Short Story – The Door

When I woke up in the morning, I was pretty certain that meant I was no longer asleep. That was what ‘waking up’ usually amounted to. But the events of the day led me to believe such a thing was not always so.

To begin with, nothing had been out of order. Everything had been as it always is. Wake up, get dressed, grab a cereal bar and dash out the door to get to work. The bus had been running late, but that wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary. Work was boring as usual, answering emails to the sound of phones being left to ring and the clack of fake nails on keyboards. 

It was when I left work at lunch to go to my favourite cafe to get a sandwich that things started to go weirdly. I have never been the kind of person to investigate things that go wrong, I usually leave things to other people. Not that I generally like to admit it, but I often turn a blind eye to things. For example, if I see someone throw an empty plastic bottle onto the street? I’ll pretend I didn’t see, safe in the knowledge that someone else will see it eventually and they will pick it up. But what was so strange about this, was that no one else did seem to see it.

It’s not like it was hard to see. A seven foot high shimmering doorway, in the middle of a busy pavement. People were walking on either side of it, some even walking straight through it, but not once did someone look up from their phone, or spare a second glance at the brilliance of the light it was emitting. Curiously, I walked up to it, a low buzzing getting louder in my ears as I grew closer. When I stood in front of it, I slowly reached a hand out, feeling a gentle heat radiating from it. A woman walked past me, looking at me strangely as she did so. Could she not see anything? Could anyone? Was I the only person here seeing this doorway, and everyone else was just seeing a strange lady stood still in the middle of the street, holding her hand out to something that wasn’t there?

I’m not sure whether it was curiosity or a deeper urge that made me step forwards, putting one foot through the doorway, my body following behind. The shimmering passed over me, both warming me and leaving me with a chill as I stepped through. I turned and looked at the doorway from the other side, frowning at it. Nothing had happened. Was I simply imagining it? Hallucinating?

I turned away from the door, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I stared down at the ground, trying to rationalise what was happening. Maybe I had hit my head at some point, and couldn’t remember it because of a head injury I had sustained. Almost subconsciously, my hand reached up to the back of my head, and gently patted my hair. I couldn’t feel any tenderness, or any bumps. The sandwich I promised myself this morning would make everything better, I concluded, and looked up.

The sight I saw made me gasp. There were no cars or buses on the road, but instead, there were horses pulling carriages and people on bicycles trying to avoid them. The buildings were the same, and yet, they were different. The superstore was a hotel, and a fancy one by the look of it. My beloved cafe was what looked like a watch repair shop. The people walking around me were dressed like they were all part of a reenactment ground, and yet, they carried mobile phones. A woman in a full skirt, with countless layers of petticoats, carrying a parasol over her shoulder, and talking on the phone? It’s a strange sight.

I turned to face the door that still shone, that these people also seemed unable to see. I stepped back through, and looked around at the town I knew, the sound of car horns filling my ears. I stepped through again, and watched a bicycle swerve around a pile of horse manure. I stepped back through, keeping my eyes on one woman, a lady with blonde hair piled on top of her head, a small pink hat precariously placed on top, and a phone to her ear. On the other side, my side, she was still there, walking past me, but her hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing a tracksuit, rather than a flouncy dress.

I had to be dreaming. Or dead. Or close to dying. Something other than awake, perfectly lucid, and in my right mind. But, then again, if I was dreaming, dying, or dead, surely nothing I do matters? Couldn’t people who dreamt lucidly control what happened? Did that not mean I could fly, or something? 

I tried it on the side I knew, jumping and imagining the ground falling away beneath me as I soared into the sky, but nothing happened other than a few people giving me some strange looks. I stepped through the door, to the strange side, and tried again, jumping. It took me a moment to realise my feet hadn’t come back into contact with the floor. I looked down. My heels, the only shoes I owned that were any kind of appropriate for work, were floating a few inches away from the ground. I kicked my feet, and moved higher, like I was swimming to the surface from the bottom of a pool. 

People looked up as I floated above them. I had a brief moment of panic when I remembered I was wearing a skirt, and people would be able to see up it, but I shook off my concerns. I was in a dream, obviously. How else would I be flying? What did I care if some made up people inside my head see up my skirt?

