250 Words: In the flat above Peter James

I sit by the window watching the cars on the crossroads, letting their noise drown out the ringing in my ears caused by youthful exuberance in noisy places.  I used to dance, sweat and drink every single weekend.  Now I watch other people going places and try to forget.

I imagine who they are and give them stories of lives and loves more successful than mine.  I send them to meetings of great import, large gatherings and small affairs in parks.  And these imaginings, I write them down and draw them out so that I don't forget.

Or I just admire the cars- each a shining example of man's ingenuity.  I listen to their array of noise that melts together and fills my head with beautiful nothingness.  Like cotton wool packing protecting me from thought and letting me forget.

Through the evening I watch television with glassy eyes, always listening to that traffic, never really paying attention  to the screen except for the flickering light it throws onto me and the walls.  

I imagine I am in an American fifties drive-in, the sofa the car's long front seat.  Fooling around with her rather than watching the feature.  Sliding under her clothes, cupping each breast in my hand, hers on my face, my neck, my chest, getting ever lower.  Later in bed I masturbate this fantasy but never reach the end. 

See?  I'm unable to forget.  Since she fell down the stairs (drunk; not enough to protect) my life has stopped.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (58): An End and a Beginning / Stop. Start / The Real Story

She stopped talking and the cold realisation of what she had said hit me like a sledgehammer.  Even though I had gone to the clearing that day to end it, for good or ill.  At that point it was because it had ended that I regretted the way I had gone about things.  Later, with the help of someone, I would better understand the enormity of it all and show true remorse.  But not there, not then.

For the moment I only looked stunned, a million thoughts going through my mind.  Many of them still trying to find a way to capture the unicorn (“If only I had made a pact with that guy at work, he could swoop down now and carry her away”), others to stop this intervention and continue in the spirit the unicorn desired - to find that middle ground, set up a camp there and sign a treaty.  A lot of it was that part of me that would first see how badly I had sinned telling me what an idiot I had been and seeing all the truths I had always looked past.

Quickly, though, I came to and saw the reality of the scene before me.  I apologised to the Lady of the Woods and bid her farewell.  She nodded solemnly to me, no doubt pleased I was not to make a scene.  She then stepped aside for me to do the same with the angry creature behind her.

I looked down into the unicorn's eyes, or went to, having trouble at first to look her in the eye.  Then I had a vision of what had gone before, smelled her burning hooves in my nostrils, saw them bubble in my mind's eye, and knew what I was honour bound to do.

I knelt and fixed my eyes upon hers.  Instantly I sensed the wrath of a thousand unicorns burning through her.  All older, all taller, all fixing me with the same stare that told me to stand off, to get away.  They were far away, somewhere behind barriers or portals, unreachable without their own magic.  Yet it seemed as if they were before me, standing alongside my unicorn, so strong did I feel their will.  And it battered me and I knew I would never see her again.

Taken aback, when this passed, without knowing what to say or do, I mumbled, "Sorry... Thanks... G'bye..."  Then I stood up, turned around and left the clearing for the last time.

As I walked away I heard an immense amount of rustling and creaking behind me.  Far more movement than was natural on such a still day.  After I had gone about fifty paces it all stopped.  I looked back to see the path was overgrown with moss as if no one had used it for many years.  And beyond that there was no clearing, just a mass of dense tress either side of the old path as far as the eye could see.

I kept walking in the knowledge that the moss was growing rapidly behind me with each step I took.  It was something I didn't want to see again and so I kept my quickly filling eyes faced forward and sped the process up.

As the tears began to roll down my face I wondered how the rest of life would unfurl itself.  And that I would have to either rediscover what I did before or find something new - a task I had been trying, and failing, to do for weeks on end.

Instead I wandered on, not noticing where I was going at all, worried more about my general direction than the directions I needed to get back to the lay-by.  My mind became more irrational, more hysterical, as I lumbered onward, convinced, or determined, that I was heading for a breakdown and that everything would soon come crushing down upon me. 

I imagined my life coming apart as I journeyed off route: I would have to leave my job first following weeks of sitting at my desk and staring at a blank computer screen.  Then there would be months of me not leaving the house, eating nothing but porridge, and then dry oats, until my parents put an end to it and forced me to move back in with them. 

Finally I pictured being back in my bedroom lying on my Thomas duvet for some inexplicable reason (we gave it away before I left primary school but try regression), occasionally going out to Randy's old hutch where I believed he was still alive and would spend afternoons talking to him.

That was when the fresher air of the breeze across the Great Lake struck my face and shook me out of my downward spiral daydream.  Which was a bit of a shock.  Though I had been vaguely aware somewhere underneath that I had gone off track, I ultimately believed I was on auto-pilot.

Fed up with my mind thinking too much, I sat down for a while to try and regain some semblance of order up there.  Hugging my legs to my chest I placed my forehead on my knees and just tried to forget what had happened and remember how to get from there to the van.  A journey I don't think I had done directly, or not in that direction anyway.

