Saturday 15 December 2012

Here's a short story I wrote at a creative writing class a few years ago. The brief was vague, I remember it being something along the lines of "someone remembering something whilst walking". Very vague, though probably not quite as vague as I remember it. Anyway, here it is.


Marcus reflexively looked down at his wrists as his watches beeped their alarms. He always wore two. 6:42, one hour to sun rise and time he should be getting home.
He'd been out all night again at his gentlemens club. A special place for like fellows. After leaving, he had walked through Soho, up Wardour Street and into Leicester Square.
He exited the square on the South-East side. He hadn't taken this particular route for years. Then he remembered why. He stopped suddenly as the restaurant came into view. Her smell was the first thing he remembered. Jessica, white musk, always white musk. Then her hair, soft, the fringe that half covered her eyes. He used to joke that she could see about as well as an Old English Sheepdog. He scolded himself for being so soft. He couldn't allow himself to have these feelings. That life was dead to him now.
He walked on quickly. He turned right on to the Charing Cross Road striding past the National Portrait gallery. He had resided in London all his years but only once been inside. It was on a school trip. Most of the pictures had been much of a muchness to his young uneducated eyes. All except for one. It had been a painting of a man in a purple velvet suit standing in a dark room. Marcus remembered thinking how distinguished he had looked. The man in the painting had an aire of danger about him, a fierce glint in the eye. Marcus had wanted to be him.
On now through Trafalgar Square. Glancing up at the lions guarding Nelson's Column, an even earlier memory came. Strong arms lifting him onto the back of one of the lions. His father. His mother was at street level in front of the lion, taking his picture, bright sunlight glinted off of the camera's lens. He had thought his father so strong. True strength was what Marcus now possessed.
A few minutes more and he had arrived at the door of his basement apartment. Beautifully furnished and this close to the centre of London, it had cost a lot of money. He hadn't payed for it of course. His fellows in The Brotherhood had acquired it for him. He opened the door and walked through the hallway. He entered his bedroom. He disrobed and lifted the lid on his coffin. It was a clichéd thing for those of his ilk to sleep in, but practical. He ran his tongue under his fangs, tasting the blood he had, had earlier in the evening. To bed now, the sun would be up soon.

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