Far-Fiction

Five-Minute fiction - 00:29-00:34

Reins swirled the drink in his glass and strained to hear the tinkling of the ice against the glass over the rampant background noise that filled the small club. The chatter, a mixture of animated debate and raucous singing was doing a good job of even drowning out the music. He glanced at the woman standing next to him, and tried to look her in the eye. But he found he could only hold her gaze for a fraction of a second before her beauty befuddled him.

‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’ he said leaning closer to listen.

‘I was just saying that I found it curious that you’re drinking that, is it your favourite?’ she said her voice soft, and melodious her accent strangely familiar yet alien.

He swirled the pale, opaque liquid in the class and smiled. ‘Sort of. It’s a traditional favourite of, well cool people.’

Her lips curled in the slightest hint of a smile and he immediately felt his heart flutter. She looked away and he felt his heart continue to stutter then realizing it was his phone and not his heart, he sighed…

Five-Minute fiction - 00:02-00:07

‘Huuurggghhhh!’ Grim gasped as he tried to pull himself up and over the eave and onto the roof. The muscles in his arms, and shoulders, and back screamed in protest as he tried to not only remain hanging from the roof, but pull himself up.

‘What are you doing up there?!?’ Darker said from somewhere below. ‘Just pull yourself up!’

The rope, which for the moment was digging into Grim’s hips swayed slightly as Darker, the much larger and much heavier of the two, and was hanging onto the rope swung slightly in the breeze.

‘Caaaan’t hooollllddddd on!’ Grim snarled as he once again tried to pull himself up. It seemed as if with every attempt he sunk further and further below the edge of the eave.

‘Oh for the sake of it,’ Darker said and Grim had to resist the urge to scream as the rope jerked and cinched tighter around his hips. The rope swung wildly… 

Five-Minute fiction - 11:42-11:47

‘I think we need to reconsider taking the contract on Oldman Cupboard?’ Darker said as he pressed himself against the wall in an attempt to escape the press of the crowd.

Grim, the smaller of the two men, was trying, desperately, to keep his head above the surging crowd. He looked like a man drowning, gasping for air. ‘And what has led you to that conclusion?’

‘We’re almost out of food money,’ Darker replied. He reached out and batted a number of the crowd members away before seizing Grim’s collar and hauling him up against the wall. Grim’s face was a mix of confusion and terror. ‘And I think you know what that means?’

‘B-bu-but that means we’d have to start using the beer money,’ he said, his face suddenly ashen.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then I guess it’s the end of the road for Oldman Cupboard, and his little wife too.’

‘Why would we have to deal with Oldmother Cupboard. She’s the one who took the contract out…’

Five-Minute fiction - 01:00-01:05

Reins winced as the volume of the music overwhelmed his ears. Around him the house light pulsed spilling a kaeldascope of colour across the dance floor. Bodies churned, seething like a singular rolling mass of flesh. He twitched irritably as the internal earplugs engaged and did their best to drown out the most of the music. While the plugs did their work there was nothing that could be down about the heart-thumping bass that filled the club. He glanced over his shoulder when he felt the hand and saw Holp, the same look of discomfort on his face, gesture toward the rear of the club, the VIP tables.

They pushed their way through the crowd, treading on toes, shoving the roiling masses of flesh and sinew aside. Reins imagined the angry shouts but heard nothing, the music too loud for anything to be heard. He felt hands clutch at his shirt, his jacket, even felt a hand caress his neck the fingers splayed and searching up into his hair. He batted it aside and pushed on without looking back.
The tables…

Five-Minute fiction - 23:39-23:44

‘I’d really like your perspective on this,’ Reins said as he stooped down over the body.

‘Oh? Suddenly you want my advice?’ Holp said, sounding somewhat hurt.

Reins knew the hurt was feigned indifference, but indulged his partner nonetheless. ‘Yes, if you wouldn’t mind. I could certainly do with your considerable expertise on the matter.’

The man stepped forward his brown leather shoes navigating the bloodstain with ease. He squatted beside the body and gave it a prod, unceremoniously, with a pen he’d taken from his pocket. Two of the police officers coughed nervously and Reins was positive he heard one of them mutter about waiting for forensics, but neither he nor Holp payed them any mind.

