What would you do if you were mistaken for someone else?
What if when you answer a knock on the door to your hotel room, and the police crash their way in with bullets flying everywhere in a show of unnecessary force.
Of course, the police don’t know you are not the criminal, and facing a possible disaster, do what they have to, to apprehend the man they believe is a murderer.
Our main character now has time to contemplate the ramifications of what just happened in hospital. So much for attending the conference.
Of course, he has other things to think about, the self confessed gate crasher Maryanne. The old adage, if something is too good to be true, it generally is.
Looking forward, there’s some plotting to do.
How can it be possible that our main character has a doppelganger? At the moment it’s just a case of someone who looks like him, and the police have ruled him out as the man they’re looking for.
It’s a story that’s going to play out in a few chapter’s time.
Today’s effort amounts to 1,871 words, for a total, so far, of 13,616.
The writing proceeds at a steady rate because the ideas are there. There’s planning, but not too far into the future because, like any relationship, the one between the current two main characters has to develop, or die.
I waiting to see where their interaction takes us.
But, then, our main character now has to confront the notion he had a doppelganger, and not only that but he is also a criminal who just murdered someone, and his face is all over the television.
And this is an exact double, as if he had a twin brother.
The thing is, as far as he’s aware, he’s an only child.
But, there’s a knock on the door, and things are about to get very hectic…
Today’s effort amounts to 3,377 words, for a total, so far, of 11,745.
Which, unfortunately, I do not have a lot of in my step.
At last, we have reached the end of the alphabet because I’m running out of zip to write these blogs.
So…
Zip is the sing, the energy, the spring we have in our step, that usually gets us from a to b quickly. Without this zest, we would need to take a bus, train, or cab.
Then comes the variations like …
Zip code, we all have one of these, though in some countries it is called a postcode.
Zip it up, meaning do not speak, especially if you’re about to spill a secret.
A zip, which is a part of some types of clothing, usually in trousers, jeans, and skirts to name a few. Some dresses have long zips, some short, all seem to get tangled at one time or another, or, in the most embarrassing of situations, split.
Then there is a colloquial use of the word zip, meaning nothing, zilch, zero, in other words, a basis for of z words.
And that’s about as much zeal I’m going to show for writing this blog, and I’m going to close the book on it.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
“So, how do you know your way around this place?”
We walked slowly and carefully because there was a lot of rubbish in the alleyway, mostly from cracks in the walls where the concrete lining had broken away. At times there were mounds of rubble, and we had to carefully walk over these.
The ground was dusty and signs of footprints from past visitors, but it had been a long time, they had almost disappeared. There was also a dank, musty aroma, just short of being nauseating.
“The result of a misspent youth. Not many people know there’s a passageway around the whole perimeter of the mall, with only four entry points from outside, and two inside. This was how we escaped when we came along for some shoplifting.”
“Did you ever think of going straight?”
“Wasn’t much chance of that. There were expectations, and when I did try to give it up, I got ostracised, and ended up having to commit bigger follies to regain acceptance.”
We reached the end of the passage, where it turned right. At a guess, I would say we were in one of the corners of the mall, near the front entrance.
She turned left and then stopped. I could see the bottom of the steps leading up.
A stopped next to her and we shone both torches up the stairs. The light only went as far as a landing.
“What’s up there,” I asked.
“Offices. A holding cell. It’s where the security team used to be. It was separate from everything else. The security guys used to shake down the teenage girls up there, and not in a nice way.”
“You?”
“Once, but I told Vince and he sorted the bastard out. Didn’t happen again.”
A small sidebar to life in a mall.
She started up the steps. “If anything is going to be anywhere, this will be the place. The front of the mall was the safest part, built properly on solid foundations. As work continued, heading sideways and back, corners were cut. It’s not the only shoddy building there is in this area.”
The Benderby’s construction company had built most of the buildings in the county, always coming in at the lowest price. The only place not cracking or falling to pieces was the town hall.
At the top of the stairs, there was another wide passage with rooms branching off it.
It was a little less dusty and musty up here, but the rooms were quite messy, with papers scattered everywhere. It looked like someone had been looking for something. The first room didn’t look like it had been used since everyone left, nor the second.
The third was a different story. It was reasonably clean, a large desk in the middle of the room, and several boxes on the side with rolled-up papers, probably blueprints or plans.
I went in. Nadia kept going up the passage to check the other rooms.
I pulled out one of the rolls and laid it on the table.
It was a map, one that stretched a hundred miles in each direction and giving a very clear view of all the river systems, lakes, mountains, and coastline. Our town was almost in the middle of the chart.
I pulled out another and it was almost the same.
I looked at the writing at the bottom. One was dated 1972, the other dated 1956.
I kept rummaging through the rolls until I found one that was dated 1935. Our town wasn’t a town back then, nor did Patterson’s Reach exist.
