Temporal Tales
Page 10
I am in the air for no more than eighty metres, maybe two hundred and fifty feet, and it lasts only two heart beats at this speed, a very good drop, even if I say so myself. The next bend approaches and it is sharper than the last ones. It dives to the right and drops to around eighty degrees. This is as close as you can come to flying off a cliff without a parachute but I move to the left and then dig in the edges of my skis and hurtle round, the sharp curve dropping away beneath me. My stomach hits my throat as I drop and the centrifugal force is terrific, pulling on every fibre of my body, but I have trained hard for this, mentally and physically, and I fly downwards and hit the piste with such force that my knees knock the wind from my chest in a shower of snow. My thighs resist the urge to collapse and I slipstream down this colossal mountain. I’m ripping this son of a bitch up. I hear cattle bells clanging on either side of me, and supporters are cheering, “Hup, hup, hup, hup!”
My heart is racing, the pressure is sending my blood coursing through me, carrying vital oxygen to my extremities, and enabling me to dig deeper within myself. I focus on the next bend, which sweeps away down to my left, and I settle in on my neon racing line. The clock is still ticking. I must go faster.
Tick, tick, tick.
I tear round the curve and a blanket of cloud appears across the track. For a split second, I imagine skiing onto the cloud. It is a feeling so strong and so pervasive, it almost hurts. And then I am in the cloud, and the track is a grey mist. This is unnerving at anytime, never mind at ninety miles per hour, standing on two thin planks of fibreglass. Huge stands of pine trees fizz past either side of me, dark green and threatening against the piercing and pure whiteness of the snow. The moisture of the clouds forms rivulets of water, which shoot across my visor. The gradient has eased for this central part of the course, a mild sixty-three degrees, but I concentrate on my body position to create the least resistance possible to the wind, and tuck in. I fly around the next few bends and cattle bells again ring out. I’m over half way down the course, and I’ve dropped over three thousand feet in altitude already. I’ve been racing for around fifty-six seconds, hopefully, if I want to be in with a chance of winning. The clock in my head is getting faster and louder, and the pressure is gaining in intensity because I know I’m fast, I can feel it. The atmosphere is electric and I can feel it crackling in the air all around me. I am downhill, I am downhill.
A steep, tight left turn awaits me ahead, and I will be dropping into it and free falling as I come out. It is the biggest turn of the course and has already claimed many competitors. I am moving at about seventy-eight miles per hour, if everything is going to plan, and will be hitting ninety-five by the time my skis touch the piste again at the end of the turn. Every muscle in my body is screaming in pain now. Lactic acid is building up whilst I keep my upper body rigid and tight.
Tick, tick, tick.
I hit the top of the curve and plummet down and around, my skis biting the ice for purchase and then I’m in the air, arms wide for balance, with the wind whistling around my head and then I land. The impact jars up through my whole body, but I’ve made it and I tuck in and fly down the track. A gentle right is next and I check my racing line again for the umpteenth time. My shins are on fire now, the tiny compression impacts over the years have caused a fracture in both fibulae, with a ring of bone forming over each break. My tendons rip over these rings of bone with every impact, causing intense, excruciating pain. This will be my last race, did I mention that before? No-one can race with this condition. It’s called shin-splints and many a career has been cut short because of it. I grit my teeth and take the pain, because I know I’m never again going to feel like this, so fast and free. I am a human missile, hurtling down to oblivion. I am heading to obscurity, to a life of mundane sameness. What thrill is left for me after this?
Tick, tick, tick.
With no warning, I emerge below the clouds, and the remaining stretch of the mountain and valley beneath, is laid out before me. I can see the finish line far below on the edge of the ski resort, with the grandstands full of spectators. Meribel, the place of my final race, so inviting and picture-post-card pretty. I need this one, last win. I need the adulation and recognition one last time, before I hang up my ski boots forever. I need it more than anything in my life, but I need more speed to get there.
Tick, tick, tick.
I tuck in for the final time and concentrate on the last part of the course, with every part of my ageing body on fire, from my shins upwards. I am getting too old for this shit. I ghost through the next turns, sleek, and quick, leaving plumes of powdered snow flying in my wake.
I am downhill, I am downhill.
There it is, not two hundred metres ahead, the final turn, which dips to the right and surges down to the finish line. I am travelling at around eighty miles per hour, with legs on fire and feeling like jelly. One last, supreme effort of power and pain and I dig in to my final reserves and I am flying around the final bend and the finish line is in sight. I see the big digital clock, the red numbers pulsing rhythmically...
1.47
1.48
1.49
I am flying down the final straight. I am tucked up like a ball on skis. I am downhill.
1.50
1.51
1.52
I shut my eyes as I fly towards the finish line, now still one hundred metres away. I only have to go straight and compact and hope beyond hope, that I’ve done enough to win.
So what’s it all about, this winning I keep on about? Let me tell you, it’s a lifetime of trying, a lifetime of training, a lifetime of believing and a lifetime of pain, and it all comes down to one, single moment in time...
