Nightwalker

Eddie walks the streets of his town at night.
When he sees foxes prowling back lanes he knows all is well; one intruder or a stranger's approach and they run away.
A fox at night is a sign of peace, unless he knocks over your bin and wakes you up from your peaceful slumber.
Eddie just likes to walk around; he's been arrested several times by police and warned off by passing burglars more times than is safe for him; but still he walks.
Some people say he's mad.
But no fox runs away when Eddie draws near.
The woman in the end house leaves her back door unlocked just in case Eddie gets tired of walking and wants to settle down.
He passes by.
Nobody knows where he's walking to or when he will get there.
Eddie knows but says nothing as he passes on his way.
Storytelling here

A dissatisfied customer

An old man drops a night worker back to her workspace beneath a streetlamp. She stands a little way away from its direct beam.
She says to him: it's not my fault.
He says he wants his money back.
She says no and walks two paces away.
He drives around a corner only to return on foot, presently. He stands beside her facing outwards like two suspects in a line-up on a deserted street of flitting shadows.
She says go away. He says he wants his money back. Neither looks at the other.
She calls him Frank to get his attention. If he did not avail of all on offer, then the fault is his.
He wants his money back, in cash. His height reaches only to his companion's shoulder. So, she pretends not to see him.
It begins to rain and Frank walks away, only to return in his little car. He parks between the worker and the road and any passing clientele.
She steps around the car in tottering heels and taps on the driver's window.
Frank rolls it down in joyful anticipation.
Instead, she leans in to remove the keys from the ignition.
She drops them into a storm drain and hails a passing taxi.
Frank remains where he is.
Wondering.
Storytelling here

I have no daughters

I stop to ask directions in a town I did not grow up in.
I am seeking a girl's school where I am to tell stories for the morning.
The man I ask works in the grounds of a large supermarket; the place I ask is on a bad bend; but he seems like a man that will say "turn right, left and you are there; bye"
Instead, in a local accent that has been generations in the making, he tells me he does not know where the large red-brick building on the top of the hill is.
Nor what it is called when I tease his memory about that either.
"You see," he says "I have no daughters of my own."
I am about to be run over by a large truck tearing around the bend, so I say: "thank you," and try to move away.

"But there is a very good reason why I do not have any daughters," he says as I engage gear for blast-off when the endless flow of traffic eases.
He is about to tell me what his perfectly good reason for not fathering daughters is when a truck horn blares a warning that I have overstayed my welcome on a dangerous bend.
I shout a lie: "That's my cousin in that truck, he's going to that school. I'll follow him," and I drive on.
I still don't know why the man did not produce daughters for a very good reason.
Perhaps I never will.
Storytelling here

In a spotlight of her mind

The drone from the police helicopter wakens the snails in the garden with its persistent whapping noise.
A single spotlight shines down like an usher seeking a smoking butt in a cinema of the memory.
It seeks a miscreant in a car escaping justice and retribution.



Can you see me now?

  Trapped, the pursued pulls up to face chastisement.
But, the woman in the corner house then takes to the night road in her little two-seater.
She weaves about until she reaches the darkened spot where the light from above last touched the earth.
She drives so erratically that the light suddenly re-appears and a chase begins again.
The quietened police cars roar and close the gap.
She doubles back to her own house.
She drives under her carport very quickly and hops into her house slamming the door behind her.
Invisible once more.
Presently, two cops bang on the door and she re-appears in clothes that are a shade too small for her thrusting figure.
Her disappointment is clear when she sees the cops are women and not interested in her attributes.
The judge fines her for wasting police time.
She says she was fined for being herself.
The helicopter flies a different route ever since, most nights.
Storytelling here