All stories

It was a dazzling turn that left the defender gaping. They had drawn them in the whole game and then sprung the trap, a beautiful through ball that released Steve for the counter attack. Now he just had the keeper to beat.

“I’m in” thought Steve. A sinkhole opened up and instantly consumed the on-rushing keeper swallowing him whole, just as Steve hammered it into the top right corner. The ball dropped knocking into the keepers bottle which spilt and rolled dropping into the fresh abyss after its owner.

“Hey no fair, that’s not allowed” Andy cried. “Wasn’t even sub’d on. Plus that sinkhole was offside.”

“How the hell can he be offside he doesn’t even have legs” Steve fired back.

“Yeah but still. Gotta be a foul of some sort.” Andy retorted.

The sinkhole burped a noxious cloud that sent the rest of the team scurrying backwards.

“So sorry” it said in a deep smooth voice.

“Bloody dirt mouth.” Andy muttered

“No need for that sir. Just doing my job.”

“Sure. What’d he even do?”

“No idea what you mean. However he does have an unpaid library fine. Purely coincidentally of course.” The voice continued with a slight hesitation.

“A library fine? Andy explored. “A library fine? What. They’re…for a 50p fine?!” Andy’s face had turned the colour of a furious northerner.

“Uhhh” Steve said. “Are you sure that’s it?”

“I am quite sure thank you. And I’ll appreciate it if you lot don’t take that tone with me. I am just doing my job.”

“Sure.” Steve replied nervously. “But c’mon a library fine?”

“Look I’m just a naturally occurring phenomenon of course so what do I know. However, as a side note the Department of Future Correction has run the scenarios. This library fine, whist currently only at £3.50 if left unchecked, would in 7 years time due to a freak spike in inflation result in a £12,000 defecit on the library’s already fraught budget, causing it to close. Which, in turn will leave a young boy James Hottinger unable to access the weekly Lego club. This sends him down a spiral of missed education and crime eventually leading to brutal the murder of Jeffrey Anderson an off duty enforcement officer.” The sinkhole had started confidently but lost some conviction by the end. “Of course my presence here is entirely coincidental and this is of course a freak of nature accident. I’m sure you’ll all agree.” He added quickly.

There was a wave of stunned silence from both teams.

“But, but did you see that through ball?” Sam said, “It was perfect.”

“You what?” Steve said slowly. The colour draining from his face, going as white as cherry blossom.

“The calculations have been…calculated.” The sinkhole replied with a hint of apology in his eternal and gravelly voice.

Andy’s colour was hard to describe and his whole body seemed to vibrate intensely.

“This government. I can’t. I just can’t. This is it. I mean using a “natural phenomenon” as a liberal loophole to justify state sanction led bloody executions.” Andy’s waving arms had taken on the air of a mad scientist at this point.

“How dare you. Such accusations” the sinkhole said aghast. “I have nothing to do with the government.”

“You literally just said ‘you were just doing your job!”

“Nope. Didn’t say that.”

“You bloody did.”

“No…erm. Did I? Are you sure. I mean…”

The sinkhole began to vibrate and expand.

“Hey, cut that out.” Steve muttered backing away.

“I’m not doing anything.” The sinkhole said glibly whilst clearly eating up more ground.

Sirens sounded overhead and spotlights flooded the area.

“Cmon, run for it lads.” Steve cried turning and pelting down the pitch.

“Don’t forget it’s an extra pound each cos we’re one man down now.” Sam cried as they all ran for cover.

“I’m not saying you’re an idiot Lizzie babes, but it’s a bit convenient that you ‘forgot’ your phone that night, isn’t it?”

Lizzie flushes and drops her gaze. She’d been enjoying telling her story, but Gav drags the attention back to himself again, looks victoriously around the group. No-one challenges him.

“I’m not saying I definitely saw a ghost, Gav - It was just that -”

But Gav interrupts her.

“I think someone had one too many alcopops that night, didn’t they, babes? You spilled a bottle when you got back too - you were pretty pissed. I expect you started seeing things that aren’t there. Seriously, you have to be a total moron to think ghosts exist these days. I mean, everyone has a camera on their phone - someone would have filmed one by now.”

Lizzie stares miserably at the ground, but she doesn’t speak up for herself.

“Well, Gav,” I interject. “No-one’s ever really taken a scientific approach to filming a ghost. The ghost hunters on telly are all a bit, you know, woo woo, aren’t they? If you’re so confident you’re right about this, why not set up a proper experiment in The Cherry Tree where Lizzie saw - whatever it is she saw - and prove us all wrong.”

Gav prides himself on being the scientist of the group. He is hooked but won’t admit it.

“You can’t prove a negative,” he scoffs. “How can I prove that something isn’t there?”

“So you are a bit worried about going back there, then? I mean I would be too. Everyone’s heard the stories and I think Lizzie’s amazing going anywhere near that place after dark…” I give a theatrical shudder.

“Of course I’m not worried,” he’s flustered now, doesn’t like the idea that he looks weak compared to Lizzie. “Fine, I’ll go to The Cherry Tree tonight and set a trap to catch the fucker on film if it exists. Which it doesn’t.”

The Cherry Tree burned down twenty years before we all came here for University. That no-one has done anything with the place only feeds the rumours that the proprietress stalks the ruins at night, her face and hands scorched to grey ash, her clawed, bloody hands reaching through the shadows to gouge at trespassers and gawkers.

As we leave I grin to myself having trapped Gav into an uncomfortable, cold few hours staking out an abandoned building in the middle of a Welsh winter for the sake of his ego, while we treat ourselves to a few quiet, Gavless drinks in a warm bar in town.