An imagined me had gotten part way there when I heard footsteps on the beach behind me.  I swivelled about to see Victoria, the Merlungh, exiting the forest.  I raised a hand and waved.  She returned it, approached and sat down next to me.  As she walked forward she seemed different to how she was before.  We began to talk.  Nothing I had imagined came to be.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (57) What the Lady of the Woods Said

"You had her from the start, you understand.  From first sight.  Her running away was the start of the play.  I don't think you realised any of the truths involved, so intent were you on stealing her away.  Of trying to gain what you were after without seeking to find what she wanted and trying to meet halfway. 

“The clearing, for instance, always being under your power.  Perhaps not always entirely, I regret we cannot help if you go underground too far.  But it did move itself for you, was always in an appropriate state for what you had planned and was always as fresh as you required. 

"This forest was never meant for humans.  Or not humans alone.  Of course we don't, cannot for fear of our own safety, stop such as yourself from entering.  Often we scare away ne'er-do-wells, often we don't need to.  Only a few, though, are afforded such privileges as you received.  The first time you went too far we let it slide.  When you entered the cave we thought it would soon end, that you would go too far in a different way.  But you only stopped and slept.  We decided to remove you and let the unicorn play on. 

"Since then, however, you have overstepped the mark more and more.  The kidnap is where we should have ended it, we can see that now.  Your use of black magic, or such, the complete crushing of her spirit.  Since then, though, we have seen nought but constant abuse climaxing and ending today.  When and where I am seen is where it ends.

"You must leave, unicorn hunter.  Say your goodbyes for you will not return here again.  If you do you will not see this unicorn or find this clearing, I guarantee.  And as for the cave.  It shall be closed.

"Look for something else to fill your life with.  Open your eyes and I am sure it won't take too long.

“Now, though, you must bid us farewell."

Stories written for BBC Radio Kent Competitions (5)

With all the courage she could muster, she opened her eye and saw with horror that it was still there.  Standing in the opposite corner of the bedroom from her (head) on a plinth positioned under two tall cupboard doors.  Staring straight forward with dead eyes taking in nothing, using its other senses to detect enemies.

Jane hardly dared breath.  She took in as little air as possible, was holding her duvet slightly above her chest to prevent movement- an act that was beginning to take its toll, the muscles in Jane's arms tightening and starting to ache.  She prayed her sister in the upper bunk was alright and would remain so.  Jane couldn't hear her breath but that was normal, she reminded herself, Davina was a shallow breather.

She studied the creature as she lay in the dark.  There it stood- her height- stock still with a small and deformed elephant-shaped head without ears on a human body- a trunk dangling down its front, hanging behind the gun it was holding.  The gun, Jane knew, that would glow when the trigger was pulled and scramble her insides if she wasn't careful enough.  The gun that would end it all.  She had seen it already, hadn't she?  A whole family wiped out by one hiding behind their curtains.  The whole family killed together after dinner.  Mother thought she saw a draught and presented their executioner. 

What else did she know of these things?  Jane remembered a man being pulled into a swamp by long reaching tentacles.  Taken under and half drowned, tortured before being slopped back on the bank while others were mistreated.  Defending soldiers hidden in nests shooting up at the invaders in tanks on tall legs.  The soldiers frying in their hidey-holes, shot by Martian lasers.  Jane was unsure how she knew all of this, of how it was in her head.  All these memories seemed to involve her somehow, as if she were the protagonist each time.  How could that be?  Sleep was still clouding her view - in time she felt she would know.

In the dark she lay, sweat starting to build on her brow.  Overheating from her covers ("10 tog for winter," her mother had said) and knowing she had to put up with it, be brave and see this thing through.  Statuesque it stood, almost as if mimicking Jane.  Its skin was ugly, repulsive even, to her.  Dry and cold it was heavily wrinkled and flaking away; white, old, dead.  The way the flaky bits were stained yellow by the street lights made Jane feel sick.  She felt a snarl want to form and repressed it.  And then

It blinked.  Looked toward the window, eyes lit suddenly- a dull, threatening, red.  Jane stopped everything, or everything in her stopped.  She dropped the cover slightly (her arms heaving a sigh of relief).  And it seemed to go back to standing its awful patrol, eyes still lit.  For a brief moment Jane had hoped.  Hoped it had heard something in the street and would go out there.  Give her enough time to round up her family, hide or escape.  Hope that was eternal, and empty, and futile.  Then: movement again?  Had it nodded to the window?  Its head went back to its original position, its eyes died again.  Was there another behind the curtain?  Jane didn't dare look, fearing even more for her life now.  It jogged her mind to life, though, and made her remember something dim and distant in her memory.

She looked again.  Still there.  Jane stared, transfixed at this beast playing its eternal waiting game- scared she might move and it would win.  Fully awake now, she couldn't take her eyes off it as she slowly resigned herself to her grizzly fate.  She rather liked her insides and ten was a bit young, she thought, to die.  She scanned it one last time as resignation took over and noticed something new.  A book at its foot, half tipped off a pile of stuff, revealing its cover: a black border and writing on an orange background, no picture.  "War of the Worlds.  H.G. Wells," the print read and she remembered her current reading, listening to the musical at school. 

