed his eyes and could feel his heart racing but his feet staying stock still.
If was like a long long time passed but when he looked round she was gone and he was alone in the alley. His belt was undone but she hadn’t done anything just pretended so the guy would leave her alone. Motion returned to Mac who went quickly to the shop. With his milk and tobacco under his arm he went from leaden weight to flying dart. By the time he leant against the back of his flat door he could hardly breathe. He turned the key, slid all the bolts across and pushed the draught excluder along the bottom to block out the hallway light. Slowly the feeling of relief tingled through his motionless body. He was safe. He was unable to sleep. He smoked all night. The smell of the girl returned to him. He wondered if she was back in her tent or whether Frank had caught up with her.
‘Sorry to bother you mate you got a light?’
Mac, whose gaze had not risen from its customary downwards trajectory, registered the girl by sensory message. The aroma of unwashed body and stale clothes reached him first. Her voice had that raw quality as if she had been screaming or not slept for days. She stood in his path. He could hear a wheeze as she took breath.
Reaching into his pocket for a lighter he lifted his chin enough to see where her hand was and stretched his arm towards her. As she turned her arm over to allow the lighter to be placed into her upturned palm he noticed scratch marks on the pale white skin around her wrist. She was moving from foot to foot, in a sort of excited anticipation as she cupped her hands around a half smoked roll up held between her lips. He saw that she was young and scrawny. She took a long drag ad breathed out a moan of relief. He could feel her expectant eyes on him. His head remained where it had been half raised. She bent down and looked under the peak of his baseball cap pulled down covering the upper part of his face.
‘Why you hidin' under there?’
She made a small child like chuckle and handed back the lighter.
He coughed and looked away. He hadn’t spoken to anyone for weeks. He’d forgotten how much it interrupted his thoughts to have to listen to someone speak. The unfamiliarity paralysed him. It didn’t really matter though because she would be gone in a minute and he could carry on to the shop to get his milk.
‘Hope it stays dry tonight the thing is I’m sleeping in a tent coz I got kicked out of the homeless place they said I was usin' but I was just holding the gear for someone its a nightmare trying to get my stuff dry they won’t let me hang around in the day centre for more than 5 hours so I got to walk around town now til I can face getting back into the tent coz I hate getting into a wet sleeping bag.’
The unbidden words came out of her in a stream between drags on the cig. She did not move from the spot. He realised with dread that she thought that they were in some sort of conversation even though he hadn't actually said anything. By handing over his lighter he had created in her a legitimate expectation that he was capable of doing what normal people did. He searched his mind for something to say.
‘Oh fuck my feet suddenly feel really heavy I was only going to the shop for milk see I haven’t been out the flat for 3 months my sister was bringing my shopping but now she’s gone away for a holiday and I’m on my own so I was feeling hungry I tried cornflakes with water coz I ran out of milk but it tastes like shit I can’t talk to anyone I need to feel safe and that’s why I never come out of my flat she’ll be back next saturday but I needed to get the milk and I thought it would be ok if I came out late at night coz there’s no one about.’
These thoughts went through his head but the only sound he made was a low groan.
Now she was rolling another cig. The adrenaline pumping through him triggered his nicotine addiction. He’d smoked the last of his tobacco. He was gonna get more with the milk. He held out his hand and she placed the almost too thin to smoke roll up in his palm. That chuckle again, they were complicit in something now. He didn’t know what. By the time he’d lit it and taken a deep lung full the scratched forearm with open palm motioned for the lighter.
‘Thing is Frank will be looking for me now he will need some gear for tonight he knows where my tent is so I gotta stay low coz I don’t feel like working sometimes I just can’t be arsed with blow jobs and weird guys in their cars I know he’ll kill me tomorrow but so long as I can keep out of his way til he gets something I don’t know where he’ll go but he knows plenty others who can sort him out so that’s his problem anyway.’
