Days 130 and 131

Writing exercise – use the following with new similies incorporated into the story:

His face was worn, like a … , The sky turned stormy, as though it was … , She was … as a … , He felt miserable as a …

…

I had been warned that the weather could change instantly, but I believed that to be an exaggeration.

Why?

I had been told that while the place I wanted to visit was once an old alluvial gold mine with some very interesting geological structures as well as an archaeological site that had the remnants of buildings dating back to what was believed to be an ancient advanced society, it was also owned by a mysterious old man, some of whom thought him to be a ghost whose permission had to be sought first before going there.

An old man, no one seemed to know his location.

It only added to the intrigue that surrounded the area.

Numerous newspaper reports suggested that it was Dargeville’s own Bermuda Triangle, where cell phones ceased to work, where apparitions could appear, of an old man, or a young girl dressed in period costume, where strange weather could erupt at any moment.

In my mind, something was going on there that someone didn’t want anyone to discover.

I’d stopped in at the diner, one of seven shops on a short main street that boasted a drapery, a hardware store, a drug store, a gas station, and a sheriff’s office. The opposite side of the road was a park, one that had just the bare minimum of maintenance.

Dargeville was literally a one-horse town. There was a horse hitching bar, and a horse was tethered to it. There was no sign of the owner, or anyone else for that matter.

Herb, the cook, the waiter, the server, in the diner was behind the server, and I could feel him watching me from the moment I stopped the car, till I walked into his diner.

The pie holder on the counter was empty. No, ‘only Dargeville can make such delicious apple pies’ apple pie was going to be tasted today, a slight disappointment.

“Where are you headed?” was his opening gambit.

“The gold fields.”

“You need permission. Old man Dargeville doesn’t like intruders.”

“Where can I find him then?”

“That’s just it, you can’t. He domes, he goes, but no one knows exactly where he is.”

“Where was he seen last?”

“Here. Three days ago. Took the last of the apple pie.”

We both looked at the empty pie holder. I could see several crumbs that had been left behind.

“Pity,” I said. “It was the other reason why I came here. Nowhere else can I find him.”

The man waved his hand, “Out there, somewhere.”

“No pie, and no old man. What does he look like?”

He looked at me thoughtfully, thinking perhaps, correctly, I was not going to leave that easily.

“Old, dusty, bushy-bearded, battered hat. Sometimes he drops a line in at the river that’s at the end of the park, that way.” He pointed across the street and along the road. “Past the gas station.”

There was a sudden crack of thunder, followed by a few more rumblings.

Odd. The sky had been clear, except for some distant clouds.

“Time to move on, before the weather sets in. You don’t want to get stuck here; the motel is not a place I’d recommend you stay.”

Very welcoming. Not!

I shrugged. “As you say, not a place to be stranded. Thanks for your help.”

When I stepped outside and looked up, the sky was the same as it had been all morning. It made the thunder I’d just heard … Or was it my imagination?

I looked back to see the man in the diner on his cell phone. Perhaps he was telling the old man that I was coming. Or someone else.

…

I checked the riverside fishing spot at the end of the park, almost opposite the gas station, and indeed it showed signs that someone had been there very recently, a roll-your-own cigarette still burning through the last of the tobacco.

The call had been a heads-up that I was coming to see him.

So, the old man did exist. I decided to go ahead and visit the site, and took out my notebook to find the page with the instructions on how to get there.

Along the road I was on, for a further five miles where there was a rusted sign with a skull and cross bones and Hazardous materials written under it.

Five miles up the road, I found the sign, almost hidden behind overgrown bushes, very faded. More words, freshly painted, were added under Hazardous, ‘to your health’. Beside it was a drawing of a man with his head cut off and blood spurting out of the neck.

Someone had a sense of humour.

It was a further two miles up a track that sometimes disappeared except for tire ruts. I was glad I brought the off-road SUV. At precisely two miles, I stopped. I had to. A brand-new steel wire fence and gate had been erected, blocking the way.

Previously, from all the reports, there had been no fences or gates.

Another crack of thunder had me looking up, and there was a change. The sky turned stormy, as though it was a roiling witch’s cauldron, clouds swirling and shades of grey from dark to light changing almost like an electronic display.

