“Ding.”
Noddy couldn’t work in a place like this. He’d rather be dead. Constant jangling every time someone walked through the door. Soulless musak blaring from a portable radio behind the counter.
“Good afternoon. Can I help you?”
But Janine seemed to like it. At least, she’d been here for a while, without going postal and littering the tiny print shop with the dismembered bodies of her co-workers. Which was close enough to liking as far as he was concerned.
“Janine? Is she around?”
Big Hair behind the counter reassessed the situation. She’d only spoken to this long-haired skermunkil in the perhaps overly ambitious and obviously mistaken belief that he was a potential customer. Still, to her credit, she restrained her lip’s instinctive urge to curl up at the corner, and her nose remained firmly out of the air.
“She’s not here right now, dear. Popped out to see the doctor.”
Noddy turned. The conversation was over. But wait…
He turned back. “Is she okay? Did she hurt herself?”
Big Hair hadn’t yet turned away, waiting for the customary greetings that would indicate the end of the discussion. So she was still poised and ready.
“Oh, she didn’t say. Probably just a check-up, though, I would think.” She thought for a moment, mascara flitting up to the left as she scanned the memories stashed in that corner of her crimped red hair. “No, she seemed fine.”
Noddy smiled this time before turning away. But not much.
This week’s featured image is courtesy of fairy goddess Tana Jovic, designer extraordinaire.
Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon (where you’ll find the whole book, all 13 stories including this one).
Download FREE sampler previews of all my books, and some complete short stories, from PCloud.
No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.
Catch Big Day Out, a mad mercenary romp through the dystopian nightmare that Covid-19 might have become. Might still become, if we don’t keep our self-appointed leaders on a very short leash.
“Complete kak. Not a single witch or demon in the whole book.” – John West, author of the awesome Burning Books series, featuring witches and demons and serial killers.
“Where are the puzzles? And the trains?” – Richard Edwards, author of the even more awesome Puzzle Train series, full of puzzles and trains, islands and castles.
Available online from most good retailers. www.books2read.com/b/billjames
Cheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment