Five minute fiction

Dear Diary

I’ve been busy working hard on my novel amongst other projects, in my spare time, for these last few weeks.  I’ve hit 35,000 words and started to encounter some of the pitfalls that have been vocalised in the beginner writer groups I’ve joined.  Therefore, it’s time to take a break for a short while, concentrate elsewhere and refresh myself!  Here is a short story, a ‘five-minute fiction’ that I put together experimenting with some of the tips I picked up from Marian Keyes back in January.

Enjoy…

(As always, please feel free you use the ‘Contact Me’ page with your feedback or follow me on Social Media using the links provided).

False Truths

The tears are stinging my eyes as I’m sitting here.  The park is empty.  I can’t stop my hands from shaking as I hold the letter. How can so much change in such a short time?  It’s all gone wrong, this wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

It was Tuesday night when he Text me.  We’d arranged to meet at half past eight. I lied to my Mum, told her I was just going to a mates house.  I could see my breath as I walked down that street.  I shivered in the heavy darkness and glanced back over my shoulder. The hairs were prickling up on the back on my neck. The place was eerie and unwelcoming, like I wasn’t supposed to be there but I was sure I was in the right road. The windows on the grey houses were so thick with dirt, I remember thinking no-one would be able see out of them…or in.  Abandoned rubbish lay in what was once intended to be front gardens but now resembled nothing more than deserted wasteland. I could hear myself breathing and it was faster than it needed to be.  Mum always made me stay away from that side of town. Two cats hissed at each other from behind some bins which made me jump.  I hurried, moving between patches of dim, orange glow from the streetlights above and then into a deeper darkness, where the streetlamp didn’t work. My feet crunched on broken glass but I carried on, heading towards the next fuzzy orange light beam. There was nobody around, no cars driving past, even.  It was just deserted. Silent.  I pulled my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and checked the address; the backlight gave me a false sense of security and I stretched my gaze as far as it would go. There were some brighter lights at the bottom of the street and I could see shadows moving with a low din of voices, looked like a crowd gathering. I quickened my pace toward it.

I was fourteen when mum told me all about my Dad. I’d never known who he was, never met him, not that I remembered anyway. I’d always just accepted that he’d run off when I was little and didn’t want anything to do with us.  Mum said I never really asked about him when I was growing up. I had my Step-Dad, he was cool and was all I’d ever known.  But secretly, I thought about my real Dad every now and then. I’d lay awake in bed at night and imagine what he’d be like.

Mum told me to stay away from him.  ‘He’s trouble Mason, and he’ll never change, bad news!’, she warned me, but I felt sure he would, now that he was free and now that he knew all about me and that I wanted to see him. He’d been released from prison a few weeks ago.  Served a 10-year sentence for armed robbery apparently. I’d wanted to be there for when he came out, meet him at the gates, like a big, happy reunion kind of thing, but I knew mum would be furious and when it came to it, I bottled it.  I didn’t know how he’d react, not really. He had answered a couple of my letters whilst he was inside. He said he didn’t do it, was stitched up and served all that time as an innocent man.  Mum said ‘that’s what they all say’.  This past year, since mum told me about him and what had happened, I’d sent him photos, told him about my life, the basketball team, my mates and my achievements, mostly straight A’s, and that I was fifteen now. I wanted him to be proud.  To feel like he’d still accomplished something, even though he’d been locked up for so long.  He’d seemed like he was pleased, said he wanted to get to know me, but mum wasn’t happy about that.  I couldn’t believe it when his Text landed, asking me to meet him. I felt sure, if I could just talk to him and if he could see me, his son, we could start to build something and put the last 15 years right.  So I didn’t tell mum where I was really going.

