Kevin Fleming's Blog, page 2
October 5, 2017
2nd Hallowe'en Post - The Face
During October, the month of Hallowe’en, I am telling short, but true (perhaps with a little poetic licence), stories of some spooky things I have experienced. Today’s story is about a place where I used to work and is called ‘The Face’.
I am going back to the 1970’s when I was an apprentice technician working in a telephone exchange, an old building in Liverpool’s inner city, almost in the centre. There were about seven staff who worked there over two floors filled with racks of switches hammering away all day, automatically setting up and carrying calls.
There must have been hundreds of thousands of miles of wiring throughout the building connecting all of the equipment. For those with any knowledge of the telecoms systems of those days, the equipment was known as Strowger, but it has no real relevance to this story.
Every hour or so, the technicians would stop for a smoking break which took place on the staircase. I have never smoked in my life, but I always joined those who did, just for the break. Although the equipment was on two floors, there was also a basement which held the cable chamber. The staircase we congregated on was the ground floor where you could see to the upper floor or down into the basement.
I had only worked there a matter of days when, during one of the smoking breaks, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a man standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at me. I turned to look quickly, but he’d gone. One of the smokers noticed me look and quickly said, “you just saw the ghost.” He was laughing, but at the same time I sensed he was being serious. The others agreed with him. I didn’t believe any of them and thought they were messing around with the new kid.
This continued to happen over the weeks that followed, and I began to realise, most of the technicians really did believe it, they all saw the ‘ghost’ standing in the same place. Apparently, the exchange had been built on the site of an old brewery, and when its closure had been ordered, one of the old men, who had worked there all his life, was found hanged.
Apparently, this was a true story, but more was to come of the appearances for me. One Saturday morning I was working alone threading wires across a huge frame known as the Main Distribution Frame. You start on one side, pull the wire from a reel and push it through a ring. You then go around to the other side, reach through and pull it across a bed of other wires to its new designated connection point. You then terminate both ends.
I was entirely alone in the building when I pushed a wire through the ring. I went around to the other side, reached through, and right in the centre of the frame, the blank face of an old man stared me straight in the eye. I can remember that face clearly, it was neither happy or sad, it just looked at me and I reacted by falling backwards against a radiator attached to the wall. By the time I’d picked myself up, the face had gone.
I never mentioned it to the others I worked with, even though they believed there was something in the exchange, I decided that was too risky a tale to tell, so I kept it to myself.
I am going back to the 1970’s when I was an apprentice technician working in a telephone exchange, an old building in Liverpool’s inner city, almost in the centre. There were about seven staff who worked there over two floors filled with racks of switches hammering away all day, automatically setting up and carrying calls.
There must have been hundreds of thousands of miles of wiring throughout the building connecting all of the equipment. For those with any knowledge of the telecoms systems of those days, the equipment was known as Strowger, but it has no real relevance to this story.
Every hour or so, the technicians would stop for a smoking break which took place on the staircase. I have never smoked in my life, but I always joined those who did, just for the break. Although the equipment was on two floors, there was also a basement which held the cable chamber. The staircase we congregated on was the ground floor where you could see to the upper floor or down into the basement.
I had only worked there a matter of days when, during one of the smoking breaks, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a man standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at me. I turned to look quickly, but he’d gone. One of the smokers noticed me look and quickly said, “you just saw the ghost.” He was laughing, but at the same time I sensed he was being serious. The others agreed with him. I didn’t believe any of them and thought they were messing around with the new kid.
This continued to happen over the weeks that followed, and I began to realise, most of the technicians really did believe it, they all saw the ‘ghost’ standing in the same place. Apparently, the exchange had been built on the site of an old brewery, and when its closure had been ordered, one of the old men, who had worked there all his life, was found hanged.
