Dark Fiction - Downward

Downward

By Casey Douglass

Image used freely from Gratisography.com

Warren roamed the expanse of the corridor, its polished black and white checkerboard pattern almost liquid in the harsh light. His shoes squeaked with every step, giving him the unnerving impression that he must have killed hundreds of mice by now.

He stopped to rest, the corridor stretching unerringly into the distance in both directions, the white walls and ceiling tiles adding to his headache. He slumped against the wall and let himself slide down to his backside.

Night after night he went to sleep with the intention of finding his edge, some kind of backbone maybe, something that would enable him to wake with a feeling of power for a change, rather than the usual sudden flare of consciousness, shortly followed by the crippling feeling of not being the person he was meant to be. Night after night after night he found himself here, the unending checkerboard corridor.

He held his hands to his face and screamed. The sound wasn't right, it was muffled and bubbly, like shouting for help underwater. He stopped screaming.

His hands slid down his face and settled in his lap, his eyes looked at the pattern on the floor. All was stable for a few moments but then, in the general manner of dreams, things began to shift. The black squares became holes, the white ones became pillars, the walls and ceiling receded into the darkness that was now around him.

He perched on the edge of the pillar beneath him and gazed down. If he jumped, he'd wake up. He felt dizzy.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, conjuring the image of the corridor into his mind. When he opened his eyes again, he was back there, the monotonous channel of his inner self. Sure, he could travel anywhere, do anything, fuck anyone but this was important, this corridor was here in direct response to his mental imperative. He wanted to stay until he knew what the message was, if there even was one.

He rubbed the floor with a finger, the texture felt like glass. He lifted his hand and found a vicious sliver of glass was now clutched in his fist, blood dripping from the underside of his little finger. He gazed at it dispassionately, the pain felt in dreams a hollow and muted thing, more a sensation of pressure than sharpness. The blood began to pool on the tile next to him.

A hand rose through the thick liquid, piercing the air with its digits. It beckoned. Warren leaned closer. It held its palm up in a “Stop” gesture and then pointed around the narrow pool. Warren nodded. He moved the glass shard to his other arm and let it kiss the skin. He dragged the delicate tip of glass. Blood flowed. The pool widened. He dived in.

The time of death was recorded as 2:30am. The cause, after some careful examination and thought, was deemed to be self-mutilation by the sleeper, each wrist and forearm gouged and torn at with the fingers and nails of the opposite hand. The press release was delayed until the next day.

THE END

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Dark Fiction - Grind

Grind

By Casey Douglass

It was the kind of morning that made his bones shake. The misty rain hung in the air reflecting the state of his mind: gloomy, with a chance of depression. It was still and quiet outside, until a lone bird began to sing its morning ditty, ruining his description of quietude. A bubble of frustration burst in his chest.

It was the kind of morning in which a better writer would sit and create worlds, mythologies and intricate plots, the kind that twist and tear their way through the reader's expectations. All he could do was sit and ruminate on the weather, which he noted was very British.

“Rain again!” the man yelled from across the street as he rushed along in his large stuffy coat.

“You know it friend!” another bellowed from the dry space provided by the bus stop.

But of course, it wouldn't go like that would it. This is Britain, a place that lost its lustre years ago, about the same time it lost its status of being the bully of the world. Now it was full of pale little people that walked around grumbling about everything.

That might be a bit harsh, it probably was, but he was master of this tale and so it stayed. Better to be harsh or wrong in what you write than not write anything at all.

“Fucking weather!”

“Shut it you moaning cunt!”

That's how it would go, no time for false pleasantries when you're late for the job you hate. You might have to stay late and miss the latest instalment of whichever asinine reality TV series you are watching.

He wondered if you could purge and bottle bile. Not the literal kind, he was sure that was possible. More the emotional kind. He certainly seemed to have plenty to spare this morning. He listened. The bird outside was gone now, or at the least, holding its tongue. Maybe it had realised that the tune it was singing might be worth something so was busy searching the web for a recording studio and a copyright lawyer.

The bus hissed to a shuddering halt at the stop, the doors flinging open and releasing the smell of wet clothes and vinegary chips. The shuffling hoard left the chewing gum graveyard that was the pavement and climbed on. They attempted to observe the usual bus passenger etiquette of sitting in the most inappropriate places, the tallest sandwiched into seats with no leg room, the most frail made to stand unsteadily in the aisle.

The doors snapped shut. The floor lurched forward as the bus gained speed forcing a few of the standees to white knuckle the hand rails. The sound of the engine filled the confined space, everything else was otherwise silent, save for the odd sniff or cough. Gloomy monks meditating on the day ahead but God seemed to be elsewhere, maybe on his or her own commute.

A sound of twisted auto-tuned birdsong flooded the bus, heads twisting and turning to try and zero in on the cause. A sheepish looking teenager lifted a smartphone from his pocket and set it to silent, mutters of “That fucking song gets on my tits!” and “Jesus Christ turn that off!” accompanying his movements.

The bus carried on. The passengers stared blankly. Britain embraced them as they and the bus vanished amongst the sprawl of pound shops and mega-banks, the garish billboards lining the road promising them untold delights if they just bought this particular phone or voted for this particular MP. It was all bollocks and they knew it, but who had the courage to acknowledge it? You could go mad thinking like that!

He sat back in his chair and pondered. He wondered if you could bottle misery. Then he smiled and realised that it really wasn't necessary, there are always Mondays.

THE END

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