I started thinking of things I might be able to do in this strange dreamscape I found myself in. I had never been able to control my dreams before, this was an entirely new situation for me. I stopped moving for a moment, flying high above the tallest building in the city, and found myself falling until I started kicking my legs again. The air itself seemed to react like water, and I like a swimmer. Water. The opposite of water was fire. I frowned slightly, thinking of a candle, and how I had always wished someone would invent a candle you could light by snapping your fingers. I lifted my fingers in front of me and snapped them, hoping for a small spark, or even a little flame, like a match, to hover over one of my fingers.

The air seemed to pull itself out of my lungs as the tops of the buildings below me all instantaneously caught ablaze, beginning like candles, and quickly becoming devoured by oranges and heat. People below me screamed, and I panicked. Even in a dream world, I couldn’t become a murderous super-person. I imagined water – rain, or a hose, to put out the flames. Nothing happened for a moment, and I felt dread in my stomach that I wouldn’t be able to stop what I started, when an icy coldness hit me, and I was drenched from head to toe. A sheet of water, getting bigger by the second, fell from the sky onto the city. The fires were put out, sure, but I watched helplessly as horses panicked, people lost their footing, and several heads went under and didn’t resurface.

A whooshing sound caught my attention, and I turned to watch the arrival of someone else floating in the sky, someone who seemed to be well versed with flying. He was looking directly at me, and at first, I thought he might be coming to help me, but then he got close enough for me to look at his face. He was mad. He was mad at me. 

A blast of light skimmed my body, the force pushing me backwards through the air. I gaped at the man, wondering why he would do such a thing as attack me, but with a glance at the destruction below me, I couldn’t really blame him. Another stream of light, and I started kicking my legs, angling my body down, towards the ground, running from the danger I had brought on myself.

I had one plan. No one seemed to be able to see the door but me, so if I went through it, maybe I would wake up, or at least, no one from this side of the door would be able to follow me through. Blasts sent my way from the flying man propelled me on, one of them singeing the hair on my arm as it brushed past me. I hit the water flooding the ground before I reached the door, but continued swimming. The motion was the same, I just could no longer breathe. Water burned my eyes as I opened them, looking around, and I saw the door immediately, it’s light showing me the way through my blurred, watery vision. 

I dove through the door like I was learning to swim underwater and had to swim through a hula hoop, held by an instructor. On the other side, I fell to the floor, spluttering and dripping water. People looked down at me, but walked on, as I would if I saw such a thing. Normal people. Wearing normal clothes, in my normal city, with my normal cafe across the street. I stood up, grimacing at my clothes clinging to my skin, and looked down at my arm. My hair, singed off from a burst of light, from a flying man in the sky. 

It had to have been a dream. And yet, I got a call later that afternoon from work, and I had to explain that I had felt unwell and had gone home instead. I woke up the next morning to find my still wet clothes in the bath, waiting for me to wring them out, or put them in the washing machine and let that wring them out for me. I walked down that same street the next day, and the door was still there, glimmering and beckoning me forward, begging me to step through, but I looked away, pretended I couldn’t see it. 

I had spent only a few minutes in a world I could control, and I had become the villain immediately. Whether or not it was a premonition, or it said something about me, or was simply a hallucination my mind was showing me, I would never go near that door again.

And done!

The idea for this story is based loosely on a dream I had, wherein I was normal me, but could step through these shimmering doors I would randomly see, and on the other side, I would have superpowers.

I'm not going to lie, my superpowers were specifically the fact that on the other side I was Spider-Man, but still.

That's all for now...

Bye!

Movie Review – Infinate – What happens when a man realises that his hallucinations are actually memories from past lives?

I sometimes spend ages trying to decide what movie to watch. I look at movie description after movie description, skip from genre to genre, simply trying to find something that I feel like watching.

Of course, sometimes I will simply click on the first movie I find, and watch that one. That was today's case. So, let me introduce today's movie, and then we can get into my review!

Evan McCauley has skills he never learned and memories of places he has never visited. Self-medicated and on the brink of a mental breakdown, a secret group that call themselves "Infinites" come to his rescue, revealing that his memories are real.

Watch here!

My Review!

Background checks are making it impossible for Evan McCauley to get a job. He has violent behaviour in his past, something he might be able to explain, but that employers cannot risk. On top of that, he is suffering from schizophrenia, and his only way of controlling it is medication he gets as part of deals. When he forges a katana, the whole deal goes badly, and he ends up arrested, only to be broken out by someone after an interrogation that could not possibly have been carried out by someone working for the law.