Apparently, this was a true story, but more was to come of the appearances for me. One Saturday morning I was working alone threading wires across a huge frame known as the Main Distribution Frame. You start on one side, pull the wire from a reel and push it through a ring. You then go around to the other side, reach through and pull it across a bed of other wires to its new designated connection point. You then terminate both ends.
I was entirely alone in the building when I pushed a wire through the ring. I went around to the other side, reached through, and right in the centre of the frame, the blank face of an old man stared me straight in the eye. I can remember that face clearly, it was neither happy or sad, it just looked at me and I reacted by falling backwards against a radiator attached to the wall. By the time I’d picked myself up, the face had gone.
I never mentioned it to the others I worked with, even though they believed there was something in the exchange, I decided that was too risky a tale to tell, so I kept it to myself.
October 2, 2017
1st Hallowe'en Post - The Room Upstairs
During October, the month of Hallowe’en, I will tell a short story of some of the spooky things I have experienced. I’m not someone who professes to be in tune with the supernatural, but over the years some things have happened to me that can’t be explained. These stories are true as I remember them, so what better time of year to share those creepy happenings.
Today’s true story is called ‘The Room Upstairs’.
I was seven years old and my mother and I were staying with my Aunt. She lived in a town on the east coast of England many miles from my home so a visit usually lasted a week.
She lived in a long, tree lined street of tall terraced houses. It was very quiet, I remember, and the dark, red bricked houses didn’t just look old and gloomy, they felt old and gloomy too. I never liked the house, and even today I can remember the goose pimples that ran up my legs and arms whenever I set foot inside. The ceiling was so high and the staircase, which began just as you stepped through the doorway, seemed to go upwards into an everlasting darkness. It felt like the house had secrets, dark secrets it would tell to only those who didn’t want to hear them.
I always tried to avoid looking up those stairs, especially when I knew nobody was up there in case I saw someone looking down at me. Bedtime was the worst, even though my mother shared the room with me when we stayed, she didn’t go to bed at the same time, which meant I was up there on my own for a while, the only company being my cousin, she was the same age as me, who was next door in her own room. I never got to sleep until everyone in the house was upstairs in bed.
One night just after the house fell into darkness, I had an experience that has stayed with me to this day. I woke up with the street light casting a dull glow in through the closed bedroom curtains. Apart from hearing the slow, heavy breathing of my sleeping mother, everywhere was still and silent. I don’t know what compelled me to get up, but I can remember pushing the covers off and climbing out of bed. The door to the dark landing was open and I headed for it.
Bearing in mind this was a two-storey house and I was on the top floor, I noticed in the gloom another staircase going upwards at the end of the landing I’d never seen before. It should not have been there, and I should not have crept towards it. Given the imagination of a seven year old child, you would be excused in thinking this account was not to be believed, but from my memory, this really did happen.
I began to walk up the steps, I felt compelled to go, one slow step at a time. At the top there was a door which I could see only because of the light from within squeezing out around the edges. When I reached the top, I was terrified, but I was so desperate to see what was in the room, I slowly lifted my hand to the door handle. Before I touched it, the door swung inwards.
A bare, yellow lightbulb hanging from the ceiling revealed a cold empty room apart from a dolls house on a table by the opposite wall and a girl a little older than me sitting on a chair beside it. I vividly remember her dark curly hair, her bright floral dress and white socks, and how her feet didn’t quite reach the floor. She smiled when she saw me standing there. “Come in and play with me,” she said.
I can still remember opening my mouth to scream for help but being struck dumb with fear. I stepped back and fumbled my way to the stairs backwards locking eyes with that girl I’d never seen before. The next thing I remember was my mother running down the stairs asking what I was doing downstairs in the hall in the middle of the night.
We all have dreams, some so vivid only our common sense tells us they weren’t real, but this one, I’m really not sure.
Today’s true story is called ‘The Room Upstairs’.
I was seven years old and my mother and I were staying with my Aunt. She lived in a town on the east coast of England many miles from my home so a visit usually lasted a week.