I could smell rain in the air. The wind picked up and swished through the trees. Another crack of thunder, this time coming after a bolt of lightning that wasn’t far away.

On the gate was a sign. “Trespassers will be shot”, with several bullet holes above and below the words to emphasise the fact.

It did make me think twice before I got a weapon of my own, and then while searching for a way over the fence, I found a pedestrian gate about thirty yards along to the right, that wasn’t locked.

Curious. Just on the other side, I found an almost burnt-out cigarette, the same as that at the fishing spot. Whoever had been there was here.

There was a worn track on either side of the fence, so I followed it carefully. It was one of those wooded areas where you always had the feeling someone was watching you. The scrub was dense but not very high. There were trees, but sparse in number.

Long before I reached it, I could hear a river, or creek perhaps, but the sound of running water.

A few minutes later, I reached the edge of a clearing, and on the other side, away from where the track led, I saw a girl, dressed in old-fashioned clothes, not of this civilisation, dancing. She was the epitome of a summer’s day, so brightly dressed and so carefree.

She had neither seen nor heard me coming. I stayed and watched for a few minutes, and then she disappeared into the woods. I thought of following her, but it was off mission. The weather was holding off, but it might not last. I continued on towards the river.

Coming out of the woods, noting I had been following the creek for about three hundred yards, before me were the ruins of several structures that looked to me to have been built of mud bricks, and part of a much larger structure. The whole area back from the creek was paved in stones that made up a very sophisticated design.

It looked a bit like a town square, built around a well, and on the other side, what looked to be the ruins of a temple. What the gold miners made of it was anyone’s guess, but very few of their writings included anything about any ruins.

Further on from that was a seat, and there sat a man with his back to me. Battered hat, dusty clothes. I walked towards him. He didn’t turn around, as if he were expecting a visitor.

I stopped when I was alongside the seat, and then he turned to look at me. His face was worn, like that of an old leather chair, from years of exposure to the elements. I wondered if he felt as miserable as he looked.

He sighed. “I knew you’d come.”

“Hello, gramps.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

More about my story

…

There’s always another story hidden somewhere within the main story.

Sometimes.

This underlying theme was borne out of a dream I had, or perhaps it could be called a nightmare.

Our protagonist hadn’t started out as a broken man, but after an incident that I wrote about his first days on his new assignment, it was out of character, and I had to go back and create a whole backstory.

It’s why the story has a prelude that starts in a hotel room, the beginning of questioning what he’s doing, and ends up in a garage where he and his partner were on the other end of a sanctioned hit.

He survives, but it does fuel the notion that perhaps he’s no longer fit for purpose, that he begins to question the very essence of why he does what he does

It goes deeper than that, and the unseen connection is really a guilt-by-association thing.  His boss, the old stoic and perhaps out-of-date leader of the department our protagonist works for, was asked to retire and refused.

Old Spies never retire, they are removed.

Unfortunately, that also means those loyal to them, and a purge of the department heads’ loyal acolytes is underway.  By the time our protagonist gets back out in the field, his boss is under siege, and he himself is basically sidelined with a job a first-year rookie could do.  It was sold on the basis that he was being eased back in.

So, his boss smells a rat and decides to do his own legwork and find out who wants to destroy him and his organisation.  This investigation is going to simmer, and by the time a second attempt to remove our protagonist goes wrong in the middle of a couple, his boss is executed.

Problem resolved.

Or is it?

More about my story

…

There’s always another story hidden somewhere within the main story.

Sometimes.

This underlying theme was borne out of a dream I had, or perhaps it could be called a nightmare.

Our protagonist hadn’t started out as a broken man, but after an incident that I wrote about his first days on his new assignment, it was out of character, and I had to go back and create a whole backstory.

It’s why the story has a prelude that starts in a hotel room, the beginning of questioning what he’s doing, and ends up in a garage where he and his partner were on the other end of a sanctioned hit.

He survives, but it does fuel the notion that perhaps he’s no longer fit for purpose, that he begins to question the very essence of why he does what he does

It goes deeper than that, and the unseen connection is really a guilt-by-association thing.  His boss, the old stoic and perhaps out-of-date leader of the department our protagonist works for, was asked to retire and refused.

Old Spies never retire, they are removed.

