Coulrophobia (fear of clowns) - #OctoboPhobia short story

The clown turned up at my door at midnight. He stood in the rain, although his colourful makeup stayed put. And he watched me.

I watched him for a while. Watched him watching me. And when I walked through to the kitchen, I knew that, within a few minutes, he’d turn up at the window. Not being aggressive. Not saying anything. Just watching.

And I knew why he was here.

When I was five years old, I was taken to the circus for the first time. I remember the noises and the lights and the colours. I remember the animals – bears, lions and elephants (although, looking back, I cant help but wonder how they were treated). I remember the acrobats, defying gravity with every move.

But most of all, I remember the clowns.

Two of them came out, with overexaggerated movements and ludicrous outfits. They went through a routine and the audience laughed hysterically throughout. Except for me. I was repulsed by them immediately.

My mom hugged me and told me it was okay, and they were just playing and in outfit, but I didn’t believe her. I didn’t trust her. And I certainly didn’t trust them.

In old pulp novels, the clown is almost always on the run. Hiding in disguise, while it turns out that they held up a bank or a shop or something, and something went wrong and they shot someone, and they went into hiding somewhere that was always on the move, and somewhere they could keep their face hidden the entire time.

In real life, they’re far worse.

Have you ever heard of John Wayne Gacy? Google him and give yourself nightmares for the next week. If the round, demented clown face isn’t enough, Gacy killed dozens of young men and teenagers.

And then he’d put that face paint on for local events. Look at the pictures and look at his eyes and that smile… not the painted ones. The real ones underneath. Look at them, and tell me that you’re really, honestly, truly surprised that he was capable of that.

As human beings, we use our sense of sight (assuming that we have one) to help us know whether or not to trust people. We see their faces when they talk to us and we communicate by expression as much as by voice. 

Just look at emojis. We had to find a way to put basic facial expressions into text once we started using it as an immediate method of communication. We didn’t feel the need to do that with letters, because letters removed the immediacy. But when you’re talking to someone online, using text alone, emojis are useful ways to get a little bit of that extra level of communication. After all, we all need to know when something’s being said with a smile and a wink, don’t we? Deadpan really doesn’t come across well when it’s typed.

We need that extra element of expression, because otherwise, when someone comes at you brandishing a knife, you need to be able to tell whether they’re friendly or angry.

So think about the importance of expression, and now wonder what kind of person feels the need to paint an expression over their own. A permanent expression that constantly makes a point of telling people that they’re smiling. That they’re happy. And that there’s nothing to worry about, because just look at them with their painted smiles and eyes and colourful hair and outfits.

Think about what kind of person goes to those lengths to convince people that they’re friendly. That they’re not a threat. And that they definitely don’t have a knife.

So, my mom and I were sat near the front, and I was crying by this point. And one of them must have noticed, because they involved us in their next trick.

I was brought into the pit in front of everyone, a shaking, terrified mess. I never really forgave my mom for that, and I never really will. I think, charitably, she was under the impression that I’d enjoy the attention and forget how scared I was.

It probably only went on for minutes, but it felt like it went on for hours. They kept doing things that seemed like they were going to be unbelievably dangerous, before it was revealed they switched it out for something safe. Like an oversized wooden mallet, swung for my head. The measuring up for the shot, like a batter winding up to knock it out the park. The swing… the practice swing… and then he brought the mallet back over his head, like he was going to do one of those tests of strength in fairs, and then all of the weight of the mallet suddenly returned and made him fall over backwards.

The crowd laughed as I wet myself, absolutely convinced they’d just been about to kill me. And as he struggled with the mallet, the other clown laughed and laughed and laughed in my face.

And then they got the bucket, which they proved to everyone was full of water. And before they poured it over my head (which was in my hands as I prayed for it all to stop), it somehow turned into confetti.

I didn’t care. I felt the water hit my head and run down me, and when I opened my eyes and looked through the tears, everything was red. Blood poured down my body and seeped through my clothes.

I screamed. I looked down at myself and screamed and everybody laughed because they could only see confetti and they thought I was just overreacting. They couldn’t see me covered in dark, red, cold blood.

But I could see it. And from the smiles on their faces, they could see it too. I could see, underneath the grease paint, utter malevolence. For the first time since the routine had begun, I could see they were really smiling.

And one of them knelt in to me and whispered – and even through the noise of the crowd laughing, I heard him clearly – “You’ll be one of us now. One day, we’ll come for you.”

I pretended not to see him at first. He’s not the first one to turn up recently. Always at midnight. Always a different clown.

There’s been a different one every night. And they just watch.

But he was the first one that managed to get into the house.

I thought that I’d locked the back door. I maintain, looking back, that I locked the back door. But maybe that didn’t matter. I’d gone to bed and eventually, fitfully, slept.

I woke up to find him at the foot of the bed.

Watching me.

He had green hair, this one. Green hair and a hat. And clean, black-and-white makeup.

He held out his hands.

One of them held a knife. The other held a makeup box.

I watched him for a while, with his open smile etched onto his face.

I knew what they were for.

He walked with me into the bathroom and he let me talk while I slowly took the box, and looked in the mirror and began to apply the paint.

The smell of greasepaint is one that sticks with you. It gets into your throat and sinuses and the hairs in your nose, and it doesn’t go away.

I painted my face with a smile and comically large eyebrows, with big red bags underneath my eyes.  It was simple, but there were flourishes.

He beckoned at me to open my mouth and I wished that they’d never picked me. I opened it, and he grabbed my tongue between his fingers, and then pushed the knife into, and then with no small effort through it. He hacked at it and sawed for minutes.

Somewhere, I was screaming and screaming, until I felt the blood pouring down my front and my throat, and suddenly, I remembered what it had felt like when they’d poured the bucket over me.

What it had looked like to everyone else. And then I thought about how funny it would be to see their reaction right now, as the clown tore through the last parts of my tongue, severing it completely.

And as much pain as I was in, all I could think of was how funny everyone’s faces would be if they knew what was really happening that night.

At some point, the screams turned into laughter. Hysterical, deep, overwhelming laughter.

I looked into the mirror at my new blood-smeared, gore-splattered face.

And I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

Claustrophobia - #OctoboPobia short story

Nobody pays much attention to Calloway. At the end of the day, as it turns dark, he walks around the graveyard. He locks the gate with a chain and padlock, and then walks around every path, picking up litter, collecting the dead flowers that have withered too much to be left, and making sure everything is clean.

Most people don’t want to see anyone there while they’re visiting. It’s a private time and they want to be left alone. So he’s used to staying out of the way, and used to people not paying attention to him.