She lived in a long, tree lined street of tall terraced houses. It was very quiet, I remember, and the dark, red bricked houses didn’t just look old and gloomy, they felt old and gloomy too. I never liked the house, and even today I can remember the goose pimples that ran up my legs and arms whenever I set foot inside. The ceiling was so high and the staircase, which began just as you stepped through the doorway, seemed to go upwards into an everlasting darkness. It felt like the house had secrets, dark secrets it would tell to only those who didn’t want to hear them.
I always tried to avoid looking up those stairs, especially when I knew nobody was up there in case I saw someone looking down at me. Bedtime was the worst, even though my mother shared the room with me when we stayed, she didn’t go to bed at the same time, which meant I was up there on my own for a while, the only company being my cousin, she was the same age as me, who was next door in her own room. I never got to sleep until everyone in the house was upstairs in bed.
One night just after the house fell into darkness, I had an experience that has stayed with me to this day. I woke up with the street light casting a dull glow in through the closed bedroom curtains. Apart from hearing the slow, heavy breathing of my sleeping mother, everywhere was still and silent. I don’t know what compelled me to get up, but I can remember pushing the covers off and climbing out of bed. The door to the dark landing was open and I headed for it.
Bearing in mind this was a two-storey house and I was on the top floor, I noticed in the gloom another staircase going upwards at the end of the landing I’d never seen before. It should not have been there, and I should not have crept towards it. Given the imagination of a seven year old child, you would be excused in thinking this account was not to be believed, but from my memory, this really did happen.
I began to walk up the steps, I felt compelled to go, one slow step at a time. At the top there was a door which I could see only because of the light from within squeezing out around the edges. When I reached the top, I was terrified, but I was so desperate to see what was in the room, I slowly lifted my hand to the door handle. Before I touched it, the door swung inwards.
A bare, yellow lightbulb hanging from the ceiling revealed a cold empty room apart from a dolls house on a table by the opposite wall and a girl a little older than me sitting on a chair beside it. I vividly remember her dark curly hair, her bright floral dress and white socks, and how her feet didn’t quite reach the floor. She smiled when she saw me standing there. “Come in and play with me,” she said.
I can still remember opening my mouth to scream for help but being struck dumb with fear. I stepped back and fumbled my way to the stairs backwards locking eyes with that girl I’d never seen before. The next thing I remember was my mother running down the stairs asking what I was doing downstairs in the hall in the middle of the night.
We all have dreams, some so vivid only our common sense tells us they weren’t real, but this one, I’m really not sure.
February 27, 2017
Significant Others - Lissa
Something I’ve always thought about when writing, and that is the multitude of characters that ‘appear’ in books who never get a mention. I’m thinking of passers-by, or people in the crowds who are there or thereabout when the main characters are involved in the novel’s significant events. If the characters in the book are ‘alive’, then so too are those supporting them. They have their own problems and issues, so I thought I’d give some of them a few sentences of life, they deserve it.
I’m calling these people ‘Significant Others’ and the first is a young woman called Lissa who lives in a city called Bandar Kedua. She is not in my novel, The Terrapenta Project, but here she is a witness to an incident which takes place in the book:
Lissa sat on the balcony, her tiny baby in her arms, sleeping at last after a troubled night with the fever. It was a cold morning and the young mother had slept little as she held her child, dabbing a cool cloth on her face to try reducing the high temperature. She’d been told to keep the baby in the fresh air and out of the stuffy single room on the upper floor, rented from the building owner. She hated that squalid place with its straw filled mattress barely big enough for her and her partner, Samil. There was even less room now that the baby had arrived, and with hardly enough King’s Coins coming in from Samil’s work as a blacksmith in the lower reach, there was little hope for anything better.
To make matters worse, there were to be even more mouths to feed and jobs taken with another influx of Offerings due that morning. She’d known from the previous night when the orange mist had fallen, a sign from the Gods they had gifts to send. They weren’t gift Offerings for the likes of her, Samil and baby Lexia, they’d get nothing from the new arrivals, they never did.