And it was gone.  Only a dream?  It had seemed so real. 

(Later Jane would realise this was the scariest thing that had ever happened to her and die pleased this was the case).

Note: could not find other stories with the same start

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (56) The Lady of the Woods

She was astonishing.  Even though her hair was green.  It wasn't as hideous as the examples of green hair I have come across in real life.  It wasn't like dyed green hair - all garishly bright with a dried out and unnatural look.  It was perfectly natural, matching her eyebrows, and a very dark green, like a Christmas tree.  And it was long and plaited into several ponytails evenly spaced about her head and made perfectly.  Close to the top of these and circumnavigating her head was a crown made up of miniature versions of the flowers or fruits or leaves (or maybe all three) from every plant in the forest.

Her face was the sort that makes you want to kiss it.  Her eyes were like a flower that has sucked up ink and is fringed and dotted around its edges with a second colour.  In her case a pale green surrounded by a light brown.  She wore a dress that seemed to both mask and complement her slender figure.  In style, I guess it was Ancient Athenian.  Certainly it reminded me of being a teenager and dreaming of Kirsten Dunst in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Her skin was a smooth enigma.  Neither dark nor light, possibly even dirty or leaf- or bark-like.

It was only afterwards that I was able to take all of this in.  My time with her zipped by far too quickly.  And that first glance was only allowed to last the briefest of moments.  No sooner had I set my eyes upon her than she had set me to work.

"You have to move fast.  Take the pestle and mortar at my feet and crush this in it."  She took a tiny pine cone from her crown without looking at it in any way and dropped it into the lacquered wood mortar.  It grew larger as it fell, reaching full size as it hit the bottom.  "And mix your blood in it."  A simple knife with an ornate handle was lying next to the mortar.  Whether it had been there all the time or appeared out of thin air, I could not tell you.  "Then stir in these flowers.  And do it quickly before her hooves melt away, please.  Human hands must undo human inflicted wounds."

I started to reduce the pine cone to dust instantly, seizing upon the pestle in the right hand and turning it as I pressed down.  Repeating the action again and again, quickly, simply and without much thought.  After only ten seconds she told me that would be adequate.  With her watching over me, a woman of such beauty and presence, you would do anything for her and with the screams of pain that were still coming from behind me and causing a pain deep within me that drove me onward, the next part was surprisingly easy.

I took the knife in hand and cut a deep gash in the palm of my left palm before putting the blade down and squeezing my hand into a fist to let the blood run out of the bottom, digging my nails into the wound to keep the flow going. 

When she told me to stop I picked up the flowers, there were four of them altogether, all of a type I didn't recognise, and stirred them into what I already had.  Once instructed for the final time to stop I was informed what was to be done with this remedy for my work.

"Dip your hands in, this will heal your wound also, wipe the mixture over her hooves, using a flower for each one."  I hesitated for a second suddenly a little overwhelmed by the whole scene.  "NOW!" she roared and I was back in the scene and working automatically.

And I did as she bid me, quickly but carefully, taking the gloop so as not to spill a drop.  I set it down next to her right front foot and began the task.

The first problem was the smoke rising and getting in my eyes, burning them.  I quickly reasoned that the blood would help.  I bathed my hands swiftly; healing the wound I had made and coated my eyes.  This blinded me in reality but also helped me see.  In my mind’s eye I could survey the whole scene as if clouded in a thin red gel.  I set straight to work.

To begin with I was worried about  my hands getting burned.  I should have realised of course that this would not be the case.  Just as the cut across my palm had healed as I took the first flower, and helped me to see, so the medicine protected my hands against the heat of the unicorn's hooves.  Hence she had told me to cover my hands. 

I smeared the red knobbly mixture on feeling the writhing of the hooves as they bubbled under the flower.  This soon stopped once a decent covering had been applied and then the foot became free, visibly healed and as good as knew.  The glue had instead been reduced and all that was left was a pool of tepid water.

Before long all four of her hooves were free of their incarceration in hell.  She snorted in my face, covering it in a film of snot and moved with venom, more like a wild cat on the prowl than herself, and took up a position behind the Lady of the Woods.  "You are lucky," the Lady said, "I personally would have given you a bloody nose at the very least."

I wiped the mess from my face and blood from my eyes and stayed on my knees, cleaning it all from my hands by wiping them on my trousers.  I didn't dare do it on the grass in the presence of the Lady of the Woods.  I thanked her and she began to talk again.  But in a different tone.  She had been stern and businesslike before, now she was calm and kindly.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (55) The Final Plan

I always knew the final plan would come one day, I suppose.  When I got her home I thought it had happened.  Never did I dream how horribly the last plan would go.  Or be, even.  I started out all wide-eyed.  Now they were bloodshot, watering and irritable.