But when we see Gav the next day, he is ashen and silent. We came expecting boasts and crowing, but he will not speak of the night before, just mumbles and tries to turn the subject. When we push him to show us what he filmed, he mutters that he forgot his phone, that he must have left it somewhere. That it doesn’t matter anyway.

And at the edge of the group I notice Lizzie sitting quietly as usual. She makes no move to comfort Gav, but I could swear that there’s the ghost of a smile dancing at the edges of her pretty face and her normally immaculate fingernails are ragged and bear the faintest traces of blood red at the tips…

The torpor of winter didn’t affect him.

By training his mind scientifically and taking a brisk walk everyday he had successfully eliminated the effects of reduced sunlight exposure disrupting his Circadian rhythm and depriving him of serotonin.

This meant that if he was more than usually waspish to his cleaner Mrs Mudisamy, who was the only other collection of human cells he encountered on a regular basis, it was clearly only because of her laxer than usual cleaning effectiveness.

And if he was experiencing maudlin thoughts and wondering whether his life’s work had been strictly worth his solitude, then it was due to some scientific imbalance caused by the unwelcome necessity of visiting his brother William, his unbearably loud children and irrelevant wife last week to discuss their inheritance.

William insisted on him partaking in a wee dram “to loosen him up” and it always affected him. Even now, days later, he could feel the chemical imbalance caused.

Damn irrational people and their attempts to dilute his purity of scientific thought.

Grumbling to himself that the insufferable woman would soon be here with her annoying pleasantries and loud contraptions, he walked across the room and reached for the rope to his black out blinds forgetting the water bottle he had left on his desk. The bottle tipped and water cascaded onto his computer, which contained his thesis on the limitations of the Panspermia Hypothesis. The machine was a write off.

Luckily he had it saved on three different memory sticks but it meant he couldn’t work on it today. He cursed his inefficient water bottle emptying routine.

As he cleaned the mess up he became aware of the sun streaming through the window. Out of it he saw that the cherry tree in his street, only yesterday bare and bedraggled, had become a burst of radiant white blossom. Small creatures buzzed round it attempting to extract pollen. His mood changed.

Mrs Mudisamy unlocked the door and removed her coat replacing it with her blue cleaners tabard. She’d been cleaning here twenty years and the day she dreaded was this one. The official first day of spring. For this was the one day a year, in which the usually taciturn professor’s trap was sprung. The day when he suddenly turned from distant pedagogue into over attentive, clumsily-amorous suitor and she could see his extraordinarily large and hopeful erection poking through his 10 year old, way-too-short trousers. Luckily, usually, all it took was her to firmly remove his hands from her breast and remind him of his thesis to get him back more or less on track.

Here he came, dancing down the hall!

“Ahh Mrs Mudisamy” he cried “May I say you look very beautiful today? I bear good news!”

“Have you finished your thesis?” she enquired hopefully.

“Thesis! What are theses? Or yet computers on days like these?” he asked mainly addressing the hoover.

“No the good news is I’ve made us a picnic and WE, are going to the PARK!”

Mrs Mudisamy thought about Mr Mudisamy who hadn’t shown any interest in her for ten years and despite herself was flattered. In any case it beat another day of cleaning.

“Why not?” she heard herself say.

And that was the start of their unlikely affair.

Every year the cherry tree had surprised him. In a small suburban garden, it had always looked as though it was showing off. What did it have to compete against after all? Some straggly privet hedges, a few old roses and a hydrangea that had seen better days.

His kind, though incredibly boring neighbour, would peer over the fence and say the same thing every April: ‘The highlight of the gardening year’ as the explosion of pink and white dominated the small space.

Gradually though, the signs began to appear. Branches at the extremities almost bare. One large branch just broke off in the high wind. A makeshift swing still attached. Luckily the last time it had been used was when Michael was ten. He was thirty-four now.

He had got someone round to see if it could be saved. The scientist part of him knew really, but the old romantic just had to make sure. The tree expert was kind, knowing that it would mean a lot to him, to anyone really. He acted almost as though he was a vet, gently suggesting that your old dog had come to the end. His mind ranged across a succession of family pets and their departures. Very hard, especially when the kids were small.

The tree was dying. Dead already really. Nothing that could have been done. Trees had a natural lifespan like all living creatures and this kind of cherry was not particularly long-lived. A hundred years was doing quite well.

He reached over to take his twelve o’clock dose and for the umpteenth time spilt the bottle onto the wooden floor. A great sound effect: a hundred tiny tablets hitting solid oak planks. No matter, the carer would be round soon. She’d pick them up and an hour or so wouldn’t make too much difference.

He looked down at his arm and the liver spots surprised him, though he knew perfectly well that they were there. Just superficial and a natural sign of ageing after all.

He must have drifted off and when he woke up there were voices. The carer, yes, but others too.

‘All ready Prof.?’

He wasn’t sure who this was. Over familiar he knew that.

Alice, the carer was picking up the tablets.

‘I’ve put your bags in the van already. Just need to wheel you out.’

Out? Where? He thought.

Then it came back to him.

The quack saying out loud that the power of attorney could be used. He didn’t really have the capacity to decide. Better off out of this draughty old place. Michael and Rebecca nodding.

Signing the damn thing, over a year ago, suddenly feeling like a trap. Now it was sprung. He hadn’t the energy to respond really.

‘Leave me for a moment, would you?’

They could hardly refuse.

He looked out onto the garden searching for new signs on the old tree. Nothing much, just a few more small branches gone in the high winds over the weekend, but the decline was inevitable. Elizabeth would have hated seeing it like this. At least it had lasted until she was gone.

‘Alright I’m ready’ he said and swiveled the chair to face them.