Tag: mystery

The Qliphoth

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
excerpt

“When’s the next return connection, please? And where do I catch it?”
“What connection you talking about? You got ID?” The guard is surly, he
picks at a scab at the corner of his mouth, and then presses a red button above
his intercom.
This is all happening too quickly. Lucas can only speed into a convoluted
improvisation about a lost student railcard,. As the fabulation becomes
increasingly riddled with internal contradictions, Lucas can hear his voice rising
to a fractious squawk.
Now he’s a public spectacle. The guard has been joined by two colleagues,
and there’s also a random gathering of people from the concourse, a man carrying
a huge china dog, an elderly Asian in flared trousers, someone with a
combination-lock briefcase chained to his wrist.
They’re all staring. Their throats start moving in unison, out of his control,
they’re inhaling nasally, to produce a thick hawking laughter. Through their
din, Lucas can hear fragments of a security conference:
“. . . sure this is the geezer ID Division is after?”
“They want him to have special ID treatment, for crissakes . . .”
“They’re not really Operational yet. He might be some random nut who’s
wandered in from the rain.”
“If he is just a random, Transit will want some action, you bet.”
Lucas now knows what has to be done. Crude physical action can refute any
illusion, even a bad dreamscape. Material conditions determine consciousness.
That’s what Mummy said. So just hit out.
He punches the iron pillar nearest him, bruising his hands on the protruding
bolts. Nothing collapses. So this Terminal of Babylon is going to be a stubborn
bugger?
On a rush of adrenalin he pushes aside the guards and staggers into their
booth, tugging at the intercom, to tear out its reality by the roots. It comes away in
a clutch of wires. His ankle collapses and he falls back through the cubicle doorway,
but the momentum won’t stop, his fists swing into their grinning faces.
“I can’t wake . . .” he shouts between gasps. “I can’t wake up!” Now they are
rolling and tumbling in the rubble; he can smell one victim’s aftershave, and
blood trickles all over his hand, he’s broken a porcine nose, or a porcelain dog,
and lightbulbs are swinging—
More figures in peaked caps block the light—their gloves grip Lucas
around the neck and legs, bending him into balletic contortions, counter-
stretching every tendon in his body.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562839

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186508

Jazz with Ella

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

“You too,” she said sincerely. “We’ll miss you.” She smiled at Vera who nodded. “There’s something I’d like to give you.” She reached into her purse and removed her wedding ring from where she had tucked it. “You might need this. Please take it. It brought me happiness for a while.” Paul nodded. Vera took the ring wordlessly. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Uh, aren’t you forgetting something else?” asked David.
“The leather jacket? It’s in my cabin—for you.” They all laughed.
“Hey, thanks. But I was actually thinking about what we should say to people back in Canada. Do you have any family at all, Paul?”
He shook his head.
“Any friends who might report you missing?”
“Not any who’d really care. Jen’s been my best friend. Oh, but you can tell Dr. Sommer at the Russian department what happened and tell her that she’s an excellent teacher. I couldn’t have done this without her. But otherwise, no, there is no one. My mother’s been dead a long time now, and so has my grandmother who was my guardian. My dad disappeared—probably because of gambling debts.”
By now Vera was crying openly. “You have family now,” she told him, and Jennifer was overjoyed to see how eagerly he hugged her.
★
Just three blocks away, their tour guide, Natasha Alexeyevna Kuchkov, was sitting on the warm cement buttress of a public fountain. Two other women dressed in sarafani, light cotton dresses, were dipping their bare feet in the fountain’s pool and giggling. Such behaviour was not for her. In any case, the telegram recently received from her director had induced a cooling effect right to the bone. Phone me directly you reach Ulyanovsk, it had ordered. They don’t know what it’s like in the field any more, she thought. When we arrive, I have visits to organize, vouchers to fill in, local staff to supervise. How much time do they think I have?
Thus she had been almost relieved when the rebellious students asked for some afternoon time off, though she wouldn’t admit as much to them. It had given her an opportunity to find the nearest postal and telegraph office where the long distance phone booths were located. She dialled her director on his personal private line and after some buzzing, whining, and several hang-up clicks, she was finally put through.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Jazz with Ella

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

If he pushed his face right into the window, he could just see the edge of the canal where Gennadi often waited for him to begin their sociable walk to work together. Gennadi was younger than Volodya, 22 years old to Volodya’s 31, and his taste in music was abominable, Vlad thought, but still, he was a friendly, loyal fellow and Volodya really needed support this morning.
Their job was a dull one, though it required a certain amount of mechanical aptitude. The firm they worked for serviced automatic machines: the water vending machines located on every street corner and several other types that sold carbonated fruit juices. They replenished them, cleaned them, oiled them and fixed them when they broke down, which happened frequently. It was not the profession he would have chosen, nor why he had received such a comprehensive university education at the state’s expense. In fact, he loathed it. But he was thankful it was not an office job. At least this way, he moved around the city regularly, and it was easy to take an hour here and there for a break or to practice his music. As a job it moved along like a square wheel, and this is what had sparked his current problem with his commissar, a petty, stupid man with bad teeth, who would have him disciplined for breathing. Volodya cursed a little but not too loudly.Each day, he would arrive at work more or less on time, though his punctuality was always subject to the taunts of the administrative clerk, Ivana the Terrible as they called her, she who stamped their work orders and doled out their pitiful tools. After the morning check-in with officialdom, they were on their own. Sometimes he and Gennadi went out on foot together, sometimes they caught a lift to their destination in the service vehicle. That was why he suffered this miserable job. It was in that time, away from official eyes, that Volodya could indulge his passion for jazz music by visiting a musician friend who allowed him to use his piano.
He had always been good at finding a piano when he needed one. He had been raised in Leningrad just after the war by his mother and his aunt, and the two women had denied him nothing. In a time of excruciating hardship, they made sure he had his share of toys, candy, as nutritious food as was available, and his own little bed in their tiny, grim apartment. They discerned that he was a musical child at an early age when he would drum and tap on the tabletop, his bed, anything that would make a percussive noise with interesting rhythms. They bought him a toy drum which he adored, though it nearly drove

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246