Wishful Inking

Duncan had screwed up again. Broken the promise he'd made to his wife that he'd not land up in prison again. He'd promised her he'd stay clean and he'd messed up – for the second time. It was worse now, because he had a daughter, Poppy, to think of as well, not to mention the little brother or sister she was due to get in about eight months' time.

It was when Abby had told him about the new baby that he'd slipped up. He'd gone to the pub after work to celebrate. He'd celebrated a little bit too much and got into a fight. Grievous bodily harm had been done to a guy simply because he supported, albeit loudly, a different football team. It could have been worse, he mused. If it hadn't been for the fight, he would almost certainly have got into his car and driven home, and caused death by dangerous driving.

You're a dad, now, he admonished himself. You should know better. You have a family. You should be acting responsibly.

He waited and hoped all day that Abby would use the visiting order he'd sent; that one of the officers would come and tell him he had a visitor – but she'd meant what she'd said the last time, that if he got in trouble again, that was it. He would never see her, or Poppy, again.

He only had himself to blame.

He could have evaded capture. He could have brought one of his tattoos to life. A lion, or a wolf, or a dragon. Yes, a dragon would have done the trick. Barbecued the police officers and then flown him home. Yet, if he'd done that, he would have been on the run for the rest of his life. There'd been no shortage of witnesses. They'd recognise the tats, even if they didn't remember his face. He'd done the right thing.

It had seemed like a joke at first, that weird guy who'd offered tattoos like no other. He'd been attracted by the idea of 'special ink' which would obliterate the tats featuring his ex-girlfriend's name and the gang he'd left, and the mistakes, the really awful tats he'd got when drunk. It was the strange guy or Tattoo Fixers. He didn't want his mistakes broadcast on TV, so he'd made an appointment with the strange guy.

The man had described his ink as 'organic'; Abby was always going on about how everything should be organic. Plus the guy had been good. His designs were colourful and realistic, and they had the desired effect of blotting out all the mistakes.

Abby hadn't been overly impressed at first. While she was glad the name of her predecessor was no longer emblazoned on her partner's chest, she thought he'd gone a bit too far. 'You look like someone's doodle pad, Duncan,' she'd commented. 'You didn't need to get that many. You look like a freak.'

All the same, it hadn't been a deal breaker. Poppy had been conceived that same night.

The following day, the weird guy had called him. 'How are the tats?' he inquired. 'Any problems?'

'No, they're still awesome.'

'That's good to know,' the man had said, but Duncan had felt sure he sounded disappointed. 'You have my number. Don't hesitate to call if you have the slightest issue with them.'

He couldn't have known that the tattoo artist had been especially delighted to have attracted this particular customer. Duncan had been the only one to get the special organic ink. It would have been wasted on anyone else. It looks as if it's been wasted on this one, too, the tattooist thought, with a sigh as he put the phone down. Still, you have to take a punt sometimes, if you want results.

Duncan thought it was a trick of the light at first. A wolf drawn in ink on your arm cannot wag its tail. An inked owl cannot blink. Smoke cannot come out of the dragon's nostrils. It had to be an illusion: that or he'd been drinking too much. He turned off the light again and fell asleep.

In the morning, he looked at his inked body again. It looked as if his skin was crawling – literally. The tattoo of a woman, the one his wife had frowned at, was moving. The ink flowed across his skin as if it were alive. It seemed to flow off his body and onto the bedclothes; and there she was. A woman in lacy underwear, as real as if his wife was lying there. 'What the hell...?' he exclaimed. This was not good, especially when he heard the front door open and close, signalling that Abby had returned from her mother's. She was going to come up here and find him in bed with another woman. A woman who couldn't be real, but looked real enough for Abby to be fooled.

'I don't know who you are, or how you got here, but you need to go,' he hissed to the woman.

She shrugged, and before his eyes, faded to look like an animated drawing, in 3d, then 2d, which flowed back into position on his body, just in time.

'Are you all right?' Abby asked, coming into the room. 'You look as if you've seen a ghost.'

'Bad dream,' he said. Perhaps that was all it had been. A realistic, vivid nightmare. He just had to lay off the booze, and perhaps start going to those AA meetings again.

Duncan consoled himself for several days with that thought. Until it happened again, as he was driving home. This time it was the snake which came to life, slithering off him, onto the passenger seat, then onto the floor between the seats. Shaken, he pulled into a lay-by. He was awake enough now. It was really happening, and this time there was a potentially lethal animal hidden in his car. Would it bite him? If so, would it kill him?

It did neither, but did as the woman had done and returned to its position, coiled around his arm. Was that why the guy had kept calling him and asking about the tattoos? Had he known this would happen? Was hallucinating after the application of organic ink a common problem? The man hadn't called now for several days. He'd never left a number.

