Tracey S. Rosenberg
Lindia slunk across the departure hall, clutching the notebook in her overcoat pocket. She struggled to block out the cheery customer service agents behind the Sunshine Air check-in desks. One of them would be crushed when an eighteen-wheeler smashed into her convertible; another’s undiagnosed stage three ovarian cancer would fail to respond to treatment.
Lindia had stayed awake all night, after taking speed to ensure she didn’t doze off. She started walking to the airport at dawn, in her battered shoes, because buses were intolerable. She arrived just after noon, frantic in case she’d miscalculated. Within a few hours, she’d been moved on twice by airport security guards, who threatened to arrest her if they spotted her again.
She had to deliver her message to Balcan Dobbs before he boarded Sunshine Air flight 647, scheduled to depart at a quarter past eight.
The evening news hour finished a few minutes before seven, always ending with Balcan’s solemn trademark sign-off: “It’s been a long day. Good night.” Add ten minutes for talking to his producer, another ten for wiping off makeup and changing from his professional suit into his velvet jacket, and five more to get from his dressing room to the late-model limousine which would speed him to the airport. Balcan always flew Sunshine Air because of his promotional obligations—only a month earlier, he’d renewed his lucrative contract in spite of a massive loss posted by the company that quarter. The only route to the Sunshine Air departure gates was the corridor where Lindia was pacing.
Her path was suddenly blocked by half a dozen slim teen girls in pleated skirts, laughing their way into the terminal. She nearly crammed a fist in her mouth as their futures flashed like a slideshow of despair: one, pregnant though she didn’t yet know it, would die of a botched abortion; another would topple off a hotel balcony in the Caribbean after a three-day bender. And then there was the head cheerleader, with her cherry-red lipstick and 36-DDs...
Lindia stumbled forward and punched her on the shoulder. “Your leukaemia’s coming back. Do you think I like seeing these things? I can’t stop seeing them!”
The girl shrieked and recoiled, raising her manicured hands to protect herself.
Across the terminal, a tall man in a black velvet jacket was waving to the Sunshine Air customer service agents as he strolled towards the departure gates.
Lindia leapt over the feet of the cheerleaders, ignoring the squeals of protest and a cry of “crazy bitch!” Hurtling after Balcan Dobbs, she grabbed his elbow just as he passed the newsstand. With her other hand, she yanked the notebook out of her coat pocket.
“Don’t get on the plane,” she gasped, waving it at him. “I have all the proof here.”
Even up close, without layers of studio makeup, Balcan was coolly handsome. With no greater expression than a raised eyebrow, he jerked his arm free from her grasp.
“Take the train, or tell them you’re sick,” Lindia insisted. “But don’t get on the plane!”
That made Balcan pause. “It’s no use,” he said in his dignified news anchor voice.
“It would save your life. If you get on the plane, you’ll die.”
“Oh, I’m fully aware that Sunshine Air 647 will crash thirty minutes into its flight, resulting in the loss of all lives on board.”
“You can’t know that,” Lindia spluttered. “I never told you!”
Two bored sales girls watched them from the newsstand. The head cheerleader was talking to a security guard, gesturing towards Lindia.
“The plane will drop without warning,” Balcan said, wearing the same plastic, irresistible smile he displayed every night on air. “The result of mechanical failure due to cutbacks in Sunshine Air’s technical services department—ironic, since they doubled my promotional fees. The pilot will scramble to recover, but he’s addicted to Seconal and his reactions are too slow. The co-pilot is going through a divorce following the death of his only child, and will be grateful to take the easy way out. The total casualties will be six crew members of Sunshine Air and twenty-three passengers, including news anchor Balcan Dobbs.”
Lindia hurled the notebook at his chest, smacking him with the scribblings of the disaster she had foreseen every night when he appeared on her salvaged television. “How do you know all this? Who told you?”
Her curse had grown steadily over the years, until she could barely keep from drowning in the sea of impending tragedy and blissful ignorance. Malls, buses, parks—any place where people gathered became congregations of death that only she could witness. Her attempts to escape her overwhelming knowledge led her into misery; she barely scraped by, living in a sublet dive, slinking on the outskirts, struggling not to shriek from the deaths of an entire city, all alone.
Not alone. Someone had warned Balcan Dobbs. If they could find each other, maybe they could survive together.
“Tell me who else lives with this curse,” she pleaded. One of the Sunshine Air customer service agents? The cherry-lipped cheerleader?
Three security guards were approaching. The black woman in front, calmly trying to coax Lindia to step away, would be killed in a shoot-out.
Balcan’s face was a terrible mask. “Let me tell you what even you cannot see. The guards will eventually release you because you’re too crazy for them to deal with. When you return home, all your possessions will be gone—stolen by the junkie who sold you that speed. Tomorrow, while searching for food in trash cans, you’ll find a discarded handgun with two bullets in the chambers. You’ll make a mess with the first one, but succeed with the second. And your curse will be done.” Balcan flashed a brilliant smile just as the guards pounced. “But mine ends tonight, on Sunshine Air flight 647. I’m sorry we didn’t meet sooner. It’s been a long day for both of us. Good night.”
……………………………………………
Tracey S. Rosenberg is from the USA and lives in Scotland, where she is continually reminded that she sounds American. She has run out of sarcastic retorts. She’s been published widely, including Best British Short Stories 2015, and is Bookstalls Manager for the StAnza Poetry Festival.
We Have Magnetic Trees
Ian Hunter
Heading home we came to Little Gasko, our closest village, straight into a traffic jam caused by a group of ‘Free to Be Fatties’ demonstrators. Some of them were walking around in their underwear, others wore wobbly fat suits, a couple looked like orange sumo wrestlers.
“Who are these people, Dad?” Mark asked, on one of the rare occasions he looked up. While beside him, Nick’s head was still lowered, lost in a game.
“Just a protest group,” I told him, frowning as we slowed to join the queue of cars, my mind doing calculations. Take a right, then a left, then another left. Would that bring us out beyond the protestors? I cursed myself for not bringing the satnav but that was in Ali’s Car.
Two people were waddling down beside the line of cars. One handed out leaflets, another had a tray of nibbles. I rolled down the window and sniffed. Somewhere up ahead there was a barbeque. I pulled down my sun visor and changed its mode, lens zooming down the main road.
“Shit,” I muttered, flipping up the visor. Someone had pointed in our direction, faces were turning towards us. A couple of guys with long hair and faces dotted with piercings started to jog closer as quickly as they could in their fat suits.
I looked in the mirror, signalled and swung across the road just as a hand beat against the roof of the Land Rover.
Ali let her window down an inch. “Hey, we’ve got children in here!”
“Why are you letting your land be experimented on?” a man with metal hoops round his nostrils asked, breath close enough to mist the window.
“Because the world needs food that can survive our lousy weather!” I shouted back, turning the car round, and having no choice but to mount the pavement. No way was I going to attempt a three-point turn. They’d lie down behind me in protest. Force me to run over one of them and burst their suit before they farted off through the air to land in a tree or the pond in the village square.