Evan finds himself among a group called the Infinites, people who are reincarnated when they die, and whom all remember their past lives. But, Evan’s life thus far has caused some kind of block in his memory, stopping him from remembering anything from his past lives. All he gets are glimpses, visions that were the cause of his schizophrenia diagnosis in the first place. The Infinates are desperate, though. They have an enemy, the Nihilists, who, although they are also Infinites, do not believe they come back to life for a reason, and who simply want it all to be over. Their solution? If you destroy everything, there is nothing to return to. Their ‘bomb’, as it were, is something called the Egg, which Evan stole from them in his previous life. But, Evan hid the Egg before he died, and without any of his memories, no one knows where the Egg is.

Working to try and find the Egg before Bathurst, the leader of the Nihilists, can get to Evan becomes a mission, retraining every aspect of Evan’s body so that his mind may remember. This film has its fair share of action scenes, and the whole concept is certainly an intriguing one. The Infinites are not reborn as the same person each time, but rather as the same soul, bouncing between different people. They grow up in different countries, in different situations, in different families each time they come back, and it is only when they reach 14 years old that they remember who they are, and their past lives. While this was interesting, I couldn’t see any real reason for their coming back to life. Some believed they were blessed with this, that they had a purpose, and that each life would teach them something different, something that would be important in the future, but there didn’t seem to be anything they had to fix, or work to make better. Their goal, as it were, seemed unclear.

There are definitely some plot holes in this film. I will not list them, as they will give away major points of the plot, but the hiding place of the Egg, while at first not entirely obvious in the movie, would surely have been the only possible explanation, should the characters be real. Come to think of it, it was not even hidden all that well. One of the redeeming factors, though, was that the past life Evan was played by Dylan O’Brien, so whenever we get a glimpse back at that life, and slowly learn about the Egg and Evan’s role in finding and hiding it, we get to spend some time with Dylan O’Brien as well.

This isn’t the kind of film you will need to watch with entirely rapt attention. It is not difficult to keep up with, or one that is difficult to understand, and I do sometimes have trouble keeping up with action films. However, there are gaping holes in the plot, some that might have been closed up by a few additional sentences of dialogue, and some that seem impossible to close with the way the story went. If you are after a science-fiction film with some scenes of intense action and an interesting premise, definitely check this one out. Although, do not expect a story masterpiece. The visuals are good, but the story makes it a film you might put on in the background, rather than pay your full attention to.

And done!

I was a bit wary about writing this review, because I usually try to keep all my reviews positive, but there were some things I really couldn't help but mention, and I figured only posting wholly positive reviews doesn't give an entirely rounded sense of me as a reviewer. Not everything can be perfect.

That's all for now...

Bye!

A Review – Stalin's Door by John St.Clair

I entered a giveaway for this book, because it has been one of those I have been wanting to read for ages, and I keep seeing it on Twitter. I did not win the giveaway, but the author kindly reduced the price of this book for a short period of time after the giveaway, so those who didn't win could get it anyway. I still count that as a win.

I read this book in that weird time between Christmas and New Year, where you have no idea what day it is, or what to do, or whether to wear pyjamas all day, or if you can be bothered to shower. Obviously, this post was ready much sooner than I actually posted it.

Let me introduce the book, and then I will get into my review!

In the dangerous time of Russia’s Great Terror, a knock on the door late at night could mean only one thing!

Moscow, 1937. As mortal fear engulfs the capital city, a singular man cements his lethal grip of absolute power over an entire nation. Accusations, mass arrests, executions, and deportations become de rigueur. Stalin’s cult of personality is so fearsome, that even a simple question could get you killed—or worse. Stalin’s dreaded secret police, the NKVD, would pit neighbor against neighbor in the insatiable hunt for the spies and saboteurs which threaten the supreme leader’s tyranny. The crisis will irrecoverably overwhelm the body politic—just on the eve of World War II!

Stalin’s Door is the unforgettable story of three extraordinary individuals who lived during the time of Russia’s Great Terror. They share a terrible fate which will forever intertwine their lives. Zhenya is the strong young daughter of an important government official, who is growing up fast in a privileged government enclave. Sava is a devoted husband, unceremoniously dismissed from the Soviet Navy, who considers a new opportunity. Lera is a wise grandmother who bears a crucial responsibility, while forced into exile in the outland of Siberia.

All will discover the heinous secret of Stalin’s Door!