Duncan turned the car around and drove straight to the place where he'd got those tattoos. The place was boarded up. The weird guy was gone. Perhaps hallucinating after getting the special ink had turned out to be a common problem, and the health and safety people had closed him down.

What to do now? He had no clue. All Google could offer was animation artists who could 'bring your tattoos to life'. Figuratively speaking, only. It didn't look as though anyone else was having this problem, or if they were, they weren't admitting it.

He lived in fear for weeks that it would happen when he wasn't alone; that someone else would witness it and freak out. It didn't happen – the horror only occurred when he was by himself. He soon found that he could concentrate on one part of his body, and the tattoo which was there would be the one to move. He could arm himself with the sword, or produce the lion or the eagle, right there in the living room. The creatures would obey simple commands, like fetching things, and returned to tattoo form when Duncan ordered them to. He could control them. He didn't know how, or why, but it became evident that unless he wanted one of the inks to come to life, they wouldn't; and when he wanted them to vanish, they would.

Even so, living with this peculiarity was a strain. Not knowing why it had happened to him preyed on his mind. Anger at the weird man for leaving him this way festered and burned. He'd stopped calling just before the problem had started.

One day, he took Poppy, aged three, to the fairground. She'd been entranced with the colourful, moving lights and delighted in getting her face all sticky with candy floss. She'd been watching the merry go round with wide eyes when Duncan had spotted the tattooist, beyond the painted, dancing horses, plying his wares on a mobile stand.

It wasn't a good time, not when he had Poppy with him; but he had to know what had been done to him.

'Stay right here,' he said, placing his daughter on a bench. 'Don't move, and don't talk to anyone until I get back.'

She was still hypnotised by the merry go round, and he trusted her to do as she was told.

Duncan sprinted up to the stand, where the tattooist was handing change to a girl he'd just inked with a butterfly on her ankle. 'Remember me, Buster?' he growled. 'We need to talk.'

'Ah. So it did work, after all.'

'What do you mean by that? What did you do to me?'

'Like you said. We need to talk. Come with me. I'll explain everything.'

The man led him to a trailer at the edge of the fairground, and ushered him inside. 'Drink?' he asked, waving a bottle of whisky. 'You might need it.'

'All right. So out with it. What did you do to me?'

'I tattooed you, like you wanted.'

'I didn't want tattoos that move off my body. What's all that about?'

'It's the organic ink.'

'What about it?'

'You know about quantum physics and alternate dimensions, right?'

'I've heard of it. What does it have to do with me?'

'All those things on your body – they exist in an alternate dimension. The ink on your body is their gateway to this world. You can summon them.'

'Are you telling me everyone you ink has other-worldly monsters attached to them?'

'No. Only certain people. Those with the potential to be able to control them. I don't often have customers who have that potential. It doesn't always work, even with those who have it.'

'Have what?'

'There are people with special abilities. Genetic variants, I believe you call them.'

'You mean superheroes?'

'That's exactly what I mean.'

'I'm no superhero.'

'You sure? A whole lot of genetic variants never even know what they are. They either never discover their talents in the first place or if they do, they just think they're merely remarkably good at something. Are you remarkably good at anything?'

'Well... I'm strong. The weightlifting coach at my gym said he'd never seen anything like it. He was going to take me on, get me into the Olympics, but I ended up in prison instead.'

'That'll be it, then. There's your power. Only a genetic variant would have a chance of being able to summon the creatures. That's why you got my special organic ink and your mates didn't.'

'You could have stuck around to explain all this.'

'I did. I called you, remember? I thought it would happen more quickly. I'd got to assuming it wasn't working; that your variance wasn't conducive to it. Most aren't, you see. I assumed they were just regular tattoos. I was wrong. I apologise.'

'Any more of us out there? People with live tattoos?'

'I only ever met one other variant it worked for. I had a commission for a time with this organisation called the Vipers. They have a viper tattooed on their wrists when they're recruited. I did a few. If you see anybody with a Viper on their wrist, keep well away from them. They're lethal. Oh, and don't ever admit you know that. People have been murdered for less. Point is, there was this one guy I inked during my time there, whose viper comes to life. Kind of handy for an assassin.'

'Well, I'm not an assassin.' He drained his glass. 'I'm an ordinary guy, trying to be a family man... Oh, shit! Poppy! I have to go...'

He raced back to the bench where he'd left the child. She was gone.

He looked around wildly; there was no sign of her. Anything could have happened. Someone could have abducted her, or she might have wandered off and come to grief. He spent the next hour scouring the fair, calling her name. She was nowhere to be seen.

His mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out. Abby. He couldn't face talking to her right now, having to tell her he'd lost their child. He let it go to voicemail as he kept on looking. He couldn't talk to Abby until he'd found Poppy.

He widened his search, looking along the path, among the trees at the edge of the park, the street. He looked in every pub, every chip shop, every kebab place. Poppy was gone. He should never have left her.

At midnight, exhausted, he sank onto the bench where he'd left her. Why, oh why had she not done as he'd told her? He'd have to tell the police. He'd have to tell Abby. He picked up his phone, and listened first to the message. Through the string of obscenities directed at him down the line, he pieced together what had happened. A policewoman had come across Poppy, sitting alone on the bench. She'd asked Poppy where her parents were. While her father didn't trust the police, having served time, Poppy's mother had taught her you could trust the police, and if a policeman or woman asked you to do something, you did it. When the policewoman had said she was going to take Poppy home, the girl had gone with her.

The policewoman had shown up at home with Poppy and told how she'd found her sitting on a bench at the fairground all alone. Abby was fuming. Poppy may be safe, he thought as he hailed a cab, but I'm in shit as deep as the Mariana Trench.

'What in hell were you thinking?' Abby flared the moment he opened the door.

'I had to see a man about... about something.'

'What? A man about a dog?'

'A tattoo.'

'You have more than enough of those! Even if you didn't, that's no reason to leave your child on her own!'

'Poppy was fine. She knows not to move, not to speak to anyone. If that copper hadn't shown up, she'd still have been sitting there when I got back.'

'Are you telling me you've done this before? Left her all alone while you went off drinking? Don't deny it. I can smell it on you!' Duncan bitterly regretted accepting that one glass of whisky from the tattooist. 'There's just one reason why I'm giving you another chance and not taking Poppy and walking out of here right now.'

Duncan looked at her. 'What reason is that?' He expected her to say something along the lines of having nowhere else to go.

'We're having another baby,' she said. 'So I'm giving you one more chance to wake up and be a better father.'

'That's wonderful, Abs,' he said, taking her into his arms. 'I'll do better, now. I promise.' He'd got answers, of a sort, from the tattooist; there would be no need to chase after the guy again.

Only the next day, when he'd told the lads at work, they'd insisted on taking him to the pub to 'wet the baby's head' even though Duncan had argued that it was only a clump of cells the size of a peanut and he wasn't sure it even had a head yet. He'd had too much and got into that fight.

When Abby didn't visit, he called her. 'How are you?' he asked. It occurred to him that perhaps Abby was being sick constantly like she'd been when expecting Poppy and that was why she'd not visited. 'When are you going to bring Poppy to see her dad?'

'You're not fit to be a dad! Poppy and I, and the new one, will be better off without you!'

'I'm sorry, okay? It won't happen again.'

'Too right it won't. Poppy and I are leaving. I think it's best if we spend some time apart.'

'You can't mean that.'

'I can. I do. We are out of here. Prove to me that you can be responsible and we might come back.'

He tried. After he'd served his time for the fight, he'd returned to a silent, empty house, full of resolve to prove to Abby that he'd changed. He would have sworn in court that he'd tried; but Abby had more influence than he would ever have imagined. Without her, without Poppy, the temptation to go to the pub was irresistible. Staying in of an evening with a wife and daughter was nice. Staying in eating microwave meals for one in an empty, lonely house was not. He told himself he'd get a decent meal at the pub. That was true enough, but you could also get booze. Lots of it.

The inevitable happened. He got drunk; he got into a fight. He hospitalised someone. He was lucky the charge wasn't murder. He was still on licence from the last time, so he was sent straight back inside. Abby wrote this time and told him she was divorcing him. She wasn't going to tell him her new address. She'd already changed her mobile number. She wanted no more to do with him.

Three years, an anger management course and a lot of counselling later, Duncan was free again, but for what? He did a few online searches for his family. He found Abby on Facebook, pictured with Poppy and the little boy he'd never met; whose name he didn't even know. He sent a message to say that he was out, he'd done the courses, he'd sorted his head out, how about another chance? She blocked him.

He found solace for a while in the arms of his living tattoo. She didn't say much; but she did everything he asked. However, after a few weeks, he began to feel the whole thing was creepy. There had to be a better use for these creatures.

He soon found it. Wandering the streets, there were ample opportunities to defend those weaker than himself. He became a vigilante of sorts, stopped drinking, got a steady job and kept it. Sadly, there was no way to communicate any of this to Abby.

There were times when he wondered if it was worth the effort, staying off the booze and doing good. It wasn't going to get him his family back, and he didn't want any other women, or any other family. Some days, black moods descended on him, and it took all his considerable strength to stop himself from walking into a pub to drown his sorrows.

