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    Short Cuts: Collected Short Stories Vol 1
    Short Cuts: Collected Short Stories Vol 1
    Short Cuts: Collected Short Stories Vol 1
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    Short Cuts: Collected Short Stories Vol 1

    By Erik Boman

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A collection of short stories by Erik Boman:

    - Ghost of Past and Present
    A man flees the city for a childhood beach, where he discovers lost and precious memories – but his memories prove more dangerous than he could have imagined...

    - Sessions
    In the near future, virtual images of ourselves can be stored, and death is not always the end of an relation. Lars’s deceased wife is stuck in an afterlife he and she never expected – but can he let her go?

    - Once upon a time in Peter’s Special Book
    In a treasured storybook, an invincible – or so he would like to think – hero faces challenges beyond his narrative...

    - Fight and Flight
    In Kyoto, a businessman and a despairing samurai face overwhelming challenges. They are separated by centuries, but joined by ancestry and a mutual watershed moment...

    - The Perfect Hit
    In a busy train station, a frustrated hitman is running late for the shot of his target’s life...

    - The Diary of Emma Anderson
    A wounded WW1 soldier arrives at night to a remote New Zealand spa, a world away from the raging combat – but the battlefield will not give up its claims so easily...

    - A London Night Shift
    On the London Underground, a librarian with a side interest in vampires debates with a group of youths – but his spontaneous lecture has unexpected consequences...

    This collection features stories that vary greatly in setting and tone, but they are knit together by a common theme: They’re less about what you see around you, and more about what goes on when you’re not looking.

    Some stories are projected into the future; some rest in the past. Some tales dwell in whimsical and upbeat places; others hide in deeper, darker waters. You will meet businessmen, hitmen, ghosts, lovers and a certain breed of well-known fanged beings. Hopefully, you will meet them in a new light.

    These stories are all about people. They are about what drives us, what haunts us, and what makes us start when something in the night goes bump – or even speaks out loud.
    _____________________________________________________________

    Erik Boman is a writer from Oxford. He is the author of "Short Cuts" and was awarded with the A.M. Heath literary prize in 2011.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherErik Boman
    Release dateApr 9, 2015
    ISBN9781311024220
    Short Cuts: Collected Short Stories Vol 1
    Author

    Erik Boman

    Erik Boman is a writer based in Oxford, UK, where he shares a tiny house with his fiancée, two riotous daughters, a nutty dog and a sociopathic cat.When the sun is up, he designs for a travel website. At night, he writes, or wants to.His bookshelf is a tumultuous mess of speculative fiction, but at its epicentre are Neil Gaiman and William Gibson.The keywords for anything he writes are 'not here' - he's a friend of any text that takes the reader out of this world, and away to other places. Sometimes even nice places.

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      Book preview

      Short Cuts - Erik Boman

      Short Cuts – Collected Short Stories Volume 1

      by Erik Boman

      Published October 2014

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person (other than lending it to her or him), please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

      This eBook uses some actual locations and family names, however all events are fictionalized and all persons appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, living, dead or hiding right behind you, is entirely coincidental.

      Cover image montage by Erik Boman

      Copyright © 2014 Erik Boman

      www.wanderingmind.net

      Short Cuts – Collected Short Stories Vol 1

      This collection features stories that vary greatly in setting and tone, but they are knit together by a common theme: They’re less about what you see around you, and more about what goes on when you’re not looking.

      Some stories are projected into the future; some rest in the past. Some tales dwell in light, whimsical and upbeat places; others hide in deeper, darker waters. You will meet businessmen, hitmen, ghosts, lovers and a certain breed of well-known fanged beings. Hopefully, you will meet them in a new light.

      These stories are all about people. They are about what drives us, what haunts us, and what makes us start when something in the night goes bump – or even speaks out loud.

      The tales that follow here are meant to entertain and to be taken at face value (except, as you’ll notice, The Perfect Hit).

      Enjoy.

      *

      Index

      Ghosts of Past and Present

      Sessions

      The Perfect Hit

      The Diary of Emma Anderson

      Once Upon a Time in Peter's Special Book

      Fight and Flight

      A London Night Shift

      *

      A word of thanks

      Ghosts of Past and Present

      Liam stared at the blackened, burnt-down pier, then kicked a rusty beer can and threw his arms wide to let the wind fill his embrace.

      Come on, he shouted at the ruined amusement park. Tell me what the hell I’m doing here.

      There was no answer, only the baying wind and the crashing of waves. A drizzle soaked his bloodied suit while he leaned against his car. Liam sighed and stared at the broken pier, willing it to give up its secret. He had to have come here for a reason.

      Somewhere, somehow, a motive. Now only to find it.

