2.37 - A hot and sticky night.

How annoying, sometimes when you add stuff to an old story it puts it at the top of the pile. This is today’s archive story, if you are looking for today’s original one please scroll down to the next story.



It was a hot and sticky night. Oppressive. Andy’s naked body lay motionless on the bed. His eyes wide open, sweat seeping from every pore so his bedsheets were soaked with perspiration. Andy felt pinned to the bed by the heavy air. Some lazy reggae filtered in from outside, from upstairs he could hear the hum of the TV left on again as his fat, lazy neighbour had fallen asleep in his armchair, from next door the murmur of a languid conversation and the occasional tsck of a spliff being lit or relit. Somewhere a cat mewed its displeasure at having to wear a fur coat in this heat. The light from the alarm clock gave the room a red glow; it read 2.37 am, time to sleep but Cardiff wasn’t sleeping. Cardiff was tossing, turning, sweating, fidgeting, or giving up altogether and watching TV, chatting, drinking, walking; walking?

Faintly at first Andy heard the regular clip-clop clip-clop, the unmistakably sound of heels on concrete, the distinctive sound of a woman, a woman walking home, a woman wearing heels, high-heels, sexy heels. The beat was getting louder, it was right outside the window, then it faded and then stopped; maybe four, maybe five doors down the street. The key in the lock, the gentle click of a door being closed with care; don’t want to wake the neighbours, then silence. Well, as silent as the night had ever been. Back to the reggae and the conversation and the hum of the TV and the oppressive heat.

Those heels haunted Andy for the next few days, every time he heard heels his mind wandered back to those mysterious early morning footsteps. Who did they belong to? Where had they been? Was the woman in those shoes as sexy as the imagine in his imagination. On the next few nights he’d set his alarm for 2.30 but nothing, no repeat performance. Today was one week to the day since he’d first heard them and Andy was laying stock still, listening intensely. It was warm but not as hot as the week before, Cardiff was sleeping. Faintly at first Andy heard the regular clip-clop clip-clop, the unmistakably sound of heels, those heels, the enigmatic heels. He jumped out of bed and perched at the window desperate to catch sight of this magical woman. 

He could see her, finally he’d get his answer, a tall silhouette in the darkness, sashaying towards him, long legs, short skirt and something, something odd, he rubbed his eyes and looked again to check he wasn’t imagining it. As she walked passed his window Andy made his way disappointedly back to bed. The woman that had occupied his thoughts all week had turned out to be a man.