My Birthday?

thethemeis: Deception

theauthoris: Deadbeat

I awake in a room that looks like it belongs to an OCD sufferer with severe agoraphobia, or a criminal investigation team. The walls, the furniture, nearly every inch of the place is covered in little yellow post-it notes. After a while I realise that i'm in the open-plan ground floor of my new house, though I don't quite recognise the layout. I'm lying on the sofa bed, facing the front door which is blocked by a chest of drawers. All the windows are boarded up and there's a dustbin in the corner of the room with a small fire in it. I don't know what the hell has happened here, something severe I imagine.

I soon realise that my headache isn't going anywhere, so I get out of bed to explore my surrounds for some clue as to what's gone on here. I search every room of the house, but find no sign of my wife or son.  There are not even any clothes or toys around the place to suggest that they have been here recently. I can't quite work out how far back the gap in my memory stretches, it all gets quite hazy not long after we move here. I remember everything fairly well up to that point, my childhood, meeting Adriana, our wedding day, the birth of our son Chris. I got a new job down in Texas and we moved down here to make a new home. Then, i'm not quite sure. I could be a week that i've lost or several years, I just don't know.

I peek through a gap in the wooden planks that cover what used to be my sons bedroom window to see what state the rest of the town is in. It's only a small place, the sort with one shop and one bar where everybody knows everyone else's name. We weren't too sure when we first saw the house, everybody has these ideas about people from the south being very unfriendly and accepting towards strangers. Once we had met the community though, we fell in love with the place. Everybody was so friendly and happy to help one another, a real-life small haven. But now the whole town looks derelict, as though no one had lived there for years. It looks as though some great catastrophe had struck the town, maybe a hurricane. They weren't unheard of down here.

I make my way back downstairs to see if these notes stuck everywhere would give some clue as to what had happened. I notice an absurd large bundle of power extension-cables next to the front door. I can't imagine any use for them. One of the first things I noticed after I woke up was that there seemed to be no power here and anything which required power was discarded or used as a light blocker for the windows. My "new" 42 inch TV is up against the far window and covered in detailed notes of some description and a calendar. I walk over to the cables and notice that they are all connect together. Above the pile are a set of post-it-notes, each with a single letter on them spelling out the instruction:


DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT ATTACHING THIS CHORD!


I next go over to the TV to see what is written on it. I stop by the coffee table which has a stack of empty paper on it, a small mechanical timer and a carefully written set of instructions.

MEMORY TEST

WRITE A WORD ON A PIECE PAPER. NOTHING MEANINGFUL OR VISIBLE WITHIN THE ROOM, SOMETHING RANDOM. TURN THE PAPER OVER & PLACE THESE INSTRUCTIONS ON TOP OF IT. SET THE TIMER ACCORDING TO THE LIST BELOW AND PLACE IT ON TOP OF THESE INSTRUCTIONS. 

ONCE THE TIMER HAS GONE OFF ATTEMPT TO REMEMBER THE WORD WRITTEN ON THE PIECE OF PAPER UNDERNEATH THIS ONE. IF YOU FAIL TO DO SO THEN ADD A TALLY MARK NEXT TO THE TIME PERIOD YOU HAVE TESTED. ONCE THE TALLY REACHES TEN, CROSS OUT THE CURRENT TIME PERIOD AND ENCIRCLE THE NEXT ONE.

12 HOURS                                                 ||||   |||| 

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5 HOURS                                                   ||||   |||| 

4 HOURS 30 MINUTES                           ||||   |||| 

4 HOURS                                                   ||||   |||| 

3 HOURS 30 MINUTES                           ||||   |||| 

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2 HOURS 30 MINUTES                           ||||   |||| 

2 HOURS                                                   ||||   ||

1 HOUR 45 MINUTES

1 HOUR 30 MINUTES

1 HOUR 15 MINUTES

1 HOUR

50 MINUTES

40 MINUTES

30 MINUTES

20 MINUTES

10 MINUTES

5 MINUTES

2 MINUTES

1 MINUTES

Christ, have things gotten this bad. How long has this gone on for? The idea that my memory consistently fails after such a short period of time doesn't seem so ludicrous to me somehow. My head is still pounding. I walk over to the TV and look at a note above the calendar which reads:


CROSS OFF THE NEXT DAY ON THE CALENDAR AND COMPLETE THE SET TASKS


How can I possibly know that i've only read this note once a day and not crossed off too many dates. How can I know whether i've read this note at all. I guess when these instructions were made my memory still functioned much better. Still, some direction is better than none. I take the black pen resting on top of the TV and cross of the next empty date on the calendar. July 20th, my birthday. I notice a small note of the calendar wishing myself a happy birthday and offering me a piece of cake in the kitchen. Looking at the various other days on the calendar there seem to be a great many tasks, each with a detailed set of instructions somewhere else attached to the dysfunctional TV. Food gathering, which seems to take place down at the local mini-mart. Wood collecting, house searching, a fitness regime, memory tests. Every day was planned out, as best as they can be for a human goldfish. What chance was there that this was even close to my birthday, which birthday was it? Oh well, if I do get two birthdays this year then I can hardly complain. Either way, i'm starving and could use some cake.

I go over to the kitchen area and open the various cupboards looking for my gift to myself. The fridge has been turned on its side and used to block the back door. It seems that all the food I have in the house is tinned, and not the good stuff. There is also one cupboard full of jams and spreads, apart from peanut butter to which I am highly allergic. I can't imagine I have a great many things to spread these products on. Under the sink I find a small brown cake with a single unlit candle in it. It doesn't look overly appealing, I imagine fresh ingredients are hard to come by. Still, i'm famished so I find  fork and tuck in. It's incredibly sweet, overly so. All I can really taste is the sugar and the cocoa powder, but it does the job. It's only once I start eating that I realise just how hungry I am. The cake is gone in a matter of moments and I notice a note written on the base of the paper plate. I hope the ink isn't toxic.

