Mortimer & Drake: Life and Death at the Top

The rain splashed against Mortimer's pale skin as he lay, stretched out on the sun lounger on top of a disused flat block on the outskirts of Cardiff. The cold should have tinted his skin a sharp pink, but against all known laws of nature it remained the same dull, translucent grey that it always was. He cut an almost comical figure, holding a sun reflector towards his face as the rain soaked the dirty pair of jeans that he always wore.

The floating figure of scruff, his ghostly companion, hung in the air, the harsh wind seeming to have no effect on the excessive layers of his baggy coat.
    "Do you ever feel cold sir?" He asked, his rough voice reverberating as if he was in an invisible warehouse somewhere.

    "Technically I don't feel anything" Mortimer answer, looking over the top of his pointless sunglasses "but there is a certain mood that comes from lying half naked in the rain"

   Scruff made a choking sound which Mortimer knew was the equivalent of a ghost laughing. "I thought I asked you not to do that?"

   "I'm sorry sir" Scruff chuckled sheepishly. "You're just so funny that I can't help it"

    "I'm not funny Scuff. Well, not that funny. You're just perpetually high"

    Scruff stared off into space. It was a disconcerting sight for most people to see rain passing right through a person, not least of all because the smokey substance that made up a ghosts form always rushed away from where the rain fell. It made their misty flesh seem to ripple grotesquely, and usually produced vomiting from a casual onlooker.

    Fortunately for the population at large, it was pretty rare to actually see a ghost. The few people that did were either sectioned at a young age or hung around in Wicca circles, talking about spells and auras. For people who actually understood how the world worked the first group just came off as tragic, but the second group were deeply annoying. That sense of belonging to something which most people didn't understand had a tendency to turn them into arrogant bastards at best, and shrieking indignant idiots at worst.

    Mortimer was fortunately rarely involved with the second category of 'sighted' people, and mainly just killed the first category, finding it usually did them a favour. At the very least meeting him when they died has a tendency to vindicate them in their own eyes.

    "Scruff. What did it feel like to do Heroin?"

     Scruff's face twisted into a look of deep thought and confusion. It had been a while since it was necessary for him to think so much about anything.

    "Well...Honestly it just makes everything feel so great. The first time I did it I actually wondered what all the fuss was about"

   Mortimer put down his sun reflector and pulled his soaked hoodie on. The rain was starting to let off as he strolled casually over towards his ghostly friend.

    "If it was no big deal why did you keep doing it then?"

     "Ahh, well it only felt like no big deal at first. See when I first did it I could get high all weekend for a fiver. Unfortunately it didn't take long for that price to go up. See it's not like alcohol or MDMA, it just feels really good and there's almost no hangover. I was getting high on the way to work to make the commute more fun, I was getting high at the lab to improve my output. At one point I was even getting high just to manage a kids birthday party I had to go to"

    "So what changed?"

    "Well actually it was everything all at once really. I needed more and more just to make myself feel normal. Even a high paying job like the one I used to have wasn't enough to keep me going. After destroying my career I ended up out on the streets, doing what I could to get my fix. Obviously you know the next bit sir"

    Now it was Mortimer's turn to become all thoughtful and pensive. It had been about 30 years ago that he had come across the almost dead form of Scruff, lying face down behind an off-license. As per his usual routine Mortimer had separated his soul and body, and was ready to bottle it for transport back to Malice. Unfortunately at that moment Mortimer had been distracted by a loud bang from somewhere near by and had dropped the soul, letting it drift off over the rooftops of the city.

    It had only taken the soul a short 5 years to regain a human form, 200 years short of the average 'ghost gestation period'. Mortimer had come across him again on his rounds through the city, floating around a crack den trying to haunt the people inside. Of course this hadn't worked out too well for him because being high on crack had a tendency to make people too freaked out to realise that they were even being haunted in the first place. Being one of the few people who could actually interact with ghosts Mortimer had struck up a fast friendship with Scruff, and the two had been nearly inseparable ever since.

    "Yes. It's a strange old life isn't it Scruff?"

    "What is sir? Death?"

   "Exactly Scruff. Exactly"


A very short entry into the Drake and Mortimer series which details how he met Scruff, his hobo friend. Scruff also makes an appearance in the comic book version of the story but is still very much alive. Obviously Drake isn't present for this story but that will be rectified in the next chapter when Mortimer actually responds to Drake's invitation. 

Endings

            It is at the end that all stories, for life is made up of them, find their true state of being. It is not possible to really perceive something until it has ended. It is in endings that we find both sadness and joy, we find a sense of profound loss and also a sense of gaining something. It is in the endings that we feel the wash of every emotion we have felt throughout cascade upon us, and it can bring tears or laughter, smiles or frowns, can lighten your heart or make it weight more than a million tons.

            It is the ending that makes you contemplate all the places the story has taken you and all the things that you felt. The ending is a crescendo of emotion that can be both overwhelming and yet satisfying, it’s the feeling of lying down after hard work, of returning home after a long journey or of having a great amount of worry lifted from your shoulders.

            In short it is the ending of things that will leave them in your mind for the rest of your life, not necessarily because they’ll make you remember what happens during the process of the story ending, but because they make you remember all the points where you felt elated or crushed during the story, every time you didn’t know if the hero would make it, or when you felt suspense for what would come next, when you just couldn’t wait to turn that page.



            That, in essence, is an ending.

So this is yet another short passage/micro story thing that I came across while searching my old blog for content to transfer over. The original explanation text said that I had just finished reading the last book in a series and was feeling a little overwhelmed, so I sat down and just wrote what popped into my mind. For better or worse here it is. 

...and Then it Started Raining.

It was quite impressive just how depressing my life has gotten lately. It felt like the small box that passed for my studio flat was trapping me every morning when I woke up, the dull grey light of an english spring softly filling the room.