I carried on down the road, the commotion ahead of me was getting louder and as I got nearer, I could see a gathering, almost huddled in a scrum. The pub sign was clear by now, swinging in the breeze in front of the streetlamp opposite. The light reflected off the shiny, red tiles that lined the whole building, just as he described. This was where I’d meet him. The scrum spilled onto the street, I couldn’t see what was happening, not clearly, a fight maybe?  I just needed to get around them, to the door, then I could slip inside and would meet my Dad. My real Dad. I looked down at my feet and quickened my step.  In my head, I planned my route to avoid getting mixed up in the bustle, but I found myself stuck at the back of a wide circle of people which had formed as it blocked the pub entrance. In the centre of the circle, I could just about see two men and arms, fists, punches flying. The encouraging shouts and jeers from the spectators just as loud as the screams and pleas for them to stop from one woman, who was being held back. The blows between the pair in the middle were fast and furious until  one of the men fell to the ground. His once white t-shirt was ripped and splattered in pinkish, red streaks of blood streaming from his face. His arms laid lank, motionless beside him. Blood stained the pavement around his head as still the punches continued to shower him from above. He’d stopped responding. The screaming from the woman who had broken free and rushed to her knees beside him, screeched through my ears and mixed with the sound of my own heart thumping. My mouth was dry. I couldn’t breathe. I felt sick.

The punches finally stopped as the realisation of the situation slowly dawned on the attacker. As he stepped away from the body, pale and bowed, he suddenly looked up, sweeping his gaze over the congregation.  Then, in the silent sea of stunned faces, he saw me.  Our eyes locked and his blazed with recognition.  It was him.  Although older now than in the photos Mum had shown me.  There was no mistaking him, my father, and he’d recognised me instantly. I backed away, slowly at first as he raised his arm reaching out for me and staggered a step in my direction.  I heard myself gulp, before turning and running as fast and as hard as I could.  His voice was screaming out to me with my name echoing down the empty street, but I wasn’t going to stop. I got the hell out of there.  Back to the bus station and I didn’t stop running until I got there.  My chest thumping up to the back of my throat and into the temples next to my eyes.  I reached for my phone and I saw the missed calls. He’d tried to ring straight away but I was too busy running to hear it. He left messages, told me I didn’t understand and that it wasn’t what I thought, not what it looked like.  But he would say that, wouldn’t he?

I didn’t sleep that night, or for the nights that followed. The sound of the sirens kept ringing through my ears.  Every time I closed my eyes, the vision of that man lying unconscious in a blood drenched mess on the floor flashed into my head and the noise of that woman wailing still haunted me.  Made me so angry that my stomach bubbled.  How could he do that? 

His letter arrived yesterday. I hid it from mum, she didn’t need to know. I felt like ripping it up to begin with.  What could he possibly say that was going to make it all right?  He was scum.  But I couldn’t help feeling curious too.  So, I came here, to the back of the park, where its quiet, where no one will see me. 

And I’m sitting here reading the contents.  It tells me that I didn’t understand what I saw. The guy he beat up was the bad, evil man, not my Dad. The guy he beat up was the one that did the armed robbery all those years ago, the one that stitched my Dad up and planted the gun on him to put him in the frame.  Got away with all sorts of stuff over the years.  Apparently, he turned up at the pub that Tuesday night, someone had told him that my Dad would be there. He started pressuring Dad to do a job.  Dad told him he didn’t want any trouble, he was meeting me, getting on with his life. They argued and the bloke pulled a blade, told my Dad he’d harm me if Dad didn’t do as he wanted.  That’s when the fight started.  My Dad wrestled with him and took the knife, they fought until it spilled onto the street and that’s when I turned up.  Dad said he was trying to protect me. Wouldn’t let that scumbag anywhere near me, he said, no matter what it took.  Everyone knew it too apparently, wanted this bloke to get what he finally deserved, but someone had called the police and Dad had been arrested, likely to get sent down again.

I’m holding his letter, trying to re-read his desperate and pleading words, seeking my forgiveness. I can’t see, my eyes are blurred and tears are spilling over and smudging the ink.  I pull my phone from my pocket and scroll to my recent calls.  What have I done?  I’ve lost my Dad again, before I even had him and this time it’s my fault.  My hand is still shaking as I look at my call entries for that Tuesday night and 999 stares back, taunting me.