Amazon UK • Amazon US

My Review!

Zhenya is a young girl when her father receives a promotion and her family moves to an apartment in the House on the Embankment. There are some strange things about the place, like the fact that the furniture is nailed to the floor, but Zhenya doesn’t care about things like that. Instead, she focuses on her friendship with Zina and working at being the best Young Pioneer she possibly could. 

Sara’s career came to an abrupt end when he was dismissed from the Soviet Navy, but another option presented itself. To join the NKVD would be a big change, but it was an opportunity that had been presented to him, and his choices seemed limited. With his wife, Lera, he finds himself moving to the House on the Embankment, and his duties are something he could not have foreseen.

Lera is a supporting wife to Sara, following where his career change takes him. When circumstances change, she is the one to step up and take control, and she excels at it. Thinking quickly under pressure is a skill that proves useful, but there are some things you simply could not think your way out of. 

Three different people, all tied together in one way or another. This book tells all three stories, and slowly, brings the characters together. It does not, however, flip back and forth between the characters. We begin with Zhenya, until Sara takes over the story. At a point, Lera then takes it over. The change in characters is prevalent, for Zhenya is very young for the majority of this novel, and there are things that would not have made sense, or been explained, without the perspective of an older generation, one who understood the workings of the world, and who had knowledge Zhenya did not.

I was unaware of what the title, Stalin’s Door, actually referred to when I picked up this book. While I studied this time period for a history exam, my studies were of vague details, spanning a wide time period, and I did not go in-depth to certain subjects or years. I had never heard of the House on the Embankment before, and I only had a vague sense of knowledge about some of the parts of this novel. This did not hinder my reading at all. You do not have to know Russian history to enjoy this novel, for the author explains everything wonderfully. You can easily read this book and come away with more knowledge than you had before. 

I adored Zhenya and Lera, for they were both wonderful characters. Sara’s perspective is, unfortunately, not as long as Zhenya’s or Lera’s, so we did not get as much time to properly get to know him in this book. Both Zhenya and Lera are incredibly brave, especially considering everything that happens to them both. The House on the Embankment seems to be the beginning for all the characters, and once they have lived there, their story really begins. I do not want to talk too much about some of the aspects of this novel, as I would be giving away too much of the story to even bring some things up, but the author has made this time period come back to life. You feel like you are in Russia yourself, alongside these characters. Another thing is that the events that occur in this novel actually happened, and people went through these things. To think about it, about people suffering as some do in this book, is enough to bring tears to your eyes, and make you feel incredibly thankful for even just the basic necessities of life.

Something I really liked was that things such as Russian names were written as they would actually be used. People did not simply have their first name and then their surname, they were addressed differently in different circumstances, and by different people. While I do not wholly understand it (there is an author’s note at the beginning explaining it, but I was too excited to start reading to actually study it properly) it wasn’t too difficult to keep up, and I always knew who was being addressed, even if I didn’t properly know the intricacies of the names. This is a detail that I am happy was included, as it immerses you in the story even more.

If you have any interest in Russian history at all, this is a book you should read! It puts you in the story, so you can watch the events happen, rather than simply reading about it. I read this book two weeks after buying it, but I wish I had started reading it straight away, because then I would’ve have two extra weeks of having read this fabulous book!

And done!

I have absolutely nothing to say down here, because I'm tired and can't think of anything other than 'why did I decide I was going to have weird little conversations with myself at the end of all my posts?'

Anyway.

That's all for now...

Bye!

Character Stories, making short stories for everyday people – Danny

 

Danny

The frosty grass crunched under my boots as I walked, trying not to trip over the muddy ridges left by people’s footsteps when the ground was soft, the cold air having since frozen the mud, leaving the perfect trap to try and trip me. Every so often, I reached a patch of ground where I assumed it would also be frozen, but instead my boots slipped on the mud and it squelched up the sides of my feet.

I listened for the sound of running water as I opened the gate with one hand, the other firmly on my camera, even though the strap was around my neck and there was no way it could fall. The river was close now, I knew because I had been this way many times before, several days in a row at this point. The setting sun sent rays of orange across the trees, the leaves dancing in the light. If there was a limit to the amount of pictures one could take of the setting sun, it’s rays pushing through trees and plants, the dimming light briefly illuminating the world in oranges for one last time before the morning, I had probably already passed it. 