I stood sulking on my roof, a half smoked cigarette drooping from my mouth. Everyday I smoked here, always trying to work up the courage to finally throw myself off, never getting within an arms reach of the precipice.

That day was different though, I had finally managed to shuffle my bare feet till my toes hung over the edge. The wing threatened to pull me off the edge, but I managed to resist it. It was successful in flinging the remains of my cigarette through the sky.

I watched it spin away, the embers breaking apart and dancing on the breeze. In that second I wanted to chase it. I really felt like drifting off the roof after it. I began to take that step. My foot hovered over nothingness...and then it started to rain.

Every drop kissed my skin, every shining tear smacked the ground, the sound of thousands of tiny footsteps. The rain marched through the city, washing away it's grime and gloom. The plague of people was cleansed from the streets as they rushed to avoid the horror that was water falling from the sky, and as the rain caressed my naked torso I fell backwards onto the hard gravel of the roof, and started laughing.

I'm not really sure what I was trying to do with this story, I just found it on my old blog when I was migrating my creative writing content. It is obviously quite short, being only 5 paragraphs long and really not having a direction or meaning, I think I was just experimenting with the concept of micro-stories. 

Mortimer & Drake

  “It’s good to see you Drake.” The grey clad figure said, sitting on the bench. His companion was dressed in a slim black coat, very finely tailored and clearly bespoke; his hair and nails maintained to absolute perfection.

            “It has been a while Mortimer” He said, never shifting his gaze from the crowds that constantly surged past their bench in the busy town center. Mortimer shook his head and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his hoody pocket; the fact that they were so mismatched in appearance bothered him very little, and he knew that the only reason Drake didn't seem bothered was because he knew that Mort would derive satisfaction from seeing him ruffled.

            “Those things will be the death of you” Drake said, mouth curling into a thin smile at his own joke.

           

            ‘You’re not funny you know” Mort said, blowing smoke in his face. “Humor is really a department you should leave to someone else. Anyone else really.”

            Drake scowled slightly but his features were smoothed in an instant as he checked his unnecessary show of humanity. Drake’s skin was snowy white, and smooth to the touch, it very much gave him the appearance of a fine china doll.

            Mort took another drag on his cigarette, the smoke showing slightly through his grey, translucent skin stretched across his gaunt features.

            “Is there any particular reason that you've invited me to this fine shopping district in Cwmbran? Or are we just going to people watch?”

            “I do not cattle watch thank you” Drake said curtly “It is with great difficulty that I remain this close to them for so long. I've been told to invite you to a gathering we’re having”

            Mort almost choked on his cigarette, spluttering as smoke went down the wrong pipe.

            “Oh” was about all he could manage after he had finished his coughing fit.

            “Yes, Mina seems to think that it would be rude to not invite you considering the history” Drake continued, pulling a small oblong piece of card from his coats inner pocket. “It’s a ballroom dance”

            Mort suppressed a smirk as he took the proffered invitation. It had clearly been hand painted, certainly at great expense to the host, then again to a man of Drake’s means this type of thing was almost common.

            “A ballroom dance?” He muttered, spinning the card over “You do realize that it’s 2014? Ballroom dancing has become the dominion of reality TV and quasi-celebrity types” He extinguished his cigarette and immediately lit another “Besides, I don’t dance”

            Drake scowled again, this time taking some effort to settle his bone china features.

            “You used to dance.” He said, flicking an imperceptible piece of dust from his lapel.

           

            Mort didn't answer for a while, caught in a torrent of reminiscing, but eventually came to his senses when his cigarette began to burn his fingers.

            “Yeah well I quit” He said eventually

            “You quit dancing but you can’t stop smoking?”

            “Not can’t, won’t. As much as my last wife would disagree there is a difference”

            Mort’s eyes glazed over as he began staring intently into the crows of people passing them both by.

            “Who is it this time?” Asked Drake in a bored voice.

            “The woman in the leggings and tank top” Mort replied “She should really read the label on those health supplements more closely”

            “How does it happen?”

            “Heart attack, in about 15 minutes”

            Drake nimbly reached into his breast pocket and delicately lifted out a silver pocket watch. He clicked it open and glanced at the face briefly before snapping it shut and slipping back into his pocket.

           

            “I should be going anyway” He said, picking up his cane.

            “Could you have checked the time any more flamboyantly?” Mort asked with a smirk.

            Drake ignored him and gracefully used his cane to push himself up from the bench.

            “Suppose I had better go too” Mort sighed also pulling himself up from the bench, albeit with much less grace and poise. “If I don’t get after her now she’s going to get away from me”

            “You would not want that to happen” Drake said, straightening his coat “There would be hell to pay”

            Drake smirked again, once more finding himself much funnier than anyone else ever did.

            “You’re still not funny”

            Mort pulled his hood over his face, obscuring his features beneath a mask of almost impossible shadow. The two men walked off in opposite directions, one clad in black and red finery that would make a millionaire look shabbily dressed, the other in a gray and black hoody and jeans that looked like that had spent the past 40 years on a charity shop rack.

            “Are you sure you won’t come” Drake called back across the street “Mina will be very disappointed”

            Mort turned around and shook his head beneath his shadowy mask.

            “Tell her I’m very sorry” He smirked “But like I said, I quite dancing” 


This is a story I wrote a number of years ago, originally titled 'Death Quit Dancing' a name I borrowed from a local band. In the end I thought the title was a little too on the nose so I decided to name it after the two characters who star in it. This is also the basis for my comic series 'Mort', which is currently searching for a new publisher after the last one went into hiding when the owner was found to be scamming writers and artists out of their royalties. There are a number of sequels in the pipeline in this series which differ from the continuity of the comic version.