On one particular day, he mused that he wouldn't need booze to drown his sorrows, or, indeed, himself. It had been raining heavily since the day before; the river was swollen, almost breaking its banks as he trudged home from work, his hood pulled over his head and his hands deep in his pockets.

He might never have known there was a problem if the little girl on the opposite bank hadn't screamed. Duncan was sensitive, now, to calls of distress. The scream told him something was wrong, so he stopped and looked to see where the scream had come from.

The girl was about the same age as Poppy must be, now. She was blonde, though, and Poppy was brunette, so he knew it wasn't her. Not that it mattered. He didn't ignore any call for help these days.

She stood on the bank looking at the raging river. It took Duncan a few seconds to work out what the problem was, but then he saw the puppy as it tried, unsuccessfully, to climb onto a floating plank of wood. Duncan briefly considered leaping into the water to rescue the puppy, but, despite being a strong swimmer, he knew he'd not be able to reach it before it was swept away, and he could easily be swept away himself. This was a job for one of his tattoos.

The dolphin on his left leg came to life and leapt into the water. It seemed to know without Duncan saying a word why it had been summoned. Moments later, it was back, nosing the puppy onto the bank, where Duncan could pick it up. It was whimpering and shivering, but seemed miraculously unharmed.

Duncan made for the bridge, and crossed to where the puppy's owner stood. 'Your dog seems okay,' he told her, 'but you might want to get a vet to check him over, just in case.'

'Th-thank you,' the little girl said, before running off and vanishing into the driving rain.

Duncan headed home, yearning for a hot bath and a meal, satisfied that he'd done his good turn for the day. It was only when he turned on the local news a couple of hours later that he found out someone had filmed the entire incident from one of the flats on the riverbank, and had posted it on YouTube. The sight of a dolphin tattoo coming to life, saving a puppy and melting back into ink on someone's leg had made it from there to the national news. Someone in the local area had recognised Duncan and so his name was there on screen as well as the image.

When the phone rang, he hoped it was Abby, having seen his act of heroism, was calling to say she was coming back. It wasn't. It was an old man with a slightly cracked voice, who called himself James. James asked a lot of questions about the dolphin, about his background and family; but most significantly about what he was doing now – did he have a purpose in life?

He almost told James it was none of his damn business, but something stopped him. He didn't have a purpose, not really. Could the mysterious caller offer him one? Some way of taking his mind off everything he'd lost?

Hence, a week later, he found himself in Birmingham, in a pub. For once, he didn't drink, but waited for two people James had said would meet him there – Russell and Loretta. They turned out to be a striking pair, indeed. Russell was almost as muscular as Duncan was himself. Duncan remembered the tattooist mentioning superheroes before he'd rushed off to find Poppy. Loretta was tall and mysterious, with a greenish tinge to her black hair. They soon confirmed that they were actual superheroes and belonged to a group of them, called the Freedom League. They wanted to offer Duncan a place on the team. He didn't have to think hard at all. He resigned his job the following day and moved to their Birmingham HQ.

He hoped the Freedom League might know who the mysterious tattooist was, and how his creations worked, but even though they had a database of all known variants, superheroes and villains, not even James, a veteran superhero in his eighties, had ever come across anything like it.

Now Duncan had a purpose, a training regime, which meant he no longer felt the need to drink. He was somewhat older than most of the group and found himself becoming a mentor of sorts, advising the younger superheroes with their everyday life problems. He surprised himself with the depths of his insights into human behaviour and why people acted as they did.

He hoped that one day Abby would find out what he had become, and come running back; that he might see Poppy again and meet his son for the first time; but she never did.

The pain of that would never leave him; but he was part of something now, the Freedom League family, and he was certain of his place in it.

New Year New Reading Challenge?

I can help. Here are links to books which meet potential criteria:

A title with three words

• Death and Faxes
• Killing Me Softly
• Settling the Score
• Secrets and Skies
• Over the Rainbow
• Closing the Circle

A title with six words

• From a Jack to a King

A book with a number in the title

• A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with a colour in the title

• Golden Thread

Short story collections/A book with a green cover

• Jigsaw
• Sweet Karma
• Settling the Score

A book published in the last year/during lockdown

• Who's That Girl?
• Killing Me Softly

A book you can finish in a day/A book under 200 pages

• Jigsaw
• A Very Variant Christmas

A book featuring characters from a deck of cards

• From a Jack to a King

A Book set during Christmas

• A Very Variant Christmas

A book with a place in the title

• Glastonbury Swan

A Debut novel

• Death and Faxes

A book with a plant or flower on the cover/A book about siblings

• A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with a female villain or criminal

• Glastonbury Swan

Includes space travel

• Obsidian's Ark

Features Royalty

• From a Jack to a King
• Killing Me Softly

Books featuring skiing or snowboarding

• A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with the Olympic games in it

• Eternal Flame

A book with a bird in the title

• Glastonbury Swan

A book featuring a secret society

• Killing Me Softly
• Who's That Girl?