He likes it. It suits him.

He’s old and quiet and his slight build belies a surprising strength. He isn’t the only one that digs graves, preparing them for funerals, but he does it more than anyone else.  It’s hard work, but he does it regularly. At other times, he can be found in the shed, drinking tea from a thermos and eating sandwiches. There’s a kettle there now, and a microwave, but old habits die hard, and he likes the way the thermos feels.

As caretaker, he’s a council employee, although nobody on the council really knows him. Nobody really measures the work he does. If they don’t have to go there, people don’t really like graveyards.

Well, most people don’t.

Teenagers, on the other hand. Some of them love graveyards. Some of them see them as somewhere to drink cheap alcohol, smoke poorly made joints and some of them have awkward, fumbling sex.

There’s a couple right now, on the other side of the graveyard. Can’t be much more than eighteen.

They’ve been furtively coming in here once every few weeks, and from a safe distance, Calloway has watched her take off her knickers, lie down on the stone slab and spread her legs as her boyfriend frantically pushes into her.

They always take their time when they’re not screwing. Drinking between their thrillseeking passions, then starting again. Calloway remembers when he was young and virile enough to do it multiple times like that, but he has other passions these days. Over the months, he’s got to know their patterns. And they’ve never even realised he was there.

He walks to the caretaker’s shed, opens the door and takes the shovel in his hand.

The teenager wakes up. He breathes, his head pounding and dripping blood, and it takes him a while to realise why the air is so musty and thick.

He tries to move, but he can barely lift his arms. He’s pinned by wood above him and to his sides. He scrabbles against the darkness, feeling sharp, broken pieces of bone underneath him.

He can’t get any leverage at all. He tries shifting his weight, seeing if he can bring his hands up to his chest by twisting, to give himself more space. He can now see the skull by the side of his own head, and he tries not to panic (although he’s aware that the air is getting thinner and thinner). He manages to bring a hand up, and tries to push the lid properly, but it won’t budge. He scratches frantically, until his fingertips start to bleed. He realises this approach isn’t doing anything.

He manages, slowly and painfully, to turn onto his side, and then his front. He doesn’t have the
strength to push with his hands, but if he arches his back…. Pushes with it…. He might just be able to shift the coffin lid.

He doesn’t think about the skeleton that he’s now facing. He doesn’t think of the fact that he can’t hear anything other than soil falling, muffled, onto the top of the coffin.

He pushes and pushes. And when that doesn’t work, he screams as much as the air will let him.

He no longer has the strength to turn.  And besides, there was hardly space.

Instead, he lies down in the remains of the first owner of this coffin and can’t find the strength to move any more.

Before long, he can’t find the strength to breathe, either.

As the teenager struggles and screams, Calloway slowly and calmly shovels dirt on top of the coffin. 

He doesn’t rush. There’s no need. There’s nobody around.

He knows what he’s doing. He’s done this dozens of times.

When the screaming stops, he keeps piling the earth in. Keeps filling the grave, adding weight to the lid of the coffin.

Nobody ever notices that the graves have been turned, as long as he relays the grass fairly carefully.
People expect a certain level of upkeep.

And when people come here secretly, in singles or in pairs, they tend not to tell others where they’re going. They might be missed, but nobody knew they were here in the first place. And Calloway knows how to spot the ones that will be less missed.

Because he doesn’t just keep out of the way.

He watches. And waits, and plans, and then fills the coffins with extra passengers.

Once he’s done, he looks down at the next grave. The funeral taking place in the morning will provide more cover than anything else could do. She lies there, her skull caved in, blood and brains spilled over the soil feet further down than the grave needs to be. Once he’s dumped enough soil over her, the coffin will be able to be lowered slowly down on top, and nobody will ever know.

During the funeral, he will stay out of the way, watching without the smirk that he feels inside.
Looking at the grave and knowing that there’s one victim underneath, and then just a few feet away, one that died screaming in a box only barely bigger than he was.

He’ll know all of that is there, but nobody else will have the slightest clue. And he’ll sit in the shed, and he’ll smile to himself thinking of those lying there, and the ones he left in there alive.

Once he finishes filling in the graves, he continues to clean up around. Then he locks up the cemetery and goes home.  The next day, he’ll come back and he’ll wait for an opportunity to do it again.

He’ll pick someone and he’ll wait until the right time. And it will come and it will happen.

Nobody pays much attention to Calloway, after all.

Chaetophobia - #OctoboPhobia short story

It starts like a joke. A hair in my soup. Thick country vegetable soup, just out of the can and heated up. No waiter to send it back to the kitchen. Just me on a Sunday afternoon. And I’m halfway through the soup when I find it.

The hair I find is long. I don’t have long hair. There’s nobody else in the flat (and there hasn’t been anyone else in the flat in some time). It must have happened in the factory.

If it was worth it, I’d send a letter of complaint, or take a picture and tweet it. But for a single hair, it’s probably not.

Despite my revulsion, I pick it up with the spoon and dump it in the bin.

And then I find another one, polluting the soup.

And another.

And another.

Sickened, I can’t eat any more of the soup, and I pour it out. A thick clump of matted hair comes with it, and I struggle not to throw up.

I leave it and try not to think about it, other than rethinking any ideas of pictures and complaints. A letter. That’ll do the job. An actual letter rather than an email. Maybe threatening to go to the papers. 

I take some photos of the soup in the bin, and the bowl, which still has some stray hairs. While trying not to concentrate too much on what I’m doing, I pick up the matted hair with a fork and take pictures of it.

It’s not until later that evening that I realise the mild tickle I’ve felt in my throat for hours isn’t psychological, but is actually one of the hairs. I must have half-swallowed it in that first half of the soup.

I can feel it in my throat, harshly stuck well behind my tongue. I don’t like the idea of swallowing it, so I try to cough to dislodge it.

It doesn’t move, so I cough harder, and then hard enough that it chafes my throat a little, but the hair doesn’t move its position, other than in a mildly tickling way.

Going into the kitchen, I retrieve a glass from the cupboard and run the tap. I may not like to swallow the hair, but it’s better than leaving it there. I let the water run until it’s colder, then fill the glass and take a few sips.

Nothing. The hair doesn’t move at all, although I feel the water going down against it. I drink a few proper gulps, some running down my chin a little bit, but still it remains.

Something solid. That’ll do the trick. I turn to the counter and open the breadbin. There’s half a loaf of multigrain, which I tear a chunk of, chew and swallow. When that doesn’t work, I try a few more chunks.