The wound from the unicorn’s horn had healed by the time I got back to the van.  However, though my movement wasn't inhibited in any way and I felt no stiffness at all, there was a constant pain deep inside my shoulder.  It was a living hell.  No painkillers would work and I couldn't really go to the doctor complaining about a magical ailment.

It drove me fucking mad over the following week.  I was snapping at people left, right and centre.  Whether it was my superiors wanting figures, my mother on the phone or just people asking how I was.  They didn't laugh at work that week.  They just stared at me after I was gone and signalled their concern to one another by nodding at my back and shaking their heads.

I thought I would return to the clearing the next weekend and get her back good and proper - and capture her for good or ill.  Most things had stopped mattering to me now.  All I felt was pain and I sought to end it and this unicorn fucking nonsense.  Which was probably just in my head anyway.

I entered the clearing in costume again, this time as a matador with a red rag in hand.  She was still mad for once - something I had hoped for so that she might charge.  And how she did.  At first in anger then, slowly, more and more for the sheer hell of it, getting a buzz out of it.  That was how she let her guard down enough.  She stopped really paying attention to where she was going, running at me with her head down.  And so I began edging my way towards the edge of the clearing.  Before long I was lifting the rag to reveal the trunk of a tree too close for her to avoid.

Now, originally, my plan had been a bitter one - to leave her there after a period of piss taking.  And I did laugh manically for a bit at her looking quite foolish, her horn half stuck in a tree.  But only for a short while.  I went on to pretend to take pity and told her I would help her out, for that plan had changed to one of kidnap.  For which I had a trick hidden closely by.

Not far away was the old trusty sudoku-othello board.  I wheeled it up alongside her and produced a big tub of glue telling her what I planned to do with it as I used a brush to slop it all over our old game station.  I told her that if man made items were able to stop magic then I felt her hooves encased in glue and stuck to a bit of board on wheels should do the job very nicely indeed. 

Once done with my monologue I pulled the cart so it was positioned behind the unicorn and then pushed it up against her hind legs, forcing them into the air and onto their place upon the cart.  They slid along nicely until I stopped and allowed them to set.

The plan was then going to be to saw off her horn and wheel her away.  The bits I would need to set her free were at home waiting to be used upon our return.  It was close to the most horrible plan I could have conceived, I thought (someone had once suggested a landmine).  But it seemed justified.  The pain in my shoulder was more or less driving me to it, convincing me that this was what she wanted.

The unearthly screech that was soon emanating from the unicorn's lungs and throat told me otherwise.  Smoke carrying with it a terrible stench was coming from her hooves which were bubbling.  The unicorn screamed and my mind was filled with images of her muggle cousins being boiled down at the knackers yard and yelling to me for clemency.  "Help me," Boxer mouthed, his throat failing as it filled with blood that foamed out of his mouth; a bloodshot eye looking into mine and petitioning for intervention.

And all I could think to do was run.  If I ran it wouldn't be happening.  Nothing could be real if I couldn't see or hear it.

So I tore my eyes and ears away and turned around to leave.  And instead encountered the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  She was completely clad in green.

250 Words: “It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet,” (I still love you)

As you pack your belongings and get ready to leave me I beg and put forward arguments for you to stay, simultaneously searching for answers to find where I went wrong.  Answers that will help me put us back together.  As you leave our house I call after you, tell you it's not over yet.

On the telephone I lie to my mother.  You are out presently or in the bath, we cannot come to dinner for this or that reason.  I assure her you're well and no doubt tell the only truth.  The lies I tell because I believe there is hope.  That this is a hurdle to get over to continue our life.  Because I believe that it's not over yet.

Following you home and looking through your windows I carry it on.  Waiting outside pubs, clubs, your work and the houses of your friends and family I continue to drag the decaying corpse of our relationship.  In our confrontations you kick out lumps of its flesh.  But this won't put me off your trail.  It's not over yet.

In my hovel I drink wine and look at the photos of you spread across the floor, framed on the side and arranged in a collage on the wall.  I talk to them when at my lowest as if you are still here.  In this way I carry us on, keep that torch alight and aloft, dully glowing.  For me, it's not over yet because I still love you.

---

The quote in the title comes from this Klaxons track.  Initially I though the entire title was a quote.

Stories written for BBC Radio Kent Competitions (4)

It was only after clicking 'send' that Rebecca realised what she had done and went white.  For a moment she became deeply jealous of her mother.  It was alright for her:  the empty space in her house a constant reminder of the accident two days before.  For Rebecca, three thousand miles away, life was just the same.  When the moment passed, Rebecca went a little whiter and knew she should phone home straight away.

She found the phone under the sofa cushions and pressed the button marked 'home.'  In a second or two the ringtone sounded and Rebecca began to worry about how she might explain it.  She had never been terribly close to her parents.  Her twin sister, Amanda, had phoned about the accident and this would be the first time Rebecca had spoken to her mother since.  Amanda had been the close one and the one to adore: pretty, talented, energetic.  Rebecca spent her teenage years in her room doing homework and listening to music while her parents were out at one of Amanda's plays or hockey matches.  Such segregation made the move abroad easy.