      The entertainment park had been built on a platform supported by wooden pillars, but at some point a blaze had turned the place into a grimy ruin. Most of the raised area was gone, its sooty support columns jutting up from the sands like the ribcage of a skeletal leviathan. A few skewed and tilted stalls remained, all far beyond repair. The great carousel was a large, upright circle of filthy, half-molten plastic lumps. Towering above it all was the charred cross of a large electric sign, dark and inert.

      Liam tried to overlay the rubble with his memories. The air had been full of laughter, music and the clack-clack-clack of carousels. Now silence cloaked the lifeless beach. Even the seagulls were gone, deprived of leftovers to fight over. The stench of burnt wood and charred plastics still lingered, thick under the scent of salt and seaweed. He felt dirty. Dirty and old.

      Liam ran his hands through his dark, matte hair and shook his head, trying to tease out a thread of sense from his tangled thoughts. The day had started as any other: A shave, a pee, choosing a tie, tying the shoes and out through the door. A quick drive-through breakfast on his way to a meeting. Radio news like static, surrounded by drivers shut in their bubbles of thought and stress.

      Then everything started to go wrong. He could feel when it began, like a cart in a horror park ride veering off onto an unknown track. First he grew edgy, grinding his teeth at every noise. Then he botched up a critical meeting, stormed off and sped through pouring rain to end up at a scorched ruin. He had driven here on impulse, treating his corporate Jaguar to a rough hour-long drive on flooded, deserted highways. Back at the office, they would say that he was stressed out, in need of a break from his job – if he still had a job – but he would not be able to tell them why he had come here. The idea that the wasted remains of a seaside amusement park held a promise of revelation would leave them gaping, and him fired.

      Liam sighed, leaning into the breeze. He squatted down and put his palm against the moist sand. The grains evoked memories of sugar cones and sunshine, of fast feet and freedom. The beach was a giant canvass, embossed, erased and redecorated over and over by thousands of footprints. Now, it was as featureless as a Monday meeting, and just as enlightening.

      Liam saw a dark drop fall from his forehead. For a second, it formed a tiny stain on the beach, and then a wave washed it away. He found a stained handkerchief in his pocket, dabbed at the wound and then paused.

      A band of pale skin crossed his ring finger like an inverted shadow. A reminder of the frailty of vows and dependence, fading much too slow. He traced the line with his thumb, wondering where she was. At home in her new, refurbished flat? Or at work, two blocks from their old favourite café? At a window, looking at the rain? Thinking of him. Sure.

      She probably did not stand on a deserted shore, looking for ghosts. She had too much brains, and Liam wished he had more.

      Eleven months and three days since they broke up. Almost a year of hated hours. They hardly ever fought in the beginning, but deadlines keeping him at work had soured their marriage, replacing laughter with shouting matches.

      No explanation was good enough for her. Yes, he loved her, but he needed his job. It paid the bills, and for once, it was a good job. After a decade of check-out slavery, grueling evening courses and too little sleep, he had money, a reputation, and a car. A real car. She accused him of valuing his career over her; he blamed her for being unfeeling.

      Finally, one bleak October morning, she took off, not even bothering to close the door. He stared after her from the kitchen, speechless. When he saw his slack-jawed face reflected in a pricey frying pan, he went on a twenty minute home-wrecking rampage that left him even more miserable.

      Blinking in the rain on the beach, Liam wondered how their marriage had dissolved in just two years, but the answers were lost in a fog of shame and accusations. He closed his hand to a fist, sighed and looked around.

      There, over at the twisted bridge, was where his first swimming strokes had made him feel invulnerable. Right where he stood he had run with his kite, hooting as it soared on the whipping winds. Over at the base of the cliff, his first kiss had smashed all film-fed fantasies into pale fragments. And there, by the odd rock formations, he and his mates had searched for Blackbeard’s lost riches, guided by a carefully penned treasure map that magically appeared in his father’s briefcase. Now he dealt with budget spreadsheets and annual reports. Mystery swapped for complexity.

      Liam pulled out one of his business cards. The designer bureau called it calculated to promote a subtle atmosphere of professionalism. For a time, he actually believed it.

      The devil was indeed in the details, especially the polished ones.

      He folded the card, creating a paper plane, and threw it towards the sea. The tiny aircraft sailed briefly in the rain and then crashed to the ground, far short of its goal. He stared at the tiny wreck, then turned his eyes up to the bland blanket of sluggish clouds, dragging their burden of rain over the sky.

      Behind him were his car and the road back. A quick escape to a comfortable life on repeat. In front of him the sea churned, all beauty, danger and unexplored depths.

      So. What do I do?

      The answer was laid out in his mind: He would head back, make amends, and go from there. Standing here was useless; the magic of the beach was lost, washed away by the tides of time.

      He shook his head and wiped sand off his hands. What did I think I’d do here? Liam whispered to the wind. Fly kites again?

      No, said a soft voice behind him. "You’re here to look

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