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    Life Cycles
    Life Cycles
    Life Cycles
    Ebook143 pages1 hour

    Life Cycles

    By Simon Kewin

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Tilting at windmills in the twenty-first century. A dying woman's surprising final wish. The unlikely connections between a Manchester woman and a 17th century Renaissance man. A chance encounter on a motorway. A woman allergic to the modern world.

    Life Cycles contains thirty-one short and very short literary stories, originally published between 1999 and 2011 and now collected together for the first time.

    Full Contents
    Seek Alternative Route * The Lost Art of Conversation * She'd Always Loved to Travel * Bees * Dan Quixote * Known to the Defendant * Titania * GSOH * The Flying Incredulo * The Square on the Hypotenuse * Sunken Bells * Introductions * The Question * Warning * Body of Work * The Heart of a Much Younger Man * A Good Drying Day * Black Beetles * Flotsam * Last Words * Metal Recycling Here * Human Statue * The Wind Singing in the Wires * Pieces of her Mind * The Great Melody * Skydiving * Ultima Thule * The Flamingo Dancer * The Gatekeeper * Life Cycles * Perfect Circles

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon Kewin
    Release dateMay 17, 2012
    ISBN9781476127903
    Life Cycles
    Author

    Simon Kewin

    Simon Kewin is a fantasy and sci/fi writer, author of the Cloven Land fantasy trilogy, cyberpunk thriller The Genehunter, steampunk Gormenghast saga Engn, the Triple Stars sci/fi trilogy and the Office of the Witchfinder General books, published by Elsewhen Press.He's the author of several short story collections, with his shorter fiction appearing in Analog, Nature and over a hundred other magazines.He is currently doing an MA in creative writing while writing at least three novels simultaneously.

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      Book preview

      Life Cycles - Simon Kewin

      Life Cycles

      Short Stories 1999-2011

      Simon Kewin

      Preface

      Life Cycles is a collection of twenty-nine short and very short stories all originally published between 1999 and 2011. The oldest - Ultima Thule - appeared way back at the turn of the century. Most have appeared more recently in one magazine or anthology or another.

      Life Cycles is a sister volume to Spell Circles (collected fantasy stories) and Eccentric Orbits (collected SF stories). Then there is Perfect Circles, which contains the stories from all three volumes in one big collection - a sort of one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them.

      I hope you find something to enjoy in Life Cycles.

      - Simon Kewin, February 2012

      For Alison, for giving me the time of day

      Table of Contents

      Seek Alternative Route

      The Lost Art of Conversation

      She'd Always Loved To Travel

      Bees

      Dan Quixote

      Known to the Defendant

      Titania

      GSOH

      The Flying Incredulo

      The Square on the Hypotenuse

      Sunken Bells

      Introductions

      The Question

      Warning

      Body of Work

      The Heart of a Much Younger Man

      A Good Drying Day

      Black Beetles

      Flotsam

      Last Words

      Metal Recycling Here

      Human Statue

      The Wind Singing in the Wires

      Pieces of Her Mind

      The Great Melody

      Skydiving

      Ultima Thule

      The Flamingo Dancer

      The Gatekeeper

      Life Cycles

      Perfect Circles

      Landmarks

      Preface

      Title Page

      Text

      Cover

      Seek Alternative Route

      Buckley thumped his steering-wheel in frustration. Ahead, the motorway was a bank of red lights as the traffic in all three lanes braked to a halt. He had been cruising comfortably along at eighty, plenty of time to get to the meeting, and now this. A red triangle lit up on his SatNav. Congestion it said underneath. Seek alternative route.

      He swore. He was miles from Bracknell. Cars jostled up behind him to fill his mirror. If he wasn't at the meeting, Stephens would push through his own plans for Europe. And everyone knew what that meant.

      He scrolled through the numbers on his Blackberry. O'Connor would have to state their case. A shame the man was useless. Stephens would frown and question and O'Connor would roll over.

      Hi Neil. Are you nearly here? O'Connor sounded worried. O'Connor always sounded worried.

      I'm stuck on the bloody M4. Have you got the Powerpoint in case I'm late?

      I've got the one you emailed on Tuesday.

      Good enough. Just make sure everyone sees it. Especially Hampton. She's the one that matters. She's a bitch but she's not stupid. If Stephens gets the nod we're dead in the water.

      They're both here already.

      Just tell her I'll be there as soon as I can. He hung up and sat for a moment, fuming with useless anger. He knew how it worked. Decisions were made beforehand, or over coffee. The actual meeting was just for show. He had to get there in time.

      He threw open the car-door and stepped out onto the motorway. It was colder than he had expected. The air tasted of fumes. At least the rain had stopped. He peered up the huddled lines of traffic. Nothing moved. He held up his arms in a shrug of disbelief.

