Encounter on the Platform - A Short Story

A small moment, waiting for a train, in the cold at Bedminster Station today sparked this story. 

Small stories are everywhere... 

 

  

Encounter on the Platform 

I love these crisp, still, winter mornings… leaving the house in the dark, not so much.

    As I make my way across the platform to claim a seat in the shelter, there’s only a scattering of people at this quiet, suburban station at such an ungodly hour. 

    Just as my spot on the bench warms up, I’m forced to shuffle over and make room for one more. A small woman, she’s dressed head to toe in black, hooded by a chunky knitted hat, face pallid in the blue light of approaching dawn.

    She sits close, so close we share the same pocket of icy air. She reaches down into her ample handbag. I expect her to take out a phone - all the other commuters are in their e-bubbles - instead, she takes out a small, battered, hardback book. Curious, I peer over her shoulder. The typeface cramped on the tissue paper thin pages. 

    Psalms.

    Her lips flutter as she absorbs and silently recites the words. She raises her eyes ahead to the tree-line, my gaze follows. 

    A watercolour wash of pink seeps up the trunks. 

    She drops the book into her bag, an urgency in the motion. Next, she takes out a small tube of what looks like hand cream. I notice the number 50 shouting from the label. 

    She squirts a liberal dollop of the cream into her hand and fiercely rubs it onto her cheeks, along her neck, and over her hands, coating every inch of her exposed flesh.

    The rails rattle and whirr, lights slowly swell on the horizon. Phones are stowed, seats abandoned, what seemed like a sparse gathering of passengers, morphs into a thick snake along the yellow line.

    The lady in black gets up and lifts her bag. It’s only then I notice she’s dropped the bookmark from her New Testament. I bend down to pick it up.

    “Excuse me?”

    She turns, our eyes connect.

    “You dropped this!”

    I hold out the bookmark, blink twice, not sure I’ve read the logo on the bookmark correctly: ‘Nosferatu Anonymous’.

    She thanks me with a nod, a soft smile drawing her lips away from startlingly serrated teeth.

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Caught in a Moment - A Short Story

After publishing four books in just under 3 years, I took a short break from writing since releasing Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight in May. 

Yet despite my fingers staying away from a creative keyboard, once you unscrew that writing tap (or faucet for my American friends) it's unstoppable. 

I've had ideas ruminating for some time...

 

 

I shared a snippet from the next book project 'Finding the Scream' in my last Tom Cat's Mewsings update and knowing that August will be a quiet month at work for me, I plan to do another 'Mini-NaNo'*.  

*Mini-NaNo = National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWri M), write 30,000 words of a novel in a month that isn't November.

I'll be writing the lion’s share of a first draft of 'Finding the Scream' in a month. 

In the 30 Days to First Draft update I shared my top tips to maintain the momentum when you power through writing a book in a short burst of time (i.e. a month): 

http://authorpreneur.amymorse.co.uk/30-days-to-first-draft/

To get back into the swing of regularly writing, I joined a group with a fellow writer friend, Anita MacCallum. 

We meet up every 2 weeks, share writing prompts and just write.

Last week, one of our prompts was to sit somewhere else in the room and write about how we felt in that space.

I had a clear image in my head when I chose an uncomfortable old seat against a velvet drape. 

It's a short piece, about being caught in that moment and I thought I'd share it with you:

I wriggle my toes, unhook my shoulders, pitch my ankles up and down. 

In front of me is darkness, a dusty hush in my forgotten little corner. 

Here, behind the heavy, moth-eaten, velvet, curtain it smells of sandalwood and boot polish. 

I roll my shoulders, flex those feet once more. Taking slow, steady breaths, I close my eyes and visualise all of their eyes, a constellation as I orbit the stage. They're just behind me, and the glow of the spotlight is growing. 

Eyes wide, I glance down at myself, picturing the way the lace will flow and move like cream. One more ritualistic flex of my ankles and the muscles of my calves tighten, pushing against my lycra-painted flesh like bulky fists. 

