By Christian Stretton
Location: There used to be a second-hand record shop up the ramp off Deansgate. It’s not there anymore.
As the Voyager spacecraft made its way through the Earth’s upper atmosphere, Peter Cale began a similarly ambitious journey as he boarded the 192 bus, heading for central Manchester.
Peter had read in the newspaper that morning about the Golden Record that was placed aboard Voyager in the vain hope that the craft may be discovered by extraterrestrial life. The disc, Peter read, contained a welcome speech from Jimmy Carter, some noises from the natural world, and a collection of music.
It was the music that had piqued Peter’s imagination. Looking through the contents, it was evident that the compiler was trying to present the crowning achievements of man through the last three centuries. As you would expect, Bach and Beethoven were represented, along with Mozart and Stravinsky. Peter knew each of the pieces well, and approved of their inclusion. Alongside these there was a selection of world music from Mexico, Japan and Peru. Well that makes sense, thought Peter, the record should represent the whole world, and not just Europe. Peter smiled as he saw that Chuck Berry had been placed on there to liven things up.
The big surprise was a track called Dark Was The Night by Blind Willie Johnson. Peter had never heard of the artist, but found the name intriguing. He imagined that Blind Willie Johnson was some kind of rootsy bluesman from the Mississippi Delta: gnarled and hunched, a mouth rotten with stumps, bashing on an old wooden guitar on a porch in the shade. The romanticism of the image won out, hence Peter’s journey into town.
He jumped off the bus at Piccadilly and made his way across town to the specialist jazz vinyl shop. Lacking the patience to browse the shelves himself, he made his way to the assistant and asked where he might find some Blind Willie Johnson. The man behind the counter looked up, and reviewed his impression of the man in the blue anorak before him, affording him a little extra cool credit. He ducked behind a shelf, and returned holding a mint copy of Praise God I’m Satisfied.
On the return journey home, Peter took the record from the bag and examined the cover. Actually, it seemed from the painting on the front that Blind Willie Johnson was quite a young man, and smartly dressed too. He sits on a dining chair in a street, playing his guitar, as approving passers-by enjoy his busking. Peter slid the record back into his bag, excited about his purchase.
Once home, he carefully took the vinyl from its sleeve, and placed it onto his turntable. Checking the tracklist for Dark Was The Night, he found that it occupied track two on side one, so lifted the tone arm over the now rotating disc, and lowered his head to the side to gently drop the stylus into the sleek black void between tracks one and two. A pop and a crackle, and the song began.
How could Peter have known that what followed was three minutes and twenty seconds of abject howling from the very bottom of a man’s soul? A lyric-less, plaintive, tortured lament that carried with it three hundred years of suffering.
The voyager spacecraft, now free of the Earth’s atmosphere, glided silently into the vacuum of outer space.
Christian lives in Wigan by his own volition. He contributes book reviews and features to the literary website Readysteadybook.com. Many more of his short stories can be found on his blog http://andfigs.blogspot.com
By Mrs Chris Smith
Location: Woodley Shopping Precinct
The January air was cold and crisp, the sky a clear blue canvas and the slight warmth of the winter sun provided welcome relief from the chill wind. We had walked to our local shopping precinct, our New Year’s resolution being to support local businesses rather than add to supermarket profits.
The parade of shops forms three sides of a rectangle around a grassed area with paving, benches dotted at intervals and several trees. One is a lovely copper beech and most of the others are rowan trees, at this time of the year bursting with ripe, red berries.
A small crowd of people standing around the trees distracted us from the shops with their faded facades, flaking paint and warm interiors, the smell of fish and chips and the constant flow of individuals, hopeful of a big win, who were strolling between the newsagents and the betting shop.
Several cameras with massive lenses set up on tripods drew us towards the group. Everyone was looking up at the trees and a closer inspection revealed a flock of birds in one of the rowans.
‘Waxwings,’ stated a man with a huge lens pointing up towards the birds.
I wished we owned such a powerful camera because I would have loved to have taken a photograph of these striking birds, their outline sharp against the winter sky. Each bird sported a resplendent chestnut-coloured crest, which swept back from their forehead. All were engrossed with their berry bonanza.
As the number of spectators grew, some of the staff from the shops came out to investigate this sudden influx of visitors to the precinct.
‘They look as though they’re wearing something on their heads,’ one girl said.
‘Yes, they always wear bobble hats in winter to keep them warm,’ my husband said in an authoritative manner.
‘Really?’ the girl asked, surprised, before she spotted her colleagues giggling and realised his joke.
All afternoon the birds alternated between the precinct trees and the rowans on the other side of the busy road, flying as one back and forth. The next day it was the same and the day after that. Then they were gone and the precinct felt empty and ordinary once more. People still came for their bread, their fruit and vegetables, to post a letter or have their hair permed, but the magic had gone.
And when, the next year, council workmen started on precinct improvements and local residents were asked what trees they would like planted, we replied ‘rowans – for the waxwings’.
We didn’t get the rowans – or the waxwings, which had apparently decamped to Stockport Bus Station, according to those in the know. I’m sure they will be back though.Woodley is renowned for its winter waxwings.
Mrs Chris Smith is a librarian who dabbles in poetry and writing.
By Sean Joyce
Location: Junction 7, M60
This morning the birdsong means more than on any other day. He listens for a moment from beneath the bed covers and they are almost in the room with him, flitting amongst the shadows.