With every mouthful, I feel the hair moving. It really should have dislodged, but it hasn’t. I try more water to help the bread down, which has stuck in my glottis a little, but the hair doesn’t move with it.

It feels thick and wiry, and while I know that the more tense I feel, the less likely it is to shift, I can’t help it. What I should do, I know, is to try not to think about it, and at some point it will just shift, whereas the more I allow it to irritate me, the more it’ll physically irritate me. The more my throat is likely to swell slightly inside and become inflamed.

But I can’t help it. I try to bring the hair up a little instead, using the muscles in my throat to squeeze and push, somewhere between a glottal stop and a retch. This means that I feel the hair touching both sides of my throat, but it also seems to work. Not much, but there’s a bit movement and it tickles against my tonsils.

I feel comically like a bird regurgitating its food as I keep tensing and moving the muscles in my throat in an attempt to shift the hair, but it’s definitely beginning to work.

The hair works its way up a little, almost within reach of my tongue, if I curl the base of my tongue back. It’s harsh against my throat, and feels as if it’s longer than I realised – while the tip of the hair has definitely moved up, I can still feel the hair in the middle of my throat as well.

I have to stop for a moment, as I almost throw up – my body has got confused by the constant mild retching and thinks I’m trying to vomit. But a few gasps of air help, even though every one of them makes the hair tip move and tickle.

Eventually, the tip of the hair gets to the point where I can just about feel it if I pull my tongue towards the back of my throat as much as I can – it’s annoyingly out of reach at first, and it’s frustrating because my throat is now beginning to hurt,  but the hair is almost at the point where my tongue should be able to get some real purchase on it.

I push the back of my tongue to the back of the roof of my mouth, and try to pull the hair out with it. 

Each time I do it, it moves the hair up just a tiny bit. It feels like a wire going down my throat, because I still haven’t brought the other end up. It must be long, as it’s still in my throat as it was when I first noticed it.

I’d thought this would have brought the whole thing up by now, especially as the hair tip moves up the roof of my mouth, creating a straight line that pushes against my tonsils.

Instead, I reach into my mouth with my fingers, grabbing the tip between the end of my first and second fingers. I’m very careful, because I’m having to reach quite far and I don’t want to unintentionally gag, but I want this damn hair gone.

I pull it slowly but surely, and it’s tight, but it comes. I have it out to around my teeth.

This thing is long. I can still feel it lodged in my throat.

But I have it now, and I have a proper grip between my thumb and first finger, and I pull harder.

It still comes. Right out of my mouth, but still the other end is somewhere in my throat.

I pull harder, and I feel it slicing into my throat and tongue and tonsils as I do so, but no matter how much they’re irritating, I want this damn thing out of me. I’ll deal with the sore throat, I’ll deal with the stinging. But I cannot deal with this hair.

But it keeps coming, without the other end appearing. I pull it and have it out the entire length of the width of my palm, and pull with my other hand.

Now it’s slick with blood, and I can feel the blood in my mouth, but I still pull.

When I stop, the pain of my throat getting too much to keep relentlessly pulling, the hair is now hanging out of my mouth down to my chest. I spit the blood that’s collected into my mouth into the sink. It’s thick and red and mixed with saliva.

After a few deep breaths, each one like a razor blade against my throat, I pull again, harder. More comes out, more blood, more bile.

And it keeps on coming. Further and further.

I have it wound around my hand multiple times, but I can still feel it scraping the inside of my throat, which is now raw and painful, and every now and then, I have to stop and cough and spit up more blood, and each time there’s more blood than there was last time, which I have spattered down my chin and front. My hands are covered in blood, some of it now dried.

I pull and pull again, until eventually, I feel something new.

Deep inside my gut, I can feel the hair is attached to something. Something at the base of my stomach.

When I pull it, I can feel it pulling up my insides.

I tense. Each time I pull, it’s painful, but I have feet and feet of this hair now wrapped around my gore-crusted hands.

If I pull it, will it break? Or will it pull up something inside, tearing?

I can’t have it in me.

I pull one more time.

Arachnophobia - OctoboPhobia short story

My first memory is of spiders. I am seventeen now, and don’t really remember much before I was five, but this is something I’ll never forget.  And as I look at his eyes, I remember it.

I was wearing my yellow skirt. I don’t know why that is something that sticks in my brain, but it is.  I don’t know what else I was wearing, although I was wearing socks rather than shoes. That’s definitely important.

We were visiting my grandparents in the countryside, and I was able to run around their grounds as much as I wanted.  Looking back now, it wasn’t as big as I remember, but it felt almost like its own country. Like it should be on a map somewhere. “Grandparents”, just around the same size as… I don’t know. Birmingham or somewhere I’ve never been.

It was so much bigger than where we lived. So much bigger than anywhere I’d ever been.  We didn’t even have a garden of our own. We had a small piece of land outside our flats, and there was a park down the road.

I was allowed and even encouraged to explore, as long as I stayed away from anything sharp and I didn’t eat anything I found. And, of course, as long as I didn’t go near the road by myself. I’d seen a rabbit and chased it for a bit, shouting and screaming in delight.

Then I found the shed. Not the shed they actually used, the new, larger one that was also their garage. The old shed, the one on the top end of the garden that you couldn’t see into.

I couldn’t reach the handle with enough of a grip to open it, but I could fit my fingers into the gap between the door and the wall. I pulled it, expecting it to be locked, and it opened, scraping against the ground. I had to put all of my strength into opening it enough to fit into.

There were shelves and piles of cans, old tools and jars and bottles. It was like a treasure trove, and I ignored the dust and the cobwebs as I began to explore it, opening drawers and looking around everything that I could. There was an old wooden chair that served me as a small stepladder as I searched my way around it (including finding a small stack of old magazines, hidden in a drawer, featuring naked ladies that made me feel troubled and confused as to why there would be such a thing at all, although looking back, they were likely an old secret of my grandfather’s, although that thought never crossed my mind at the time).

There was an old, cast-iron lawmower in the corner that was heavily coated in grim, dust and webs. I felt my way around it, confused as to what it was, and found a small latch that allowed me to open up the green metallic hood. It was entirely black underneath.

And then the blackness moved.

I didn’t understand what was happening at first, as the centre of the blackness vanished, and it moved outwards, up the inside of the hood, and across the lawnmower, but then it began to wave over my hand, a black sheet of thin, hair-like legs, swarming over me.

I screamed and dropped the hood, which slammed down with a crash, but what seemed like hundreds, thousands, maybe, of small black spiders crawled all over the lawnmower and the floor. I fell, trying to brush them off my hand, and more came over me as they tried to escape the now-destroyed safety of the lawnmower engine.