And carefully examining the inlets, bays, and coves, given the parameters of what remembered from Boggs’s map, it could be any one of a dozen locations. I didn’t take that much notice when I’d been looking at Boggs’ collection.
“Hey, Smidge,” Nadia yelled out.
I wished she wouldn’t call me that.
I went out of the room and down the passage, past about four other offices, until the second to last. She was standing outside an office with a shut door. I tried it, and it was locked.
“A locked door in an abandoned Mall. What are the odds?”
“That there’s something in there that someone wants to keep secret. This has to be Alex’s lair. What was in that other room?”
“Maps.”
“Any use?”
“Perhaps. Boggs probably had the same, but I never took much notice of his. Trouble is, I was having difficulty believing there is a treasure buried out there somewhere.”
“A lot of people seem to be looking for this non-existent treasure, so there must be something in it.”
“Any of your keys fit?”
She tried the first, no, the second, the same one she had used to get in, and it worked. A skeleton key perhaps, that oped every lock in the place.
The door swung open and we shone the torch lights inside.
The writing proceeds at a steady rate because the ideas are there. There’s planning, but not too far into the future because, like any relationship, the one between the current two main characters has to develop, or die.
I waiting to see where their interaction takes us.
But, then, our main character now has to confront the notion he had a doppelganger, and not only that but he is also a criminal who just murdered someone, and his face is all over the television.
And this is an exact double, as if he had a twin brother.
The thing is, as far as he’s aware, he’s an only child.
But, there’s a knock on the door, and things are about to get very hectic…
Today’s effort amounts to 3,377 words, for a total, so far, of 11,745.
Which, unfortunately, I do not have a lot of in my step.
At last, we have reached the end of the alphabet because I’m running out of zip to write these blogs.
So…
Zip is the sing, the energy, the spring we have in our step, that usually gets us from a to b quickly. Without this zest, we would need to take a bus, train, or cab.
Then comes the variations like …
Zip code, we all have one of these, though in some countries it is called a postcode.
Zip it up, meaning do not speak, especially if you’re about to spill a secret.
A zip, which is a part of some types of clothing, usually in trousers, jeans, and skirts to name a few. Some dresses have long zips, some short, all seem to get tangled at one time or another, or, in the most embarrassing of situations, split.
Then there is a colloquial use of the word zip, meaning nothing, zilch, zero, in other words, a basis for of z words.
And that’s about as much zeal I’m going to show for writing this blog, and I’m going to close the book on it.
You know what it’s like on Monday morning, especially if it’s very cold and the double glazing is failing miserably to keep the cold out.
It was warm under three blankets thick sheets and a doona, and I didn’t want to get up.
It doesn’t help if in the last few months, the dream job you once had had turned into a drudge, and there was any number of reasons to stay home rather than go into the office. Once, that was trying to find an excuse to stay home because you’d rather go to work.
That was a long time ago or felt like it.
My cell phone vibrated, an incoming message, or more likely a reminder. I reached out into the icy wasteland that was the distance from under the covers to my phone on the bedside table. It was very cold out there, and for a moment I regretted that impulse to check.
It was a reminder; I had a meeting at HR with the manager. I had thought I might be eligible for redundancy since the company was in the throes of a cost cutting exercise. Once I might have been apprehensive, but now, given my recent change in department and responsibility, I was kind of hoping now that it was.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Time to get up sleepy head. You have a meeting to go to, not one to be late.”
It felt strange to wake up with someone else in the bed. My luck in that department hadn’t been all that hood lately, but something changed, and at the usual Friday night after work drinks at the pub I ran into one of the PA’s I’d seen around, one who was curious to meet me as much as I was to meet her.
One thing had led to another and when I asked her if she wanted to drop in on the way home, she did.
“I’d prefer not to. I can think of better things to do.”
“So, could I but that’s not the point. Five more minutes, then I’m pushing you out.”
She snuggled into my back, and I could feel the warmth of her body, and having the exact opposite effect than she intended. But she was right. It was important, and I had to go. But, in the meantime it was four more minutes and counting.
When you get a call from the head of HR it usually means one of two things, a promotion, or those two dreaded words, ‘you’re fired’, though not usually said with the same dramatic effect.
This year had already been calamitous enough getting sidelined from Mergers and Acquisitions because I’d been usurped. That was the word I was going with, but it was to a certain extent, my fault. I took my eye off the ball, and allowed someone else to make their case.
Of course, it helped that the person was connected to all the right people in the company, and, with the change in Chairman, it was also a matter of removing some of the people who were appointed by the previous incumbent.
I and four of my equivalent managers had been usurped and moved to places where they would have less impact. I had finished up in sales and marketing, and to be quite honest, it was such a step down, I had already decided to leave when the opportunity presented itself.
My assistant manager, who had already put in his resignation, was working out his final two weeks. I told him to take leave until the contract expired, but he was more dedicated than that. He had got in before me and was sitting at his desk a cup of coffee in his hand and another on the desk.