Unfortunately, that also means those loyal to them, and a purge of the department heads’ loyal acolytes is underway.  By the time our protagonist gets back out in the field, his boss is under siege, and he himself is basically sidelined with a job a first-year rookie could do.  It was sold on the basis that he was being eased back in.

So, his boss smells a rat and decides to do his own legwork and find out who wants to destroy him and his organisation.  This investigation is going to simmer, and by the time a second attempt to remove our protagonist goes wrong in the middle of a couple, his boss is executed.

Problem resolved.

Or is it?

Day 129

To plan or not to plan.

…

Well, it depends.

Most of the time, I fly by the seat of my pants because I like the idea of the story unfolding in the same way it does for the reader.

Until…

Yes, it’s that little thing called painting yourself into a corner.

It happens.

Luckily for me, when I run aground, I just have to walk away from it for a few days, a week, perhaps a month, and suddenly, an idea pops into my head and we’re off again.

It’s why I write most of my stories in episodic form, and I work on three or four, not just the one.

However, there are pros and cons, and yes, I do actually plan.

When a story gets a good start and then the ideas start drying up.

Or…

I find myself having to create a biography for the characters, family trees, and getting the dates correct.  Flying high is great, but there comes a time when the timeline gets confused.

Usually, about halfway through, we’re getting down to the serious side of the story.  So, on balance, nearly all of my states are a blend of the two methodologies.

Which of the two is best?.

I’d say planning.

My only problem with that is that it’s not always apparent what is going to happen at the end, though if I sat down and thought about the process I used foe the 20 or so books that I have written, the end was nor a surprise, so perhaps it was always there in the back of my mind.

For the two sequels I’m working on, they were more planned than pantsed.  With one, I knew the end before it started.  With the second, nearly done, I didn’t to a certain extent.  I know how I want it to end, but writing it is taking it in a different direction.

Perhaps a third book is needed for them to finally realise they should be together.

Day 129

To plan or not to plan.

…

Well, it depends.

Most of the time, I fly by the seat of my pants because I like the idea of the story unfolding in the same way it does for the reader.

Until…

Yes, it’s that little thing called painting yourself into a corner.

It happens.

Luckily for me, when I run aground, I just have to walk away from it for a few days, a week, perhaps a month, and suddenly, an idea pops into my head and we’re off again.

It’s why I write most of my stories in episodic form, and I work on three or four, not just the one.

However, there are pros and cons, and yes, I do actually plan.

When a story gets a good start and then the ideas start drying up.

Or…

I find myself having to create a biography for the characters, family trees, and getting the dates correct.  Flying high is great, but there comes a time when the timeline gets confused.

Usually, about halfway through, we’re getting down to the serious side of the story.  So, on balance, nearly all of my states are a blend of the two methodologies.

Which of the two is best?.

I’d say planning.

My only problem with that is that it’s not always apparent what is going to happen at the end, though if I sat down and thought about the process I used foe the 20 or so books that I have written, the end was nor a surprise, so perhaps it was always there in the back of my mind.

For the two sequels I’m working on, they were more planned than pantsed.  With one, I knew the end before it started.  With the second, nearly done, I didn’t to a certain extent.  I know how I want it to end, but writing it is taking it in a different direction.

Perhaps a third book is needed for them to finally realise they should be together.

Day 128

Writing is the supreme solace.

…

Perhaps it can be.

I remember when my mother died. It was the closest I had ever been in the presence of death.

I got a phone call to tell me I should come to the hospital, she was not going to last much longer.  I was on the way out the door when the call said she had passed.

That was followed by going to the hospital, where I stayed for an hour, trying to assemble my thoughts.

In that moment when I first saw her, I felt numb.  And much as I hate to say it, she was not much of a mother to me or any of us, for that matter, and I never really understood why.

Our grandmother, her mother, had been more caring and considerate.

For a few days after, I guess I went through a period where I tried to think of all the good things about her, but the bad still intruded.  Those thoughts included my father, who was still alive, and had we been on speaking terms, perhaps it might have helped.

Instead, I was left with mixed emotions.

A few days later, I started putting words on paper, deciding that I would try to put together a eulogy of sorts, I’m case it was called for.

Writing about it was a form of solace, a period where I could address what it was that I felt, and at the end of it, I felt better.