A book featuring time travel/alternative dimensions

Raiders Trilogy:

• Secrets and Skies
• Over the Rainbow
• Closing the Circle

Books featuring superheroes

• From a Jack to a King
• Eternal Flame
• Running in the Family
• Secrets and Skies
• Over the Rainbow
• Closing the Circle
• Obsidian's Ark
• A Tale of Two Sisters
• Killing Me Softly
• Who's That Girl?
• A Very Variant Christmas

Books featuring ghosts

• Death and Faxes
• Glastonbury Swan
• From a Jack to a King
• Killing Me Softly
• A Very Variant Christmas

From an Indie Publisher/Self published/An author you've not read before/A female author/A genre you wouldn't normally read/A book outside your comfort zone/A book by an author with your initials and your initials are JH

All of them!

More details can be found here

Alien Abductees Anonymous

 

'My name is Zog, and I've been abducted by aliens.'

'Welcome, Zog.'

'My name is Bzzzz, and I was abducted by aliens.'

'Welcome, Bzzzz.'

'I'm Grub.'

'I'm Vimu.'

'I'm Xyler.'

'Welcome, all of you to this inaugural meeting of AAA – Alien Abductees Anonymous. My name is Qetta and I am the leader of the group. Who would like to tell their story first?'

Vimu raised a tentative tentacle.

'Go ahead, Vimu,' said Qetta. 'Tell us what happened to you.'

'I was undulating down the street late one night, minding my own business, when I saw a flash in the sky. There was what looked like a star, descending slowly in a cloud of smoke. As it got closer I could see it was some kind of space craft that looked like a metal Bgrumb, all geometric, except it only had four legs. There was something painted on the side. A square with red and white stripes on it, with another, smaller square in the corner which was blue, and covered in stars.'

'That's exactly like the one that took me!' Xyler exclaimed. 'So it wasn't my imagination!'

'So it had that,' Vimu continued, and some black shapes which could have been writing.'

'Can you remember what they were?' Qetta asked. 'Could you draw them for us? I have some vellum here. How's your ink supply today?'

'Fine,' Vimu said. He extended a tentacle and carefully squeezed ink onto the page. He held up the vellum to show 'NASA USA'. 'Like that,' he said. There was also a picture of a kind of green plant with four leaves.'

'Then what happened?' Xyler asked, his antennae quivering with excitement.

'The door opened and two creatures got out. Were they ever ugly! They only had four limbs, two of which they used to walk with. They had tiny eyes and bulbous noses and dark tufts growing out of their heads. No antennae. Their skin was a disgusting pink colour, like puke.'

'Mine were exactly the same, except the tufts on their heads were a kind of pale yellow.'

'One of the ones who took me had red tufts,' Zog added.

'You say they had pink skin?' Bzzzz asked. 'Mine didn't. Mine had skin that was dark brown.'

'I was taken by a group of about six of them,' said Grub. 'Their skin tone ranged from pale beige to almost black. Not one of them was green, or even blue.'

'So they took you into their ship?' Qetta prompted.

'Yes,' said Vimu. 'They tied me up and put me in a cage. They chattered amongst themselves, all excited, and I noticed something else. Some of them had deep voices and others had high voices. They put a container of water in the cage with me. I mean, water! I knew then they were probably trying to kill me. I was parched, I could have murdered a nice cup of sulphuric acid, but there seemed to be no way of communicating that to them.'

'The ones who took me actually drank some of the water, and it didn't even harm them. They must be pretty damn tough, those things. Anyway, they got out a bunch of little black boxes and pointed them at me. I thought they were going to shoot me but they pressed all these buttons and nothing actually happened.'

'I had the same thing,' Bzzzz said. 'Black boxes. Only there wasn't a square with stripes. They had a blue square with a circle of yellow stars and...' Bzzzz reached for the vellum and wrote on it 'EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY'.

'What does all this mean?' Grub wondered.

'I confess, I have no idea,' Qetta said. 'All I know is, when we try to tell our stories, nobody ever believes us.'

Not Today

Nathan Tate was about to offer to buy a round when his phone buzzed. He could never ignore it; not now. Not now he'd given his number to the emergency services, so that they could call the superhero, Power Blaster, to let him know if he was needed. The display on screen showed the call was coming from ‘Mother’.

Nathan knew it wasn't actually his mother, but an emergency call. If his mother called, the display would say, ‘Mum’.

'I have to take this,' he said, and moved away from the group.