‘Dead maybe around two-thirty this morning,’ Holp said shifting his weight to look first down one side of the alley and the other. ‘I’d guess dropped here, though I can’t be sure.’

‘When did the call come in?’ Reins asked turning to the younger of the two officers. ‘I didn’t notice it on the briefing.’

Five-Minute fiction - 00:06-00:11

Reins turned as they entered the elevator. ‘You’re on the third floor right?’ he said extending his hand to where the buttons should have been, but rather than a series of several dozen buttons there was only a flat polished brass panel. ‘What? Oh, come now, you’ve got to be kidding me. Your tastes can’t be so retro that the elevator in your building doesn’t even have buttons.’

‘It doesn’t. Patrick, here, is the elevator man,’ Holp said.

They weren’t alone in the elevator. A small man, dressed impeccably with a red blazer and matching hat stood next to a polished lever the same colour as the wall panel where the buttons should have been. The man smiled, politely, and doffed his cap.

‘Where did he come from?’ Reins asked, and before Holp could reply. ‘And I don’t mean in a literal sense. How did he get in here? Aside from the door.’

Holp smiled. ‘He’s been here all the time. I think you were just too preoccupied to notice.’

’T’happens all the time, sah,’ the man, Patrick said, his words spilling out in a slight drawl. ‘Third floor, Mr Holp?’…

Five-Minute fiction - 23:48-23:53

‘Ahhhh!’ Reins said levelling his pistol at the man. ‘This can go one of two ways for you, and while neither one of them is precisely beneficial, one is far worse than the other. So, perhaps, we can talk about this like reasonable human beings. I’ll put the gun away and you’ll hold a conversation with me, like a civilized individual. Is that acceptable?’

The man tensed and Reins had to fight the urge to tense as well. Reins’s hand jigged ever so slightly and the man turned and ran.

‘Damn it! Come on!’ he said. He took aim and the whisper crack of the pistol shot cut through the oppressive noise of the bustling city. The man cried and out and collapsed clutching his leg. Stolidly, however, the man didn’t continue to cry out. The initial yell was his only audible acknowledgement that he had, in fact, been injured. ‘All right, there were three ways, but two of them did involve shooting you,’ Reins continued as he approached the wounded man. ‘But, I mean, being shot in the leg…’

Five-Minute fiction - 00:10-00:15

Reins skimmed the numbers listed on the buildings directory before, unsatisfied, turning away. Holp stood some ten feet away chatting with two ladies of the night. Reins hesitated to call them street walkers as this wasn’t the right district for it, nor the right time, especially with the sun bearing down on them. But the two women were dressed up, lace, and frills, and all manner of adornments bedecked their nearly identical bodies. 

Sighing he crossed the sidewalk to here Holp stood clicking his Oakleys to the dermal bands mounted around his eyes. There was a faint click as the magnets mounted around his eyes snagged them and locked them down tight.

‘… No, I understand. Look it’s not for me you, it’s for him,’ Reins heard Holp say as he came into earshot. As if to punctuate the point he gestured over his shoulder right where…

Five-Minute fiction - 00:24-00:29

The rain came down in sheets, but despite that the street was filled to bursting with people going about their business.

‘I’ve never understood the attraction to the whole hustle and bustle,’ Holp said turning to Jonah.

The two men couldn’t have appeared more different, but yet they were very similar. Holp wore a simple, some would say classic suit, cut from the finest materials, and held a dark plastyon canvas umbrella which was doing a remarkable job at deflecting most of the incoming water. Jonah Reins on the other hand wore a suit of an entirely different cut and hadn’t bothered with the umbrella as his suit and more strangely his hair seemed to be sloughing the rain off.

‘It’s not so much just about the hustle and bustle. It’s about feeling connected…’

Five-Minute fiction - 23:53-23:58

‘It’s all a matter of perspective,’ Jonah said as he slipped from the door of the cab and turned to hold it open for the second occupant.

‘Oh? And what perspective is that then? That she doesn’t even know you exist?’ Holp said. He paused turning to swipe his thumb across the reader mounted on the back of the cab’s middle window. He finished the action by gesturing with his middle finger toward the unseen driver. ‘Look, I’m all for things being a matter or perspective, but I’m not entirely sure that you’re being honest with yourself.’

