Seven Grains of Sand
By Ed Wood
Copyright 2012 Ed Wood
Smashwords Edition
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Contents
The Angel
'I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them'
(The Koran, 8.12)
They sat together on the bench in silence.
The sound of Derby Cathedral, ringing out nine o’clock, reverberated in waves down the narrow street and rolled out across the damp market square. Still without a word, but exchanging a nervous glance, they checked their wrist watches simultaneously. Ahmed could feel the sweat running down the back of his neck. There was no turning back now. He had performed all the appropriate rituals during the early hours of that morning and he was ready. His place in paradise was assured. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, praising Allah under his breath.
He opened his eyes. As he watched the many people rushing past, he felt a mixture of pity and disgust for them. Their western society was so corrupt with its debauchery and drunkenness. They had no honour. They needed to be made aware of the glory of Allah. They would all be welcomed into paradise as martyrs. He was doing them a favour.
His eyes fell on an attractive young girl making her way to work. She wore a short black skirt, dark tights and improbably high heels. His gaze followed her closely as she passed by the bench. Her legs, possibly accentuated by the heels, were perfectly curved and shapely. A lust for her began to rise within him. He cursed the weakness of his flesh and a deep shame came over him. He closed his eyes again and recited quietly verses from the Koran. His admiration of her turned to hatred. She deserved to die for her wickedness. As if to reassure himself, he placed his hand inside the pocket of his coat and found the smooth touch of the detonator button.
He felt a gentle nudge from his companion on the bench and he knew it was time. His stomach lurched and he thought he was going to be sick. He stood slowly and began the short walk to the appointed place across the market square. It had been chosen to cause the maximum devastation. His nerves passed and he felt a sudden and deep sense of pride and camaraderie with all his Muslim brothers, who, at this very moment in every major city in Britain, were also making similar journeys to their appointed places. He glorified the name of Allah as he walked along and finally reached his destination.
Only then did he see the little girl in the brilliant white dress. She was half walking, half running, trying to keep up with her mummy who pushed a pram forcefully across the market square. As the little girl came close, Ahmed could see that she was dressed as an angel, probably on the way to a nativity play somewhere. Her wings had been crudely fashioned from cardboard wrapped in silver foil.
Everything slowed.
She looked up at him with a beautiful, penetrating little smile. The moment seemed frozen. He closed his eyes, desperately trying to break the spell; he couldn’t stand to see the purity and innocence in her face. As he pushed the detonator, mumbling words of praise, he felt a stinging regret that the little girl would bear the full brunt of the initial blast.
The sound of the pram wheels squeaked away into the distance. For a moment Ahmed was paralysed, a confusion searing through his dulled brain. It hadn’t worked. The bomb hadn’t exploded.
He opened his eyes, searching desperately for the little girl. But all he saw was a woman pushing a pram forcefully across the damp market square.
Dear future ME,
This is weird: writing to myself in the future. I feel I should know you very well because you ARE ME! But you seem like a total stranger. You seem unreal, distant. When you read this, you – me – we – will be middle-aged! Most of our life will be gone! I hope you’re okay. Can you still run a six-minute-mile, or have we got fat?
Through the viewfinder, he saw the world in black and white. From the total black of the shadows to the bright-white highlights, his images used a quality of abstraction that revealed some new truth about the subject, a truth without the distraction of colour.
The beach was empty – first time ever. He swept the camera out across the turbulent and torrid sea, looking for a perfect image, one that was full of dramatic tension. He saw the gulls fighting hopelessly against the gale, twisting and buffeted, their desperate cries lost on the wind; he saw thick black clouds raking across the sky like enormous silent shell-bursts; and he saw the waves smashing onto the sand with thunderous regularity. And in amongst that boiling white water, he noticed the lone surfer duck-diving under the breaking waves. He locked off the tripod and zoomed-in to fill the frame. Then he waited.
Releasing the shutter at just the right moment, he captured the surfer rising up on a mountainous wave, cutting effortlessly across the rolling barrel.
Perfect.
Heavy rain started to fall and the strengthening wind whipped it into his face. After wiping some of the moisture off the LCD screen, he packed the camera and tripod into his expedition bag. He slung the bag over his shoulder and walked back across the beach to the car park. As he opened the boot of his car, he noticed an old couple sitting safely behind a steamed-up windscreen. They looked out at the storm, pointing towards distant objects and drinking from a large tartan flask. He considered taking their photo but quickly dismissed the idea as too much effort: there were too many ‘old couple in the rain’ shots about already.
A white carrier bag flew up out of nowhere, swirling violently before getting caught on the wing-mirror of a beaten-up VW camper. The bodywork was painted crudely with yellow and pink flowers.
He heard the slap of bare feet and turned around to see a girl of about twenty carrying a surfboard under one arm. She wore a wetsuit that seemed to contain every colour in the visible spectrum, but the design seemed exaggerated, like it was some sort of parody of colour.
‘It’s a bit rough,’ he said.
She smiled at him, sniffing and wiping her nose with her free hand. ‘Just a bit.’