The person on the other end told him that a person was trapped under a train at Eastville Station – could he help? Time was of the essence and there was no easy way to get lifting gear down there.

'I'm on my way,' he said. Turning to his friends, he said, 'Sorry, guys, I gotta go. My mum has had one of her turns.'

'Want me to drive you home?' one of them asked. 'Be quicker than the Arrow.'

'No, thanks, mate, I'll catch a cab. I don't want to spoil anyone else's evening.'

As they watched him go, another member of the group commented, 'Is his mother really that ill or is he just trying to get out of buying a round? It happens a lot lately.'

Nathan's especially acute hearing picked that up; but he pretended he hadn't heard. He resolved that next time he met this particular group of friends, he'd make sure he got the first round in.

Ambulances, fire crews and compliance agents surrounded the entrance to Eastville station, preventing people from entering. Power Blaster landed, making sure his back was to the crowd gathered outside. Sure enough, he could see cameras flash as people managed to get shots of the back of his head. The compliance agents let him through. He ran through the concourse and vaulted over the ticket barrier.

On the platform, he could see immediately what had happened. The head and torso of a young woman could be seen by the side of the track; the wheels of the train had run over her pelvis. His head spun a little. She had to be dead, surely. Nobody could survive that, could they?

He took a deep breath and floated down so he could assess how best to move the train. As he landed, the woman's eyes opened. 'Power Blaster?' she whispered. She was not only alive, but conscious. He knelt beside her. 'I slipped,' she said.

'I'll get you out,' Power Blaster said. 'Hang in there.' He stood, making an assessment of the best place to brace himself against the engine.

'Wait a second, Power Blaster.' A paramedic, who'd been kneeling by the girl, called to him. 'Can I have a word before you do anything?'

'Sure,' Power Blaster said, and followed the man a few metres into the tunnel. The girl under the train watched them with terrified eyes.

'There's something you need to know before you lift that train off her,' the paramedic said in a low voice. 'There's severe crush trauma there. It's only the train stopping her from bleeding to death, and while we could, in many cases, apply a tourniquet, the way she's fallen and the extent of her injuries make it impossible. Not only that, but even if we could do it, the crushed parts of her body will release toxins which will kill her anyway. So even though she's conscious and lucid, the minute we move that train, she dies.'

'So by saving her, I'll actually be killing her?'

'Effectively, although it will be deemed an accidental death.'

'How long could she live with the train on her?'

'A few hours at best. Though the Arrow Train Company want things cleared up as soon as possible so they can get the trains running again.'

'Heartless pricks,' Power Blaster muttered. 'There must be something you can do.'

'I'm sorry, Power Blaster, but there isn't. I've had a couple of doctors down here to make their own assessments, and they agree with me. Even if, by some miracle, she did live, her injuries would be so life changing, her life would be a living hell. She'd never walk again, and that would be the least of her problems, believe me. The best we can do is sedate her before you start, so she won't know what's happening. It's the only humane thing to do.'

'Let me talk to her, first,' Power Blaster said, and went back to kneel beside the girl.

'I'll never walk again, will I?' she whispered.

'I don't know,' Power Blaster hedged. 'I'm not a doctor.'

'I might even die. I don't want to die. I've never even kissed a man.'

'Well, I can soon rectify that,' Power Blaster said. He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. 'There. You can tell all your friends when you see them that you kissed Power Blaster.' Power Blaster had never been able to make up his mind whether there was anything after death or not; but if there was, she'd see her friends again eventually.

'Am I going to die?' she asked, in a small voice.

'We're all going to die,' Power Blaster said. From where he knelt, he could see the station clock, showing a minute to midnight. 'I can promise you, though, you're not going to die today.' All he had to do was keep talking to her for another minute and what he'd said would be perfectly true.

'What's your name?' he asked. 'I like to know the names of the women I've kissed.'

'Karen,' she replied.

'I'm Nathan,' he said. It was the first time he’d ever told anyone at an emergency scene his real name, and the last, until many years later, when he would appear on TV and tell everyone.

'What did the doctor say to you just now?' she asked.

'He said... he said that lifting the train off you might hurt, so he'd need to give you a sedative before I move it.'

The Paramedic came over. 'We need to do this, Power Blaster,' he said.

The station clock clicked over to midnight as the paramedic injected something into Karen's arm. Power Blaster stayed where he was, holding her hand. 'I'm right here with you,' he said to her.

At 12.01, her eyes closed. Power Blaster held one hand while the paramedic took the pulse on the other wrist. 'She's gone,' the paramedic said, at 12.02.

'Gone?' Power Blaster looked up at the man. 'But I haven't moved the train yet.'

'I know, but I gave her a lethal injection; it was kinder this way. For both of you.'

'What right do you have to make that decision? She didn't want to die.'