I could feel them all over my legs, body and hair, and I kept screaming, trying frantically to brush them all off me. I shouted and screamed as loudly as I could, even when I felt one around and then inside my mouth, which I spat out.

I must have been screaming loud enough for my parents and grandparents to hear, as it can’t have been long until they found me.

I cried and cried and cried as they brushed them all off me, and as they told me off for going into the shed, and as they stripped my clothes off, and then put me into the shower. I cried when I was put to bed that night, and I screamed again when I woke up in the night, surrounded by darkness and convinced I could feel them all over me.

Ever since then, I have never been able to bear them. Any time I see one, I know there must always be more nearby, but I always kill them. Stamp on them, roll up newspapers and squish them until they’re just a small black and red smear, or whatever I have to do.

And it’s while I look at the toddler’s eyes, I remember it.

I babysit now, usually two nights a week. It’s a good time to study or watch television or talk to my friends on snapchat. I get paid pretty well for it, and I usually like the kids. The parents are out until whatever time they’re out until, and once the kid’s asleep, I get the house to myself. Tonight, they’re at something in town, and will be out most of the night. I have the spare room, which means being paid even more to sleep, which I’m okay with.

He’s old enough to help get himself ready for bed, although I have to help with some of the trickier stuff like changing and brushing teeth properly. But he’s well behaved and actually comes to tell me that it’s his bedtime. I’ve sat for him plenty of times before.

It’s when he does that, that I look at his eyes. They’re dark brown, with black pools in the middle, and framed with thick eyelashes. He looks tired and maybe a little unwell as he tells me he’s ready for bed.

It’s as he’s saying that, that it happens. Two eyelashes, just right at the bottom of his left eye, move. 

They curl up briefly, and then flex straight again.

I am stunned into silence, not understanding what I’m looking at, but then the memory of the shed overwhelms me.

They’re not eyelashes. They’re two small black, hair-like legs.

I grab him as he leaves and turn him around to face me again, and he smiles, not seeing my actions as aggressive, and leans in to hug me.

I let him do it, and then hold him a bit further away at him again, and look at his eyes again.

This time, the eyelashes stay still. Maybe they know I’ve seen them, but I don’t let on. I have to surprise them this time, not let them surprise me. And I have to be sure.

I help him get changed, and take the opportunity to look at the rest of his skin. It takes me a while, because I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but then I see it.

His back is very slightly moving. Underneath the skin. Small waves of constant movement. It’s almost imperceptible. But once I see it’s there, I understand what is happening.

In biology, a little while ago, I learned about parasitic wasps that lay eggs inside their prey. The eggs then hatch and they devour their victim from within, controlling them beforehand.

I can’t let them know that I know. But as he puts on his pyjama top, he smiles at me before he goes to brush his teeth, and I have to look away, pretending to check something on my phone.

His open mouth, smiling at me. I can’t look at it without imagining spiders pouring out of it. Not that close to me. I can’t do it.

He goes to the bathroom, and I follow him. I steel myself, and I put a towel around him as he stands on the step and I pretend everything is okay and I put the toothpaste onto the brush, and put my hand over his as he holds it and I pretend that I can’t feel the scuttling movement underneath my hand as we brush his teeth.

I put him to bed, which still has the barriers up a bit to stop him falling out, and leave the nightlight on, and I watch him carefully while I tell him a bedtime story. Every sentence I finish, I look again at him, and each time, I see more and more movement.

He pretends to fall asleep, or rather they pretend to fall asleep, and I go downstairs.

They are in him, swarming all inside him, just waiting to come out.

I go into the kitchen and take one of the knives. I don’t know if he can be saved. I don’t know if I’m going to be trying to cut the spiders out of him without killing him too, or if he’s already dead and just pretending. But if he is, at least he won’t feel anything.

I take a deep breath and climb the stairs. I know that once I make that first cut, the spiders are going to come swarming out. Thousands of legs and bodies.

But I have to kill them all.

I hold the knife carefully and open the bedroom door. 

Agoraphobia - OctoboPhobia Short Story

She walks with a stutter. A hesitation that she can't get past. Every few steps, it's like watching a needle skip on a record.

The mall is enormous and crowded. Escalators opposite the entrances are next to six feet tall maps with "you are here" pointers proving difficult to find quickly. It clearly overwhelms her. She stands in front of the map, trying to work it out but it confuses her. She looks at it like someone trying to work out a magic eye painting.

Frustrated and upset, she has to move when someone behind her says something. She steps to the side and immediately apologises, her voice a half pitch higher than usual.

No further conversation takes place, and she watches whoever it was walk away. She's burning with embarrassment. She got in the way. Again.

She has always hated being out like this. Ever since she was a little girl, hating school not because of the subjects or the teachers but because of the lunchtimes and the schoolyard. The hundreds of loud moving elements around her shouting and screaming and playing and, once they realised she was vulnerable to this, taunting and teasing.

Ever since she was at university, having to get food with everyone else and stand outside classes with everyone else, having to go through a thousand conversations she didn't know how to have. The everyday brutality of small talk.
With people she knows, she is comfortable. More than comfortable. She is funny and confident and relaxed. She has no problem surrounding herself with friends. But she doesn't know how to make them.

She looks for safety. Always. Bedrooms, houses, cars, classrooms... in these things, she has a roof and walls that keep the rest of the world out.

A place like this? All space and people, surrounded above and below by people, moving hassled and determined people, all of whom seem to know how to do this when she doesn't? A place where she feels she stands out like a white hair where there wasn't one before? If it isn't her worst nightmare, it's certainly on the list.

But she is still young, despite how she feels sometimes when she wakes up in the night,  and she is in love.

And for love, she has come to this terrible mass of corporations, and will brave the crowds and the spaces, all to buy a gift that will make her smile, and the next time they're lying next to each other on the sofa, their long hair tangled together, she'll be able to reach to her wrist, stroke it and smile and it'll be a perfect thing they share.

For this, she is here, trying to look at the map without getting in anyone's way, frantically hoping nobody notices her.
She traces the route along the map with her finger for a moment, repeating the directions to herself and then sets in search of the shop.

The escalator gives her something to hold onto for a few scant moments, and just the feeling of stability that provides gives her some brief salvation and calm.
When she gets to the top, she begins to panic, losing herself for a moment. The scale and size of the place threatens to overwhelm her, and she looks like she's stepped into a plummeting fall, until she sees a shop she recognises from the map, and the panic fades.

