Day 3 - 10,000 or more

'10,000 lies, would you believe it? 10,000'

'What are you talking about you wally?' Mick knew it was only a matter of time, the camp had been set, dinner was made, fire alight, John sitting back, beer in hand, watching as Mick did all the work.

'Trump, he's told 10,000 lies, Colbert referred to some guy at the New York Times who is counting. Well, that was the other day anyway, so I am sure it is more than that now.'

'oh, I was wondering when it would start, you know the fire, a beer, just the two of us, how long has it been now?'

'It's the intimacy.'

'yeah, yeah. So what's the latest, I've tuned out to it; it got boring.'

Day 2 - The Guath

The challenge today was to write a story in 40 minutes, no more, no less.  I did not get to finish or did I.  Good exercise to drive some creativity.  Note I did one of these last year - Here

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Exhausted they fell to the floor. Bobmadik had extinguished the torch, smothered it with his cloak. The three of them enveloped in darkness, so dark they could not see their hands in front of their faces.

Each of them had lent their sword, seax or axe against their knee, so they knew where it was in the dark. Then, with the knowledge of their packs they had withdrawn their trail mix and sat quietly eating.

‘Dad’

‘Yes Aelen’

‘How long have we been in here?’

‘I’d say close on a day and a half.’

‘Can we sleep soon?’

‘Yes Son; Soon’

They sat in silence, each in their own thoughts. Their fatigue addled minds struggling to not mistake the darkness for sleep.

Day 1 - Babelism

‘Father, what’s this?’

‘Put it down son, it’s not anything of use now?’

‘But Dad?’

‘Do as I say, nothing good can come of it.’

Jake looked at his father and could see he meant it. As he lowered the thing to the ground, his father turned away. ‘Come on, there’s nothing good here, let’s get back to camp.’

Jake stood, slung his satchel over his shoulder; it was weighed down with the results of their scavenging, some rusted tins, a few prime pieces of metal. There wasn’t a lot now, the town had been stripped bare by previous scavengers.

As the two of them headed out of the ruins of what was once a small farmstead, both in their own thoughts. Naturally quiet, as much as they were thinking they were always listening.

‘You can’t tell anyone, Jake.’

Jake looked at his father, he looked tired, in his mid-forties, he was an old man with only a few years left in him. Not that he was frail, or ill; just that in the world they lived in, no one lived long beyond 50, at least no one that Jake new. ‘Tell anyone about what?’

‘That thing back there, the thing you asked about.’

‘What was it?’

Dealing in time

Why on earth would a woman in her mid-thirties ask for time to be taken away? They never ask for time to be taken away.

He’d been dealing in time for decades. Living in the same 1920’s terrace house on Gloucester St since he’d returned from the Second World War in 1945. Seventy two years ago and yet he did not look a day over 46. The age he was when he first moved in.

He didn’t think about it much these days; age really meant nothing to him anymore. Today though, with the young woman asking what she had, he had reason to pause. He would be 118 years old this year, in all of that time he had never had someone ask to have time taken away.

Yeah, sure he had his regulars, although they had diminished somewhat in the ’70s and ’80s. Most, if not all, dead due to the gangsters Abe Saffron, George Freeman and others. Even Mr Saffron himself had been a regular right up until he died in 2006.

His customers always asked for time to be added. They wanted to maintain their youthfulness, live longer to reap the rewards of their oft ill-gotten gains. None, even Abe Saffron himself, an apt user of his services, had ever thought to take time away.

An Explanation

Zack sat still, the white noise of the ceiling fan, rhythmic, clicking, blending in with the stillness and silence of the room. The brightness of the outside a contrast to the shadowed mahogany of his office; a shadow broke by the square of sunlight laying across his desk and onto the floor.

This was his space, his floor to ceiling bookshelf with barely a book on it, filled with boxes of case files, Manila folders all held together with string.  Plush red carpet and a single cone light hanging from the ceiling, it's glow too weak to counteract the sunshine.  The smoked glass door of his office open, with his name emblazoned in gold. Zackary Gumm, Private Investigator.