OPEN YOUR CARD ON THE DINING TABLE

I hadn't noticed it earlier but on the table is a small blue envelope. I open it up to discover a blandly anonymous store bought card wishing me a happy birthday. Inside is a message written in my usual, clumsy, block-capital hand writing.


DEAR GEORGE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

I MAKE THIS YOUR 32ND BIRTHDAY (THOUGH I MIGHT BE WRONG). FIRSTLY, I'M AFRAID I CAN OFFER YOU NO GREATER EXPLANATION AS TO WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THIS TOWN. AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS I AM ONLY CERTAIN THAT YOU ARE THE SOLE SURVIVOR AND WHATEVER EVENT HAS OCCURRED HAS RESULTED IN NO SUPPORTIVE ACTION FROM ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. I AM WRITING THIS ON YOUR 31ST BIRTHDAY (AGAIN, POSSIBLY NOT) AND I SINCERELY HOPE THAT BEFORE FINDING THIS YOU CAN DISCOVERS OTHER SURVIVORS. IF NOT AND YOU HAVE JUST EATEN YOUR CAKE THEN I CAN ONLY APOLOGISE FOR WHAT I HAVE DONE. I ESTIMATE THAT BY THIS POINT YOUR MEMORY CAN ONLY STORE INFORMATION FOR UP TO 2 AND A HALF HOURS AND YOUR HEAD INJURY IS BECOMING SEVERELY WORSE. ONE THING I DO KNOW FOR SURE IS THAT YOU WIFE AND YOUR SON ARE DEAD. I AM GREATLY SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS. GIVEN YOUR DECREASING HEALTH AND THE SORRY SITUATION YOU FIND YOURSELF IN, I HAVE LEFT INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOU TO BAKE YOURSELF A CAKE WITH A LETHAL AMOUNT OF PEANUT BUTTER IN IT. THERE APPEARS TO BE NO ONE COMING FOR YOU AND SOON YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO FUNCTION PROPERLY. IT IS BETTER YOU GO THIS WAY. AGAIN, I AM DEEPLY SORRY.

LOVE

GEORGE

The Cost of Saving a Life

thethemeis: Deception

theauthoris:  LiamD

She once told me that her biggest strength was her ability to deceive others.

It wasn't something I immediately agreed with; as madly infatuated as I was back then, I didn't think her capable of lying to anyone. Yet once the shroud of infatuation began to diminish and a deeper rooted, more rational love began to grow, I started to understand what she had meant.

When we were first dating she would never agree to come out on weekends in favour of tending to her father, whom she said was in ill health. Of course, I found this to be yet another endearing trait of somebody so kind and innocent as her and thought little else of it. She was also unkeen to rush into any sexual activity at first and our physical relationship moved very slowly because of it. But at the time I put this down to her innocent and chaste nature. In my eyes she was perfect. Any expression or action of mine that upset her was always a fault of my own and never an intolerance on her part. Some might say I was a fool in love, that I was safely under her thumb as it were. But the simple truth is she was the only person left alive that I felt strongly for - and how dearly I loved her.

We met shortly after I had finished university. Entering the freshers' year immediately after attending the sixth form college of my secondary school, I was easily entranced by my fellow student's cultures of excess drinking, drug abuse and promiscuity. I lived unashamedly; I was a single, open-minded adult with a lot of sorrows to drown and bad memories to forget. I'm sure by the time somebody reads this, that latter point will be old ground re-trodden upon. Suffice to say if you are unaware, my parents died when I was in the peak of my adolescence. If you wish to know any more on that subject, the information will no doubt be easy to find (and I daresay largely blown out of all original proportions by the tabloids) but it is not a topic I wish to go into now.

Of course, the excessive lifestyle eventually wore thin. By the beginning of the final year of the course I felt so unfulfilled with the disjointed mess my life had become that I came home from the university of Portsmouth without graduating. I returned home to work wherever I could be needed and after a few months of temporary jobs in exceedingly dull factories, I was offered a full-time position at the local branch of Starbucks. It was hardly the most glamorous work in the city but it certainly beat canning Coca-Cola for minimum wage. After serving all morning I would sometimes sit down and drink a coffee (an Americano, with cream and two sugars) myself before making my way home. It was on one of these afternoons during my third month of working there that she walked in and ordered her favourite Hazelnut Mochaccino and a regular Macchiato. If she hadn't sat down at one of the few tables in front of me, I may never have spoken to her at all. But surely enough, she sat just where I could see her and my aforementioned infatuation began in earnest, captivated as I was by her hypnotic green eyes and lusciously smooth black hair. I started conversation with her, most likely about her delightfully unusual drink. She was shy at first, but my desire to get to know this beautiful creature was stronger than any reluctance on her part. The rest, as they say, is history.

She came by the coffee house once a day to buy her poorly father the Macchiato he enjoyed so dearly. I marveled at how we had never seen each other before but she explained how she used to visit the neighbouring Costa before it closed down. Compared with the scantily clad females I had been used to fraternising with during my 'studies', she was a breath of fresh air and our early relationship blossomed quickly. She didn't like her father having visitors due to his condition, and that was a wish of hers I respected, if not fully understood. She didn't like to go into specifics regarding her father's illness and I could only assume he suffered from some form of mental illness with anti-social tendencies. It upset her when I asked her more details so I mostly refrained from doing so.


It took me six months to realise the full extent of her troubles.


When my birthday came around on January 14th, I begged her to come out to our local public house for a drink to celebrate. I am generally not a man of many friends, presumably because most of the people I have met feel an overwhelming responsibility when they discover my past. Similarly, I have always struggled to stay in touch with the few friends I kept from school and university. Thus, she was the only person in my life I wanted to celebrate my birthday with and ultimately she gave the impression I had made her feel so much pity for my lack of company that she was forced to obliged to come out for a drink just this once.