The ringing finally stopped.  "Hello, Maidstone ######."  Instantly, Rebecca, knew her mother didn't need this.  She sounded tired, much smaller and older.  Not the eager lady who answered with a put-on posh accent. 

"Hey, Ma, it's Becky."  "Was that too cheery?" Rebecca thought and found a more caring tone, "How are you?"  "That was just plain patronising."  Rebecca's face dropped another shade.

"Ah, hello, dear.  Not so bad, considering."  Rebecca wondered how her mother managed to sound so strong when she had sounded so worn out only a second before (but was also relieved she had not collapsed into tears).  Maybe she was just pleased to hear Rebecca's voice.....  The thought both cheered Rebecca and made her feel more guilty.

The cheeriness part lasted only a second.  "'Manda's here with me, helping with the arrangements."  "Well, naturally," thought Rebecca, "She always was the angel." 

"Though Becca, just between you and me, she has taken it awfully hard."  ("Is it wrong to smile?")  "She hides it well and is trying to be strong for my sake.  I think she needs you here."

"ME!?"  The colour drained away completely, Rebecca couldn't believe it.  Her and Amanda had been even less close than her and her parents.  Ever since their adolescence had forged two very different young women, the twins had irritated each other horribly.  They hung out in different groups at school and chose Universities at opposite ends of the country.  Rebecca saw Amanda as an airy, pretty, stuck-up socialite while Amanda saw Rebecca as an awkward, prickly, over-sensitive socialist. 

"What could I do, Mum?"

"She needs a sister to look after her and grieve with, not a mother to be strong for, someone who's shoulder she can let go and cry onto.  You two were once so close.  It would do you both good.  Please come home sooner."

The colour finally came back to Rebecca's cheeks and she felt like crying.  One minute strong, one minute weak, her mother sounded frail and helpless again, buried under too much emotional baggage.  She probably just needed space of her own to grieve in, remember the times before the twins were born and after they left home.  Rebecca at home could make that possible.  And maybe Amanda really did need her for the first time in years.  Like when they were ten and their grandmother had died.  They stayed up all night, sitting on the top bunk remembering her and crying together, trying to make sense of death.  Maybe, deep down, Rebecca needed her mother and sister too.  Or would when she got home and it all became real.

Rebecca promised to book new tickets home and phone back with the details immediately.  But first- "Mum, I'm afraid I've done something a bit mean.  That's why I phoned, really."

"What's that, dear?"

"I forgot about the accident and sent you and Dad an e-mail today, I'm so sorry."

Rebecca's mother let out a short laugh.  "That's fine, dear, I did the same and sent 'Manda to get your father in from the garden for tea.  It's alright, dear, I understand.  It must be odd for you- nothing has really changed for you like it has for us."

"Yes, it really will hit me when I get home."

The two said their goodbyes.  Rebecca hung-up with her finger, released the pressure and rang her usual airline.

Note: other stories with the same start

250 Words: On a street corner in Reykjavík (after the video for Sigur Rós's Viðrar vel til loftárása)

He stands and waits on a cold winter's evening, right in the middle of the season, in the hope his meeting will be as long as the night ahead.  Maybe even stretch into the following day, signalling a complete rebirth. 

He waits for a childhood friend.  A boy he was torn from, parental and religious influence pulling them apart in the short term and keeping them away from one another since then.  They grew up,  always in one another's hearts and heads, always wanting this meeting but unable to break through the forces keeping it from happening.

He tried to live a lie.  Four children and a thirty year marriage with his mind always elsewhere.  His children, four fountains of beauty and happiness that he could relate to and guide, never hindering their flow, were what kept him from rifling through the phonebook.  

As much as he loved his wife, their relationship was always coated in a layer of phoniness that could not be ignored.  As lovers they died soon after the fourth child, the only girl, and became friends and parents committed to one another until their children moved on, the marriage finally dying when he made that call.

And so he waits on a street corner in Reykjavík for the love of his life- a boy now a man- with memories playing through his mind and breaking into a smile that is caught by that man as he approaches and is returned bridging the enforced and elongated gap.

---

The video

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (54) Wrestling II

At some point in the week following the boat incident I had a moment of clarity and realised what a jerk I had been to waste so much time and money on a plan just to piss it away.  I could also see this was likely to keep happening unless I could find something else to plough myself into.  Which I couldn't and so instead resolved to return to the clearing with the simplest of ideas.

I started by revisiting an old plan.  One time, a long time ago, I had tried to wrestle the unicorn into submission and she had beaten me fair and square.  Now, though, I had a new edge.  An inner anger and bitterness to bring into the ring.  While she was unchanged, I was a much darker character now.  I had been airier before, worn bright colours, been more of a fan boy really.  Now I wore black underpants, had a black head band and very bad hair.  Metaphorically, you understand.

Oh, alright then.  More than metaphorically (save the pants).  The 'fun' part of me decided I should approach in costume.  I wore a black t-shirt with a skull on the chest, a head band with the same motif and, rather lamely, black sweatpants, at the end of which a pair of steel toe-capped boots.  Draped over the outer garments was arguably the coolest part, a long leather trenchcoat.  I looked pretty silly.  But then that was the point - I felt that a sense of humour would help get her into the fight.