When she heard the racket down the street in the market square as the sun rose, she leaned forward in her position on the short balcony, at least she’d have something to watch while she held her child and comforted her in her troubled sleep. The orange mist was gently lifting and she found a stale crust from the day before to nibble at to quell her aching hunger. By mid-morning, she could hear the excitement from the square as, whoever the Offerings were, they were close to being presented to the prospective buyers.
She leaned forward a little more to get a better view, but the square was down the narrow street to her left and she could see only the back part of the stage. When the auction began, the voice of the slave trader was loud enough for her to know he was speaking, but the words he spoke were muffled. She caught a glimpse of the Offering, just a single girl this time, she was blonde and wearing the orange dress and white shoes given to her by the Gods, it was all the belongings she had. It was only when the sales took place that Lissa felt there were others worse off than her. Born in Terrapenta, she was thankful she’d never been an Offering, to suffer the humiliation of being sold in the market square like an animal.
The noise seemed unusually raucous today, like there was arguing going on, even a brawl, if only she had a better view. Next, some people came onto the stage and the Offering girl was pushed back in the scuffle that followed. The shouting increased and some people ran up the street past the stalls beneath Lissa’s balcony, they were escaping whatever was happening. She would have called out to ask what was going on except she may awaken her child. It looked as though the City Guard had been called as she watched the chaos.
When she saw the Offering leap down from the stage unseen by the slave trader, Lissa stood up taking care to hold on tightly to Lexia. The blonde girl ran up her street hiding behind each of the stalls in turn, looking back frequently to check she was not being followed. The girl was close to the balcony now and had noticed a stall of dresses and woollen coats. She had a quick look round, but not up to where Lissa watched, before taking a dress from a hook and running away. The stall holder hadn’t noticed, he was too busy watching the square, probably hoping the riot didn’t come his way.
When Lissa looked again for the Offering, she’d gone, disappeared further up the street somewhere, and deeper into the city. She wasn’t going to tell the stall holder he’d just been robbed by her, if she was caught, who knows what they’d have done to her. If she could avoid capture until the third dawn, she’d be declared free by the high priest, but free to do what? She’d have nowhere to live, no coins, no food, having to scavenge just to survive. She’d probably end up as a slave in the mountain.
Lissa sat down on her chair as everything went back to normal, she looked at her tiny baby who gave a rasping cough, she needed medicine. Samil wouldn’t be home until the sun fell, she would have to hope he’d bring enough coins to buy something to help her, even if it meant they could eat only bread for a week.
I’m calling these people ‘Significant Others’ and the first is a young woman called Lissa who lives in a city called Bandar Kedua. She is not in my novel, The Terrapenta Project, but here she is a witness to an incident which takes place in the book:
Lissa sat on the balcony, her tiny baby in her arms, sleeping at last after a troubled night with the fever. It was a cold morning and the young mother had slept little as she held her child, dabbing a cool cloth on her face to try reducing the high temperature. She’d been told to keep the baby in the fresh air and out of the stuffy single room on the upper floor, rented from the building owner. She hated that squalid place with its straw filled mattress barely big enough for her and her partner, Samil. There was even less room now that the baby had arrived, and with hardly enough King’s Coins coming in from Samil’s work as a blacksmith in the lower reach, there was little hope for anything better.
To make matters worse, there were to be even more mouths to feed and jobs taken with another influx of Offerings due that morning. She’d known from the previous night when the orange mist had fallen, a sign from the Gods they had gifts to send. They weren’t gift Offerings for the likes of her, Samil and baby Lexia, they’d get nothing from the new arrivals, they never did.
When she heard the racket down the street in the market square as the sun rose, she leaned forward in her position on the short balcony, at least she’d have something to watch while she held her child and comforted her in her troubled sleep. The orange mist was gently lifting and she found a stale crust from the day before to nibble at to quell her aching hunger. By mid-morning, she could hear the excitement from the square as, whoever the Offerings were, they were close to being presented to the prospective buyers.
