On his yellow jacket, Special Assistance.
He gives no assistance, let alone special, to the anaemic elderly man spewing up thick red spurts of blood on the shiny grey floor of Gatwick’s Terminal 2 Departure Lounge. Special Assistance continues failing to fulfil his jacket’s motto, reading The Sun while sitting on the side of the information desk, one foot swinging in the air. The anaemic man’s daughter runs to and from the Information Desk, trying to hurry along a different man on the phone. ‘Medics coming,’ the man on the phone says. A traveler goes up Special Assistance and interrupts his reading. ‘Are you aware there is man throwing up blood over there? Could do with some reassurance, if nothing else.’ Special Assistance slowly looks up and over at the chaotic, coughing event. ‘Not aware,’ he says shaking his head. He folds his paper over and slips off the side of the Information Desk. He then spends five minutes wondering around the scene but never going up to the poorly man or his frantic daughter. He looks lost, useless, unimportant. The medic arrives and takes over. Special Assistance goes back to his paper.
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AuthorI have had short stories published in Bad Idea Magazine, Black Market Re-View, Brand Literary magazine, Dreamcatcher, Internations, Gloom Cupboard Print Edition, Pens on Fire, The Writing Shift and Zero Flash. In 2009 I had a mini-memoir published by Harper-Collins in Not Quite What I Was Planning. Archives
August 2023
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