What followed that night was mostly harmless fun until we retired back to my flat for the evening. I admittedly drank more than I had done in the best part of a year that night and may have been slightly forceful with her when she told me (as per usual) that she wanted to wait until marriage before going further with our physical relationship. But any shame I felt later about unzipping her dress against her harshest protests would be immediately dispelled by the evidence I found upon her bare skin which documented her rich years of domestic abuse. The sight of the deep wounds in her back immediately sobered me and I, perhaps coldly, pressed her with questions about the origins of her hidden scars. She proceeded to tell me the whole story, between intense bouts of weeping. About how her father had been sexually abusing her for the majority of her life. About how he had beaten her mother to death. About how he had skilfully forged a document that told the world his raving daughter was insane when she attempted to report him to the police. She had now been covering for her abomination of a father for fifteen years, lying to everyone she met about how he was ill and needed her constant attention.

'No more!' I exclaimed to her, amid tears of my own. 'You're not going back there, we're moving away from this place for good!'. She gave me no response, but I could see from her face what she was thinking. She was psychologically bound to this man. She would never feel safe if she knew he was still around, still able to find us, I had to make sure he would leave her alone.

'Okay,' I said, after we had both calmed down. 'Take this, just in case...' I handed her my flick knife, more of an heirloom than a weapon in my mind, but it was large and still sharp and could seriously wound an aggressor if needed. After showing her how to extend the blade safely, we made our plans for the morrow and rested for the long day ahead.


The neighbourhood was quiet as we walked towards the door of her familial house that morning. I slid her key into the lock as quietly as I could before slowly edging it open. We attempted to stay silent but as we crept through the yellow-walled hallway a loud creak of the decaying floorboards betrayed our presence.

'Uurrrrrh,' A wheezy, aged groan emanated from the living room. I gave in to the rage that had been slowly building into a crescendo of hate for this monster who had ruined my beloved's life and I charged into the room to meet him. What I saw sitting on the chair checked most of the boxes against the perverted child abuser I had imagined him to be. Her father was thin, lank and though his greying hair was combed over,   hewas clearly balding. His teeth were mostly yellow, in some cases completely brown, and protruded at various angles from a mouth that constantly drooled. The upper half of his body was covered by an old green jumper that was riddled with holes and questionable stains. Above the blue slippers upon his feet were grey trousers also stained around the thighs and groins with a deep unsightly brown colour. I was pondering on this and all the disgusting things he had put his family through when he noticed me. His eyes widened and he attempted to thrust himself towards me..

'You... CA-!' I interrupted him mid-sentence with a hard punch to his face. It connected well and I felt his brittle jaw crack as a necessary pain flared in my balled fist; I had never learned throw a punch properly.

'You are disgusting!' I was screaming at him, throwing more punches, barely restraining myself from beating him to death. 'How could you do it, to your own family? You SICKEN me!'

I finally stopped, in fear of killing him. The old man was sobbing in his chair, quivering like a small, frightened animal. I suddenly felt an uncomfortable mix of satisfaction and guilt, but remembered my reasons and what this monster had done.

'You will leave her alone, do you understand?' I had managed to calm myself down by this point and spoke to the old man in calmer, more reasonable tones. 'We are leaving and if you ever try to come and find us, I will kill you'. He nodded between his mucus-filled sobs and once I was satisfied he had understood, I briefly entered the kitchen to wash my hands of the old man's blood. I had barely dried them on their dog-themed tea-towel when I heard her scream.

Running back into the living room, thinking myself a fool for leaving him alive, expecting the worst, I found her standing over her father's chair with my bloody flick-knife, her face white in shock.

'He lunged at me... I didn't know what to do...' Her father sat dead in his chair with a glazed look in his eye, a profusely leaking wound around the area his heart would be.

We had cleaned the place as best we could. We had to stay another day before we were satisfied there was no evidence of any bloodshed or our being there at all. Driving away from London on the M3 I felt like a complete fool, having found nowhere to effectively hide the body but the boot of the car. I still think it a miracle that we were not caught that day. Once a safe distance, we stopped at the most obscure, unmarked wood we could find and I buried her father using a shovel we had taken from his own shed. We drove on, unsure of ourselves, praying he would never be found, that we could live happily thereafter, no questions asked.

I drove us to the apartment I was still renting in Portsmouth by the canal in the Gunwharf Quays - it was the only place I could think of to go to and I could only hope it would put us far enough away from the crime scene. Once we had arrived at the flat, we collapsed onto the double bed, exhausted. I looked into her green eyes and in spite of everything that had happened, couldn't help but smile. She smiled back at me and pulled my head towards her. Suddenly she was kissing me confidently, intimately. I pulled back, startled and confused.

'It's ok,' she said calmly. 'I think I'm ready now'. This time, when I attempted to take her clothes off, she gave no resistance. Sometimes I still wonder what she thought at the time but for myself there is only one word that can describe the love we made that night: perfection.



The next day I awoke in a state of confusion. I was sitting in the living room with no recollection of getting out of bed. I was acutely aware of a dull pain in my legs and arms.

'Good morning darling!' A familiar, yet somehow strange voice greeted me. I looked up to meet her eyes, shuddering as I realised the implications of what she held in her hand.

'I gave you some pain killers, quite a few in fact, and they'll help for a while, but I wouldn't try to stand if I were you.' I looked down to my thighs and recoiled in horror at the deep red stains below them slowly turning an off-brown.

'Why?!... I saved you...' my voice was hoarse, I was stunned, reeling from the situation I had not expected to find myself in. Of all the things I had expected today - the police sirens, an interrogation, a prison sentence - this certainly wasn't one of them. 'Why would you do this...'

'Oh darling, can't you see? It's because I love you! I've always loved you.

'Daddy never understood, he killed Mummy and thought that would be the end of it, but he didn't know Mummy had shown me how to look after him.' She took off the t-shirt of mine she had slept in and turned around as she blindly scraped the dripping knife across her back. She moaned with pleasure as the blade punctured the surface. 'One for me...'

