The Red Notebook 13
These are the last two stories in the Red Notebook. Both inspired by real stuff.
It was horrific. A stuffed creature created by some deranged taxidermist. When I was younger we would go together to see Hammer Horror films in the cinema. You know the ones with Peter Cushing. The Kingfisher looked liked something from one those films. It would be one of those sinister objects found in the lounge of a mad scientist or the lair of an evil cult leader. The sort of item that let you know not to trust the person who owned it.
The Kingfisher’s big black eyes were reflective. It raised my hackles as it did it’s long sharp beak. I can hold this dead, stuffed, evil looking bird in my hands. It’s fate in my power. I could smash. I could throw it way. I hold it in my hands and wonder : Why did mum by this?
And the last entry in the Red Notebook
As awkward silences went the one that rested between Smith and Hawkinson was pretty bad. It had reached the point where it was becoming oppressive and putrid. The old friends had long ago exhausted their usual topics of conversation and had done so rather quickly. Seconds passed like kidney stones. It was readily apparent to both parties that each of them was searching for a gambit to get the conversation flowing again. Despite knowing each other for 20 years Smith and Hawkinson did not really know each other that well. They both shared the same set of friends and liked each other well enough. The thing was they never really hung out together. Not just the two of them anyway. There are some friends they both thought that you can share a silence with comfortably where the company of the other was enough. This, was, they both simultaneously concluded not one of those friendships.