      In the middle-lane, five cars back, Slaughtered Pig pulled out the earphones of his iPod. He sighed. At least he had plenty of time. It was hours before the night's gig and they were on last anyway.

      He leafed through the tattered road atlas he was using to find the night's venue, the Independent Chapel in Reading. They had played there once before, years ago, when they were up and coming. Did that mean they were on their way back down now? Or, the thought that troubled him more and more, did it mean they'd never gone anywhere in the first place?

      Up ahead, a suit had thrown open the door of his silver Mercedes and was gesticulating at the traffic as if the whole thing had been staged to inconvenience him. He would have been powerfully built once, a rugby-player type, but now the curve of his belly protruded farther than his chest. Heart-attack shape. Pig grinned. The Merc. had a personalized number plate, NE1L 3, the 1 written so that it looked like the letter I. Wanker. Did it rankle with him that he couldn't afford NE1L 2 or NE1L 1? He had cruised by a mile or two back. Now they were almost together. It felt like a victory of sorts.

      Pig rolled a twig-like fag, watching the man. All that singing and shouting. They hadn't really changed anything had they? The world was still run by people like this, executives and bankers ruining everything. Still, he had tried. That was something.

      The suit would have a mobile, though. Perhaps he could borrow it. Let the band know where he was. He waited a few moments then, with no sign of the traffic moving, stepped down from the van.

      Buckley watched the low-life slam the door of his Transit van. On the side it said, painted in crude red letters, Catharsis World Tour. This was all he needed. The guy looked like he lived in the vehicle. His head was shaved, his ears and eyebrows studded with metal, his tee-shirt ripped and stained. Several teeth were missing. Lost in some brawl, no doubt. Or resisting arrest.

      Looks like a bad one, the low-life said as he approached, indicating the lines of traffic with a nod of his head. Gets worse every day, eh?

      Establish a rapport. Identify a shared problem. It was nicely done.

      Too much traffic on the roads, said Buckley.

      I'm Slaughtered Pig.

      Slaughtered Pig?

      "Stage name. From an early review. The singer grunts and squeals like a slaughtered pig. You can call me Terry."

      Terry Pig?

      The man grinned. Terry Burns.

      Wasters like this made him laugh, going about thinking the world owed them a living. And your band's called Catharsis, right? Buckley prided himself on being able to put people at their ease.

      That's it. Punk Rock stalwarts.

      Like the Sex Pistols?

      Kinda. That's ancient history. We're more thrash. Grindcore, you know?

      My son's in a band.

      What does he play?

      Guitar.

      No, I mean what sort of music. Indie, dub, trance, metal, what?

      Well, rock. You know, pop.

      What bands he into?

      Well, I took him to see Springsteen at Twickenham last year. The Boss, you know? Fantastic. The guy works so hard. Played for over three hours.

      I'm not really a fan.

      I've got some in the car. If we're stuck here long you can listen to some. It was meant as a joke. He regretted it as soon as he'd said it. There were still no cars moving. Everyone had turned their engines off. The only sound was the ticking of cooling metal.

      Christ. All he'd wanted was to borrow the guy's phone, not move in with him.

      Although actually, now that he saw the suit up close, he was beginning to feel sorry for him. You could see how unhappy he was. The features of his face were lost in fat, all those meals in expensive restaurants, networking, making deals. A life of meetings and sucking the cock of the next suit up. It was Pig's idea of hell.

      Going anywhere important? asked Pig.

      Meeting. You? The suit wasn't really interested, of course; his eyes wandered even as he asked.

      Gig.

      Ah.

      Up and down the motorway, other drivers climbed out of their cars, like animals emerging from hibernation. Parents herded children off to the hard shoulder to squat awkwardly in the grass. An illuminated sign above the carriageway woke up, displaying the single word Congestion. Pig flicked the end of his fag to the ground. This late in the year, it was already beginning to get dark. The sun was just a formless smudge of white light in the sky behind them, giving off no heat.

      Fancy a cup of tea? he said. Scum he may be but the guy looked like he needed it.

      You have tea?

      In a flask.

      The suit nodded and turned to gaze up the motorway.

      When Pig returned, the man was back in his car, door wide open, talking in angry tones to someone called O'Connor. He indicated the passenger seat with a nod of his head. Pig, grinning at being told what to do, walked around the car. The Merc. would be warm at least. The leather of the seat was wonderfully soft. The suit finished his conversation and slammed the phone back into its cradle.

      Not good? asked Pig.

      "Not good. Two years' work down the drain. Apparently, Hampton loved Stephens' plans. Said ours were ambitious. Ambitious! Bloody cow." He was staring out of the windscreen, not really seeing Pig. His tie was loose now

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