Okey dokey, I can give a heads up on this next bout of silence. I'm off on holiday (an entire week starting Sunday) to a southern island of Korea. Should be good, I hope. In the meantime here's a slightly longer story than the previous few. I'd really appreciate feedback on this one if you're of the mind as it's a more recent one and I haven't had time to let it settle into the good pile or the bad - or somewhere in between? (And feel free to say the bad pile - you won't hurt my feelings 
). Well, here it is. Enjoy.
Dark Horse
Jake’s life was okay. This is true on some levels. False on others.
Walking down the main street of some fictional village, he tipped his hat after slaying a beast not unlike a dragon. The green scales and extended snout had proved somewhat problematic, but eventually the unholy thing had succumbed to bravery and nobility. And now, as he straightened his hat again, chivalry would no doubt give way to passion and a long, sleepless night up in Billy’s RestHouse with a slim brunette…
Jake put down the book, his imagination trailing away, and sighed to the empty room. ‘I need a girlfriend.’ He looked down at the single piece of burnt pizza crust laying on his plate and sighed again. ‘One who likes cooking.’ Why did he even use a plate for pizza? What was the point? He sighed for a third time, stood up in the small, pastel-orange living room, and bent to retrieve his plate. He left the half glass of red wine on the heat-stained coffee table next to his book.
Five minutes later, when the sink was full and bubbly, the washing up took all of thirty seconds and the water ran clear down the drain leaving a mass of froth around the plughole like the gaping mouth of a rabid dog. ‘Albeit a small dog.’ Jake lifted his gaze from the sink and scrutinized the spotless kitchen, everything was clean and in its place, all was right with the world. ‘Screw a girlfriend,’ he muttered musing slightly on the unintentional wording. ‘Anyone’ll do, I just need some sort of social contact.’ Frowning dramatically, his voice took on the deep, resonating quality of a confident doctor. ‘Why, certainly you do, if you’re talking to yourself!’ He coughed a guttural laugh; there was no point in even pretending to look around to see if anyone had watched his display, but he hung his head all the same. ‘Always alone.’
He walked glumly back to his wine and tried to return to a world where he could say the right words and do the right things to make up a life just a bit more picturesque than his own.
Another twenty minutes and the evening ablutions were past, the lights were out, and Jake was curled up in the final room of his apartment ignoring the sound of cars passing numbly in the distance. He tossed a few times, staring up at the grey ceiling, then at the grey walls, then at the grey computer on the grey desk underneath the closed, grey curtains. Thoughts unworthy of remembering paced through his mind until they had completed the subtle transformation into something wonderfully lost in his sleeping mind.
When he woke to the stabbing alarm that filled the small bedroom, it was not the sharp, heart-pounding jerk that would have woken him instantly, but the groggy, haze-filled world that clung to his thoughts as he struggled to get out of bed. He sludged to the tiny en-suite shower room, which was actually little more than a toilet room with a drain in the middle of the floor, and punched down on the clock’s off button as he passed. He’d had to move it onto the computer desk to ensure he was out of bed before turning it off for fear of the snooze button – that had been a cruel, cruel invention.
Half an hour later, body washed, teeth cleaned, and breath minty, Jake threw his towel on the bed and got dressed in his usual work suit and blue tie, upon which there was a faint diamond pattern traced in a lighter, almost cyan, colour. Then after replacing the wet towel on the radiator he opened the curtains, drowning the room in early-morning sun. The walls lit up to display their pale green beauty but Jake was already moving through the door, his mind only now parting with its desire to finish sleeping. He continued through the front room to the kitchen and poured himself a bowl full of some cereal or other that would apparently help keep his heart healthy. Of course, reading the small print – as he found himself doing almost every morning – this promise seemed fully dependant upon him doing nothing else in his life to harm his heart. ‘That never really seems fair,’ he said to the box. ‘Do you really help keep my heart healthy, or do you merely do it no harm?’ He sighed lightly and swallowed another mouthful. ‘Not that it matters either way, you still taste good.’
Then it was out the door, a smudged grey colour on the outside, along the dim corridor that had probably last been decorated in the late sixties – just as the drugs were wearing off – down two flights of stairs and out into the fresh morning air. It was late spring and, although everything still had that air of damp and heavy fragrance to it, the downpours were less frequent, and the sun was clawing back its intensity.
The day passed, and after far too many hours of boredom, Jake exited the frightfully bland office building having spoken less than a dozen words since entering. The first few had been at the copy machine...
He stood there waiting patiently as the little red light on the top of the machine also maintained its vigil. It would have to turn green sometime. Why was it even red in the first place? Another guy in another suit had just successfully used it, so it should be ready and waiting to satisfy its next customer. Ah, there we go, finally green–
‘Hey, I don’t suppose I could be terribly rude and sneak these in just before you, could I?’
