“I have fantasies about you.”

We hadn’t been saying anything. He was cleaning the espresso machine and I was washing out the frappucino jugs. We’d hit a lull after the lunch rush, which is normally our time to clear up the kiosk from the chaos of lids and spoons and cups that get shoved anywhere when we don’t even have time to remember our own names. We had our backs to each other because that’s how the kiosk works – coffee machine faces out, sink faces the wall. I didn’t even turn around.

“You do?” I asked.

“Yes. I do.”

“Oh.”

We’d both paused after he’d said it, but now I saw out of the corner of my eye that he’d resumed his polishing.

“They’re not violent or anything. It’s not like that. I just think about you. And think about doing things with you.”

I started scrubbing again, vigourously. “Things. That’s a bit vague, Robert. Things could mean anything from shopping to fucking.”

“I thought you must have guessed. That I was thinking about you.”

Well, what girl doesn’t know when a guy has his eye all over her? Me. I’m the girl who doesn’t have a clue. The thing is that the kiosk is very small. You can fit three people in it according to the company, but then we all only have room to turn around on the spot, like one of those little ballerinas in a jewellery box, so most of the time it’s just two of us, working in a space three feet wide and six feet long. Who wouldn’t start feeling unnaturally close to their work colleagues? Hell, back in the bank we used to joke about being work wives and husbands for each other, and we each had a space three by six to call our own. We didn’t have to brush past each other a hundred times a day either. I miss my desk, my own personal workspace. The jar of nutella that I kept in my bottom desk drawer. I miss the pension too, and the share options, but that stuff’s not so ambiguous: there wasn’t any money left for anything, including renting the building and paying the employees. Financially, we were all fucked. I get that. But fantasies from a guy in a coffee kiosk? I have no idea if I should be terrified or flattered.

We should have paid more attention to the cat. That was the first sign. She went on scuttle watch, crouched down beside the kickboard under the kitchen cupboards. She sat there for hours, not moving, just watching. Listening. She heard them, she knew it was dangerous. Sometimes she tried to get our attention and wound her way around out legs, pulling us closer to the cupboards, with a short sharp miaow. We all dismissed it. I wasn’t the only one. Either she loved us or she wanted more food. That’s what we thought.

But then they came out. And not just one or two but fifty, a hundred. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle. All over the floor. And they weren’t normal bugs, where you turn on the light and they vanish back into their crevices, as if they’ve never been. They stayed, waving their antenna and rubbing their front feet together, leisurely making their way back to the cupboards in their own time. Even the cat wouldn’t attack them. She stayed at the threshold of the kitchen door, watching, assessing the enemy. And then she disappeared. At the time we cursed her for leaving us, running away when she could have stayed, and then cursed her for doing nothing even though subconsciously we knew that she was the one who was protecting us. Now it seems obvious that she didn’t disappear – she was disappeared. They took her first, swarmed all over her tortoiseshell fur and found a spot they could bite, infected her. Her tiny body would have been overwhelmed by it, her limbs convulsing, mouth frothing, and her instincts would have driven her to find a quiet place, a dark place, somewhere to curl up and die.

With the cat gone, it was only a matter of time before they came for us.

(Prompt from Leah Petersen’s Five Minute Fiction. Might or might not be inspired by the possibility of having a real life scuttley thing in my kitchen.)

“Nothing has changed.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“How about now?”
“Nope.”
Benjamin slid out from under the desk and frowned at Bixby. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“I’m absolutely sure.” Bixby kept his eyes on the screen, chewing his upper lip.
“But if it’s not the equipment, it’s an unchangeable.”
“It’s an unchangeable.”
“That can’t be right.”
Benjamin stood up and brushed the back of his trousers with his hands. Standing behind Bixby he pointed at the screen. “Isn’t that different? That coat she’s wearing.”
“No, Benj, it’s the same.”
“Oh.”
“We’ve tried everything. We’ve fiddled with all the external parameters, we’ve fiddled with all of the wires and connections and drives and switches.”
“Yes.”
“Whichever future you’re looking at, she dumps you in all of them.”
Benjamin put his hands on his hips. “I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense as a fixed event.”
“You mean it doesn’t make sense for you to be dumped, as clever and handsome as you are.”
“But there must be a way in.”
“Not in this job. Not on my pay packet.” Bixby stood up and began pulling on his jacket.
“We could go internal.”

There’s a guy that lives next door. We hear him through the walls. No, that’s not quite right. We hear him on the walls. He taps. Tap tap tap. Just like that. Well, no that would be like the sound of someone in a prison cell tapping to find companionship. He’s not looking for companionship. We think he’s checking for cracks. Making sure the walls are sound. Making sure we stay the hell out.

The postman talked about him one day when he was delivering a parcel. Asked why we never got around to moving away from Mr Crazy there. That’s what he called him – Mr Crazy. I said I didn’t really have any trouble with him. And that’s when he told me about the newspaper. He delivered a parcel there, and while the man next door was signing for it the postman looked down the hall and realised why it looked narrower than all the other houses in our street – the walls were plastered with newspapers, unevenly bulging and undulating all down the hall. Perhaps that’s what he’s doing when he’s tapping – checking the soundness of his nest. Wasps build nests out of paper too. They’re quite beautiful, some of them. Even if they are just a bomb that’s waiting to go off.

I’ve noticed lately that when I’m practising my piano in the afternoon there’s less tapping. I hear him tap along the walls until he gets to the spot right beside my piano, and then it goes quiet. Sometimes If I have a break in the music there’ll be one tap, like he’s asking for more. I usually do it. I’ve never seen his face, but I imagine that in those moments he closes his eyes, and his clenched fist falls to his side and the fingers open softly like a flower.

I don’t remember being particularly happy as a child. Perhaps it’s to do with the lack of outings. I don’t remember a lot of outings either. Perhaps other families just do these things but for us it was only ever Sunday lunch that brought us all together. There was no time for anything else. Time with family came as neatly packaged pockets of time, when one person or other was assigned to my care, and I was taken off to places like the cash and carry, or put into the spare lounge with a doll, or a book. Self sufficient, keeping myself entertained. Like a plant that begins to thrive on minute amounts of water. Give it a soaking and it starts to drown

The things I don’t remember are day trips to the lake, and the forest, and the park. An afternoon picnic, with a rug, and a noisy dog and a frisbee. Singing songs in the car on the way to the beach. Watching all the adults take over a children’s game of rounders after a couple of beers. Clearing the space in the back garden for the bonfire, and piling up all the wood we gathered at the weekend. Holding hands while we walk through a new city, close to us, but far enough away to be an adventure. Being allowed to walk through the gift shop at the end of the day and choose one thing. The sudden lack of movement as the car comes to a halt at home bringing sleep to an end. Being asked what I would like to do and then getting to do it.

(From a prompt: ‘I don’t remember’. Done in about five minutes, and truthfully, I am so rusty that five minutes is about all I can manage at a stretch before I begin to think I ought to give up again. Note to self: try to squeeze in some practice before bedtime so that you’re not completely and utterly knackered.)