“How many days?”
“Six and counting. What about you? You should be out canvassing. There’s at least three other places I know would be waiting to hear from you.”
“It’s still in the consideration phase.”
“You’re likely to get the chop anyway, with this thing you have with Sharky.”
Sharkey was the HR manager.
You know something I don’t?” I picked up the coffee, removed the lid and took in the aroma. “They’re downsizing. Broadham had decided to go on a cost cutting exercise, and instead of the suggested efficiencies we put up last year, they’re going with people. I don’t think he quite gets it.”
“You mean my replacement doesn’t know anything about efficiency. He makes a good yes man though, telling Broadham exactly what he wants to hear.”
Broadham, the new Chairman, never did understand that people appointed to important positions needed to have the relevant qualifications and experience. My replacement had neither. That was when the employees loyal to the previous Chairman had started leaving.
We had called it death, whilst Broadham had called it natural attrition. He didn’t quite understand that so far, over 300 years of experience had left, and as much again was in the process of leaving.
“Are you going to tell Sharky you’re leaving?”
“I’ll wait and see what he has to say. I think he knows the ship is sinking.”
There wasn’t much I didn’t know about the current state of the company, and with the departures, I knew it was only a matter of time. Sharky was a good man, but he couldn’t stem the tide.
He also knew the vagaries of profits and share prices, and we had been watching the share price, and the market itself. It was teetering, and in the last few months, parcels of shares were being unloaded, not a lot at one time, but a steady trickle.
That told me that Broadham and his cronies were cashing in while the going was good, and quite possibly were about to steer the ship onto the rocks. The question was who was buying, and that, after some hard research I found to be certain board members. Why, I suspected, was to increase their holdings and leverage, but I don’t think they quite realised that there would be nothing left but worthless stock certificates.
It was evidence, when I finally left, that I would pass on to the relevant authorities.
In the meantime, I had a meeting to go to.
“Best of luck,” my assistant muttered as I passed his desk.
“If I don’t return, I’ll will have been escorted from the building. If that happens, Call me.”
It had happened before. When people were sacked, they were escorted to their office, allowed to pack their belongings, and were then escorted to the front door. It would be an ignominious end to an illustrious career, or so I’d been told by the girl who was no doubt still asleep in my bed.
She had heard the whispers.
The walk to the lift, the traversing of the four floors to the executive level, and then to the outer office where Sharky’s PA sat took all of three minutes. I had hoped it would be longer.
“He’s waiting for you,” she said, “go on in.”
I knocked on the door, then went in, closing it behind me. “Now, sir, what on earth could you want to see me about?
I started off thinking that murder was pretty straight forward, you know, someone pulls out a gun and shoots someone else: murder. Of course, there are any other means of doing the same crime, by knife, poison, strangulation, or suffocation.
Or, by endless inane conversation. Much less chance of going to jail with that one.
Its the stuff that keeps crime writers going, fictional detectives detecting and crime scene investigators analysing.
Still the fact someone might be getting away with murder, means they’ve successfully found a way to have their cake and eat it.
Come to think of it how many times have we used that word in vain, like when a child drives you to distraction, red-faced and you say with a great deal of conviction ‘you do that again I’ll murder you’.
Just make sure it doesn’t actually happen, or those words will come back to haunt you.
But this is only one aspect of using the word.
You could, if you want, scream blue murder, which is literally impossible. In fact, what the does that really mean?
It can also refer to an onerous task or experience, hence the possibility that listening to that discussion about hot water bottles was absolute murder.
For one thing, it probably murdered an hour or two of my time.
It could also describe a comprehensive defeat, that we murdered the other side 86 to nothing. Come to think of it, I never got to participate in such a game, so that might account for why I’d never heard it used before.
And, lastly…
Did you know it can refer to a flock of a particular type of bird, I think crows.
If there is one thing I cannot resist is walking into a book store wherever it might be.
It usually elicits a groan from everyone I’m with because for them, watching grass grow is a more fascinating exercise.
But…
The best bookshops are the pop-up ones that appear in various shopping centres where there are empty spaces, and these have a wide variety of books for just $7 each.
And there are lots of bargains…
As you can see, I have been on a few bargain hunts lately and like any writer’s room, tucked away with the boxes of drinks, gardening equipment and everything else that just doesn’t fit in the house, are the piles of books awaiting being put into the shelves
As you can see, the shelves are almost full so it’s going to be an uphill battle to find spaces for them.
By the way, there are eight such book cases on the surrounding walls, as well as a new one, recently discarded from the lounge room, to house the reference books
Along with a few stuffed bears.
The job of putting books on shelves falls to the grandchildren, whom I am trying to convince that when they get older, they should too embrace the idea of having a reading room, which my writing room will also be when I eventually get to throw out the accumulation of years of discarded homewares.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 