January 1933

A Liverpool sky can be beautiful. Sometimes at dusk the Lord scratches his fingernails across the steel clouds, painting swirls of bleeding crimson hope on a crisp winter night. It's everlasting. A night like this was a message from above. A reciprocation. It was a tigerish sky that lit the city in it's own reflection of glory and fire.

In churches all over Toxteth and Dingle, Catholic voices prayed to Him for salvation in their desire to quell their manifest guilt. A beautiful sky was the least of their needs, but the Lord provided with a cheeky smile and a wink. As if to say 'I hear all your pains and anguish, but look at my wondrous sky!!'? The river could smell the urgency of the night and swelled in appreciation. It rippled tiny, orange flashes as it endlessly winked back at the sky in collusive conversation. It's salty wind swept into the city streets, snapping at windows and impatiently rattling doors, searching for pockets of warmth to infiltrate. It carried merry voices out of the pubs and hotels that punctuated the riverside, breathing with the tide as it lulls and is lifted and lulls again.

As always the oranges came first. Ellie was listening to the city breathe and blow below her, watching the gaslights along the tram lines dancing in the wind. She frequently wiped the condensation from the thinly paned window so she could see the groups of young soldiers stepping on and off the trams, nimble in excitement, lacking the worry and fear of fronts to come. One boy, fresh-faced, stared. He had seen Ellie's light and for a moment, the laughter grimly frozen on his face, had locked his eye on Ellie's. She moved closer to the window and instantly fogged it with her warm breath. She frantically wiped it with her sleeve but the soldier had turned away, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He hunched his shoulders, dropped his head and crossed the road out of Ellie's sight. She lay back and allowed the familiar sweet sting of oranges to press upon her.

In preparation for pain, she closed her eyes. Small kaleidoscopes, from staring at gaslights, played upon her eyelids. She snatched the photograph off the sill and held it to her breast. The pain was never brief and sometimes it never even went away until afterwards. It came now and in a slow wave, it swept her head. It climbed across the frown lines it created, seeming to struggle over them, but incessant. Reaching her eyes it speeded up and spread through her cheekbones, and in a waterfall of distress crushed her nose and mouth. She took a gulp of air and held it. Slowly lifting the photograph from her chest, she turned it towards the window so the street gaslights could illuminate it. It was greying. She could see the familiar boots of her Grandad slowly melting away as the photograph became a swirling, marbled pool. Then she was lifted and the photograph drew her in.

She stood again on a mound of earth fronted by barbed wire. It was a still, late winter afternoon. Almost deathly. The quiet was strengthened by the floating mist. She looked out across no-man's land and saw no life. How could this peaceful arena destroy so many souls? All of her journeys with the photograph began in this way, visiting her Grandfather at war. She looked in to the trench behind her. A very low gaslight lit the 12 feet deep trench and as the mist cleared on the breeze she saw her Grandad sleeping. He looked old. She guessed he was in his mid thirties, but he looked ten years older. He was woken by a young private with a furtive whisper and a look of terror. He scratched a match on his boot and lit a crumpled cigarette. The trench began to itch with an air of expectancy as preparations for something commenced. It began to rain as Ellie lost sight of the trench and her Grandad. The vision drifted and Ellie journeyed again.

She was a silent intruder in another scene. The photograph revealed her bedroom, years before. Her vision zoomed in and she saw a drop of blood, fall and splash on the dirty linoleum. It had fallen from her Mother's eye. She was sat on the end of the bed, her back half turned to Ellie. She was young and beautiful. She shed tears and blood in tandem; in despair. Ellie desperately wanted to comfort her. She turned to face her Father who stood in the doorway leaning on the door frame silently watching his wife weep. When he did speak, Ellie could not make out the words. The sound seemed slow and underwater. But she didn't need to hear to know that they had been arguing. She could smell it in the air where it lived. Lived until it's sick tenseness was crushed by reconciliation.

Ellie began to back away from her Mother and into a corner. Why was she being shown this? And as the question popped into her head, the answer sprung upon it, tiger-like. Her Father had beaten her Mother. The blood she shed had been caused by his fists. Her Father began to cross the room, slow at first and then with increased purpose. Her Mother cowered as he approached and raised the back of his hand to strike her. Ellie rushed from the corner. The vision began to slip. She had been shown enough to understand a fundamental part of the past that had shaped her future and could not interfere. The room went black. She was staring down a tunnel at the end of which her Grandfather, in full trench kit, marched farther and farther away from her until his image disappeared.

When she woke, the photograph was complete once more. Her Grandad stared out at her. He had shown her something black and rotten. Something evil that had lived under his own roof. His daughter was a beaten wife. She knew he had forced himself to make this vison for her benefit.
She cried herself back to sleep.

Underneath her window the young soldier from earlier looked upwards to the night sky, his eyes adjusting to the falling rain. He had returned, drawn by the intensity and beauty he had seen in the eyes of the girl in the window. He stood there until Ellie's room light burnt out, then headed home.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...