Writing Wednesday – ‘Walter’

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk via Compfight cc

Walter

He was a small, scattered-looking man, maybe fifty, out of place here in this brash, chromed diner. His clothes looked older than he was, hair so dirty it seemed painted on, but I noticed him mainly because his eyes never lifted and his hands – dark and thin and quick – never stopped moving.

As I watched, he pulled a measuring tape out of his top pocket, and used it to take the width and height of the shelves near the register. He shook his head, muttering, as he replaced the tape and fished out a tiny black-covered notebook, wrapped around with a rubber band; then, he found a pencil behind one grimy ear and used it to make a note. Replacing pencil, band and book took only a blink, and then he was off once more, measuring the booths, the register, the width of each floor tile. The staff worked around him, and the customers – regulars – never blinked.

‘What’s going on with the little guy?’ I asked the waitress when she brought my order. She concentrated on placing my dishes down before answering.

‘Walter?’ She didn’t need to look. ‘Comes in a lot since his wife passed. Harmless old coot.’

‘Mm?’ The coffee was as good as their sign outside had promised. The waitress would’ve made the trip worthwhile all by herself, come to that. ‘No kids?’ She didn’t answer, but her eyes softened, and I knew.

‘You all set, hon?’ she asked me, once she’d finished checking my condiments were in order. ‘Anything else I can get you?’

I threw her a hint of a wink and she smiled, a tiny pink point of tongue slipping out between her fine white teeth. Then, she was gone, and all I had to look at was Walter.

Curious, I got up, coffee in hand. Slipping into a booth, I was close enough now to smell the man.

‘Hey,’ I said, in a low tone. ‘Whatcha doin’?’

No reply. Walter didn’t even pause in his work. Measuring, noting, checking, comparing.

‘Walter,’ I said, louder. ‘Hey! What’s up with the tape?’ He flinched, but he didn’t look at me. I could see his eyes hopping like mayflies on a pond.

‘Gotta find it,’ he said. ‘The crack. Where she slipped out. Gotta be here somewheres.’ He sighed and licked his lips, still not meeting my eyes. ‘Gotta follow her.’

‘Who’s ‘she’, Walter?’ I asked, watching him fumble for his notebook.

‘Gotta find her and bring her back, and make sure she ain’t never gon’ leave again. No sir, she ain’t gon’ leave again.’

‘Who, man?’

‘She was took,’ he muttered. ‘Out through a hole in the world. Gotta find it. Gotta save her.’

‘Listen, I heard about your wife -‘ I began, thinking I understood.

‘No, no, no, not her!’ A rime of fear coated his words. ‘My daughter. My little girl.’ He met my eyes, and I drew back from the edge of him. ‘Gotta get her back before she hurts her. Don’t got much time.’

Before I could reply, he dropped his gaze and kept on going.

Wednesday Writing – ‘Angel, Interceptor’

Image sourced: https://unsplash.com
Photographer: Ryan Lum

Angel, Interceptor

I’ve always found it easy to stay hidden. It’s being seen that’s the hard thing. I envy them, with their carelessness and their loud voices, their total comfort in this world. It was made for them, after all.

I envy that.

I watch from the shadow of St – I think – Ambrose, he of the scourge and the silent reading. Oh, yes; I remember him. In life, he was an uptight, sanctimonious creep, yet here he is, immortalised in stone and precious metal while I still stand, technically enfleshed, looking more or less the same as I did the day I appeared to him in his bedchamber. I let him think he banished me unto the Pit, but in reality I was simply bored. I found bigger fish, that day, someone with a soul so large she could have enveloped ten so-called saints inside it with room left over, despite its single stain.

She wept as I took her but I was young, then. I didn’t care. I had a job and I was doing it, and that was that.

I see them now, life bursting from every pore, the frantic spinning of atoms and molecules and the proliferation of cells and the humming hiss of blood, and I know that a thought would be enough. A simple thought, and their flow would suddenly freeze, or a cell divide slightly wrongly, or an electrical impulse go awry.

I am cold, dark matter; my heart beats, but only when it remembers to. My blood hasn’t stirred in centuries.

And so I watch. They laugh and take pictures, posing with their mouths open and their eyes wide, their laughter like shards of glass in my ears. I am here to take them, to destroy what I can and claim the rest, to lay waste, to burn what does not please Him… but still I watch.

They are moving off, arms around shoulders, warm kisses on warmer cheeks, fingers entwined, towards the old city. A straggler hesitates, capturing one last shot of the statue of St Mark, and I feel a pull in my muscles, an urge to take to the air and shred this bridge and all upon it with the force of my magnificence – but it’s surprisingly easy to swallow it back. The human gets to his feet again, stuffing his camera into its bag, before taking off after his friends, laughing as he runs.

He judges them too harshly. Flawed, yes, but irredeemable?

A pigeon lands on the head of the metal and gilt Ambrose and regards me coolly for a moment or two. Briefly, I consider reducing it to atoms, but I sigh, and it continues on its journey. As one winged thing to another, we pay our mutual respects.

I squint up at Ambrose’s impassive face and formulate a thought before turning away. A gust of heat wafts at my back, and I permit myself a moment of pride. As I walk, I picture the sun rising over this young, ancient city, and the confusion of the authorities as they try to figure out what could possibly have caused a huge metal statue to melt, and I almost smile. But I came to smite, and smite I have; let someone else worry about the technicalities.

I fold my wings tight and run my fingers through my hair. There must be somewhere in this city I can find a bar with a nice, shady corner and a server who asks no questions, I tell myself, as I vanish into the flow.