The girl took another drag and looked over her shoulder. Her words came out just as fast but she took a couple of pauses to suck on the cig.
Mac felt a pang of something. He wanted to protect this skinny girl from her life. Images of her in his flat floated across his mind’s eye, all soft cushions, low lights, breakfast in bed, cosying up to watch films on his laptop. And locking the door to keep Frank and all the bad stuff out. She’d need to have a shower thought, the smell of her arm pits was stronger than the tobacco.
‘Whats your name?’ He surprised himself that he could dredge up what used to pass for a chat up line. He didn’t fancy her but it was all he could think of to say.
‘Its shit being on the street hiding from everyone if its not Frank its the other girls they hate me coz I’m younger and if I’m out they don’t get any business so that’s how come I said yes to Frank when he said he’d protect me see this bruise around my eye that was Kate she landed a fist on my head one time was I was out.’
She shuddered as a chill wind blew over them. He noticed that the skin on her face had an unwashed weathered look - she lived more outside than in. The faint outline of blue/black on some skin that was slightly raised around her left eye. His fingers felt the heat of the end of the cigarette as it burnt down.
‘So what did you say your name was?’He didn’t really want to know but felt he should say something. It was ok to remind her he had asked. This was an achievement for him. Something about practising the things he found difficult was registering in the back of his memory from some online CBT shit his sister had made him watch.
Then from down the street came a man’s voice.
‘Jemma! where the fuck you been? Frank’s looking for you.’ Before Mac knew what was going on she leant forward and grabbed his belt buckle. She was tiny but she leant into his body and he felt her push. His mind was freaking out but his centre of gravity was powerless to resist her force in pushing him towards the alley bending them. She waved her arm behind her. She had manoeuvred him so he had his back to the road. Mac Looked over his shoulder. The man was hovering at the end of the alley.
‘Make like you’re enjoying this will you?’ She whispered to him and knelt down so her head was in front of his groin. He tried to step back but the guy was still pacing.
‘He’ll fuck off in a minute. Stay still.’
Mac let the heaviness he’d felt earlier take over him so he felt as if he were sinking deep into the ground. He really didn’t want to be here with this smelly girl but he was incapable of moving.
‘For fuck’s sake all I wanted was some milk and tobacco why did I have to get mixed up with all this shit I want to be back on my sofa with a cushion over my head closing out all this that’s what you get for having feelings when you let someone talk to you fuck all the CBT shite I’m not doing it any more fuck what my sister says about getting out of the flat this is all her fault for going away I don’t need anyone I’m not letting her into the flat again.’
He had closed his eyes and could feel his heart racing but his feet staying stock still.
If was like a long long time passed but when he looked round she was gone and he was alone in the alley. His belt was undone but she hadn’t done anything just pretended so the guy would leave her alone. Motion returned to Mac who went quickly to the shop. With his milk and tobacco under his arm he went from leaden weight to flying dart. By the time he leant against the back of his flat door he could hardly breathe. He turned the key, slid all the bolts across and pushed the draught excluder along the bottom to block out the hallway light. Slowly the feeling of relief tingled through his motionless body. He was safe. He was unable to sleep. He smoked all night. The smell of the girl returned to him. He wondered if she was back in her tent or whether Frank had caught up with her.
Featured Entry by Nae Bother
Centre Of Inertia
There’s no such thing as writer’s block. If you want to write you will. But write what? Even with a prompt or title, how to expand a theme or convey an idea? How to build believable characters. And pace! It needs just the right amount of pace.
And then even when it’s written, it’s best to leave it days, weeks, even months and years before going back and reviewing. Is it still as good as you remember (or as bad)? Can it take a rewrite or maybe, if you’re lucky, it just needs a tweak & polish? Or is it just another load of amateur trash - good for nothing other than leaving more room for better things in the ‘cloud’ or another pile of A4 for recycling?