She walks uncertainly, the love in her heart proving stronger than the fear in her throat.

She tries not to look into the shops as she passes. It feels like looking in on someone's living room window on a street at night, something else she tries and often fails not to do. It feels intrusive, spying on a life she can never have.

A full quarter of the mall later, it happens.

It's the toy shops, of all places. The toy shops. A run of them, with a play area outside, keeping their wares in the site of the children playing while their parents rest, letting them see other parents and children walking out with toys that they immediately want and harass and cry and end either getting or being dragged away, kicking and screaming in jealous fury.

Something happens. A stumble. A trip. A fall. And then... children laughing? Pointing? Parents rolling eyes or, even worse, offering to help.

Suddenly the centre of attention with nowhere to escape to, her breath starts to shorten. Her eyes grow wide as she stumbles to her feet, and then she blushes and reddens and cannot hold back the tears.

It has all gone wrong. Children laughing and pointing, even innocently. Reminding her, almost certainly of being the object of scorn and pity in the school playground.

The regret at her attempt to come out and find a shop is written across her face, but there is no anger and there is no blame. There is only horror and burning shame.
She flees, her foot twisted painfully and her breath catching, somewhere else. Anywhere else. But the tears in her eyes blind her and she almost trips again, staggering into a stranger.

Now, she can barely breathe at all, except for occasional ragged wheezing loud gasps, that must only attract more attention that she cannot deal with right now.

She starts to run, tears streaming down her face, in absolute terror of people. She is partly doubled over, seemingly in agony.

With so many people around, she tries to find a safe area while trying not to look at anyone, so she can try to convince herself they are not looking at her, but the pain is making her clutch her chest again.
Trying to breathe, she sees a toilet and bolts towards it awkwardly.

Once in, she storms into a cubicle and sits, one hand against the door and the other clutching herself as she tries to regulate her breathing and get through to the other side of what she must surely begin to realise is far more than a panic attack.

I whisper to her that I love her and I try to hold her as she dies, the heart attack deadly and painful.

She doesn't hear me. She doesn't feel me in the cubicle.

But she never has. Not in these last three years that I've come here every day and watched her relive the last steps of her life.

I'll be here tomorrow and every day, trying to hold her and telling her that I love her and the watch that I found on the last page on her browser history would have been so perfect.

Maybe one day, it will help. Maybe one day I can help her be at peace.

Until then, I come here each day, reliving it as she relives it.

Acrophobia - OctoboPhobia Short Story

Acrophobia

I looked down.

Standing in the elevator, I looked at the floor, not at the buttons, not at the door, and not at the display telling me how many floors we’d climbed. I tried not to think about the cable holding us up, and I tried not to think about what would happen if the cable snapped, and I tried not to think about that moment where gravity suddenly decides to reassert its claim.

A double-booking. I gripped the handle of my suitcase and, not for the first time since I’d walked into this hotel, inwardly cursed the asshole that booked my room at the travel company my employers use.

I was desperate to sit in the bar for a bit. Sit and read a book for an hour or two with a glass of good whiskey and watch life go by. Or, hell, bad whiskey, for that matter.  But that would mean getting back into the lift and feeling my stomach slowly rise as it descended.

As it slowly (hesitatingly and grindingly) made its way to the top floor, I kept looking down.

It finally stopped and the doors, with a whine that called desperately for oil, opened. I pulled my luggage behind me, and walked down, looking for my room number. It was unusual, in this day and age to have a key rather than a card, but that was an unusual thing that I had no issues with.

When I found the room, I opened the door, switched on the light and looked around. The lights were on a low setting, and most of the room looked welcoming. But the sight out of the window made me immediately feel nauseated. I could see out over the buildings across a lot of the city. I let go of my luggage and dashed across to it, and felt at the curtains to close them, when I saw something that made me feel even more uneasy.

An old fire escape. The kind that zig zagged and stepped up the entire building. The ones that ended somewhere with a ladder dangling onto the pavement below.

I pulled the curtains together and frantically looked around the room, looking for the safety card, which was on the wall next to the door. I read over it, looking for their fire regulations, and slowly let out a sigh of relief.

There was an indoor fire escape down the end of the corridor, just past the elevator. One made of thick concrete, that would take hours for fire to even touch, allowing for safe exit. And, more importantly, safe indoor exit.

The rest of the evening passed smoothly. I didn’t leave the room. I worked for a while, then made my way into the slightly stocked minibar, and had a drink while I read a bit of the novel I’d been trying to finish for the last month.

The next morning, I would make my way across town to the meeting, and then I’d get back on the train home. Tired, I decided to shower in the morning, and concentrated on reading for a bit, so I turned the lights up a bit more. I settled back onto the bed, on top of the blankets, and, for a while, was peaceful.

That peace was shattered by a shout and some scuffling in the room across from me. There was the sound of some fighting, and then the beginning of a scream, which was cut off, almost before it got started properly. It was cut off by some sharp, strange sounding smacks. Which went on for a while.

I didn’t know what to do. Should I call reception? I walked quietly over to the door and looked through the spyhole.

It gave a fishbowl view of the part of the corridor in front of me as I could feel my eyelashes against the small metal and glass hole.

I watched as the man with the fire axe walked out of the room across from mine.

He was tall and powerfully built. He had dark hair and his light coloured shirt was sprayed with blood. He looked around carefully, and was clearly listening as well.

He looked back into the room, and while I strained, I couldn’t see anything beyond the door, and then he took one final look around the corridor before he turned and began to close the door behind him.

Then, briefly, he froze.

He looked back carefully, looking around the corridor one more time, looking for something that had evidently caught his attention, as he tried to work out what it was.

He was staring right at my door.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.  I just watched as he looked down towards the bottom of the door. For what felt like long, long moments that stretched out like a yawning chasm, he just looked.

Carefully, slowly, I looked down towards my feet. And it felt like the floor had been ripped away from underneath my when I realised what he saw.

The light from the room was visible underneath the door. A little strip of light, interrupted by the shadows of two feet.

I looked back to the spyhole, just as he walked right up to it, face first. I could see that he had specks of blood on his face, including a spray down his right eyelid and cheek.. Tiny, almost imperceptible, but definitely there. I couldn’t help it, but I stepped back, recoiling.

The moment I did so, the door vibrated and shook. He was clearly trying to get in.

I forgot about subtlety and ran for the phone. Grabbing the receiver with one hand, I tried to dial with my other. My hands were shaking, so it took me a moment, as the door continued to shake.

It rang, and every time it did so, it felt like an hour had passed. Eventually, it was picked up by the man on reception.