She leaned forward a little more to get a better view, but the square was down the narrow street to her left and she could see only the back part of the stage. When the auction began, the voice of the slave trader was loud enough for her to know he was speaking, but the words he spoke were muffled. She caught a glimpse of the Offering, just a single girl this time, she was blonde and wearing the orange dress and white shoes given to her by the Gods, it was all the belongings she had. It was only when the sales took place that Lissa felt there were others worse off than her. Born in Terrapenta, she was thankful she’d never been an Offering, to suffer the humiliation of being sold in the market square like an animal.
The noise seemed unusually raucous today, like there was arguing going on, even a brawl, if only she had a better view. Next, some people came onto the stage and the Offering girl was pushed back in the scuffle that followed. The shouting increased and some people ran up the street past the stalls beneath Lissa’s balcony, they were escaping whatever was happening. She would have called out to ask what was going on except she may awaken her child. It looked as though the City Guard had been called as she watched the chaos.
When she saw the Offering leap down from the stage unseen by the slave trader, Lissa stood up taking care to hold on tightly to Lexia. The blonde girl ran up her street hiding behind each of the stalls in turn, looking back frequently to check she was not being followed. The girl was close to the balcony now and had noticed a stall of dresses and woollen coats. She had a quick look round, but not up to where Lissa watched, before taking a dress from a hook and running away. The stall holder hadn’t noticed, he was too busy watching the square, probably hoping the riot didn’t come his way.
When Lissa looked again for the Offering, she’d gone, disappeared further up the street somewhere, and deeper into the city. She wasn’t going to tell the stall holder he’d just been robbed by her, if she was caught, who knows what they’d have done to her. If she could avoid capture until the third dawn, she’d be declared free by the high priest, but free to do what? She’d have nowhere to live, no coins, no food, having to scavenge just to survive. She’d probably end up as a slave in the mountain.
Lissa sat down on her chair as everything went back to normal, she looked at her tiny baby who gave a rasping cough, she needed medicine. Samil wouldn’t be home until the sun fell, she would have to hope he’d bring enough coins to buy something to help her, even if it meant they could eat only bread for a week.
September 26, 2016
A Short Productive Break
I finished writing my latest novel, ‘The Terrapenta Project’, a couple of months ago and set about editing it, but decided I needed a break so I decided to write a short story as a diversion. It wasn’t intended to be long, 2500 words perhaps, but I liked the main character, Bob, and I ended up writing 15,000 words over 6 chapters. It’s a ghost story called Garden Goyles: A Short Story and is very much tongue in cheek as is suggested by the cover, but it certainly gave me the break I needed from my main task. I’m now back to editing and hope to have ‘The Terrapenta Project’ published, first of all on Kindle, in a month or two. The unedited beginning of the first chapter is on my website: www.kevinflemingbooks.com
January 3, 2016
Missing them already
It feels to me that bringing characters into being is similar to having children. Writing about them is like nurturing them as they grow and trying to mould them into what I want them to be. When I start to develop the characters, quite often they don’t go the way I thought they would; just like children, they have minds of their own, with their own ideas.
When I finish my novels and put down my pen, I have no further say in their lives as I release them into the world within the pages of the completed books. I still see them for time to time when I open those books, but there is nothing more I can do for them.
This is where I’m up to right now with the characters I shared my life with for the last few years in ‘The Chronicles of Midway’. My series is finished, my characters have fled the nest, and I miss them already.
When I finish my novels and put down my pen, I have no further say in their lives as I release them into the world within the pages of the completed books. I still see them for time to time when I open those books, but there is nothing more I can do for them.
This is where I’m up to right now with the characters I shared my life with for the last few years in ‘The Chronicles of Midway’. My series is finished, my characters have fled the nest, and I miss them already.