I stopped on the little metal bridge for a moment, looking down at the river. It was too low in the ground for me to get a good picture of it, the curve by the bridge and it being low in a trench making it difficult to even get close enough to try and get the angles I wanted. It was easier further along, where the field turned to path, and the river ran alongside it, but I didn’t want to go further along just yet. If I went now, I could get a good picture or two of the sun setting on the path, something I had yet to do. Along the path, I just had images of the moon rising in the pale blue sky. I had yet to get to the path in time to get the sunset.

But, there was a reason I didn’t continue. A reason why I looped around the edge of the field, to the furthest point I could reach before I was cut off by the river, a line of trees giving me something to lean against as I waited, and potentially duck behind. The sun was in front of me, spreading its last light over the ground. It had been a little cloudy the last few days, and I hadn’t had quite as clear a view of the sun, but today, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was also much colder, and my fingers had started to go numb, but I tried to ignore that fact because other than that, it was perfect.

Or it was when my whole reason for coming here nearly every day recently arrived.

She stepped off the path, the path that ran alongside the river, and into the field, her eyes on the ground as she tried not to slip on the patches of mud that fooled you into thinking they were solid ground. Her hair fell, covering her face, and she held her arms out to each side a little, as if to keep her balance, but by the quick little steps she was taking, travelling slightly side to side, not at all the careful and thought out steps that warranted holding your arms out for balance, it looked more like she was playing at being an airplane. I felt a grin tugging at my lips, and lifted my camera, lining it up with the sun behind her. 

With the brightness of the sun behind her, her body turned into an almost silhouette against the oranges shining through the trees. She stopped walking, like she did every day, her back to me, as she looked through the trees at the setting sun. This what the moment I liked photographing the most. Her silhouette perfectly lining up with the sun, the light wrapping around her form like she was an angel. I lifted my camera, hoping to get the image before she moved.

The more I thought about why I came here each day, to get the perfect rendition of this image, the more I felt weirded out about myself. I hid in the shadows of the trees, and took pictures of this woman, again and again to get the perfect image. But, the more images I took and looked at, noting what didn’t quite work that time, or what I could do better next time, the more I saw her. The faint smile when the wind blows her hair back in time for me to capture it, the pink tinge on her cheeks and nose when it's bitterly cold, and she hugs her arms around her body. The little airplane walk she does every so often, the images making it look like she’s dancing. 

I stepped forward, trying to get the shot lined up properly, but my foot slid in what I thought was solid ground, but instead was disguised mud. My front foot slid forwards and, not expecting to slip, and not prepared to catch myself, I felt myself falling. I twisted my body, the first thought on my mind the camera in my hands, and not landing on it. My shoulder was one of the first things to hit the ground, somehow landing on a patch of ground that was solid, instead of the mud that might’ve cushioned my fall even a little. I groaned, trying to keep my head off the floor in case that certain patch of ground also lied to me and my hair would sink into the mud. 

I pushed myself to sit up, reaching my hand across my body to hold the shoulder I had landed on. It had started hurting immediately, the pain shooting up my neck from the awkward angle I had fallen at, trying to protect my camera. 

“Are you alright?” 

I looked up, half wincing at the extra pain it brought, and half squinting with the last rays of the sun directly in my eyes. The woman stood in front of me, reaching up to brush some hair out of her face. 

“I think so.” I tried to roll my shoulder back, to prove that I was fine, but I only got halfway before I bailed and stopped, clenching my jaw to stop from making any noise. Whether it was simply badly bruised or broken, it felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.

She held out a hand to me, and I reached up with my good arm and took it, pushing my feet under me as she helped me to my feet. I mumbled a thanks, quickly checking over my camera to make sure my sacrifice hadn’t been for nothing, and that it wasn’t damaged.

“Is it alright?” She asked, and I looked up at her, wondering if she was talking about my shoulder or my camera. She nodded towards the camera when she saw my questioning look. 

“Looks like it. My shoulder seemed to decide to take the impact so I could save the money getting a new one.” I was only half joking, but she smiled, revealing a dimple I had never captured in my pictures.

“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want you to lose the images before I even got a chance to look at them.” She said, still grinning, and I felt my stomach drop. She continued when I didn’t say anything. “You must have tons at this point, I’m starting to feel like you’re my personal sunset photographer.”

“I…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say. She knew? For how long? Now I feel even weirder about coming here just to take pictures of her.