Anyway, here I am sitting in English and Mr Denton thought it would be a good idea if we wrote these letters to ourselves in the future. Silly, really. He’s going to keep them somewhere and post them to us exactly twenty years from today. He got the idea from a radio programme, apparently. Something to do with remembering how we once were, remembering our hopes and fears for the future etc. It’s supposed to teach us something, I guess.
The phone echoed through the hallway. On the previous two occasions it had rung that morning, she hadn’t reached it in time. The regular tap of her walking stick on the laminate floor punctuated her slow progress across the hallway. Rheumatoid arthritis, brought on by the intensive gymnastics in her youth, had left her with the mobility of an eighty year old. She couldn’t even lift a saucepan these days.
Outside, the wind howled, throwing the rain against the windows and doors with a ferocious splatter. She picked up the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Jan.’
She recognised the woman’s voice immediately. But only from a long time ago. ‘Hello. How are you?’
‘Listen, I don’t have time for all that,’ Jan said. ‘He’s going to get a letter, probably today. It might even be there now. Have you checked?’
‘What sort of letter?’ She slumped down on the stool next to the telephone table.
‘I don’t have time to explain that now. Just make sure he doesn’t see any letters today. Okay?’
‘I’m not with you,’ she said, her walking stick falling to the floor with a clatter. ‘Damn it!’
‘Damn it, indeed,’ the voice on the other end agreed.
‘Look, I’m not really sure what you’re talking about. What letter?’ She reached forward for the stick and pulled the phone off the telephone table and onto the floor.
‘Hello? Hello?’ Jan’s voice was desperate on the other end of the line.
‘I’m still here. The phone fell on the floor,’ she said.
‘He mustn’t read that letter. Do you understand?’
She stayed on the phone with Jan for another five minutes, listening to more instructions she had no intention of following. After she’d finished, she made her way back into the lounge and fell to sleep on the settee. The noise of a car door slamming outside woke her with a start.
I don’t think he’ll send them. He’ll forget. Or he’ll be dead! Looking at the state of him now, he won’t make twenty years. But if you are reading this, then he must have remembered to post them. Good old Denton, eh?
He parked his car on the crumbling tarmac of the drive. A Kate Bush CD was playing on the stereo and he sat for a while in the car and listened to it in a daydream: a child’s voice spoke over a haunting piano, ‘The day is full of birds. Sounds like they’re saying words.’
Stepping out of the car, the evening was calm. The earlier storm had blown itself out, the clouds parting slowly to allow a little sunlight through. He opened the gate and made his way up the path. The scent of summer flowers, still moist from the rain, filled his nostrils. Reaching the front door, he paused momentarily as the song of a single blackbird rose above the rest. He listened carefully to the complex rhythm of shrill whistles, trying to decipher some meaning – anything – but there were no words.
He turned the key and shouldered open the front door, staggering into the hall as it finally gave way. A litter of letters were scattered on the floor. Bending down to gather them up, he saw a brown envelope. Turning it over in his hands; his heart stopped. It was addressed to him – nothing special about that, except that he didn’t live there anymore. And it was his own childish handwriting that stood out in carefully constructed black block capitals on the front of the envelope. Ripping it open, he pulled out two sheets of a handwritten letter and began to read. He didn’t notice the tapping of the stick on the laminate floor.
‘When are you going to fix that door?’ a breathless voice said, behind him.
‘Soon, Mum. Soon,’ he said, trying to decipher the immature handwriting.
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. Why?’
‘You’ve gone pale,’ she said, leaning heavily on the stick.
‘Have I?’ he said.
‘What’s that letter?’ she asked casually.
At first he didn’t answer, but then he turned around and looked straight into her eyes. ‘You tell me.’
Suddenly, he could see the years of guilt etched on her face and the full realisation finally hit him: ‘You knew, didn’t you?’
She bowed her head, speaking softly. ‘Yes. We thought it best.’
‘We?’
I don’t really know what to write. I suppose I should talk about what’s happening in my life right now. But I’m not sure I want to. The truth is, I’m scared. I’m fifteen and I’m just about to leave school. I want to go to college with my friends, to study photography, but I’m not sure that will be possible now. I should be happy. But I’m not. In fact, I hate life at the moment.
Sitting in his car on the opposite side of the road, he watched the mediocre and unfamiliar semi-detached house sink slowly into the gloom of dusk. He was certain it was the right house. A light went on downstairs and someone drew a curtain across the bay window.
He’d read the letter over and over, and finally decided that he needed to track her down. He’d spent the whole of the previous day joining Facebook, adding lots of old names he knew, and old faces he certainly didn’t. Some of them had changed beyond all recognition.
Had he?
He’d been surprised to see that she wasn’t on there. But an email from one of her old friends had explained very sensitively to him that she had recently died of cancer, within the last few weeks. She’d only been thirty-three. He didn’t know how to feel. She was a stranger to him. It had been eighteen years since he’d seen her last and he could only remember her as she had been then, long brown hair and beautiful big brown eyes – or was that just his memory playing a trick on him, a cliché of time? His mind wandered back through the years as easily as if he was rewinding a video cassette. And he heard the faint call of the wood pigeon.