Laurie Whiteley

The pale man’s smile made him look younger than he was, and the fine lines at the corners of his eyes wrinkled in genuine pleasure as he handed over the cash for his purchase. The bills were real – she checked, thoroughly – but she wasn’t moved by his smile. She counted every bill (he gave her no change: this kind of purchase was in round numbers, and large ones at that), her narrowed eyes flicking to his hands at random intervals. They stayed gently clasped in front of him, not fidgeting or jiggling; he was relaxed, placid. He seemed content, looking for all the world like a Sunday gent. All he was missing was a hat tipped back on his head and a loosened tie and he’d be a fifties throwback, watching his kids play in the sun after church. It unnerved her something awful. Continue reading →

It’s a strange thing, coming out of a chrysalis and finally becoming a butterfly in your mid-forties. I’m on an early-morning train to San Diego, and I can’t stop looking at my hair.

It started the way most evolution does: with death. First comes the dying, then comes the rebirthing. For the butterfly, it’s the caterpillar: for me, it was my landlord. Continue reading →

“Who are you and what are you doing?” He asked. His voice wavered, but the rifle stayed steady.

“What I’ve always done.” she said, patiently. “I’m a nurse.” She was seated on a low ammunition crate, olive drab. She was sunk in shadow, her presence highlighted only by the starched white cap and the flash of the winding bandage around her fine, pale hands. Continue reading →

He’s hard to forget, the man with the cheroot. It’s not just the cheroot, it’s the patterned sweater and sweatpants that seal the deal. He’s a young man – fit, athletic – standing on the corner at 6 o’clock at night, smoking a cheroot in the rain in front of the chip shop, unaffected by the world. Like a discount Clint Eastwood.

I’m in a decommissioned taxi, heading north. Always north. North until it turns south. North of here, wherever here is. He flags me down, oblivious to the fact that the taxi sign is unlit; hasn’t even been lightable in ages. I pull over.

He smiles at me and hops in. I ask where he’s going and he says nothing; just smokes his cheroot, smiling.

We pull away. We head north.

My aunt’s estate consists chiefly of postcards. Nearly four thousand of them, promiscuously arranged in clear plastic boxes she bought in a fit of organisation. I thought at first they were arranged by place name, but now I’m not so sure. They’ll likely turn out to be arranged according to the month she visited, or whom she visited with. There are no photographs – certainly none of herself, never – just blank postcards, waiting to be sent.

No one even uses the chapel any more. In deference to the fact that it’s still sanctified, the hospital staff haven’t begun using it for storage yet.

Spare chairs are neatly folded and sit, waiting, next to the votive candles. The pews, barely used, still look new.

Outside, it snows.

“And what do you think you’re doing, young man?”

He knew he was in trouble. Mom’s hand was on her hip, still holding the wooden spoon she’d been stirring with. A drip of vivid red sauce had landed on the otherwise-impeccable kitchen floor, which would annoy his mother if she had looked down at her own tapping foot. Continue reading →