The voice was that of Vicky Johnson, the department supervisor – he could hardly say “no, find your own copier” could he?
‘Um, yeah, sure Vicky.’
‘Thanks,’ she said with a wink and a smile. ‘I’ll just be a sec.’
My boss’ boss just winked at me – how do you respond to something like that? He fiddled a little with his tie as the machine did its work, and fresh, warm sheets of paper eased their way out of its mouth.
‘Thanks,’ she said again. ‘All done.’ And, as easy as that she moved off without looking back, leaving behind her another little red light.
... and the last had been on his way out...
It’s over, another day finished, and another lonely night to come. He turned off the computer and shuffled a few papers around his desk; he re-shuffled them; he picked them up and tapped them together against the wooden surface and placed them neatly in the corner opposite the mouse. Tilting his head to the right a little, he assessed the situation. He lined-up a pen with the side of the keyboard, and then put the same pen in the holder next to the monitor. The desk looked very empty now, so he returned the pen, together with an additional matching pencil, next to the keyboard to look like parallel train tracks.
A final scrutiny, and everything seemed right, so he struck a measured pace through the dark alleys between cubical screens, making his usual observations. People should put more pictures on the outside of their walls – it’d brighten up my day. He smiled to himself. Maybe each one should have a single letter, so as I walked by it would read ‘Have a nice evening, Jake’. Wouldn’t that be nice? I wonder if anyone would notice if I did that, I could do a letter a day during my lunch hour. And I could colour them in, each a different colour starting with dark purple and running the length of the rainbow to finish with a bright, smiley, yellow.
‘Goodnight.’ A word as regular as clockwork as he passed through the grey entrance hall of his floor.
‘Goodnight,’ he replied, as he did every day. ‘See you tomorrow.’ His very soul sighed at those words; No doubt I’ll see you tomorrow for the rest of my life.
... and that was it, his whole day condensed to eight words. So, as he walked down the street, with the smelly fumes of passing cars hanging familiar in the air, he was surprised to see something different in his routine. The light in the distance had a strange look to it, like when buildings are bathed in light even though there are dark clouds overhead – only this was the opposite effect. Something far away had a hollow, black shade of colour despite the lingering light of the early summer evening.
He stopped his walking and narrowed his eyes, straining to focus on this anomaly. Was it getting bigger?
It is getting bigger. He felt his head lean to the right as he considered what it might be. His legs started backtracking of their own accord when he appreciated the possibility of it being a swarm of insects – maybe bees – but he soon stopped again as the form coalesced into a recognisable shape.
A horse and rider? Dressed all in black? I bet I’m not the only one who backs away from this guy, or the only one who thinks ‘Horseman of the Apocalypse’.
Jake continued his slow walking, but he soon felt a thin layer of sweat coat his palms. Something isn’t right here. The figure was still closing, but there were no details being resolved. It was like watching a three-dimensional shadow, or an apparition – a dark ghost or something. A shudder wound its way around and down Jake’s core. He walked numbly to the side of the path where his knees locked and it was all he could do to watch the thing advance.
And advance it did, at a trot, and Jake watched with eyes that bulged at little more every minute. It was completely shadowed, as if it was a giant, fluid piece of black origami paper. The head had no face; the horse had no eyes, and no coat of hair, though when the tail flicked Jake thought he could see individual strands of darkness flicker against a background of light and life.
His fists clenched, and his heart battered helplessly against his chest as the sinister-looking spectre stopped level with him and that spooky, featureless face turned in his direction. In that instant he was brought out of the trance that held him so tightly by the simple fact that he almost wet himself with fear. He tightened his hold on his bladder and, determined to do what any innocent, uncertain man would do, he ignored the vision of death and started pacing slowly back towards his home. Safety.
Seven and a half minutes later, and Jake was less scared and more worried. He had passed three people and none of them had even glanced at the mounted man following him along the side of the road. I must be going crazy. Well, that’s a bit of a relief; craziness, to be sure, is something to be more concerned about, but it’s not quite as frightening as the end of the world. I don’t think. So he halted his homeward bound progress, and turned to look up at the phantom of his imagination.
He looked into the emptiness of the hollow face with a calm curiosity – he had never really been afraid of the dark, and there was sense almost akin to comfort oozing from it. How strange.
Then, suddenly, the scene rotated and Jake was looking down at himself from a height. Only it wasn’t him, it was a thin man – a stranger – wearing a suit and peering up with a searching look in his eyes. Jake retreated from that questioning look with a small amount of pressure on the reins. His horse took two silent steps backwards. What was he even doing here, looking at sad, unfortunate people stuck in miserable lives? I have the world to explore, and the ability to do it. And with that thought, he guided his loyal stallion away from the lonely native and back to a realm where the light was not quite so obvious, the lives not quite so monotonous, and the possibility of love not quite so grievous.