‘How else am I supposed to be?’ Jonah said. The catch for the umbrella caught and he had to jiggle it before the clear plastyon cover was stretched to its max. The rain pattered softly off the surface as Holp stepped under it. He was close, uncomfortably so, both physically and matter-of-factly.

‘The truth is you know what you need to do, and if you don’t do it you’re going to miss out. I don’t want to see you go. Hell, I’d transfer if you asked me to, but I don’t think you’re gonna do that.’

The two men turned and under the cover of the umbrella strode up the stairs toward the two waiting police-officers. Flashbulbs flashed…

Five-Minute fiction - 01:11-01:16

The horse pawed the snow-covered earth nervously as the other three horses came into view. Falton tugged at the reins trying to quiet the creature, but the cold combined with the ominous presence of the woods made it difficult. The road, for what it was worth was free from the encroaching canopy the trees on either side of the road cut down to hinder the overarching branches from obscuring the sky from the road, but that meant the snow had settled on the road, and it rolled in great drifts, stirred by the quiet wind that always seemed to be present in the Green Expanse. Falton brushed the hood back from his head and snapped at the reins again, this time managing to quiet the horse. The two other recruits, Holp, and Thury both struggled with their horses as well.

But they didn’t have the luxury of time to focus on the horses, the four riders approaching along the trade road were well within shouting distance but nothing had been said….

Five-Minute fiction - 09:19-09:24

The air changed when Falton passed underneath the grasping branches of the forest. The green canopy overhead blotted out the sun turning the world into a strangely hued vision of itself. Sound itself seemed to die away as well. The humming, thrumming noise ofthe Hollow. Of lie, and love, and toil fell away to be replaced by an eerie silence that clawed at his heart. He gripped the hilt of his sword, the worn leather bringing some comfort, the thought of hardened steel bringing more. Beneath his feet the years of detritus crackled sounding like the sickly snapping of bones. It smelled different as well, the sweet smell of wheat, of hay awaiting the scythe, of jasmine, and honeysuckle was replaced by the lingering odour of death, of decay…

Five-Minute fiction - 00:50-00:55

There was a tick, tick, ticking, followed by a tock, tock, tocking, and Grim realized he was in trouble. Or at least in more trouble than he had first anticipated, and it all had to do with that blasted pigeon. A tiny grey head, with brilliant orange eyes appeared over the edge of the roof. There was a soft coo, as the bird regarded him with some fascination. Pigeons were not renowned for their intelligence, but then again the majority of the pigeons still living in the City had managed to survive this long. Though, in fact, Grim suspected that had more to do with the instincts of the predators than the prey.

Coo.

The tick, tick, ticking returned as the tiny head disappeared from view and Girm had to struggle to keep hold of the eave. He’d miscalculated the jump and now found himself dangling, precariously, as that was the only to dangle, over the street below, some fifty feet below. Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem for the nimble Grim, but that’s where the pigeon came in…

Five-Minute fiction - 01:03-01:08

The smoke seemed to churn, tendrils coiling like a writhing snake as Falton pressed through it. He coughed, eyes burning as the smoke sought entry to his body. His eyes, mere slits now flickered as they caught the movement, the turning shape, the flash of fire. Two pin-pricks of fire light, yellowish-red and grew brighter as the smoke around it seemed to transform. It hardened taking on a distinct form, and Falton had to fight the urge to run as the shape of a skull emerged from the smoke. It wafted, stirred by the slow air, the skinless jaw opening and closing in the feigned imitation of speech. His skin crawled as he felt the lights settle on him. The smokey skull rolled coming forward toward him….

Five-Minute fiction - 00:22-00:27

Roper sat perched on the edge of the wall, his legs dangling down below him. His eyes scanned the grounds of the Hollow. Rich fields of every possible produce stretched off into the distance. The fields arranged in orderly patches divided by deep trench works that helped to protect if needed.

The light of the day was fading. The brilliant yellow-white turning to an almost blood-red as the sun dipped below the trees toward the horizon. The green boughs of the great forest flashed a sickly colour, casting sinister shadows onto the fields. Small fires, orange-red sprang to life as fires were lit. Torches, braziers, watch-fires sprang up all around the Hollow, so close yet seeming so far. Roper reached over and tossed…