“Don’t worry,” she reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re not the only one who’s been coming here to see someone. There are much quicker routes I could take to get home, but this one seems to have become my favourite.” My mind went blank of things to say, and she smiled again. “Can I walk you home, to make sure you’re not badly hurt from that fall, and to maybe see the pictures? I’m absolutely desperate to see them.”

No words came to my mind, so I just nodded.

And done!

The inspiration of this was simply a walk my brother and I took yesterday. He has a camera, I just used my phone camera, but we were taking pictures of the sunset in a setting exactly the same as the one in this story.

We weren't taking pictures of people we didn't know, and we haven't been half stalking people like in this story, but still.

That's all for now...

Bye!

Movie Review – The Lost Boys – An 80s film about a motorcycle gang who are actually vampires

I do not tend to take on movie recommendations, other than from Netflix, for the pure reason that movies have a tendency to bore me, and Netflix is the only thing that accurately knows what movies I will like.

This film, though, I watched on the recommendation of my Twitter friend, Compass (@CompassStories). I originally talked about how I came to watch this film in my review (which I wrote before writing this bit) so I will stop writing, introduce the movie, and then get into my review!

Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire.

When a single mother and her two sons move to the sleepy seaside California town of Santa Clara, they discover much more than they anticipated in this visually stunning blend of hip humor, horror and rock 'n' roll about the most compelling group of contemporary vampires ever to put fang to vein.

My Review!

There is a whole story behind me watching this movie. One of my dearest friends on Twitter is a very big vampire fan, and one time, a good few weeks ago, possibly even months, I either asked for some film suggestions, or asked what film a character was from. It was so long ago, I don’t actually remember the interaction. But, I do remember this film coming up, and I said I would watch it. Skip forwards to now, I see someone else talking about this film, remember I said I would watch it, and actually go and watch it. 

It’s bad enough already that Michael and Sam are forced to move to Santa Carla after their parents divorce. The whole place seems strange, and their grandfather is the kind of person who will bestow a stuffed animal on you, and deem it an appropriate and welcomed gift. But, on top of that, Michael finds his eye drawn towards a girl, who seems to be unavailable, due to her connection with a motorcycle gang. He doesn’t let that stop him though, and as Michael attempts to become the sort of guy the girl, Star, might want, he slowly falls in with the gang.

On the other hand, Sam is simply browsing for comics when he is cornered by two boys, giving him warnings and being just a little odd. Being passed a book about vampires, Sam puts their ramblings down to the strangeness of the town, but when he starts reading the book, and Michael starts acting a little strange, he starts to wonder if it all wasn’t entirely made up.

I did not know what this film was going to be like, going into it, but I did know it was from the 80s, so I wasn’t expecting any special effects masterpiece. I must say, I was not sure what genre this film was marketed as. It was a mix between a thriller, maybe a little bit of horror, and certainly some comedy thrown in. There is a wonderful amount of dry one-liners, and, come on, Kiefer Sutherland? You can’t go wrong with him, especially as an evil teenage vampire. 

One thing I loved about this film was Michael and Sam’s relationship. They are not like modern siblings, who lock themselves in their rooms all day, barely speaking to one another, but I suppose that is simply the era. In Santa Carla, they do not even have a television to watch (although their grandfather receives the tv guide regardless), but if they did spend their time inside, not going out, doing things, or socialising, there wouldn’t have been a story to tell. They are close brothers, who look after each other. It is not just Michael looking after Sam as the older brother, for Sam does his fair share of looking after Michael as well. 

With the title of ‘The Lost Boys’, it brings to mind Peter Pan, and the children who never grew up. I wouldn’t entirely say that the children in Neverland were vampires, but lending the notion of not growing up to this movie fits almost perfectly. David and his vampire gang all seem to view vampirism as a way to escape the future. They are forever young men, able to do whatever they want without getting injured, or worrying about the consequences. They have a feeling on invincibility, and their carefree attitude harkens back to children, not following the rules or listening to anyone. Of course, in the story of Peter Pan, the Lost Boys eventually have to leave Neverland and grow up. This film plays out a little differently. 

Being from the 80s, this film was right up my street, and having Kiefer Sutherland on the cover certainly did not dissuade me, and although he was a bad guy, I wouldn’t have been opposed to seeing him more during the film. If you’re after retro vampires, this is the movie for you.

And done!