And it worked nicely.  I stood, legs apart and stooped over ushering her to the fight, removing the trenchcoat to show how serious I was.  The unicorn grinned her wicked grin and walked towards me.  We faced off, waiting for the other to spring.  Circling around staring into each other's eyes for signs of when and where.  Or of weakness leading to backing out.  Of these there were no signs that I could see.  Nor could she in mine. 

All that could be seen was the fact that we both knew who would win again.  With the first twinge I launched myself forward and the bout began.  I took out her front legs first, twisting and turning her over but she sprung me off easily.

And so it continued.  We made play after play for each other, dodging and ducking all we had thrown at us as we continued toward the inevitable conclusion that caused a knot in my throat to form, grow larger and choke.

Each time I laid my hands upon her I felt an urge to turn nasty in order to gain some form of satisfaction.  To vent my spleen through physical aggression.

It happened when she pinned me.  My right hand shot up and took a firm grip of her mane and I yanked her off me and onto her back, my left knee being used to push her front legs onto her stomach to help limit her struggle.  Then my left hand grabbed her throat.

As she gasped for breath and flailed her free legs about I thought about how good this outcome could be.  This was the perfect exit door.  Without a unicorn I would be able to walk away a free man, move on with my life.  I had entered a huge maze-like cul-de-sac but there was suddenly a dark and gloomy alleyway with a dim light at the far end.  A light that was full of hope for the future.

Then I came to my senses and let her go.  And for the first and last time she punished me.  With her watery eyes focused in hate she pushed her horn through my shoulder before holding it at a steep downward angle until I slid off it and onto the ground.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (53) Reunification, the Passage to the Final Era and its Beginning

My failure in taming the unicorn, though not entirely my own fault, meant a need to return to how it was always going to have to be.  To be in it for the fun of the chase.  A kind of chaste relationship.  Too wild to tame, we would have to be friends larking about.

If she would ever see me again.  This was worse than the worms had been, I believed.  It would surely take a lot.  Or so I thought.  I cooked up a whole apology routine only to find it was not needed at all.  The unicorn seemed to have forgotten the whole thing and we got back into the swing of things with a ball game that I steered out of the clearing and attempted to steer into the van.  After her eyes followed the ball into the prison van she rolled them and shook her head before trotting away.

And that was how it would always be.  Nothing I tried could ever succeed because I needed to drug her to do so - that was all that would ever work.  And the end result was to gain something unreal or something angry.  She would not ever be what I wanted her to be.

The once used and now empty stable in my garden was a constant reminder of this.  It riled so that I took an axe to it, as if it was to blame.  I chopped and chopped until splinters flew up into my hands.  Then I set fire to what was left, trying to forget with my family over for fireworks.

The house seemed to get larger and larger at this time, the eternal silence hissing annoyingly at me like a snake that was always close at hand but out of view.  And at work, my reasons for having left temporarily had not been forgotten and people would frequently ask how my quest was going. 

While wearing wide grins. 

And laughing.

That's when I started snapping.  First at home, at the silence and nothingness.  I would get suddenly very frustrated with it and start kicking things and throwing chairs whilst first shouting at it as if it were a person standing in the corner of the room and, later, while listening to angry music and muttering.

Then at work, finally biting back when things were said, retaliating in my own stuttering and confused way.  They only kept on laughing as I became like an angry little gnome, red in the face and comical to all but myself.

All the anger built up within and I found myself entering the clearing with all this baggage on my shoulders and I began to hurl it at the unicorn.

For example.  And this was an expensive plan to just piss about on.  Thus showing what a dick I became.  Anyway, one time when I was going 'off road' to explore the forest for places I could maybe trap the unicorn I stumbled across (quite literally) a river running through the forest.  I followed the river and found it eventually led out of the forest and under the road I parked by on each visit.  While walking along it to get back to the van I started to formulate a plan.

Many months later (or was it years? it certainly felt like years), a bitter man spent a whole day dragging a rowing boat along that river to the point where it was nearest to the clearing and left it close to the water's edge with half a bag of oats inside.

A week later and I led the unicorn to that place with a trail of oats and a promise of more.  She was happy to get into the boat, to let me offer her another new experience.  The unicorn looked about herself eagerly as I rowed her downstream.  At the river bank moving sedately past and the down into the clear water and the fish.

I only thought of when and how she would get away.  Would she steer the boat to the bank and jump sprightly out?  Or would she make it sink and walk away?  I thought of the laughing the next week and my mind became clouded.  I stopped rowing and began to rock the boat.  Just gently from side to side and then harder and harder with a horrible grin on my face, reflected by a look of worry and fear on the unicorn's.

Eventually I tipped the boat and we both fell in.  She got pissed and stormed off, flicking her wet, matted hair in disdain.  I just laughed, happy to have found a new way of dealing with it.

