Friday 13 June 2014

Dark Fiction - Stress and Sunshine

Stress and Sunshine

By Casey Douglass

as part of #fridayflash

 


‘You’ll be okay until I pop in again Mr Oakes?’
‘Yes yes of course. You don’t need to come as often as you do Mrs Smith.’
‘You know it’s part of your bail conditions...’
‘So you keep reminding me!’
‘Be good Mr Oakes.’
He watched the door slide shut behind her with a hiss. Meddling old crone. Sixty one years under her belt and she spent the whole lot of it meddling in other people’s affairs.
The phone began to ring. He reached out from the comfy chair, moved his arm over the mints and daily paper. Lifted the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, our records indicate that you could be entitled government funded-
‘I’m not interested.’
‘-solar panels installed by our specialists-’
‘No thank you!’
‘-based in the UK!’
‘Piss off!’
He slammed the receiver down.

‘You look a bit flushed today Mr Oakes!’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You aren’t over doing it are you?’
‘Me? Perish the thought!’
‘No schemes? No plans? You know it’s-’
‘Against the terms of my bail! Yes I know!’
‘No need to snap Mr Oakes.’
‘Then don’t treat me like a simpleton!’
He watched her bustle around straightening this and that. It was strange as his room was to the minimalist style. He marvelled that she found anything to do. His eyes began to droop as he watched her leave for the day.

The shrill of the phone woke him from a peaceful slumber.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, our records indicate that you could be entitled to-’
‘I won’t tell you again! Bugger off!’
‘-panels installed-’
‘Are you deaf?’
‘-in the UK!’
‘Rarrrgh!’
The phone cracked as it hit the other side of the room.
The trembling old man threw aside his leg blanket and stood on his wiggling legs. His teeth gritted, he shuffled across to the large curtains covering the floor to ceiling windows. Taking a handful of the velvet fabric, he heaved to the left, dragging them until a satisfactory gap split the darkness. He moved to the glass, pressing his face to it and looking down.
A large and rusted metal aperture split the ground of the island, the sea glimmering at the far edges of his vision, the volcano looming ahead belching out small parps of black smoke. Large loading equipment stood idle, automated defence drones swinging from their chains in the breeze.
‘To hell with it all!’
A wrinkly hand smacked the glass. He walked back across the room with increased assurance, parts of his body activating that hadn’t for years. He clutched at the phone and jabbed in a number.
‘It’s me...Yes I know...Bugger all that!...Assemble the teams, I’m activating the base again!...Yes now!...We will begin Project Darkness...Details?...We are going to blot out the sun!’

THE END

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