1.53
I can feel it now. I am smiling. The finish line is thirty metres away and I am flying.
1.54
I AM DOWNHILL.
When Virtue turns to Vice
By Jacqueline Pye
You know what’s really aggravating? When you take the trouble to park legally then walk to the bank, while other people simply stop on the double yellows.
A convent education can do that to a girl. You grow up polite, law-abiding, always standing back for someone in a doorway, in a supermarket aisle or in the bus queue. Never dropping litter, and even picking up bits and pieces other people have just dropped. Occasionally, I’ve made a show of it to try and shame them, but I just risk getting a kick or worse. At least the ‘f’ word can’t physically hurt.
As you get to adulthood, resentment can build up. I mean, why am I so proper when it always costs me, and other people gain an advantage? Once in a while, you want to strike back.
Anyway, it was the double yellows thing that started it all. I decided that, for the next seven days, I would move over to the dark side and see what it was like to break the rules. Hopefully, I’d be able to pull it off, and it’d help to get the resentment out of my system.
Day One
A bit short of cash, I drove to the bank at a quiet time and, heart rate quickening, parked right at the ATM. Couldn’t help glancing around to check there was no-one nearby, then did the business. Jumped back in the car and drove at 38mph in a 30 limit. It felt good. The sky didn’t fall in.
Day Two
Went for a walk. Dropped by the local garage and bought a paper, but grabbed a triple Bounty bar and slipped it into my pocket while in the queue. No-one noticed. Once I’d eaten all three of the bars, I screwed up the wrapper and chucked it onto the pavement, even though there was a bin just a couple of yards away.
Passing by an especially manicured garden, I reached into the hydrangea bush (hate hydrangeas, particularly the blue ones) and snapped off a stem. Left it with its head poking out of the drain.
For most people, this sort of thing would hardly register. For a lifelong goody-two-shoes, though, it caused a modest adrenaline rush. My final bash of the day – hold the front page — was to stuff a handful of used plastic bags into the recycling bin. No plastics.
Day
Three
Drove to the car park in town. A woman offered me her unexpired parking ticket and I took it. Strolled around the mall and into the jewellers – bright lights, glittering silver and gold, and a rotating stand with necklaces and rings, each in a velvet display box. I imagined all of the expensive stuff would be protected, but a dress ring with lots of tiny imitation diamonds just sparkled at me and I picked it up. The two assistants were both busy with customers, so I eased the ring out of the box, slipped it onto my finger, replaced the box and kept my hand in my pocket. Nothing happened.
At this point I thought it might be time to reconsider my plan. So far, what had I gained? A triple Bounty, evading a car park charge, and a sparkly ring. Total value about £35. I could quit while I was, quite literally, ahead, and I might well have if it had not been for the cashier who later mistakenly gave me too much change.
Now in the past, I always came clean when this happened. Maybe they would have had to make up the shortfall themselves, but now I thought more likely not, providing it didn’t happen too often. The big companies could easily afford these things. So when the checkout woman gave me change for £20 when I’d given her a ten-pound note, I said nothing.
Two things I haven’t mentioned yet: first, I have a desk job. Although it doesn’t pay much, I can afford to run a car and you couldn’t say I was anywhere near the breadline. And second, I work in a town bar three nights a week and get paid formally and pay the tax. I’m good at mental maths, know the prices of all the drinks, and always give punters the exact change even when they’re too far gone to notice. Always did, that is. Tonight, I decided to use a con that I’d read about but never thought of trying until now. The trick is this - just before you take the change from the till, you dip your fingers in a nearby bowl of water so that the coins are damp when you hand them over. Because it feels unpleasant, the customer pockets the coins quickly without counting them. Adding up in my head over the evening, my ‘tips’ came to about £18. Not bad on top of the basic pay.
I was beginning to wonder whether I’d get away with it all week, and then what it would be like to return to what was ‘normal’ for me.
Day Four
During the drive to work, I left my mobile on. It signalled a text coming in. I picked it up to read it, missed a traffic light changing, and nudged into the offside of another car going from left to right.
The damage was quite minor, but not surprisingly the driver was hopping mad. There seemed to be no witnesses staying to get involved, so I thought quickly and accused the other driver of cutting a red light. We argued, and he was so mad that he went to give me a slap. I kicked him hard in the groin – you never forget a self-defence class, I find. While he was catching his breath, I jumped into my car, reversed a couple of yards and sped off.
Day Five
Wondering whether it would be wise to tell the cops about yesterday, but if they believed the other driver – even if he’d taken my number - then it could cost me a lot more than I’ve made during my week so far. Decided against.
In the bar that night, I casually asked around the regulars whether they knew anyone who could fix my front bumper and lights quickly and cheaply. Eventually one guy said he did, but added that it would cost me. He made a call. Turns out this was the fringe of the local ‘network’, and I didn’t like the look of the man who turned up and bought me a drink.