Only later, much later, when I started digging into the family genealogy, that a lot of stuff started making sense.

Like most people, she was as complicated as the day was long. 

She had an older sister whom I believe she was very jealous of; she had a boyfriend who was a local boy, since she was sixteen, writing continually during the war after he signed up, and writing about the life they would have together.

She had an explosive temper and managed at one time or another to alienate or get on the wrong side of everybody she cared about, and girlfriends in particular.  That tempered extended, eventually to her boyfriend, now home from the war, and I believe they were looking forward to getting married.

A row put an end to it.  He didn’t answer her letters of apology and ignored a telegram she sent, an indication of how badly she had fractured their relationship.

It’s 1946, and she’s working in Melbourne. 

My father had gone overseas, why well never know, and ended up with his own matrimonial disaster, and having a wedding planned called off, he returns home disappointed and alone, going back to his old job of projectionist that he had before he enlisted.

It’s 1947, and he’s in the Snowy Mountain district as a roving projectionist.

I could only imagine how she and her family managed her disappointment situation, and her sister, who herself had married and had her own life, might account for my mother’s feelings towards her.

With that failed relationship in the past, her matrimonial prospects are now in the hands of a woman who is charged with finding a suitable husband.

That man was my father.

He gets the introduction, goes to see her, and she has gone home for the weekend to her parents’ house.  It’s not surprising she had had another row with her girlfriends, and she faces time alone in her room.

He writes, not in the same romantic flowery prose of her last boyfriend, but of how domestic his life is, and how much he needs a wife to do those chores.

The thing is, he is a returned serviceman and used to fending for himself.  This is not going to be a match made in heaven.  He has his own anger management issues and battles with his own family, and it’s no surprise to learn there were ultimatums and threats to call off the wedding.

And yet, in 1950, it finally went ahead.  There may have been compelling reasons, but one thing that was assured, neither of them advertised the fact that they had families, and we, as children, rarely, if ever, saw our aunts and uncles, only on rare occasions our grandparents.

Does snake me feel any better writing this down?

No.  It does, however, provide a deeper understanding of the two people who were my parents and sadness at the loss of never knowing my aunts, uncles and grandparents, and goes a long way towards explaining why I am the way I am.

Day 128

Writing is the supreme solace.

…

Perhaps it can be.

I remember when my mother died. It was the closest I had ever been in the presence of death.

I got a phone call to tell me I should come to the hospital, she was not going to last much longer.  I was on the way out the door when the call said she had passed.

That was followed by going to the hospital, where I stayed for an hour, trying to assemble my thoughts.

In that moment when I first saw her, I felt numb.  And much as I hate to say it, she was not much of a mother to me or any of us, for that matter, and I never really understood why.

Our grandmother, her mother, had been more caring and considerate.

For a few days after, I guess I went through a period where I tried to think of all the good things about her, but the bad still intruded.  Those thoughts included my father, who was still alive, and had we been on speaking terms, perhaps it might have helped.

Instead, I was left with mixed emotions.

A few days later, I started putting words on paper, deciding that I would try to put together a eulogy of sorts, I’m case it was called for.

Writing about it was a form of solace, a period where I could address what it was that I felt, and at the end of it, I felt better.

Only later, much later, when I started digging into the family genealogy, that a lot of stuff started making sense.

Like most people, she was as complicated as the day was long. 

She had an older sister whom I believe she was very jealous of; she had a boyfriend who was a local boy, since she was sixteen, writing continually during the war after he signed up, and writing about the life they would have together.

She had an explosive temper and managed at one time or another to alienate or get on the wrong side of everybody she cared about, and girlfriends in particular.  That tempered extended, eventually to her boyfriend, now home from the war, and I believe they were looking forward to getting married.

A row put an end to it.  He didn’t answer her letters of apology and ignored a telegram she sent, an indication of how badly she had fractured their relationship.

It’s 1946, and she’s working in Melbourne. 

My father had gone overseas, why well never know, and ended up with his own matrimonial disaster, and having a wedding planned called off, he returns home disappointed and alone, going back to his old job of projectionist that he had before he enlisted.

It’s 1947, and he’s in the Snowy Mountain district as a roving projectionist.