Guessing what would come next, I tried to move but my legs seared with pain and I unhappily realised I would be rooted in this position for some time. I tried to covered my face with my arms as the knife cut deeply into my right cheek but they too were immobile and I screamed out in agony.

'There, I knew you'd like it, we can do this every night. Now, I'm going out to get us some coffee, don't go anywhere will you?'

She skipped out of the apartment and left me in the chair, trying to figure out how I could get away.

That was twelve years ago. I have long since given up hope of escape. I don't know how she's keeping me alive, and I sometimes wish she wouldn't, but I'm always far too weak to attempt to move, even if she didn't insist on cutting the tendons. I feel too weak to even call for help. There is no telephone; I didn't use a landline when I lived here all those years ago and I even if my mobile's SIM still works, she has hidden or destroyed it.

So no, I no longer dream of escape, I now dream only of death. Sometimes I think of her father sitting in his old blood-stained chair. I think of the disgusting green jumper he wore, and of the ones just like it that she has bought for me over the years. I wonder if he was happy when she finally killed him, if he still harboured thoughts of escape or if he had been driven too mad by his deranged family to care.

She came back with the coffee, it has become a regular occurrence. The skin on the right side of my face is blistered badly from where she pours the hot liquid directly onto me. Sometimes she is unhappy with the results and boils the kettle for another round. I cherish the days that she doesn't. She has taken to working in the local hospital. Sometimes I wonder if the document proving her insanity was real or, alternatively, if it even existed at all.

Recently she has started seeing somebody else. He's young and handsome, and she sometimes meets him outside the Quays by the canal. She looks shy but comforted around him and I'm not sure what she has told him about me, but from the way he looks concernedly toward the window I can only guess. I wonder if he will be the one to put me out of my misery, or if he will be too chivalrous to reveal her scars.

Most of all, I wonder if she has warned him in the covert way that she warned me, I wonder if she has given him any clue at all. For over the past thirteen years, one thought has recurred to me again and again.


She once told me that her biggest strength was her ability to deceive others. I wish I had believed her.

A Forgivable Kind

thethemeis: Deception

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   Setting his foot on the cold iron of the railing in front of him, shivering involuntarily in the chilling wind that tugs at his thin cardigan and brushes his pale skin, Matthew calls Andrea's mobile phone number again. He knows it'll ring out; there's no coming back from where Andrea's gone. But a spark of hope still burns away inside of him; hope that the past few weeks will turn out to be just a bad dream, hope that his actions had never led to her death, hope that the guilt that plagues him can be left to drift away like a plastic bag in the wind. 

   Standing precariously on top of the four-foot high rail, gripping a lamppost to stop himself slipping and falling prematurely to a watery grave, Matthew listens to the tone ring and ring, more times than he can ever remember any other telephone ringing, before Andrea's voice chirps into his ear, Hey it's Andrea. Sorry, I can't get to the phone right now, but please leave a message after the tone and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Matthew wonders if the guilt would be diluted, be numbed somewhat, if her family had deactivated the number by now. He knows it wouldn't undo what he has done, but maybe he'd feel a little lighter if he could let go of this nightly routine.

   Not that it matters either way. Because tonight, on a Tuesday evening in the biting frost of a bitter winter, Matthew is going to throw himself from this bridge into a dark, wet death. It's only right, he tells himself, that someone should pay for what happened to Andrea. He can't live with the guilt, so he will take it to the afterlife instead. 

*

   It had been a long night by the time Andrea telephoned him on that drizzly night just a few weeks before now. Matthew had had a long day at work, a nightmare journey home, and drinks with a girl he liked in which he said such embarrassing things that he doubted she would ever contact him again. At half past midnight, as he'd just arrived home and was slipping his shoes off for the first time all day, the last thing he needed was a call from Andrea. 

   He knew how it would go as soon as the phone started ringing. She would slur her pleasantries, drunk again, and he’d have to pretend he was amused by her idiocy until she changed the subject. Even then, he’d still have to grin and bear the conversation, as she asked too-intrusive questions about the date he’d just been on with faux disinterest, pretending not to care about the answers but quite obviously becoming more brokenhearted with every new mention of it. Then she’d get upset and remorseful about that one night a few months ago, before putting on her vulnerable voice and begging him to pick her up, claiming she had no other way of getting home.

   He just couldn’t be bothered with that. Instead, he kicked his shoes off, and as the phone continued to ring he removed his coat, throwing it on a hook and thinking back to the night when everything had changed between them.

*

   She had been hinting towards it for weeks. Saying the odd thing here, suggesting the odd idea there. And Matthew had ignored it because he thought that after a decade of friendship, she knew he would never go there. But like women do, she grew more persistent, more desperate to get her own way. Deluded, lying to herself, she finally went all the way one night after a few too many drinks, and asked him, ‘So when are we gonna stop playing these games and just fuck?’

   ‘What?’ He had replied.

   ‘Oh, you know what I’m talking about, Matt. We both want it, so let’s just do it. I’ve been waiting years for you to offer, and now I just can’t wait anymore.’

   ‘You’ve got the wrong idea, Andrea,’ he had said, backing away from her and wishing he had distanced himself months earlier, ‘I don’t like you like that and I never have.’

   ‘Bullshit,’ she had laughed, ‘the way we flirt, anyone would think we’re together sometimes.’

   ‘That’s wishful thinking on your part, I’m afraid,’ he had snapped, more annoyed than he would have been if she wasn’t breathing her desperate wine breath in his face, ‘I flirt with every girl I know. You know that. You’ve seen it for years.’

   ‘But Maaaatt,’ she had sighed, leaning over and resting her hand on the crotch of his jeans, ‘stop denying it…’

   Matt got up and left that night, and things had been cold between them ever since.

*

   So when the phone rang that night after his date, he decided to ignore it. Officially, things between them were supposed to be fine now – she had apologised when sober and he had accepted it just because they were part of the same large social group and as such were forced to spend long periods around each other, so it was easier if he just forgave. But he hadn’t forgotten.