This is the moment; the calm, then contemplation as the cacophony commences. A triumphant flourish from the assembled orchestra. 

I tighten the ribbons, pack my petite breasts securely into my costume, smoothing out the creases.

I stand, shake out the tension. I'm water, I'm light, I'm liquid and sunshine. 

A hushed whisper calls out from stage left, "1 minute to curtain up."

It'll be the last time I hear those words.

Launching into a new era...

When I published Gabriel's Game, Part 2: the Black Knight in April I marked the occasion with a Vlog:

http://authorpreneur.amymorse.co.uk/business-is-a-journey-not-a-destination/




Talking about Tom Sheridan and Sasha Blake's story with someone new makes me realise just how fond I am of my fictional hero and heroine, and how they feel like part me. I cry, when they cry, laugh when they laugh, and bite my lip and cross my legs when they're being intimate with each other; in Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight there is a particularly sensual and explicit scene between them when they are taking a shower together.


It's fascinating looking back at the journey I've been on to get to the end of this writing era. In January last year, when I was writing Gabriel's Game, Part 1: The White Queen, I shared this version of the first chapter.

http://ideaism.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/a-little-literary-diversion-chapter-1.html

After beta reading, proof reading, editing, structural edits and re-writes it's a little different and punchier - take a look at the preview chapter on Amazon for the updated version.

I had a launch party for Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight this month:

Graham Morse, my husband, business partner and book cover desi

gner taking care of the fizz!

That's it, the Sheridan and Blake Series is now finished, and next will be a new series of books, starring Kat Orlov 

(who you'll meet in Gabriel's Game)

2 hands, 2 drinks!

I've not written much of the next book, but I have a concept, the beginning of a plan and a title:

Finding The Scream

In August last year I did a mini 'NaNoWriMo' (National Novel Writing Month) and wrote a big chunk of Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight in 30 days.

At the time, I published this blog post with top tips to write a novel in 30 days :

http://authorpreneur.amymorse.co.uk/30-days-to-first-draft/


I plan to do the same with Finding The Scream. 

Watch this space for updates.

 I'm still figuring out the detail, but the concept for Finding The Scream is:

Two children are playing in a disused mine in Austria when they stumble across a cache of forgotten Nazi loot. The children tell their father who goes to his reporter friend. The reporter, Harvey Doyle, is an American working as a foreign correspondent for a large German newspaper. He calls Kat Orlov for help to solve the mystery of the cache, and she calls her former agency partner - a man with knowledge of stolen Nazi art from his years in the British Army - Tom Sheridan (yes, Tom has a cameo in this book). He helps her to recover the finds and repatriate them with their original owners. Kat is on a journey of her own too, to seek revenge on her cousin Jon Solomon, but will Tom get in her way?

Here's a sneak peek at some of the raw writing for this book so far:

“What's with the waistcoat?”

“What's wrong with the waistcoat?”

A mischievous smile tickles Kat's lips.

“Nothing, it's just, in all the years I've known you, you've always dressed in shades of grey. About the most colourful thing I've ever seen you in is a pale coloured shirt or blue Jeans. Whatever happened to hiding in plain sight?”

“That was in another life. I’m an art dealer now.”

A snort escapes. “Art dealer. What, colourful waistcoats are your form of artistic expression are they? Trying to fit in with the London set are we?”

He narrows his eyes, nostrils flexing.

“Oh, here comes the disgruntled huff.”

His face pinks, as if he's been caught out in a lie. The amusement warms Kat's belly, it's so too easy to wind him up. She turns on a heel and strides the platform. The sound of his footsteps clunk behind her. She's enjoying this too much to continue on in silence.

“Married life has made you soft," Kat glances back over her shoulder, letting her long ponytail flick out close to his face like a whip, “And a little pudgy too.”

She hears his muffled growl and smiles to herself; there it was, right on cue.