“Please, I…”

“How can I help you, sir?”

“Help me," I whispered, my breath feeling icy cold and making it painful to breathe in. "Send help… I’m on the top floor, and there’s a man…”

A heavy crack sounded from the door.

“I’m sorry, sir, the line appears to be bad.”

The door shook with the weight and violence of the crack the second time, and this time, the dull thudding sound in the middle of the crack meant that I understood what he was doing.

“Help me!” I screamed at him. “He’s outside, oh God, he’s outside.”

Another cracking thud came from the door as he swung the axe into it again.

I left the phone for a moment, and moved back so I could see the door. As heavy and thick as the wood was, it was beginning to splinter and bend in the middle. It would take him time to get in, but probably not as long as it would take the police to get here.

I picked the phone back up. “There’s someone with an axe,” I said, somehow sounding so much more calm than I felt. “He’s killed people and he’s trying to kill me. I’m on the top floor. You have to send help and then get the police here.”

Another smash at the door, and this time, I saw the very tip of the axe break through.

“Sir, I’ll… I’ll call them now. Then I’ll ring you right back.”

I put the phone down and climbed over the bed towards the window. I didn’t look out, but instead looked right down at the catch, flipping it before lifting the frame up as high as it would go.

A blast of cold, vicious air whipped against me as another crash, this time with not so much a thud as a breaking noise, came from behind me.

I lifted my foot across the window until I was straddling it. And then I put my foot down onto the fire escape.

It shifted the second I did so. It obviously hadn’t been used in years. I grabbed the window frame as my stomach dropped and I stared at the wood. I clutched it so hard I could feel my nails digging into it.

I glanced back at the door and could now see a larger crack, and through it, the colour of the wall beyond. And then I could see a blood stippled shoulder barging against the crack, as it then lengthened and widened further up the height of the door.

There was no choice. No other option.

Without looking, I shifted all of my weight onto the metal lattice platform, and the entire thing swayed a bit, and I nearly lost my balance, but it held. I leaned across and felt the railing against my hand, noticing that it was a lot more slick with sweat against the flaked, thick and sharp paint.

I could barely breathe. The wind was like being hit with thick wet, cold blankets, and I could only take air in through the shallowest of gasps. I couldn’t turn back to the room, but I couldn’t bear to look around. I couldn’t bear to see the tops of buildings around me. It was a view I could hardly stand from the ground while looking up. From here…

The railing. That was what I could concentrate on. The paint and rust as I moved, hand over hand, and shuffled across to the steps…

As I found the corner, and could feel the end of the platform with my foot, I could hear what had to be one of the final cracks from the door in my room. It wouldn’t take him long to get through now.

I had to move faster. I couldn’t slowly grasp my way down the entire length of the escape. I had to move faster.

That’s why I moved down the steps faster, not carefully feeling my way down each step, but letting myself move down as if it were a normal staircase, a regular starcase, each one just a step from the front door onto the sidewalk.

It was only four steps down when I slipped. I don’t know what it was on. But one of the metallic steps was slick, and my foot skid against it, no purchase at all.

I tried to stick out my other foot to regain my balance, but I felt it twist and snap underneath my weight, and I crashed down hard.

There weren’t too many steps, but it was enough for me to gain momentum as I slammed into the railings at the end of them.

One of the railings was eaten through with rust. It gave immediately, and I barrelled through it.

The only thing that stopped me from falling was that I’d somehow managed to grab the latticed platform. The muscles in my shoulders screamed out in pain, as gravity took hold of my ankles and pulled with all of its might.

I could hear sirens in the background. Looking up, I could see his head looking out of the window, looking down and then looking right at me.

In movies, falling always looks graceful. It looks like swimming in air. But I’ve always known that it happens so much faster. You’re not moving through something with resistance. You’re whipping down, landing before you can even take it in. It's faster than you can possibly imagine. And then it's all over.

The wind slapped me, and the rusted metal stabbed into my fingers.

I couldn’t help it.

I looked down.

Feeding

At times of stress, I've had a tendency towards nosebleeds. Sometimes, I'm immediately aware of it, when the pressure behind my sinus builds until it feels like it pops and drains, and the red warmth spreads down from my nostrils. Other times, I'm not even aware of it until I feel the coppery, tangy taste on my lips, glance down and see the tell-tale drops on my shirt or my shoes or the floor.

The worst one was the day our daughter died.

Months old, lying in the cot, and I was woken by my husband's screams. I remember opening my eyes, and I remember standing with him by the cot, but I don't remember actually getting out of bed. I only remember standing there with him, looking down at her, and registering somewhere in the base of my skull that I was barefoot.

I hate being barefoot. I always have. Usually, when I get up, I plant my feet into a pair of slippers, and I obviously hadn't done that. The screams had made me move with a primal urgency, but when I got there, when I stood there with him looking down, my brain wanted to think about something else rather than admit what I could plainly see.

She lay still, her eyes unfocused and staring without seeing. My husband was crying, and touching her hand.

"She's cold," he said, and then he wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me so hard that it hurt. "I'm sorry, Annie. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

I wanted to push him away from me and hit him and hurt him and blame him, but I couldn't do that because it wasn't his fault and it was hurting him as much as it was hurting me. I just wanted someone to blame. But I let him hold me. For a short while, and then I made him let go so I could touch her and hold her for myself.

Her skin being cold felt wrong, but the lack of any movement felt more so. My fingers pressed into her side as I lifted her and it felt like I was handling a large piece of meat rather than my daughter.

As I held her against me, I didn't feel the pressure popping. I didn't even notice the wetness spreading down my face, as it was mixed with tears of anger and sorrow.

"Annie!" My husband shouted, and I looked down and realised that the blood had poured over her face and babygro, making it look like an obscene blessing. I put her back in the cot, as quickly as I could.

"I'm sorry", I said, cupping my hands to my nose. "I didn't know." I fled to the bathroom to clean up, and the main thing I could think of was how much I hated being in bare feet, the cold lino against my skin.

As I washed, I heard him shout again, and ran back, blood and water still down my front.

"She's... she's..."

Her mouth was opening and closing, as she fed on the blood. Her eyes were moving, and as we watched we could see her skin grow warmer.

We just watched for a few minutes. Neither of us moved. I could feel the cold bloody water on the front of my pyjama top.

"We can't tell anyone," I said.

He looked at me and, after a moment, nodded.

We soon learned that she wouldn't eat anything else other than blood. We tried other options. We tried blood from animals (sourced from the local butcher), but she wouldn't go near it. We heated it up, and that almost worked - she accepted it, but couldn't keep it down, vomiting up a lot of creamy blood.