   If she asked the day after, he would say he had already fallen asleep when she called. Failing that, he’d say that he was in the bath so he couldn’t get to the phone. Any excuse not to have to pick her up and have her fake her pleasure at hearing that he was getting along okay on the dating front. Any excuse not to have to put up with her advances, which were repulsive to him after they had known each other so many years. It was deception, there was no doubt about that, but it was a forgivable kind of deception. The kind of deception that everyone has been guilty of countless times. The kind of deception that is justifiable; not like Andrea’s self-deception that told her she had a chance with him.

   But the next morning, when he woke to find his phone ringing again, this time being called by Andrea’s best friend, he wasn’t so sure that what he had done was forgivable. When Aimee’s normally chirpy voice had informed him, in sullen tones between loud sniffles, that she had been found dead and dumped by the side of a road, he felt like maybe his tiny piece of deception last night had grown into the biggest and worst lie he had ever told overnight.

   With no one to take her home and no forward planning to tell her to keep enough money for a cab, she had tried to stumble back to her house at midnight after a whole evening of heavy drinking. On the way home, tottering slowly under the dim streetlamps in her highest heels, she made herself into a sitting duck for all the lowlifes that wanted to take a piece of her. She painted a target onto her own back. And just like it does when it’s given half a chance, the night had its way with her. The night chewed her up, and spat her out as a bruised and abused cadaver.

   And Matthew had no one to blame but himself.

*

   And so, standing atop a handrail on a bridge above an ice cold, aggressively flowing river, Matthew tells himself that this is the end. He brought this on himself, he thinks, so he has no choice now but to end it all. Give himself what he deserves for ending his friend’s life so cruelly. For lying, and causing the demise of someone he had once been best friends with. I can do this, he whispers to himself, I have to now.

   It’s deception, there’s no doubt about it, but a forgivable kind. The kind of deception that everyone has been guilty of countless times. The kind of deception that is most potent, because self-deception is more powerful than any other.

   And once he has accepted that, he steps down from the rail. He takes a gulp, releases that breath that has been locked up tight in his chest since he decided to climb onto the iron rail, and climbs down to the pavement below.

   Sliding back into his car seat, he lights a cigarette and weeps. He knows he’ll be back here tomorrow, in exactly the same position, and this just breaks his heart. But at the same time, it comforts him; the day that he doesn’t visit this bridge and at least attempt to attempt suicide is the day that he has forgiven himself for his deception that night, and he is far from deserving that yet.

   He weeps until his ducts are dry, and then he drives home in the pitch black night without his headlights on.

Remember Me

thethemeis: Lifetime Achievement

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   I want you to write down everything I say. Yes, everything. Even this. Do you have a pen? Good.

   It's only when you get to the edge of the cliff of your lifespan, when you teeter on the edge of that eternal drop into mortality, that you really get a chance to look back at your life and evaluate once and for all the successes and the failures that summarise your tenure on planet Earth. It's only when it is escaping you that you see life in the clearest light. Then and only then do you really appreciate the colossal achievements and catastrophic mistakes that got you where you ended up. Only when you are about to die, my friends, can you truly consider the only thing that will be left of you once you're gone: how you will be remembered.

   Me, I would like to be remembered for the first class degree I earned at university. The pride my family felt when the first of us ever to attend a higher education institution walked out of there with a tightly rolled scroll that read First Class Honours. I want to be remembered for the societies I chaired at that university; the finances I managed, the socials I organised, the like-minded individuals I brought together. An excellent start to life was carved there, a solid foundation built.

   More than that, I would like to be remembered for my time as a youngster at GeneriCorp, where I increased sales by 400% in my first year alone, all through the innovative marketing techniques and aggressive tactics I had the initiative to put in place. Under my charge, my team’s productivity levels soared until we were given more new projects year on year than all the other teams in our area, and we still had time to run a table tennis league on the side. Some of the methods that company uses today can still be traced back to me and my time there, so it would please me to think that they will mourn me when I'm gone.

   I'd like to be remembered for my fast rise up the corporate ladder, that ruthless ambition and ingenuity I showed that meant I went from Analyst to Senior Analyst to Assistant Vice President to Vice President to Senior Vice President to Director to Managing Director in under a decade. My wish to be respected for such a speedy ascension might sound to some like unabashed arrogance on my part, but I assure you it is only confidence and pride in my own achievements, a trait our species could benefit from appreciating every now and then.

   My time as CEO of GeneriBank should not be forgotten either. After years of jumping from company to company, being headhunted here and poached there, I finally got the recognition I deserved and was put in charge of one of the world's largest financial institutions. And boy, did I rock it. Under me, profits skyrocketed. Our share price soared to dizzy new heights with every passing day. We acquired new profitable companies at the rate of two a year, until we were a staggeringly huge behemoth of banking the likes of which has never been seen before. Almost every decision I made led us into new successes. If I could choose how I wanted to be remembered, it'd be for the sterling job I did running that company, and the legacy I've left behind there.

   More than all of this, I'd like to be remembered for the happiness I gave my wife and the fantastic children we brought up. Really, they're my greatest achievement. The money I made, the businesses I saved, the projects I completed, all of this is transient. It could all be forgotten the minute my casket is closed. But those kids, they're how I'll truly live on. When I see their smiles, their popularity, the grades they achieve at school, their blossoming personalities, I realise that my real successes lie in them.

   And finally, I'd like someone to remember me for surviving this illness for so long, and the dignity and strength with which I have handled it. I can only hope that I've inspired other people to never let go of the fight that keeps them alive.

   That's how I'd like to be remembered. If I could choose, that's how I'd... Could you get me a glass of water? My throat is getting dry. Quickly, please. I'll stop dictating until you return.

   Thank you.

   That's how I'd like to be remembered, but it's not how I will be. That's because it's not the way things happened. I won't be remembered for those things, because they're not really my achievements.

