Last Day Deals

As I write blood drips from my lips to the page. I wonder if they will keep the stains in the final print. My blood is important to the tale after all. This blood is old blood, from ten years past. Blood from the day I died.

It was a Thursday in February. The summer had lost its edge but warmed my fingers, curled around the wheel. I was driving home after a long night guarding an empty factory from the possibility of bored teenagers and idiotic criminals. I may have been driving a tad too fast, but who is on the roads at 3am? So as the bitumen sped beneath me, the desolate road spread out in front of me.

Until, all too fast, light crossed my path. In less than an instant, the monstrous muscle car was crushing my mousy hatchback around me; then, nothing.

I was standing in absence, a lack of anything as far as my eyes could see. I am not even sure upon what I stood, or if in fact I existed to be standing. Time meant nothing as I was, so I cannot tell you how long I waited until something appeared. I could simply say it was a little boy and leave it at that. But it wasn’t, behind the frail body and baby blue eyes an intelligence shone, and a malevolence emanated.  His head cocked to one side, a displaced grin on his face. ‘Do you want to live?’ I heard without ears, stranger still he said it without speaking; in a melodic, cheerful voice.

‘Yes!’ I cried, I could not hear myself.

‘Good, I will give you ten years. But you have to play nice’ he almost giggled.

‘What?’ I tried in vain to understand.

‘I’ll trade you ten years for -umm- yourself?’

I felt as if I was in a schoolyard being swindled out of my lunch money.

‘Deal’ I couldn’t help accepting, I didn’t want to die.

‘Deal’ he shot back, his grin growing impossibly wide.

He disappeared in a blink of distorted red light. My body came back in a blink of cracked blue. The lights alternated until I realised I was what I was staring at, police lights through a smashed windscreen.

I did a mental check, nothing hurt. I moved, taking of my seat belt and stepping out of my wreck of a car. There was not a single scratch on me. I was fine.

The six months is a blur, a myriad of confounded specialists, opportunistic journalists and overcompensating friends and family. I told no one of my deal. They would have thought I was crazy. Worse yet, some people might believe me. So I acted the bewildered fool; then went back to work.

It was after a year I started to write. My job allows me a lot of down time. So between duties I scribbled away in note books. In less than a year I was publishing my first book. If I knew what I knew now, I would have burnt them all.

[A short writing task for uni, we wrote a sentence, then passed it on to someone to write the next sentence, ect. Then after we did that 5 times we had to write a draft for a story idea using the idea’s produced. This is what I came out with in an hour.]

This scene was running through my head so I thought I would share. Bit cliche…

‘Hey, come here for a second’ I said

‘Why?’ she threw back

‘Just do it’ I retorted, which surprisingly made her jump up and come over to me. I took her jaw into both my hands gently, tilting her head up ever so slightly to stare into her eyes. I had to know. ‘What would you do-‘ her eyes darted away, distracted. ‘Hey! Look at me, I want to know this for sure’ her eyes found their way back to mine. ‘What would you do if-‘ I stopped mid-sentence and kissed her, holding her firm just for a second as I pressed my lips to hers; Tasting her own natural sweet flavor. Letting go and pulling back I saw conflict run over her face, then worry. ‘That’s okay, I understand’ I said with a halfhearted smile, turning towards the door, to run.

‘Hey Jack-‘ I turned back as she leapt into my arms smiling down at me ‘Do that again’ and so we kissed again, and again, and again.