'Nobody does, but trust me, she couldn't have survived, and even if she did, she'd have a lousy life. Besides, you can move the train now and know you didn't kill her.'

Power Blaster didn't know whether to feel anger or overwhelming sadness. A group of people had appeared on the platform. 'Who are they?' Power Blaster asked. 'They're letting people in to gloat, now?'

'No. Those are the funeral directors. They have a job to do, once you move the train.'

'About that, Power Blaster,' a man in a dark suit strode up and peered over the edge of the platform. 'We need to get these trains running as soon as possible, certainly by the rush hour.'

'Corporate asshole,' Power Blaster muttered under his breath, but knew it had to be done.

Sadness won out as he left the station. He turned his back on the photographers gathered outside, as he always did.

'Are you going to give us a victory roll, Power Blaster?' someone yelled.

'No,' Power Blaster replied, without turning around. 'There was no victory today.'

Most of them would have found it hard to believe what Power Blaster did after he flew home. He climbed into his mother's bed. 'Bad day at work?' Adriana Tate muttered, knowing something truly awful must have happened if her superhero son had crept into bed with her, like he used to as a small child when there was a thunderstorm.

Power Blaster couldn't answer, for by now, he was sobbing uncontrollably. Adriana put her arms round him to comfort him, as she'd done when he was a child. The only time he'd been like this as an adult was when Michael had died, and she'd been in an even worse state herself, then. At least now she could be strong for him. He'd tell her what had happened when he was ready.

She woke with him in her arms, as she had many times when he was small. Now, he was a big man, and her arm was numb. She tried, but failed, to extricate herself without waking him.

'Hungry?' she asked. He'd tell her what had happened when he was ready. She knew not to push him.

'Starving,' he said.

Over breakfast, he finally poured out the story. 'They didn't even give her a chance, Mum. They just killed her like she was some animal.'

'I know, that's horrible – but you're not a doctor, Nate. Those guys go through years of training. They knew she didn't stand a chance. Think about it – what kind of life would she have had if she did survive, with no legs, half her intestines missing...'

'Yeah. I guess you're right, but it's so unfair. Such a waste. Why did it even have to happen in the first place?'

'We'll never know.'

'I want to go to her funeral. I don't know her last name, though, so I don't know how to find out when it is.'

'Start with the news. There'll be a report, I expect, and they'll probably mention her name.'

'Yeah. There were paps there. Couldn't believe I wasn't going to do a victory roll.'

Power Blaster soon found out Karen's full name and the district where she'd lived. He could then access that district's funeral listing page and find out what he needed to know.

He went to the funeral as Nathan Tate, not as Power Blaster. Power Blaster showing up would turn the whole thing into a media circus and nobody would want that, least of all Power Blaster himself. He intended to be as unobtrusive as possible. If it was true what the New Agers often said, that the spirits of newly dead people often attended their own funerals, then Karen would know why he was there. Nobody else needed to. He'd be able to tell her family how sorry he was for their loss and then slip away.

Karen's mother, however, was curious. 'I don't think I know you,' she said, when Nathan approached her with condolences.

'I'm Nathan,' he said.

'She never mentioned a Nathan.'

'I hadn't known her long.'

'So how did you know her?'

'I saw her at the station. I liked her. We got chatting. I was about to ask her for a date when she saw her train was coming and ran for it...' he wiped his eyes. It was almost true. He had spoken to her at the station, and if things had been different, he might well have asked her out. She'd had lovely eyes.

Karen's mother gripped his arm. 'I wish you had. She used to cry herself to sleep because no boys were ever interested in her. I hope she knew you were. I wish we could have met because she introduced you to me...' she broke down.

'Me, too,' Nathan said. 'Me, too.'

When the family had gone, he walked back to the grave and placed a single red rose on it.

It goes to show, he thought, as he walked away, you never know what's going to happen, and you must do all the good you can, and seize all the happiness you can, while you can. Power Blaster resolved he was going to do exactly that.

***

If you'd like to know what Power Blaster did next, you'll find more of his story in these books:

The Raiders Trilogy

Book One

Book Three

Book Two

   

Power Blaster is a superhero who lives in a dimension not unlike our own, in the mega-nation of Innovia. No-one knows who he is or where his powers come from. 
After saving the life of the President several times, Power Blaster learns that a test of a nuclear warhead to defend the planet against asteroid strikes will have devastating consequences for his world and sets out to prevent it.

Power Blaster's actions lead to an unexpected result - a wormhole opens between his dimension and our own. Anyone in the vicinity is pulled through. People from diverse backgrounds and cultures must co-operate to survive and learn to live with the powers travel through the wormhole has bestowed on some of them.