The deal was this - he would get my car back in shape if I would look after something for him. I asked what, and he scowled. Just personal stuff, he said. Only be for a day or two. In the spirit of the experiment, I agreed and made arrangements for ‘someone’ to deliver the package and pick up my car the next day. During the evening there was a match on Sky Sports on the bar’s TV; the place was packed and, all told, I pocketed about £35 between legitimate tips and using the damp coins con.
Just before bed, I looked intently in the mirror. My face, the same that had been so honest for so many years, was looking strangely hard. Like a gambling addict, I told myself that it would stop once my week was up and I’d got my own back on all those people who broke the rules while I’d kept them so strictly.
But the next few hours were to put paid to that.
Day Six
First thing, a couple of lads turned up at my door. The sort you wouldn’t want your daughter bringing home. They asked for my car keys for the repair, and handed me a package a little smaller than a shoebox. They recommended putting it somewhere safe — leaving it unopened, they stressed — and waiting for them to collect it. They couldn’t say when that would be, but soon, and the car would be returned as good as new in a couple of days with no questions asked. I put the ‘goods’ on top of my wardrobe at the back, well out of sight.
When I got back from work, 5.30pm as usual, there was a police car a few spaces down the road. A guilty conscience made me nervous. As I went in, two police – one male, one female — came up the path and stopped me from closing the door. They had a dog, one of those spaniels. You can guess what happened next – bloody dog.
In the kitchen, as they started the “I’m arresting you for…” speech and I backed towards the worktop, a fit of madness made me pick up a small knife from the block. In an instant, my arm was being wrenched up behind my back and the knife was on the floor. I started to mutter that I didn’t mean to do that, I was just frightened, but clearly it didn’t make an impression. They took the knife, along with the package, though I swore, truthfully, that I had no idea what was in it.
With all of this ‘bad girl’ stuff, the one thing that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do was to actually lie. With a few moments in the interview room to think up a strategy while I waited for the duty solicitor, I decided that I could safely give the facts as they were. Without any previous, they might be willing to believe that I didn’t know for sure what was in the package, and no money had changed hands. I could still get away with it.
They grilled me about the man in the bar and about the two lads. I gave general details but nothing that would specifically lead them to any one person. I wasn’t that crazy. The solicitor seemed to think it’d be all right in the end, probably a fine and a severe warning. They bailed me, anyway, but I had to find my own way home.
Late in the evening, a van drew up outside the house. Like a bad movie, two men I didn’t recognise forced open the front door and found me in front of the TV. They smelled of stale smoke. They told me to fetch the box, and I had to admit what had happened to it. Then things got nasty: one demanded to know what I’d told the police. That should’ve satisfied them but, unluckily for me, they didn’t believe a word of it. They started to make threats and one put his hand in his pocket. I looked around wildly for something to use, picked up the near-empty, red wine bottle and smashed the bottom of it on the coffee table, leaving me holding a lethal, jagged, solid piece of glass.
The nearest thug lunged towards me, and I rammed the bottle into his face. Blood spattered all over and he staggered backwards, screaming and clutching his face. Just for a moment, I froze when I saw what I’d done, and the other man stared at me in disbelief. He grabbed his mate and dragged him from the room and out of the house. I was left with bloodstains on the carpet, on my clothes, and all over the bottle. It took me more than an hour and all of my cleaning stuff to deal with the mess.
Day Seven
Had to walk to the shops for some more carpet cleaner; faint spots could still be seen. With the small knife missing from the block, I took the next smallest and stowed it against my lower arm using two rubber bands. I had the feeling, expectation even, that someone would have something to say about the glassing. Wished I had a gun; I’d never even seen a real gun, let alone held or used one, but I was sure I’d manage.
I didn’t see it coming. A car drove alongside me – not a long, black, Mafia type, just a small, familiar van – and slowed down. The nearest window was wound down. There was a sudden movement, and an acid bomb was hurtling towards my head. I screamed as the acrid
fluid started to trickle down my face, but fell silent as it took with it my eyelids, flesh from my cheeks and mouth, and settled on my sweatshirt to soak through. I had never felt such pain.
Locals looked on in horror, I imagine – couldn’t see them. Someone came with a bucket of water, laid me on the pavement and poured the water over my head, face and neck and cut through the sweatshirt. Stupidly, I remember thinking the water was very cold as I passed out.
The police came to the hospital. My face and eyes were bandaged and I’d been warned that there would probably be no sight left, so I said, “Sorry, I can’t see you now.” No-one laughed except me.
***
So the week did not go quite as intended. And the master plan to return to the ‘normal’, socially responsible lifestyle was never, after all, going to happen. I recovered a small degree of vision in my left eye, but despite repeated surgery to restructure my face, I shall always be stared at by other people, especially young children, and I don’t care to look in the mirror more than I have to. Of course, I couldn’t return to bar work or my previous job. Never saw my car again, which didn’t matter since I wasn’t going to be driving any time soon. But still, all was not lost — I still have the ring.
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Other anthologies from the Inkslinger’s team include:
Tortured Hearts Volume 1
Tortured Hearts Volume 2
Tortured Hearts Volume 3