250 Words: Three pints of Guinness and a League Cup title

I was almost ten minutes late.  I left it 'til the last minute and found The Orchard Spot wasn't showing the game, leaving me rushing to The Kentish Yeoman.  I got my first pint in, took my pitch and begun to hope.  Bobbing and weaving to see around those ahead, I watched the game unfold; the wrong way in the first half.

At half time I tried to find another pub due to to racist remarks against Drogba following his goal.  The Rose seemed to be shut so I returned.

A second pint bought and I saw Spurs take the game to Chelsea eventually earning a penalty.  I thought handball, the linesman said a push.  Still, with almost too much calm, Superstar Dimitar converted and a larger cheer than that for Drogba was heard.

The third saw me through, cursing the fact that Zokora cannot bloody shoot.

At full time I downed what was left and had a pee before:

Extra time and I was 10 pence short of a fourth.  I resorted to crunching a mint.  Jenas put the ball in; Woodgate connected; Cech palmed onto Woodgate's head; massive smile on my face.  But so long to go.  Nerves in the pub; relief at saves and misses; applause for Robinson.  And finally the final whistle at an odd but beautiful moment (the best part of a scary minute late).  Joy unbound as the players collected the prize.  I walked into the rain ecstatic, a wee glistening in my eye.

Stories written for BBC Radio Kent Competitions (3): William and Jo

            The light was disappearing and a cold blanket began to envelope the couple.  He held her hand, gave it a squeeze and was gone.  That, as Jo knew all too well, is the problem with courting a ghost.  At the first sign of dark, the cold of death would reclaim him. 

            She left the house, her heart taking flight, as it tends to when lovers part; and her mind flooded with mutinous thoughts.

            Jo had been seeing William for about six months.  An unfortunate obsession with Jane Austen had left her intolerant of modern men.  They were either arrogant rather than dashing or shy rather than brooding. 

            She saw them in pubs and bars sitting idle, expanding their bellies with beer.  Then, later, in clubs, they would not ask you to dance.  At least not in a civilised manner.

            As weeks, months and years drifted by, Jo became so disenchanted with the cretins on offer that she decided to tap other sources. 

            Her first encounter with a ghost had been as a Guide at summer camp.  Too much Coke at an illegal midnight feast had caused her to wake up at about dawn in dire need of a pee. 

            On the way back to the tent, Jo was approached by a Guide in a retro uniform.  The apparition was soaked to the skin. 

            "I've become separated from my team," she said by way of an explanation, "Do you know where the oaks trees are?  We haven't got the acorn yet." 

            Jo, confused and wanting rid, said they were up by the entrance of the site.  She received a daisy for her troubles ("As a fair trade.  We picked lots, you see.  I do love daisies.") and the ghost-girl, poor Susie Watkins, who had drowned while on a ramble, walked away.

            In her late-twenties Jo's hope for future happiness was ebbing away, and she decided it was time to exploit the ghost market.  The experience with Susie had shown her that ghosts could interact with, and touch, humans and so she could see no reason why she should not look for a ghost boyfriend.

            Jo's search began and ended at the old house in her local park one Friday night.  She reckoned the place looked old enough to be Georgian.  Maybe a long-since expired gentleman was still waiting up there for love. 

            With that in mind she sat out the night on the doorstep wrapped in her old Guides blanket, waiting for the period after dawn before the dog walkers appeared. 

            There Jo sat until about two, when, wishing upon a star she drifted into sleep.

            She was woken after dawn by a hand gently shaking her shoulder and a male voice asking, "Are you alright?  Do you need any help?" 

            Jo jumped and looked around, her face pale with shock for a moment before smiling.  She was looking into a kindly, concerned face with deep brown eyes, lined with well-kept hair and, to her surprise and delight, the man was dressed just like Darcy, Knightley and the rest. 

            Feeling suddenly assertive she answered, "I think I will be just fine, thank-you.  My name is Jo and I am very pleased to meet you."

            "Oh!"  William was slightly shocked by this.  He was used to people being scared of him or thinking he was a nut.  "Mine is William.  What brings you to be here so early, if you don't mind me asking?"

            "You, actually.  I have been looking for a man to court."

            Smiling, William said, "I'm not sure I can help you there.  You do know that I am dead?"

             "Yes, but you can touch and feel still."  Jo heard a dog barking in the distance.  "Can we go inside for a chat?  I don't want to disturb the dog walkers."

             "That would be lovely.  It is not very often I have someone to speak with.  Other ghosts tend not to come through here and the rest of my family were contented to cross-over but I never was a restful soul."

            William produced a key and inside they went.  Jo was expecting an empty, desolate and run-down interior.  She was right about the emptiness but the house was dressed in the decoration of William's time. 

            He took her to a reception room and they spent the whole day together becoming more acquainted, talking endlessly about their lives.  That night, as sunset approached, she agreed to come back the next day.

            Very soon, Jo was spending her days off with William inside the house that looked desolate on the outside but was actually a cocoon of blossoming love.  And once they shared their first kiss, they were officially courting.