It needed to be human, and it needed to be fresh.

For a while, we took turns. We bought razor blades, and kept them carefully sterilized. We would cut our arms once a day, and drip feed the blood into her mouth. He took mornings. I took evenings. Sometimes, she would gurgle happily while she drank it. Other times, she would accept it grumpily. It depended how hungry she was.

But after she fed, those hungry small little eyes would look sated and sleepy.

We took to wearing bandages on our arms, covered up with long sleeves. The skin became a little weaker and would break more easily, so we had to be careful otherwise people would see the blood seeping into our clothing.

After a while, I took to using the razor blades to slice the skin just above my nipple. I had to do it deeply in order to produce enough blood, but it also felt a little like she was latching on and feeding normally, and for just a little while, I was able to feel like a proper mother. I would watch her scrunch up her eyes and concentrate on suckling.

Changing her should have felt more grotesque than it was. The thick, clumped blood that she excreted was messy, but (as with all emissions at that age) it felt more like an extension of our own bodies, so we just quietly got on with it.

It exhausted both of us. It took quite an amount of blood each time to sate her, but she was healthy and comfortable, and that was the most important thing.

It wasn’t long until she started teething, which was obviously painful, but it did, at least, make her gums bleed sometimes, which appeared to be something that let her ignore the pain at times and stop crying.

But it was when she moved onto solids that things became difficult. Her teeth had grown in enough for her to clamp down and bite, and it was with a sense of wanting to feel her close to me again that I sliced the skin above my nipple (easily gouging into it enough for blood to flow now – fresh scar tissue is thin and tears easily). She clamped and bit and slowly tore, and it took all of my love not to ball my hand into a fist and punch her to try to get her off me.

When she finally let go, and thankfully with not that much flesh torn off my breast, she swallowed and then laughed happily. I held her and patted her back as she brought up a little bit of blood. Thankfully, no flesh came along with it. It was the first solid thing that she kept down.

I performed first aid on myself, and my husband stitched the skin back together when he got home. It hurt and I cried and I swore.

We tried meat, and we tried everything we could think of, but she either wouldn’t eat it or (in the case of raw pork heated in the microwave), she wouldn’t keep it down. We were reduced to drip feeding her again, but she was getting angrier and more hungry.

My husband talked of cutting fine slices from his leg, but I pointed out that she was only going to need more. He wouldn’t be able to heal fast enough, and I wasn’t prepared to lose anyone in this family in order to keep another part of it alive.

We drove around the streets of our city, in the early hours of the morning, looking for the homeless. We didn’t look too much in the centre, from fear of hidden cameras. Instead, we looked for those who sought privacy themselves.

The first was a young man, drunk and high and asleep on a park bench covered with a blanket. He looked thin and gaunt, and we were able to carry him to the car with the promise of taking him for some food. When we got him to the house, we took him to the cellar and we killed him there, and cut a large strip from his thigh. Almost panicking, my husband held the warm, bloody meat to our daughter’s mouth, and she carefully ate it and we held her and we told her what a good girl she was and we cried out of relief. We had enough from him to last her weeks.

Or so we thought. Actually, after two days, she wouldn’t eat it any more. We managed to get her to eat a little more by heating it, but after another day, she couldn’t keep it down any more. It had to be fresh.

We became ghouls, tracking down the homeless and abducting them, taking them to our cellar and keeping them drugged and gagged as we crucified them against the wall. We would give them enough food and drink to keep them alive, and we would do our best to keep them clean, even though there was so much blood, so much more than we ever thought could fit in a person. Once, our daughter sat underneath the stream and played. It was the happiest we had ever seen her.

We could keep them alive for weeks as we carved as much flesh off them as possible to feed her. Men and women. Old and young. Sometimes younger than we imagined. Runaways and homeless.

But she fed and she grew stronger, and, given a break from being the sole source of her blood, we grew slowly stronger as well.

She’s been crawling recently, and beginning to make words. We have gates against the stairs and anywhere where we might sleep. But we are scared of what could happen when she grows old enough to totter and move quickly. She looks at us greedily, and it is frightening to be looked at by someone you love so much as they balance their love and their instinct. We are beginning to be scared of sleeping, and for now, we do it in shifts, but we won’t be able to do this forever.

I’ve been ill recently, and it took me over a month before I realised that I hadn’t checked my cycle. I’ve never not thought about it before. I don’t even remember the last time my husband and I had sex. We have had, but it happens as instinct rather than love, and sometimes I’m not fully awake. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens.

And now I know I’m pregnant again. It’s too early to feel it, I know that. But I imagine that I can. I can imagine it inside me, growing and feeding from me.

And it is hungry.

The Little Apostrophe

"We're sorry," the little apostrophe was told by the big letter. "There just isn't a place for you anymore."

The apostrophe shuffled his little feet. "I don't understand," he said. "There are apostrophes everywhere. Why me?"

"I know," P said. "I didn't ask for the promotion. I was just a letter. I mean, when T took a sabbatical, along with l and the e's, I wasn't expecting to get asked to be a capital."

"But I'd been doing the work well," the little apostrophe said. "That's why I was brought in. To do their work while they weren't around."

"And we all appreciate the work. You've done all the other apostrophes proud."

The little apostrophe wasn't sure about that. Why hadn't he partnered up with someone and found work in speech? There was so much work in speech. But no, he'd had to go for something modern and cutting edge. Communication. That was where the future was.

"Perhaps..." he faltered. "Perhaps we could try to remind people? That it should be a longer word?"

"People don't like to be reminded of it," P said. "They say it's old fashioned. It's just a Phone now."

"I see."

"Look, you'll find something else." P said, glancing around at h,o, n and e. "We all know that. Find something that isn't as silent this time. Take the credit you deserve."

The little apostrophe nodded, but his heart wasn't in it. The market was saturated for what he did, and he knew it.

"We're really sorry," P said.

The little apostrophe found a spot on the floor and stared at it. Maybe if he looked at it for long enough, all of this would just go away. "I understand."

He didn't, really, but he couldn't find much to say.

Apostrophes were generally silent, after all.

1 Missed Call

You have

1 Missed call from PAUL

1 New Voicemail

Diane looked at her phone for a long time before dialling the voicemail.

You have one new voicemail. Press 1 to –

She pressed 1.

“Hi babe. I’m stuck in traffic. I’ll try and make it up on the way, but hold off on dinner for a bit, will you?”

Press 1 to hear the message again. Press 2 to save it. Press 3 to delete it.

