On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

I’d love to have you as a subscriber to the weekly free story. You can subscribe via email here. Unsubscribe any time, from the link in every issue.

Here's story 202, of 240 so far.

Really Here

Hearst didn’t even feel the object in his coat pocket anymore. He’d gotten used to it, there on his hip at the right side, making the fabric bulge a little. If it wasn’t there, it was in his hand or on a table beside him, and never anywhere else.

He walked down the street, telling himself to notice things, and to think slowly. It was a kind of self-care to just exist in the moment, instead of doing the usual thing and treating every instant as the precursor to the next. If you keep doing that for long enough, you’d end up anticipating your own death, and probably bringing it about too.

A dog barked somewhere, and Hearst smiled at the sound.

It wasn’t aggressive; little more than a hello. He wondered what might have prompted the animal to vocalise, and he slowed a little, straining to hear, in case the sound was repeated. It wasn’t, and he wandered on. The pavement was busy, thronged with people who all wanted to be somewhere else. For them, the street was liminal — a gateway to whatever came next in their calendars. For Hearst, though, it was actually his current engagement.

The pedestrian area ended ahead, and across two lanes of traffic he could see a little park. No children there at this hour — they’d be in school — but he did see a runner, and a woman with a pram. A moment later he spotted a dog, probably the same one, and he could also now see the reason for the bark: its owner was throwing a ball. Hearst smiled again, heading in that direction instinctively.

When he reached the park and went through the waist-height black gate, he quickly found an available bench and sat down. The trees lining the area were surprisingly effective at muffling the traffic noise, and for several minutes he found contentment in just watching the dog run and fetch and return, over and over, without a care in the world beyond trajectory and motion and its own instinct for the chase.

Hearst reached into his coat pocket and took out his notebook, pulling the elasticated strap from the front cover without needing to look, catching the pen as it came free, and twirling it around to a writing position. It was done in the same way that a musician prepares their instrument, or a master of the martial arts takes her stance; without conscious thought, the movements honed by endless repetition.

Opening the book to a new page, he put the pen against the glossy paper.

It’s the dogs who should be training us, he wrote, mouthing the words to himself as they appeared.

He looked up again, finding the animal easily, and then shifted his gaze. The woman pushing the pram gave a brief glance towards the dog when its path brought it nearby, but as soon as she’d established that it was no threat to her child, her attention drifted away again.

The runner came back around, obviously doing circuits of the park, and gave a single glance at the animal, apparently to check that it wouldn’t cross his route and pose a hazard as an obstacle. Then away he went once more. There were others around, and several people passing the park on its outside perimeter, but Hearst didn’t notice any of them taking the time to look within.

The dog’s coat glistened with health, its ribs barely visible, and lean cords of muscle shifted and contracted in its legs. Its tongue was pink and tasting the air, and its eyes were bright with perception and intelligence. The pads of its paws made a low drumbeat on the recently-cut grass, and its speed and grace held a carefree beauty which, in that instant, almost made Hearst weep.

I watched a dog chasing a ball in the park, he wrote on a new line, and somehow it held every answer.

For the thousandth time in his life he wished he could draw, but he also knew that an artist would capture a different, though complementary, part of the truth. Neither was less than the other; they were perspectives of the same. And while a drawing would invite an insight, his pen could render it pre-made, presented for anyone to consider.

A gust of wind blew through the park, rustling leaves and making branches sway. The woman pushing the pram, distant now, stopped to make some adjustment inside, to keep the infant warm.

The dog didn’t care, not even noticing the breeze except as an enhancement or an ambient detail. It wouldn’t care in the least if it rained, or when twilight came. And there was a lesson in that, too. Hearst closed his notebook, securing the pen within and restoring the position of the strap before putting it back in his pocket.

He was surrounded by other people, in every direction, going about their lives. He was by no means alone. But while he knew only the present moment, the others were all on their way, or on their way back. They existed in their minds, either in the past or in the future; in the but-what-if or in the wish-I-had. They were physically near, but they were elsewhere.

Not like him. Not like the dog.

They, at least, were really here.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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