Wire | Short Story

Fiction 2 Minutes

One could always identify them from their determined stare into the middle distance, from their hunched shoulders as they stood in the rain despite the cover afforded elsewhere. Black or dull browns to avoid attention. Waterproofs up around their necks to avoid rainwater running down. If Martin’s training hadn’t blocked the impulse, he might have smiled at his young rival.

It was the studied nonchalance which betrayed the preening young spook. No-one was that lackadaisical; even the most carefree onlooker has some problem to occupy them, some irk that furrows their brow. No, whistling at the clear blue sky whilst walking back and forth with your arms behind your back only served to draw attention to oneself.

More important than experience, however, more important even than nerve, was tradecraft. Martin could identify a tail within seconds. He could infiltrate the nest of the most aggressive counter-espionage operation. He could identify a source who needed gentle persuasion, and one who was ready to sing. Which was why Martin was standing where he was standing, whilst his young counterpoint was pacing without reward.

Martin curled his toes around the telephone wire as the first vibrations shivered down from the utility pole. He smiled – family strife, infidelity, financial worries, inane gossip. All of it travelled up through tarsometatarsus, tibia, femur, pubis, dorsal and cervical vertebrae, and skull, before terminating in Martin’s beak, where despite himself it manifested itself in a small smile.

Taking advantage of a gust of wind, Martin spread his wings and soared above the telephone wires and the hedges, the cars and his unfortunate, damp-feathered rival. He came to rest upon a television aerial. Inhaling a breath large enough that his chest feathers puffed up around his throat, Martin began the task of disseminating the gossip he had collected. Martin sang the loudest, because he had the most to sing about.

*Thanks for reading, folks. Image courtesy of Pixnio and Wikipedia.*

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Near to the Knuckle, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father.

Not necessarily in that order.

Published by matthewjrichardson

PhD student and short story author. Published in Gold Dust, Literally Stories, Near to the Knuckle, Soft Cartel, Penny Shorts, and Shooter.

Published

24 thoughts on “Wire | Short Story”

  5. Since I can anthropomorphize any fauna and spent years in servitude to a small parrot, I found this bird tail/tale a veritable nest of pleasure.
    So well done and always wonderfully askew! And always worth rereading. Loved the waterproofs up around the neck.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks so much. I’ve got a couple of haiku coming out tomorrow and I usually do a ‘things that I’ve enjoyed reading this week’ paragraph at the end of my post. I’ve added the link to your flash fiction as I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hope that’s okay.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  9. Pingback: The Lure | Short Story – Matthew Richardson
  11. Pingback: Dapple and Dike | Haiku – Matthew Richardson
  12. Pingback: Seeing it Through | Short Story – Matthew Richardson
  13. Pingback: Panning Out | Short Story – Matthew Richardson
  14. Pingback: Things I had to Research in 2020 | Blogging – Matthew Richardson

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s