   My degree, I achieved by bullying the geekier students into helping me with. If they were paid enough or bribed with enough alcohol, they'd even complete whole assignments for me on occasion. Failing that, I’d borrow their work and just copy it. For all their talk of crackdowns and eagle eyes, universities are surprisingly lax with their plagiarism checks. And that's how I achieved my First. As for the societies, they ran themselves. Anything that didn't function autonomously, I would assign to someone below me. I was just a pretty face to put on the societies' posters.

   At GeneriCorp, my biggest achievement was choosing a team that knew what they were doing. I knew nothing of the world of sales techniques or marketing; I was just loud enough to be able to order my peers around so convincingly that everyone thought I was the boss. Like a tired girlfriend, I was faking it; and no one saw through the act, so I kept on acting. I didn’t even learn anything there; the work was so technical and I was so clueless that I never understood a single concept that I bragged about applying, but I got through it by becoming a self-styled people manager. Ask me to do that job now, I still couldn't do it. My team did it all.

   My rise up the ranks was similarly driven not by talent but by loudness of my voice. Like a ruthless shithead, I stormed my way up that ladder treading on every toe that poked out in my way and beating down every underdog that crossed my path. I was a vicious bastard, ordering people around like they were my servants and disappearing above them before they'd even realised they had been two ranks above me. None of that was down to my talent, unless not giving a fuck is a talent these days.

   And of course, once I was in real management I really had the chance to sit back and do nothing while everyone below me ran around like headless chickens desperate to finish the work I piled on top of them. Like every modern manager, I had nothing nice to say to my staff and knew nothing of their work except for when I wanted it done by. Everything I accomplished at GeneriBank can be attributed to one of my direct reports, but none of it to me. I came up with no ideas and no strategies. Everything I put my name to was stolen from someone else further down the chain. I was fantastic at managing, but a terrible manager.

   My kids aren't my doing either. While I was at work 24x7 with my feet on the desk watching daytime TV, I left my wife to bring them up. They hardly know me, but thanks to my incredible income they’ve received an enviable education and a nanny that takes more care of them than I ever have. There are at least twenty people in front of me in the queue to collect kudos for bringing up those children. And I didn't even need to please my wife; I let money do that for me. In fact, I can't even take the credit for our marriage - we only met because I ordered a friend to introduce me to his barmaid friend in my twenties.

   And then there's the illness. I could take full credit for that one, if it wasn't for the private healthcare I'm taking advantage of, the nurse I'm employing, the crazy alternative therapies I can afford. I've done nothing to help myself over the past few months other than lay here and order other people to care for me.

   So although I'd like to be remembered for all these things, I won't be. Because I didn't do them. What I'll really be remembered for, when I finally kick the bucket, is one thing: I was a master of the art of delegation.

   Now type this up and submit it to that story website that I like by the end of the day, please.

The Great Scoreboard In The Sky

thethemeis: Lifetime Achievement

theauthoris: Deadbeat

As Kane watched the counter spin away he began to consider just how blessed he was. It's not uncommon to enter into a religion and allow it's laws and customs to dictate the way you run your life. It's fairly normal to learn a set of beliefs and be entirely convinced by them. But it's incredibly fortunate to reach the afterlife and discover that the majority of your beliefs are true, especially when you've invested so much in them. Kane thought to himself, "A lot of people are gonna be pissed."

                               ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was almost 15 years prior to Kane's death that he was first approached to begin 're-education'. He'd been working at the London office for a few months and had just started to make a name for himself as an up-and-coming name in the financial sector. Of course, he didn't believe any of it at first. Nobody did. But when a senior director of one of the countries biggest banks invites you to a incredibly private function with other high powered members of society, you claim to believe anything he tells you to.

"Now don't ask too many questions, just remain polite and assertive. These first few meetings are designed to test the character of the new intake pool. I'm sure you don't quite believe all of this yet, but thats ok, I didn't either. You seem like a very promising individual and fit the mould perfectly for a follower of the Church of Vita Reliquum. Trust me, this is something you'll want to be part of."

Kane believed that instantly. He had been a member of enough societies, distinguished clubs and university sports teams to know that networking was essential to success. They all had their own strange customs and practises, but the contacts you made in these places far outweighed the indignity of reciting the occasional absurd oath or donning the riduculous neccessary clothing.

The first few meetings contained very little information much as Kane had been told. There was talk of some of the values held within the church and a very vague history of the religion way back to the earliest civilisations. But eventually after the 4th weekly meeting of the ever decreasing 'intake pool', Kane was pulled aside by the Dux Ducis and told to attend the church the next night to 'ascend into true wisdom'.

He went back as asked, now admittedly slightly curious as to what secrets this church truly had. There were two other guys from the intake pool there. He learnt their names, but neither seemed particularly important so he wasted little time on them. There were also what he assumed to be several higher ranking members of the church there too, in ceremonial gowns. Two hours were spent explaining just how secretive this church was and how private it was determined to remain. There were stories told of members who had exposed the secrets held with the society and the grim fates that awaited them. No knowledge of your involvement with the Church of Vita Reliquum was to be told to friends, family or ever spouses. An opportunity was given to leave the church at one point and exclude yourself from it's teachings. One of the men from the intake pool nervously got up and left, Kane had already forgotten his name.

The Dux Ducis pulled out a highly decorated scroll and began his speech. "For thousands of years our church has know the truth behind the mystery of the afterlife and with it we have an insight into the true meaning of this life. Despite our great history, we aim to practise as a relatively modern church and pride ourselves on teaching only what we know for sure to be true. Whilst there are many great men who have dedicated their lives to proposing theories for the gaps in our knowledge of the world and it's creation, we feel no shame in being unable to answer many of the great questions that other religions childishly guess at."