A stable wormhole is established between the two dimensions. Power Blaster is determined to bring Desi Troyes, the person responsible for the bomb, to justice. Help comes from some rather unexpected sources. Meanwhile, Shanna Douglas sets out on a mission of her own, to find out if there is a cure for the life altering condition the wormhole gave her friend, Benedict Cole. Little does she know that she will stumble upon the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious origins.

What to do with used notebooks

If you’re a writer, you almost certainly have shelves of notebooks, full of first drafts of novels or short stories which have long since been transcribed onto the computer, and turned into printed books or e-books.

Perhaps you like to keep the first drafts as they are for posterity, but perhaps you simply don’t want to throw them away, and so they just sit there gathering dust. Perhaps the notebooks are too nice to throw in the recycling, because they were gifts from friends or family, or the lovely blank books you bought to encourage yourself to write.

What’s the solution?

For me, it’s turning them into art journals, or altered books. When I first heard about the art of altering old books, it appealed to me, but butchering books didn’t. Then it occurred to me that I could use the notebooks full of first drafts and give them a new purpose in life.

I’m not writing a “how to” manual here. I’m just going to show you some of the things you can do with an old notebook if you happen to be a bit crafty as well as a wordsmith. If you’re inspired and want instructions and/or ideas, search Pinterest or Instagram for “art journals” or “altered books” and you’ll find plenty.

I’m writing this during lockdown and have to admit at times wondering if mooching around shops like Hobbycraft just to see what you can find will ever be possible again, but there’s still Amazon and other online stores and there are all kinds of things you might be able to find at home, especially if you’re a bit of a hoarder, that will finally find that purpose in life you always knew it had.

Here are a few of the things I have used:

• Advertising leaflets
• Bleach (can be dripped on old, out of focus photos to make interesting effects)
• Carbon paper
• Christmas crackers/party hats
• Clip art
• Clothing labels
• Confetti
• Craft scissors/crimping shears
• Decorative paper napkins
• Ephemera, both found and purchased
• Last year’s calendar
• Old greeting cards
• Old magazines/newspapers
• Old maps
• Old photographs
• Origami paper
• Pens and pencils
• Pressed flowers
• Quality Street wrappers and other packaging
• Remnants of paint samples
• Ribbons
• Rubber stamps
• Rubbings of coins and other textures
• Scrapbooking supplies such as background paper
• Shaped hole punches
• Sponges or scrunched up paper for dabbing paint on backgrounds
• Stencils
• Stickers
• The sticky paper left behind after the stickers have been used
• The plastic mesh bags fruit and veg sometimes come in
• Tippex
• Transfers
• Washi tape
• Watercolour paints
• Wax candles (Scribble on a page with the wax and paint over it with watercolour)
• Wrapping paper.

A few of my favourites:

Patterned pages from an old magazine torn up and roughly glued. A rubber stamp of Chinese characters. Cutouts from magazines.  

Rubber stamps, old photo ephemera from Amazon. A bit which fell off an old Christmas decoration, magazine cutouts, decorative craft tape, found ephemera.

A picture from a magazine and craft tape.

 Magazine cutouts, a pressed orchid, washi tape.

 Birthday card, nature ephemera from Amazon, craft tape, confetti, watercolour paint.

 Old craft paint, paint sample, magazine cutouts, rubber stamps.

 Magazine cutouts, stickers, watercolour paint.

Watercolour paint, felt tip pens, metallic markers and white markers

 Magazine cutout of a window with the glass cut out and I’ve doodled on my writing underneath to make it look like fantasy script. Then used a red marker to draw the bricks around the edge.

 My drawing, coloured with felt tip pen and the background drawn with a gel pen. Both this example and the previous one made use of a technique called Zentangle. If you like to doodle and draw, Google it. But make sure you have lots of time and drawing pens!

My latest masterpiece is a small notebook turned into a 3D work of art. Starting at the back and using a drawing compass, I drew circles which gradually increased in size until I couldn’t expand them outwards any more, at which point I started making them ovals. I took pictures from magazines and brochures, wrapping paper and scrapbook supplies and cut out circles to fit onto the various pages (keeping the cutouts for use in future projects). Placing more cutouts so they stuck out into the space. I made a border out of washi tape for each page, originally to reinforce the edges but found I rather liked the final effect:

Finally I added quotes, sayings or jokes so that each page also had some words on it. Here’s the first page. And again with the pages spread to emphasise the 3D effect.

It may well be a bit too busy and cluttered for some people’s tastes. Personally I liked the fact that as you turn the pages, more things become visible:

If you fancy giving this a try, you can simply experiment or you can give your creation a theme, such as:

• Travel
• Seasons
• Love
• The sea
• Colours
• Family
• Memories
• Nature
• Christmas.

Have fun!