            Daylight hours were spent in a variety of indoor pursuits from both their eras.  William even spent a week arranging a ghostly ball after which they gave in and took part in the indoor pursuit that survives all ages.

            Every night they would face the same problem, the night coming in to take William away.  By now it was winter and Jo had too much time to herself to mull over the relationship.  She didn't feel she could tell anyone about it and they couldn't ever marry or have a family.  Hell, they couldn't even spend 24 hours together. 

            As she walked home that evening Jo wondered if she should leave him.  Sure they had a great time together and the sex was amazing.  But it was all so fake. 

            Their world, their beautiful nutshell, was nothing but that- a bubble cutting them off from reality.  They spent days together among furniture that was just an apparition, made love in a bed that would disappear at nightfall.  However wonderful that world was, and no matter how long Jo had dreamed of such a man, it was not what she wanted.  They had no future.

            And so she walked on in tears, wondering if, and how, she could leave him.

 Note: other stories with the same start

250 Words: In the shop at the Tate Modern, 20th February 2008

Waiting for half an hour to meet people he glances at  books to pass the time.  Art theory and architecture and design and so on.  He wonders if his sister orders the books in but won't remember to ask her.

Spinning around he sees her for the first time, low cut and a little frilly, and he quickly turns back to the books, not wanting to stare.  Inside he knows he wants his eyes filled with her again.  

He can hear a faint clicking.  He tries to distract himself with words on spines and is soon turning around thinking she must have moved so it will be okay.  She has, but a continuation of the swivel finds her bent over and he can see a lot more than the first time. 

And with her eyes glancing a little up he thinks she probably saw him.  Once more in the refuge of books and with two pints of lunchtime 'Pride faded from his blood he knows he cannot look at her again.

It is then that the giant cricket appears on his back and whispers words of shame as he continues to wander through the shop.  By the postcards he sees her at the till and he asks for his skin to be removed.  

“I didn't ask for this,” he says, “Just take it and give me something better, something new.” The cricket laughs; that is not what he does.  And he continues to stick the man's mind with his feelers.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (52): ..and it all fell apart

To begin with she was a mess.  Understandable, of course, given the trauma she had suffered.  Attacked and savaged by an animal she hadn't known existed.

She lay in a heap, small and very still, as I nursed her towards full health.  Each day I would clean and dress her wound, a horrid gash down her calf, as she winced and moaned, small tears welling in her eyes.  She seemed to be in almost constant pain from the swelling of her leg (it had ballooned up to almost twice its size; I guess unicorns are allergic to dog saliva).  I crushed painkillers into her porridge to try and remedy this.  First with whatever I could find around the house before working up to ketamine.

When the swelling subsided, the pain passed and I stopped administering the drugs.  Her strength had already started to return from eating the replenishing porridge.  This, combined with the wooziness lifting, caused the unicorn to wake up.  Since the attack she had been as in a dream, disconnected and distant, somewhere other than there in the stable.  Now she returned to her full senses, seeing and understanding where I had brought her and all that that meant.  And she hated me for it.

She was still not fit enough to stand or do very much about her situation.  The wound was still quite open, the infection, though no longer causing her leg to swell, must still have been stopping it from healing.  Instead of fighting me, then, she began by ignoring me.  She refused to acknowledge my presence or anything I did for her.  She didn't even look at me, or not really, as I busied myself by changing her food, water, hay and bandages and clearing up her mess.  If I walked within her eyesight she reacted in no way at all, only continued to stare with glassy eyes dead through me. 

She soon tired of this, though, and of the silence once I stopped talking to her.  That was when she got nasty.  Snarling and spitting at me when I came in, not ceasing until I was gone again.  She let me change her bandage though and everything else, she just made darn sure it wasn't at all pleasant.  She even saved up her shit for when I had just mucked out. 

Her biting me was the last straw.  I sat inside, alone, knowing that what I had been striving for for so long was outside and the result was a bitter taste for us both.  I made a resolution to end it.  I would feed her the sugared porridge to sedate her and once she was better I would take her back to the forest.

The porridge certainly got rid of the nasty unicorn.  It made her forget her anger toward me completely and she became friendly towards me again.  We even played Othello once more.  And that just made me more depressed when I was away from her - I was interacting with a fake.  I started to spiral downwards.  I knew I had to release her but also that I could keep her in this state forever if I so chose.  To get what I wanted for once.

That was when the darker moments began, the moments that galvanised me into taking her back.  They were like a shadow that covers almost everything, leaving only the bare facts.  I want to believe it was a dream, it feels like one rather than a proper memory.  But, at night, when the real me was asleep, I would sneak out to the stable, having already slipped the unicorn sleeping pills, and gouge at the wound a little to prolong our time together.  As I say, I want to believe it never happened and hope to God it did not.

She did heal, though.  And quickly after the shadow had arrived.  I led her to the van as I had in the forest.

I let her go at the edge of the forest.  She darted away more quickly than I had ever seen her move.  I broke down in the lay-by and wept.