"For centuries we have obtained and catalogued anecdotal evidence of the first moments of the afterlife as experienced by those who have come close enough to death to witness them and return to us. You will both be familiar with the bright light and tunnel visions that are so often associated with near death experiences, but those are merely the first moments of the afterlife. We have repeatedly heard of people who have soared through a tunnel to a great, light-filled plane where they possess no physical presence, but feel a great control over their barren surroundings. Here they are greeted by a giant entity which calculates and tallies the accomplishments of their life. We refer to these achievements as factum and the value of these factum is measured in venerate. The anecdotal evidence differs greatly over what form the entity takes, it appears to assume a form which feels most natural for the individual viewing it. Much of the recent accounts have likened it to a ticking, numerical display very similar to a computer screen. Some of our followers refer to it as the 'Great Scoreboard in the Sky'."

"By collecting what information we could on the various factum that people were rewarded for and where possible, the value of the venerate they received, we were able to make a list. For many years this was a very short list with many contradicting factum, but with the advancement of modern medicine, as well as the disciplined development of our own methods of gaining information, we have been able to create a far larger and more detailed catalogue of factum. We call this the 'Universal Marking Scheme', or UMS for short. The UMS is the churches most valuable asset and one which as you now know, we a re prepared to keep secret at any cost. With the UMS you are given a comprehensive yet incredibly open guide by which you can live your life. A life which will give you the best possible chance of progressing to whatever lies beyond this world."

The Dux Ducis went on to explain various set life-paths that would lead to success in accordance to the UMS and all the existing and emerging theories into what attaining various ratings on your own 'Great Scoreboard' would mean. It was a lot to take in and Kane was still sceptical of religion, but over the coming weeks and months he would read more and more on the topic. He made an effort to talk to various devout followers and even some of the highly revered indium ereptorum (individuals that had witnessed the 'Great Scoreboard' first hand). He began to find the evidence of the Church of Vita Reliquum's beliefs harder to dispute and though there were corruptive and power abusing forces at work within the religion, as there were with any powerful organisation, it's overall message seemed innocent and truthful. So Kane dedicated the next 14 and a half years of his life to following the UMS in hope of being truly successful in life and progressing to whatever came next.



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As Kane watched the counter slowly rising, condensing his life's achievements into numerical values and tallying them together, he rejoiced in accuracy with which the Church of Vita Reliquum had foretold events so far. He had no physical form, but felt and thought exactly as he had when he was alive, if not more powerfully. He was able to comprehend and control he environment totally. He had access to all his memories at once, even those long forgotten and erased by alcohol and other narcotics. Whilst the counter ticked away he could see all of the factum that he was receiving and the value attached to each one. But he could also see the factum he had failed to achiever, the various paths he could have taken and ways in which he could have maximised what the venerate he received. It was an amazing and spiritual experience like no other he had encountered, but his mind was focused entirely on the rate at which his score increased.

All of his professional accomplishments had already been taken into account and Kane was more or less on track. He hadn't done badly in that department, whilst he was alive he was considered one of the most successful businessmen in his field expertise. Moderately rich from years of working towards a highly distinguished position and widely envied and loathed by those that knew him and those that didn't alike. But here he was up against everyone that had existed throughout history. The UMS didn't mark professional success by financial gain so much (though there were points for that). It focused more excelling within any given field.

The majority of the ways venerate were distributed suggested that the highest rewards were for whoever made the biggest impact on the world, in whatever shape or form. There were no ethical or moral boundaries to overcome. There was as much opportunity to succeed by being an incredibly compassionate individual who had saved and natured a great deal of live as there was a psychopath who had ruined and ended many. Doctors and warmongers both ranked equal, as did architects and terrorists, liberators and dictators, teachers and serial child abusers. It all boiled down to the impact you had and the way in which your legacy and actions would be viewed by others. This wasn't a fact that the church liked the emphasise, but it was all there on the list for all to see.

This in itself created a problem for Kane. He had mapped and calculated his own score for years, tallying his factum and their venerate carefully to ensure that he would obtained what was widely believed to be a score capable of allowing passage to whatever came next. But he could only guess at he would be perceived by others. He had been sensible when projecting data for it. He gave modest estimates to ensure that there would be room for error, but even still...

Kane's interpersonal relationships were next to be calculated. First up, marital status. Kane had always cared deeply for his wife, they had met at a young age and married soon after. He knew as soon as he met her that he would be lucky to have her and once the ring was on her finger he would do all he could to ensure that he never let her go. He loved many things about his wife, but what he adored most about her was just how jealous nearly ever man who met her was of him. She was an aspiring model when they met (though he soon made her give that up), but even well into her thirties, she looked absolutely stunning. And she wasn't just beautiful, she was smart too, caring, great company and most of all, loyal. Even before he joined the church Kane knew she was a great catch, but once he began to fully understand the UMS, he realised just how good an asset she was.

The thing is, the UMS doesn't favour massively the idea of monogamy. There is a faithfulness factum based on relationship type and duration, but it is widely known in the church (though rarely spoken of) that the most efficient route to take is to have other sexual partners. It would be irresponsible to openly have multiple sexual partners, despite the teachings of the church you still have to fit you actions into a modern western world. Equally it would be pointless to have only a few sexual partners, as the venerate gained would fail to out way the amount lost of voiding the faithfulness factum.

So throughout his marriage Kane made a habit of having multiple discrete affairs with as man women as possible. He took as many business trips as he could and made the most of the time away. There was also an added incentive to try and impregnate as many women as possible as this carried with it added venerate. The amount was nowhere near the value you'd receive for a child you helped raise yourself and you wouldn't be entitled to any bonus venerate brought about by that child's future success, but it was still easy moneys for a few minutes work. Obviously this was not always possible to do without causing future problems, but when business trips took Kane away to another continent where he actions would never come back to haunt him he could sew his oats freely.

