LIZZIE
Black and white. A vision of nothingness inside a vision of everything.And he points. No one knows.
And he moves forward, alone. The balloons he ‘s holding will be black. The stars hanging from them will be black.
And the more they fly, the less white he will see.
And nothing is there anymore. Just stars hanging from balloons, flying away in silence, ahead of him. No one knows.
And he stops. He wants to smile, but he can’t.
Three cheers and all that. Be brave and all that.
Black and white. A vision of everything ahead of nothing.
RICHARD
Caught!
If she points at you, you’re dead.
Your only hope is to stay out of her field of vision, make no sudden movements, and keep a low profile.
You might, just might escape her notice.
It’s not guaranteed though: She has eyes like a hawk, and few can avoid her gaze.
With these words echoing through my mind, I selected my position with care, keeping to the shadows, careful not to draw attention to myself.
Then, I sneezed.
Cover blown!
To my horror, her finger pointed straight at me.
Chosen by the teacher to answer the question on the board.
NORVAL JOE
“You want out?” Mr. Withybottom asked Billbert and unlocked the doors. “Cheers.”
Sabrina sat on the sidewalk side of the car, and Billbert asked her to open the door.
“I’ll come with you,” she said and got out of the car.
Linoliumanda quickly followed Billbert out, too.
Sabrina rolled her eyes. “It’s a pattern, Billbert. You can see that, can’t you? Everywhere we go, she wants to follow.”
Billbert watched as Linoliumanda’s eyes filled with tears of rage and she shook her finger at Sabrina.
Then his vision went black and the two girls’ voices were muffled as they argued.
TOM
flogging will continue until morale improves
They called the program F-T-V. The joke around the office was it stood for Fuck TV. 30 staff crammed into a tiny room staring at a Zoom screen. In bright primary colors the monitor read: Fuel The Vision. It was Sam’s idea to bring in a motivational team to boast productivity. The life coach was perky in the most detestable manor. Radiating a millennial affect that did not sit well with the senior staff. And I mean senior, most of them were Boomers long overdue to leave the work force. The last virus had taken out the under 40 cohort.
SERENDIPIDY
It’s all down to science. By examining the points where blood has pooled and spattered, one can deduce how the victim died, how violent the attack and where each individual wound was inflicted.
To you, it may look like a complete mess, but to an expert it’s a pattern as clear as any map.
Take this crime scene, for example: I can tell the victim suffered initial, violent blunt-force blows, scattering blood spots across the wall, and the fatal wound was a slice to a major artery.
Not that I’m any sort of forensic scientist.
I committed the crime!
LISA
October 27th 1978
The incident room smells of men. The incident room smells of men with creased shirts. The incident room smells of men with creased shirts and creased faces. It’s been a long monotonous day and is far from finishing.
A squealing wheel heralds the arrival of the tea trolley. The missing girls watch the tea being poured from their photos pinned around a local map. Pippa hastily swallows her digestive.
“Is there a Petrol Station on the B28?”
“Yup. Texaco.”
“It’s a pattern… Look!”
She points around the map explaining her reasoning feeling like, perhaps, today some progress has been made.
PLANET Z
The local grocery store chain offers fuel points.
It doesn’t have any gas pumps at any nearby location.
I have no idea where else I can redeem them.
For thirty years, I’ve been accumulating fuel points.
So, my card has like a million fuel points on it.
One day, I’m going to find a location with gas pumps.
And I’m going to stand out there, filling up everyone for free, and spraying gas everywhere and laughing.
What do I care how much it costs… I have a million fuel points.
Although, I’m going to need to buy a car first.