I could only imagine how she and her family managed her disappointment situation, and her sister, who herself had married and had her own life, might account for my mother’s feelings towards her.

With that failed relationship in the past, her matrimonial prospects are now in the hands of a woman who is charged with finding a suitable husband.

That man was my father.

He gets the introduction, goes to see her, and she has gone home for the weekend to her parents’ house.  It’s not surprising she had had another row with her girlfriends, and she faces time alone in her room.

He writes, not in the same romantic flowery prose of her last boyfriend, but of how domestic his life is, and how much he needs a wife to do those chores.

The thing is, he is a returned serviceman and used to fending for himself.  This is not going to be a match made in heaven.  He has his own anger management issues and battles with his own family, and it’s no surprise to learn there were ultimatums and threats to call off the wedding.

And yet, in 1950, it finally went ahead.  There may have been compelling reasons, but one thing that was assured, neither of them advertised the fact that they had families, and we, as children, rarely, if ever, saw our aunts and uncles, only on rare occasions our grandparents.

Does snake me feel any better writing this down?

No.  It does, however, provide a deeper understanding of the two people who were my parents and sadness at the loss of never knowing my aunts, uncles and grandparents, and goes a long way towards explaining why I am the way I am.

Day 127

What do you believe is your forte as a writer?

…

I have always liked English as a subject at school, starting at primary school and getting books for Christmas.

My favourite shop was a newsagent’s and bookstore up the road, and while my mother shopped in the grocery store, I would go looking at the books.

It wasn’t until secondary school and the introduction to English literature that my love of books took a new turn. The school had a library, and there I could discover all of the schoolboy heroes like Biggles and the adventures of the Famous Five and Secret Seven.

It also afforded me the chance to work as a librarian and learn the ropes, as it were, and for a while, the idea of going to university to become a proper librarian was firmly planted in my mind.

Of course, circumstances got in the way of that plan, and I finished up leaving school early and never quite making it to university.

But I did go to correspondence school and picked up English literature again, but this time, it was a study of various aspects of literature, such as poetry, fiction, plays, and nonfiction.

I didn’t like poetry. In fact, I did not understand it at all.

I liked the idea of writing a play and creating a screenplay, but I never got around to it.

No, my first foray into writing came when I started doing an off-campus degree that majored in literature and had units called narrative.

Yes, the expectation was to write stories. Short stories, and so I began. Those I wrote as assignments scored well. Those I wrote and submitted for publication did not.

Yes, it was the beginners’ story, the pile of rejections that started crushing that desire to succeed.

There was, around this time, a novel competition run by the Australian newspaper, and, like all naive beginners, I told myself my first entry would blow them away, and the prize was mine.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

But I wrote a novel every year until I was too old to participate. Unfortunately, I can’t find the manuscripts I wrote back then; perhaps disgusted, I threw them away. Pity, I would like to see them now, just to see how bad they were.

Day 127

What do you believe is your forte as a writer?

…

I have always liked English as a subject at school, starting at primary school and getting books for Christmas.

My favourite shop was a newsagent and bookstore up the road, and while my mother shopped in the grocery store, I would go looking at the books.

It wasn’t until secondary school and the introduction to English literature that my love of books took a new turn. The school had a library, and there I could discover all of the schoolboy heroes like Biggles and the adventures of the Famous Five and Secret Seven.

It also afforded me the chance to work as a librarian and learn the ropes, as it were, and for a while, the idea of going to university to become a proper librarian was firmly planted in my mind.

Of course, circumstances got in the way of that plan, and I finished up leaving school early and never quite making it to university.

But I did go to correspondence school and picked up English literature again, but this time, it was a study of various aspects of literature, such as poetry, fiction, plays, and nonfiction.

I didn’t like poetry. In fact, I did not understand it at all.

I liked the idea of writing a play and creating a screenplay, but I never got around to it.

No, my first foray into writing came when I started doing an off-campus degree that majored in literature and had units called narrative.

Yes, the expectation was to write stories. Short stories, and so I began. Those I wrote as assignments scored well. Those I wrote and submitted did not.

Yes, it was the beginners’ story, the pile of rejections that started crushing that desire to succeed.