Another well known but rarely spoken of element of the UMS was that there was no distinction between consensual sex and forced intercourse. This made things a lot easier as often the prostitutes in these foreign countries had easy access to contraception. It was much easier for Kane to rent a car for the day and make his way to a small village before selecting an appropriate woman to potentially bare his child. He had no idea how many illegitimate children he had whilst alive, but here he could see the sheer number of them. The venerate they carried with them individually wasn't much, but when put together they outweighed the majority of his other achievements in life. They made his many hours of charity work look like a complete waste of time, even his educational accomplishments paled in comparison. He could have used all the time he spent working out fathering more illegitimate children, and even with the venerate he would have lost by being out of shape, he'd have enough extra to cover not nurturing the children he had with his wife. If Kane had any idea he was this fertile he would have changed his life-path a long time ago.

The counter kept on going but Kane knew by now that it was enough. He just hoped that the target so many in the church thought was enough to get you through to whatever was next was right. He watched it climb higher and higher. He saw the accomplishments of the children he had raised and the legacy he had on the financial world. It counted the smaller effects he had had on peoples lives, brief encounters and the unknown inspiration he had given people. Slowly the speed of the counter began to decrease as it reached its final resting place. The last number ticket over and everything went silent. Kane waited patiently to see what happened next.

He considered the many wild theories as to what form of reality would follow. Many believed that the world would start again in a much similar fashion but with fewer people. They claimed that this may have already happened before and people are just being whittled down to the best few. Others carried the idea that the absolute best scorers would live eternally in a heaven like existence, with the lowest scorers forced to spend eternity in hell. It had even been suggested that the lucky few qualify for an entirely new an unconceivable reality with new challenges to faces and a fully wiped memory. Kane had no idea what was coming, but he had spent the majority of his life ensuring that he would be able to participate in it.

Then the 'Great Scoreboard' disappeared and was replaced with a message.

                               ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONGRATULATIONS KANE JACKSON, YOU SCORED 1,356,534,765,037!

YOU FINISHED IN 7,635,027,836th PLACE!

                               ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then everything went black.

The GAM Awards 2040

thethemeis: Lifetime Achievement

theauthoris: LiamD

'And now it's time for a very special presentation,' the man in the sparkling red blazer flashed his cheesy grin toward the camera lens. George thought he could have easily been mistaken for an entertainment manager at Butlins, some sort of red-coat royalty. 

'This years GAM award for lifetime achievement goes to a man who's unique take on punk rock in the early two-twentys brought the genre back into alternative popularity and changed the way many people thought about music as a whole.'

The star-studded audience must have been aware of the camera flitting around the hall; each face was set in a feigned smile of appreciation for their gracious host.

'Here to present the award is the president of the Global Academy for Music, Sir Russell Jones!'

There was a thin round of applause as a bespectacled, blue-suited gentleman took to the stage. Russell never had been popular, although looking at him now it became apparent to George that he had aged well since their last meeting, all those years ago. 

'Before the presentation I would just like to thank all of you for supporting the academy over the past decade since we were founded. Tonight has been a true milestone for our organisation and we would never have made it this far without your continued generosity.' That was always Russell's problem thought George; he could never be sincere without sounding like a politician.

'So without any further ado it is an honor and a privilege for me to present the GAM award for lifetime achievement to Mr. Simon Stark!'

Amidst the standing ovation George saw faces of surprise and jealousy, no doubt paid by the press for a juicy headline to pull in the cyber-punters. George wondered how much Simon had changed since they had last played together. Wondered if the alcohol had fattened him up yet, or if the social smoking had kept him skinny. He was entirely unprepared for the man he saw approaching the stage.

In the years that George remembered him, Simon had had long, sleek, blonde hair, waxed to look both smart yet unruly. Now he was nearly bald, his remaining strands wispy and grey, that of a ninety year old man. His face, that used to be youthful and so boyish, was now gaunt and tired. George remembered the days they would badly attempt parkour around the city, when it was all the rage. How Simon had always been able to smoothly perform a back-flip where George could never quite perfect the landing. The man descending the brightly lit stairs toward the podium couldn't take two steps without clinging to the rail. As he was slowly escorted to the front of the stage to accept the award, George couldn't help but notice a large stain around the groin area of Simon's trousers, and tried not to imagine the cause.

'I-I'd just... ...like t-... ...to say...' He quivered as he spoke, each sentence seeming to take an eternity. '...a b-big... ...thank you... ...to all wh-wh-who... ...have b-been... ...so s-supportive s-s-since...' at this point he trailed off, apparently unable to finish the trail of thought.

After a brief  silence, the host gathered that the usual lengthy acceptance speech wasn't coming 'How about th-...' he began, but was immediately interrupted.

'F-F-FUCK THE... ...SYSTEM!' the old man who should be young groaned into his microphone before he was hurriedly escorted from the stage, apparently in pain.

The host was laughing 'Simon Stark there, crazy as ever! We do apologise for any strong language in this broadcast of the GAM awards, they of course in no way reflect the thoughts and ideaologies of our organisation, let's now take a look at Simon's life in this short bio-' the ceremony and its attendees disappeared promptly as George switched off the RT set.

He couldn't believe what had become of the man he'd once called a close friend. Memories had swam into George's brain while he watched Simon embarrass himself in front of the world, memories from years he had long forgotten. He remembered intensely arguing with Simon and Russell about the direction of the band and their increasingly erratic lifestyle. He remembered all of the coke they snorted as it were one of their five a day and his worries that it would one day catch up with them. He remembered most vividly of all falling deeply in love with his future wife Sandra, the delivery of their twins that remained the proudest moment of his life and, with as little melodrama as possible, leaving the band to earn a consistent salary that he would save for his family's future and not blow on drink, drugs and whatever else tickled Simon's fancy that day.

The door creaked slightly as Sandra popped her head in the door. 'Oh is it over already? Any interesting winners?'

George smiled toward his wife warmly. 'Not really, same old same old. Dunno why I watch it really.'

'Ah well.' his wife shrugged 'Cup of tea?'

'Yeah, go on then darling.' he replied, glowing with appreciation.

As Sandra closed the living room door and begun to boil the kettle, George looked up toward his wall mounted Wal he never really played anymore and thought about his own lifetime achievements.