When he pulls back the curtains, sunlight pours into the room like the sea into a sinking ship.
He makes the bed before slipping on the clothes already laid out on a wicker chair in the corner of the room. Black boxer shorts. Grey flannel trousers. White shirt. Red tie. A pair of chequered socks.
He picks up his ID badge from the bedside table and clips it onto the right breast pocket of his shirt.
He looks in the mirror. His eyes are tired but the room is bright and seems to glow.
He brushes his teeth in the bathroom for exactly two minutes, just as the dentist instructed, then combs his hair.
Downstairs in the kitchen he eats a bowl of cornflakes. He lavishes the flakes with a layer of sugar and mixes it into the milk. He closes his eyes and focuses all attention on the cold, mushy sweetness in his mouth.
Before leaving the house he returns to the bedroom and opens the wardrobe. Kneeling down he removes a shoebox from the back of the wardrobe and pulls off the lid. Inside the box is a revolver. He places it in his rucksack before running downstairs, setting the burglar alarm and locking the door.
The rows of trees along the motorway are green and luscious and alive. They make him smile.
The giant computerised boards along the motorway say: ACCIDENT AHEAD, JUNCTIONS 9-10, EXPECT DELAYS.
He gets off at junction seven. He will not be late.
By Dave Hartley
Location: Primark, Piccadilly Gardens
We hear the robot bug aliens are following the tram lines to the city centre, minutes away from Piccadilly Gardens, so the soldiers point to Primark and beckon to retreat inside. And yes; there, as we push against the fractured glass, the sounds of explosions from the heat rays can be heard in the distance and we look upon this clustered realm of synthetics and special offers as our last venue of hope, our potential graveyard.
I used to hate you for dragging me in here on a Sunday, shopping day, for your cheap basics, socks, hats, necklaces. I would remind you of the slave kids and you would point to the various labels on my current clothes and ask if I thought the other shops were all that different. But I only complained because this place bewilders me. A warehouse of fabrics that has been slightly organised ready for the hungry hordes to pillage and pilfer in basket filling frenzy. It’s the feeling of literally having my clothes ripped from my back that puts me off.
It all seems so disgusting now, at 3am, stalking into the abandoned space like a room from an unfinished computer game. Now that our very existence is threatened, the life of Western luxury is not something we want on our conscience at the pearly gates.
Never mind, soldier on. Survival instincts have long taken over, morals left behind in the idyll of three days ago, and I love you more than ever as you keep a firm clasp of my frightened hand and you draw breath to take nominal leadership again.
‘Right, we need to build a barricade,’ you say, mostly to me but also so that the others can hear and the only thing you don’t realise is how proud of you the geek inside me has become. Alien invasions is supposed to be my area, but I have been floundering like a dying fish.
The soldiers, of course, have begun this task already, but they are periphery, technical authorities and glad of an organiser such as you to take control of their brief; we sixteen, the hapless band of cinemagoers whom they found camped down in screen 14 of the Odeon six hours ago. We had stuck together, feasting on popcorn and slushies for two nights, not daring to venture further than the foyer as one by one our mobiles slowly died.
By Simon Morrison
Location: Heathfield Road, Davenport
The knock on the front door was finger-light; Miles almost missed it from back in the kitchen. He finished pouring water into the kettle – perhaps a little more, now the man was here – returned it to its stand and then, wiping his hands down on his trousers, walked to the front door.
‘Pest control, I’ve come from the council.’
‘Yes hi, I was hoping it was you. Come in, come in.’ Miles opened the door a little wider so the man could step through into the hall. Before pulling it shut he took a look up, then down, his road, the blossom on the trees, the cars on their drives, then followed the man back into his home.
The man was of smallish build; five six, maybe seven. Blue overalls and grey, wiry hair that needed cutting back – perhaps by a horticulturalist rather than a barber. His beard erupted like a tangle of spiders. He had already shuffled down the hall so that Miles hadn’t been able to study his face. Miles liked to get a fix on people’s faces, and make some connection – crack jokes, talk sports – whatever was needed to get them on side. With no eye contact, any connection would be brittle, ephemeral. Miles was suddenly aware he was still in his night time attire: an old T-shirt featuring a band that had faded along with their transferred image, grey jogging bottoms from an abandoned gym regime, backless slippers. He was at home a lot more these days, following the redundancy. The day’s elasticity stretched to his wardrobe and grooming as much as his diary.
‘I’ve just put the kettle on, would you like a brew?’ Miles was already in the cupboard, reaching for mugs and tea bags, the clatter of domesticity. ‘My wife’s into all that herbal stuff. Camomile and peppermint and Lapsang Souchong and God knows what else. But then again, she’s not here so it’s builder’s tea for me. Would you like a…’
‘…No thank you. I’ve had my lunch, not so long ago.’
Miles replaced one of the mugs. ‘A juice then, or water?’
‘No really, I’m fine.’
The man’s face was already wedged into the space beneath the kitchen cupboards and surfaces as he prodded around, moving toasters and bread bins. Miles had planned to tidy up a little more, but the dishwasher had packed in only that winter and what with the kids and one thing and another … . He stopped himself, aware he was constructing an apology to Morven; crazy, when she wasn’t even here. No need to apologise inside your own head, he thought, breathing out, slowly. The sun chose that moment to tip through the north-facing window, throwing a yellow beam on a crumb crime scene.