If you are a fan of vampires, you really should go and follow Compass on Twitter. They are what I would call the Number 1 Vampire Fan (among the people I follow on Twitter!) You can find them here: @CompassStories

And to Compass, I will say thank you for introducing me this film! It's been so long since we actually spoke about it, you probably don't even remember recommending it to me!

(Side note, I told my Mum I watched this movie, and she started fan-girling about Kiefer Sutherland, and talking about maggots...)

That's all for now...

Bye!

Short Story – A Trick of the Light

 

The day I met him, a lightbulb had gone out in my house. One corner of my kitchen, plunged into a strange kind of light, full of shadows cast from the remaining working lights. I hadn’t been able to place immediately what had changed when walking into the room, but I had an immediate feeling that something was ‘off’. 

I met him at the store. I was looking at all of the different boxes, the old
bulb, the one no longer working, in my hand. The task was like one of those toys you gave to a child, to fit the shaped blocks through the right hole, except I was only given a flat image of each hole, and I had to try and figure out which one matched this thing I was holding.

He came over to me, asking if I needed any help. He wore no uniform, and had no name-tag, but he seemed to know more about light bulbs than I did, so I said yes, and he took the bulb from me, looking it over, before picking up a box from the shelf and handing it to me. I thanked him, and was going to walk away, but he started speaking, so I stopped and turned back to him. Did I want to grab a drink sometime?

The cafe was small, the aroma of coffee hanging heavily in the air. I had never been in there before, but it was nice, a place I wouldn’t visit by myself, but one I didn’t mind being in. He walked through the door, a scarf around his neck, and a big coat that he shrugged off as the door closed behind him. At first, I thought it looked like he had started growing a moustache, but when he saw me and started walking towards me, I realised he hadn’t, it had simply been a shadow from the overhead lighting.

We met twice more, at a restaurant, and back in the cafe. The third time, he dropped by my house on the evening he was supposed to pick me up and take me out for dinner. I opened the door to see him holding out a bunch of store-bought flowers, the kind that have had their petals dyed by colorant in the water. I had never liked that kind of flower, but I took them, thanking him, and asked if he wanted to step inside. Something had happened with the reservation, he said. We couldn’t go to the place he had wanted to. So I suggested we order something, and stay here instead. 

We had gone for a walk in the dark, the street lights casting shadows as our footsteps echoed down the empty street. I glanced towards him, my scarf and hat half obscuring my face, the scarf wrapped tightly around my neck and chin, and the hat coming down low on my forehead. I thought he glanced towards me, and smiled, but when I smiled back, he didn’t realise. I reached for his hand, and he glanced at me, a motion completely different to what I originally thought was him looking and smiling. It must’ve been the shadows, the light bouncing off things to trick the eye into thinking it saw what it did not.

We grew closer quickly, especially after I love yous were exchanged. After a year, we had keys to each other’s apartments, and he dropped by nearly every day after work, making a detour to come and visit me. I made friends with his friends, and we set up a surprise party to celebrate his twenty-fifth birthday. He had walked through the door, and someone had followed him in. We had jumped out when he turned the light on, shouting ‘Happy Birthday’, and pulling party poppers. When our eyes met, at first I thought he looked angry, but it morphed into surprise. It must’ve always been surprise. The sudden change in light, from darkness to brightness, must’ve been messing with my eyes. He introduced the girl behind him as a co-worker, and said she had come round to pick up some files he had brought home from work that she needed. 

There were some things that I started to question, especially when he stopped coming round after work. I walked over to his place one evening, missing his company, unlocking his door and walking in. He looked up from the sofa, where he was sat with his co-worker. I thought he looked annoyed, but he stood and walked over to me, embracing me and planting a kiss on my lips. I pulled away, and said I was sorry if I was interrupting them doing work. The smell of her perfume seemed to have permeated every particle of air. He said it was fine, they were just finishing. She had left soon after, and we had ordered food, and watched a movie together, his arm around me, but the smell of her perfume lingered, and distracted me.

The day it all came crashing down, I was going over to his house. He had called me earlier, before work, and asked if I could come over at six so we could go out to dinner. I arrived at five-thirty, knowing he would be home and wanting to see him. His front door was unlocked and I walked in, seeing him no-where. I called his name, and knocked on the closed door of his bedroom. I heard someone swear, and it wasn’t him. It was a female voice. No longer caring about privacy, I pulled his door open. How I wished my eyes were tricking me, that the light from behind me was casting strange shadows into his room, but no. In front of me stood his co-worker, a sheet pulled around her body. I turned away as he pulled on his trousers, and he tried to walk after me, but I slammed his front door shut before he could reach me. 