There was, around this time, a novel competition run by the Australian newspaper, and, like all naive beginners, I told myself my first entry would blow them away, and the prize was mine.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

But I wrote a novel every year until I was too old to participate. Unfortunately, I can’t find the manuscripts I wrote back then; perhaps disgusted, I threw them away. Pity, I would like to see them now, just to see how bad they were.

Day 126

Writing exercise

…

Nobody believed this story when I told them, because I embellish, I omit, and I invent; in short, I lie.

I never thought the world I had woven for myself to live in would have consequences I could never have imagined.

I mean, it’s not as if I invented a spaceship and told people I was an alien posing as a human sent to suss out earth’s population before my planet sent a peace delegation.

But that didn’t mean it was on my list of stories.

This was a story about self-preservation. I already had the unenviable reputation of telling lies, and it had reached the point where everyone rolled their eyes and simply ignored me.

Except a lie turned into what could be truth, and led to the police swarming around my parents’ house and everyone being roused from their beds at gunpoint.  For me, it was particularly brutal, being dragged out of bed, thrown to the floor, and having three burly policemen hold me down until I was cuffed.

Then, after a few extra blows to reinforce the notion of I tried to escape there would be worse to come, I was unceremoniously dragged from the house in full more of the other family members and worse, the neighbours.

They were not horrified.  I heard one say, “That little shit finally got what he deserved.’  Others had similar sentiments.  My father was stony-faced, my mother was in tears, and my sister, furious

The arrest had broken two of my ribs and made it very difficult to breathe.  My complaints fell on deaf ears until I spewed up a mass of blood in the back of the police car.

Only then did they realise there had been excessive force used, not that it mattered, I was a dangerous criminal, and had to be subdued because I ‘had put up resistance to the extent the arresting officer feared for his life’.

I couldn’t make that up even if I wanted to.  And worse, as the paramedics took me to the hospital, the police officer accompanying me had said no one would believe me if I told them the truth.

The sad fact about that statement is that he was right.

Stabilised and bandaged, but not given any pain killers, I was taken from the emergency room to the police station, tossed in an interview room, and made to sit in an uncomfortable chair for two hours.

The pain was unbearable, and I realised after the first hour in that small, overly hot room, that I was only at the start of the roller-coaster ride.

The bigger question I asked myself was why, after all this time, was I there?

It was not as if I wasn’t well known for living in a fantasy world.  My foster parents, as much as they were dismayed at the trouble I’d brought to their doorstep, knew just how troubled a child I was.

Seventeen years ago, I was found in a house with five dead people: my mother, my father, two brothers, and a sister.  I was a baby, not six months old, who had been spared.

Why?  Because, it was speculated in nearly every newspaper in the country, I was too young to identify the killer or killers.  There had been no motive established, and the half dozen suspects the police had on their list had all been cleared, and, years later, with no clues or evidence available, it had become a cold case.

The thing is, it had traumatised me and for as long as I could remember, I had the recollection of the event, the gunshots that killed my family, and an image of a man or woman looking down at me. 

It was not anyone I could recognise, and had wisely kept those details to myself because no one would have believed me.

But as long as I could remember, and after being placed in foster care, I had constructed a fantasy world for myself, the people I assumed to be my family.  Foster care did that to you, bouncing from one bad home to another, until you finally land in a good one, or you end up on the wrong side of the law.

I’d finally landed in a good one when I was fifteen, but by that time, learning to dodge and weave the brutal, neglectful and horrible people, I’d become so entrenched in a world of lies that even I didn’t know truth from fiction.

But as to why I was in that interview room?

Well, that all started seventeen days ago, the seventeenth anniversary of the murders.  I was home alone, the real members of my new family out celebrating one of my step sisters’ birthdays.

I had not been invited, having been grounded after another incident at school.  I was watching the TV news and saw an item about a man who was from my hometown, a man with a face that registered in the back of my mind.

My first thought was that I’d seen him before, which was not unlikely. He had been the Assistant DA who was in charge of the investigation into my family’s murder, or so I’d been told.

And then I thought nothing more of it until I went to sleep that night and, for some odd reason, relived the events if that night seventeen years ago.

Only I could not have.  I was only a few months old. There was no way I could remember any of it.  But that was not the worst of it.  Lying in bed, I woke suddenly, and before I could clear my thoughts, a face was staring down at me, clear as day.

