Monday 10 August 2015

Summer and the City Part 1

Advert: 
These portraits are brought to you by the author of Maggie's Milkman and Extraordinary Rendition. 

For audio click here
The Tourist 
I guess you don’t expect it to be quite this hot, and I guess if you’re on holiday you bloody well ignore the conditions and do what you planned to do anyway. Who comes to Prague to hang out in air-conditioned shopping malls? No, when you come to Prague you climb up to the castle, cross Charles Bridge and go up to Petrin come rain or shine, and today was definitely shine. And you could see the weather had taken its toll on the tourist as he came into the café. He looked like he’d just crossed the Sahara in search of water. He looked around the oasis of a café wondering if it was just a mirage, a figment of his scrambled, heat addled mind. He sat down with his back to me and picked up the menu and used it as a fan. I took a slurp of my iced tea and watched him take his handkerchief and mop his brow for what must have been the umpteenth time that day. Then, he slipped his rucksack off his back. I smiled to myself. There was a sweat patch so dark it had completely changed the colour of his light shirt and it was a perfect imprint of the rucksack he’d just removed.

Caramel Nose 
She was small and petite, not an ounce of fat on her body, yet in her tight black t-shirt and yoga pants she had all the curves of a roller coaster. It looked like she was trying to make up for her lack of height by standing very straight and proud and that was having the effective of accentuating her soft curves further.  Music leaked from her headphones; was her gentle swaying dancing or the motion of the tram? She was arrogantly pretty, her dark brown hair was scraped back into a ponytail revealing a perfect face, her brown eyes sparkled and a small, smug smile sat on her lips. Her nose was delicious in more ways than one, it was small and dainty and adorably pretty and it had a small blob of caramel nestled on it.  I smiled to myself and then looked out of the window of the tram I didn’t want to be accused of staring at the girl, I’d learnt my lesson from last time, but nothing outside the tram could hold my attention when the very meaning of beauty was standing just about a metre away from me. I looked back at caramel nose and smiled to myself again


Sleepless nights
Vic lay on the damp sheets, sweat on his brow, on his neck, on his chest. The air hung hot and heavy, pinning him to the bed, trapping him like prison shackles. He could hear the flap of moths’ wings overhead like police surveillance helicopters while the mosquitos trumpeted their presence, circling like vultures over his prone body waiting for the moment to start the feast. The room was full of corpses; dead insects that Vic had managed to swat. But for each dead body, Vic knew there were at least 5 more creatures, creeping, crawling, leeching, lurking, an army of bugs invading the room. The plague of insects was the price Vic had to pay for the open window, the hope that there might be a gentle breeze to cool his sodden brow. But any breeze there was was like an old fashioned hand dryer in a gents toilets; warm and lackadaisical and not fit for purpose, but the thought of closing the window was out of the question.

Did you enjoy these free short portraits?  If you did, then please consider buying one or both of my novels. Details available here.

No comments:

Post a Comment