Then there’s the style. Is it your own authentic voice or one you’re borrowing from your current favourite author or even from the random short story you’ve just read online?
Maybe not today then. And there’s washing piling up, the cat’s paw prints on the patio doors plus the fridge is running on empty which is not environmentally friendly. So maybe today’s just not the day and it’s just a thinking day. A mulling it over (and over and over) day. Tomorrow will be a better day. A writing day. Thoughts will be clearer, ideas sharper. Perhaps there’ll even be a plot and a perfect device to convey it. An unreliable narrator? Everyone loves an unreliable narrator!
Tomorrow, as we all know, never comes… but this week… every time I check my emails there’s the flagged one. An hour to write anything. The title is ‘Centre of Inertia’. Maybe I’ll actually give it a go this time. I’ll have a think and see what I come up with. Perhaps I’ll have time later or maybe tomorrow…
The next day I’m wishing my vocabulary was bigger (at least I wish it wasn’t shrinking). I wish I sounded like I know what I’m talking about. An expert in something; science would be good. Anything really but something that helps with metaphors and similes and would give my writing an edge, poetry, power. Momentum. Something that stands out from the crowd.
I think about it again the day after and the one after that. It starts a conversation over a bank holiday lunch.
So what, exactly, is inertia? I mean I’ve been trying to think of similes.
We talk about the draining of bath water, a spinning wheel when the motors are disengaged, a hamster wheel. Like my life, I think. Words and thoughts race all day and often most of the night without going anywhere. It can be exhausting.
You attempt to explain the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force and my mind races like a disengaged motor.
You say, inertia is basically an inherent resistance to a change of state.
I say, perhaps I’ll think about it again later. Or maybe tomorrow.
There’s no such thing as writer’s block. If you want to write you will. But write what? Even with a prompt or title, how to expand a theme or convey an idea? How to build believable characters. And pace! It needs just the right amount of pace.
And then even when it’s written, it’s best to leave it days, weeks, even months and years before going back and reviewing. Is it still as good as you remember (or as bad)? Can it take a rewrite or maybe, if you’re lucky, it just needs a tweak & polish? Or is it just another load of amateur trash - good for nothing other than leaving more room for better things in the ‘cloud’ or another pile of A4 for recycling?
Then there’s the style. Is it your own authentic voice or one you’re borrowing from your current favourite author or even from the random short story you’ve just read online?
Maybe not today then. And there’s washing piling up, the cat’s paw prints on the patio doors plus the fridge is running on empty which is not environmentally friendly. So maybe today’s just not the day and it’s just a thinking day. A mulling it over (and over and over) day. Tomorrow will be a better day. A writing day. Thoughts will be clearer, ideas sharper. Perhaps there’ll even be a plot and a perfect device to convey it. An unreliable narrator? Everyone loves an unreliable narrator!
Tomorrow, as we all know, never comes… but this week… every time I check my emails there’s the flagged one. An hour to write anything. The title is ‘Centre of Inertia’. Maybe I’ll actually give it a go this time. I’ll have a think and see what I come up with. Perhaps I’ll have time later or maybe tomorrow…
The next day I’m wishing my vocabulary was bigger (at least I wish it wasn’t shrinking). I wish I sounded like I know what I’m talking about. An expert in something; science would be good. Anything really but something that helps with metaphors and similes and would give my writing an edge, poetry, power. Momentum. Something that stands out from the crowd.
I think about it again the day after and the one after that. It starts a conversation over a bank holiday lunch.
So what, exactly, is inertia? I mean I’ve been trying to think of similes.
We talk about the draining of bath water, a spinning wheel when the motors are disengaged, a hamster wheel. Like my life, I think. Words and thoughts race all day and often most of the night without going anywhere. It can be exhausting.
You attempt to explain the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force and my mind races like a disengaged motor.
You say, inertia is basically an inherent resistance to a change of state.
I say, perhaps I’ll think about it again later. Or maybe tomorrow.
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