The man who had been on TV.  It was not possible. 

The reason, I believe, as to why I was there, I told the sheriff about the FBI agent, the fact I’d remembered something that involved Herbert W Winfield.

Seventeen hours later, I had the shit beaten out of me and awaited a fate worse than death.

Many years ago, when I had gotten into trouble as an on-the-cusp teen, I was visited by an FBI agent.  She was investigating a case that, she said, was of national importance.

I thought that the fact that she was visiting me, I had finally reached that proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.  She told me that it was not so much the crimes I’d committed as the fact that I was a person of interest in another crime, the murder of my family.

And the fact that she was currently looking at prospective candidates for President.  We had a president.  What did my father have to do with presenting investigations? She didn’t say, just that if I remembered anything, to call her.

She left a card.  Normally, when I bounced from foster carer to foster carer, I usually took nothing with me.  It seemed serendipitous that I still had it.

I was still thinking about that card when the door opened and the sheriff came in.  Whatever I had done must have been very serious.

He closed the door and leaned against it.

I was breathing shallowly to ease the pain and sweating.  To say I was afraid was an understatement. 

“Lies, especially when they involve very important people, can have far-reaching consequences, Tim.  You and I both know that Mr Winfield had nothing to do with what happened to your family, and to involve him like this, well, I just can’t imagine why you would do so, other than it’s just another of your fantasies.  This time, however, there will be consequences.  Unless, of course, you go out there when we’re finished here and admit your lies and apologise for any harm you may have caused.”

“Then I’m free to go?”

“Unfortunately, not.  You have violated your last parole order, and that means the jail sentence is back on the table.  You will not be seeing daylight for at least five years, Tim.  As I said earlier, there will be consequences this time.  Enough is enough.”

Perhaps, I told myself, I might have been wiser not to share my thoughts, but I had assumed the sheriff would uphold the law.

“I’ll give you time to think about it.”

I had to ask.  “If I don’t agree?”

“You don’t want to go down that path, Tim.  Fifteen minutes.”

He pounded on the door, and a moment later, it opened.  I heard, “Sorry, Sheriff, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

He was almost pushed to one side as the woman came into the cell.  She stopped and gasped when she saw me.

“What the hell happened to him?” She swivelled around to glare at the Sheriff.”

“He resisted arrest.”

“That’s one excuse, Sheriff, but not one that would hold up to investigation.  Come, Tim, I’m taking you out of here.”

“This is my problem, Agent…”

“Thomas, Agent Thomas. This is my problem now. You’d best find yourself a lawyer in case we come back.” Back to me, “Tim.”

I stood, slowly, and winced. It was not lost on her.

“Resisting arrest?”

Outside, in the fresh air, I couldn’t sigh in relief; it hurt too much. There was another FBI type standing next to a black Suburban car, like the ones I’d seen on TV.

“Get in,” she said, her assistant holding the door open for me.

I climbed in, and he shut the door. There was no escaping.

She got in and started driving.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

Except we weren’t. We drove past the exit and straight on up the road, heading for the next county. I figured it wasn’t the time to start asking stupid questions. My first thought, now, was they were not who they said they were, but agents working for Winfield, here to do what he should have done seventeen years ago.

At a railway station at the first town over the county line, she stopped the car. She nodded to the man, and he got out and walked across the road to the diner.

She turned around and looked at me. “We’re supposed to put a bullet in the back of your head and throw you down a disused mine. There are a lot of them around here, and no one would bother looking for you, not even that new family of yours. There’s a bag next to you on the seat. Money and a new identity. You take it, get on that train and then disappear. You show your head above water again, I will find you, and do what I should be doing. I get it. You got a bad break. Now, grow a brain and change your life. Completely. Think you can do that?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m one of the good ones, Tim. Now, you have five minutes before the train comes. The ticket and money are in the bag; keep your head down, and no one needs to know. Now, go.”

They had driven off before I reached the platform, just in time to see the train coming down the line. The ticket was to the other side of the country. My name was Jim Chalk. Orphan. There were the names of five restaurants looking for a general hand. I guess any of the five would take me on. There was an address for a boarding house and a lady’s name.

By the time I arrived, Tim had gone, and Jim had taken over. Finally, I could stop running.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025