I thought he loved me. But I suppose that was a trick of the light as well.

And done!

I had the idea for this story a couple of days ago, but mainly I only had the title and the last line. The rest just kind of appeared when I was sat, waiting in the car. There was nothing else to do (I had no WiFi, gasp!) so I wrote this.

That's all for now...

Bye!

A Review – Janie by Joseph D. Slater

I grabbed my copy of this book after talking to the author for a short period of time on Twitter. This is the way a lot of the books I've been reading lately have ended up in my ebook library – a couple of tweets go back and forth, and suddenly I'm reading their book.

I will first introduce the book, and then I will get into my review!

In this Henson meets Lovecraft universe, Janie’s sister is kidnapped through a portal to the Conscious Sanctum, a world full of monsters, trials, and tears.

Led by the spirit of her father in the form of a raven, she faces these challenges in order to save her sister from the fate of the Vulture Queen.

A path of piranha-toothed mice and man-eating trees awaits her, but can she even save herself when she gets there?

Amazon UK • Amazon US

My Review!

Janie is a child, at just 12 years old, but her life has forced her to grow up quicker than she should have. She lives in a house with her mother, step-father, and younger sister, Delilah, but she has to take on the role of mother. Her mother and step-father spend most of their time arguing, and her mother seems to have wanted servants, instead of children. Nothing Janie can do seems to be good enough, even though she is trying her best to raise herself and Delilah.

After buying a new book, Janie’s life gets flipped upside-down when a raven starts speaking to her, claiming to be her dead father, Frank, and a portal opens, sucking Delilah in. Without a thought for her own safety, Janie jumps in after her sister, closely followed by Frank. Finding themselves in the Conscious Sanctum, Janie’s immediate mission is to find Delilah, but first, she must survive long enough to do so.

To begin with, I likened the Conscious Sanctum to Narnia, for there is an evil queen, the Vulture Queen, and creatures that do not exist on Earth. However, it quickly became apparent that this novel is not one of a place like Narnia. The Conscious Sanctum is a horrific place, and it seems impossible that you would stumble upon anyone who would help you, over using you for their own gain. The Vulture Queen wants young children, to be her personal slaves, and so adults are a rarity in the Conscious Sanctum. Those who grow too old are killed. 

Janie finds herself overcoming great obstacles, with an angel and a devil on each shoulder. The angel is Frank, attempting to lead her through the Conscious Sanctum safely. However, she has her own mind, and often does not listen to Frank – besides, she can’t quite find it within herself to forgive him for leaving her to live with her mother after his death. On the other shoulder is Arith, a demon who started following Janie around ever since she bought that book. Arith gives less than helpful advice, usually trying to convince her to kill people, and Janie finds herself in situations where she would love to listen to one, but the other is presenting the only viable option.

I loved Janie as a character. She is very brave, clear by her jumping through the portal after her sister, and by the events that follow, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get scared. Once again, she is only 12, and this new world holds horrors the like of which she has never even thought about before. At some points in the story, I wondered if perhaps Janie should have been portrayed as older than 12, for some of the things she does or says seem like an older child, but considering the circumstances she grew up in, I suppose she already is older in spirit than she is in body. 

One of my absolutely favourite parts of this book was Dibs. Dibs is a cave weasel, who started following Janie around and quickly becomes great friends with her. He has no dialogue, being a cave weasel, but he is a very large personality, and he seems to communicate just fine without spoken language. Dibs’ and Janie’s friendship was wonderful, especially with how trusting they are in each other. The whole thing made me want a cave weasel to see me and decide that I was their person, so I could have a little buddy like that as well.

This book has plenty of twists, with the changing environment and revelations Janie makes about the people she comes into contact with. I did find the story a little slow and confusing at first, but everything clicked into place quickly, and after that I couldn’t put this book down. If you loved books like Narnia as a child, and want something a little darker, and with a bit more of a deadly suspense, you should definitely check this one out!

And done!

I'm writing this post on New Years Eve, and this was the 74th book I read this year. I have approximately 13 hours to read another book to get to 75 books before midnight. And I have things to do today... fingers crossed!

That's all for now...

Bye!