She paused, and then hesitantly pressed the 2 button before finally sorrow and relief overtook her and she burst into tears.

The hospital had called her on the landline, and she hadn’t seen the missed call until after they confirmed Paul’s death. The car had been hit by a truck less than a mile away from the house.

Her first thought, even though it sickened her in a way, was that she was free.

Free from the last fifteen years of marriage. Free from the manipulation. Free from the verbal abuse. Free from the disparaging remarks about her appearance. Free from the violence that he subjected her to every time he got drunk, and free from the inadequate apologies the next day.

She supposed she’d loved him but that feeling had been overtaken by fear a long time ago.

She went through the motions of a funeral, and the proper show of the bereaved wife and then moved to a new job and new life.

One night, she called up her voicemail. She decided to hear his voice one last time before deleting it forever.

You have one saved message. Press 1 to –

She pressed 1.

“Babe? Babe, I don’t know what’s going on. It hurts so much. I keep saying hello to you, but you don’t respond. What’s going on, baby? We can work this out.”

She deleted the message with a hand that hadn’t been shaking a minute before.

She didn’t sleep that night.

A week later, she checked her phone again. She must have been dreaming.

You have one saved message. Pre –

“Why aren’t you answering me, Diane? I said sorry last time. I meant it. Why aren’t you answering? Baby?”

She deleted it and threw the phone down.

The messages didn’t stop. He was always confused and always slightly scared. They came through about once a week at most, and once a month at least.

She changed phones, but they kept turning up. Changed numbers, to no avail.

Eventually, she met Mark. A nice man, this time. A quiet one. He respected her. Loved her.

The messages changed.

“Who the fuck is he, Diane? I saw you with him. Saw you. I will beat you until you can’t fucking walk.”

She stopped owning a phone then. Moved in with him. It worked.

Until he was hit by a car.

She was given his belongings by the hospital. Including his phone.

She looked at the screen.

You have

1 missed call from PAUL

1 new voicemail.

Anonymous

The actress accepted the award. Newspaper editors glared at the screen. Not only had she won the award yet again, but it meant that the front page would be wasted on an actress in her late sixties, rather than the cleavagy young thing that had also been nominated.

She was gracious, noting that she felt that she was very lucky. After the award ceremony, she made only perfunctory appearances at the after-parties. They were important for networking, but were for the publicity-conscious, which she no longer needed to be. Ten, twenty, thirty years ago, maybe. But no more. 

Instead, she went home.

She received multiple phone calls, and had many messages, but the only one she cared about was the one that told her that she had to be killed.

She cried at first, but she knew what it meant.

She had a stiff drink and then made a phone call. It was the early hours of the morning, but it didn't matter. She knew they'd answer.

They did, and they knew it was her calling.

"Does it really need to be so soon?"

The woman on the other side of the phone was pleasant and professional. "I'm afraid so. The time has come."

“You’re sure?”

“There’s no need to be scared,” she was told. “It won’t take long. Come in on Thursday. That way, we’ll announce it on Saturday morning and get maximum exposure in the weekend papers.”

She said good bye and put the phone down. “I know it won’t take long”, she said to herself, wishing that she’d said that to the woman on the phone.

She looked in the mirror while she removed her makeup. Not just the first layer, the eye liner and the makeup, but the rest. The latex, the putty, everything. It took hours to put on every morning, but always came off so quickly.

Taking off the tinted contact lenses last, she looked at her own eyes. Removed of the dullness of the contacts, they shone brighter than they had on screen for years.

On Thursday, she sat waiting in the clinic. The nurse came out to her. A young (yes, young, of course he was young, she thought to herself) man.  They introduced each other, then he said, almost predictably:

“I’m a big fan.”

She smiled. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

“Look, before this happens, could I get you to sign something for me?” He was, bless him, awkward.

“Of course.”

He pulled a DVD out of his jacket pocket. “It’s not for eBay or anything. It’s a transfer of one of your first movies.”

She looked at it. “I didn’t even know any copies existed.”

“They’re not allowed to.” He said. “You’re too recognisable in it.”

“I’m too recognisable in all of them,” she said. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I got in when they found out that I’d lied about not being in films before?”

“I know. As I said, fan. I had no idea you were one of us until you came back in the seventies.”

“So how did you get a copy of it?”

“I was a projectionist in the twenties. I kept the original. You were amazing in it.”

She couldn’t help it. She started to cry.

“I’ve never…” she said, gulping for air, “I’ve never done this before.”

“Really?” He asked. “I thought you had back in – “

“No,” she said. “The theatre… God, that was easy.  It wasn’t until photography turned up that the problems started. Stupid bloody invention.”

He hesitated, and then asked “Is it true that you always wore sunglasses for photos?”

She laughed, although the tears continued. “Yes. Worked great for about a decade.”

“It’s just going to be simple surgery. You’ll be unconscious, and we’ll break and reset some bones. It’ll hurt for a while, but it’s so much more effective than plastic surgery.”

“I know. I just… I wish there was another way.”

“You’re in the wrong business for that,” he said. “If you want to continue, you need to change your looks. The arts aren’t like other industries. You’re too public.”

“And it’s not like I can be anonymous.”

“Not with what you do. Writer, street artist… you can do those and be anonymous. You know that big guy in Britain, does the graffiti? Nobody sees that and thinks of the stuff he did during the renaissance. You can get away with that with art. Not the screen though.”

“I know. It’s just…I’ve really liked being her.” She dabbed her eyes, which had finally stopped crying.

“You’ll still be you.” He said.

“No, I won’t.” She said.

“Why not?”

“It won’t be my face any more. It’ll be a stranger in the mirror.”

“Then you’ll get to be someone else. Someone new.”

“They want me to have a boob job, you know that?”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll get to be the young actress now, and they don’t want my body recognised. It won’t even be my body any more. I refused to do it while I was… me. Now, though, they’re insisting, or I won’t be allowed to go back to it.”

“There’s a plus point though. Next time you do this, you get them taken out again. You get to do that.”

She laughed. “How fucking efficient.”

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”

“Wait,” she said, looking in the mirror as she stood up. “Just let me say goodbye.”

Months later, she stood in front of the mirror in her new bedroom. She undressed and looked at her body first. She still didn’t like the new breasts. But she did like the tattoo. She’d never dared have one before.

Then she stood closer to the mirror, and looked closely at her face. She ran her fingers across her face, feeling her way around while she looked.

She didn’t know the face. Not yet. She was still working on it, but she could finally hold her own gaze without crying.

“Hello,” she said. “Hello, you. Hello, me.”