Up next in the Napkin blog series is Terry Buchan and his flash fiction work ‘Hallowmas’. . .
Hallowmas
This is your Hallowmas call.
Are you some kind of cult?
Putting you through now …
“Hello – is that George?”
“It’s Maria.”
“Hi, Maria – did anyone ever tell you you’ve got a very male voice? Well, there’s still time. At least you’re alive. This is Alex – perhaps I should say ex-Alex – I think I’m dead. Can you tell George I won’t be in to work?”
“In what sense – dead?”
“My soul seems to have become detached from my physical self. I’m worried.”
“So how are you phoning?”
“I’ve got some tacky-floaty residue around me and I can sort-of-do things with it. Or it can sort-of-do things itself. That’s one of the problems. I’m not sure which bit, if any, is ‘me’. So even if I’m not dead it would be confusing if I came to work right now. For other people as well as me.”
“I realised you were thinking of others, Alex, because you wouldn’t normally let a little deadness keep you away from the job.”
“I wish I could say I love your sense of humour. But since you’ve always been vile to me I can’t, if I remain true to myself – whatever self means, in my current state. Is there anyone else, maybe someone more human, I can talk to?”
“What’s the point? Where could it go, honestly? And I think you’ve got a nerve, asking for someone more human when it sounds like you’re becoming ex-human yourself.”
“You’re right. Cold, heartless, but right. I’ll see you on All Souls Eve.”
“Not if I re-engineer my dreamcatcher first. Take George’s personal number and haunt him yourself.”
“I’ll be damned before I do that – or maybe I am, the phone’s melting in my hand …”
END
Bio
Photo by Kate McDonald of McBookishness
Terry Buchan started the Comedy Writers Forum in Leeds in 2009; this evolved into the Comedy Writers and Performers Group before going extinct, shortly after all the members espoused Northern Darwinism.
A contributor to the monthly Deli programme on East Leeds FM radio station – www.elfm.co.uk – he maintains several blogs, especially http://mychoriamb.wordpress.com