Vic hated the way that the office was laid out. The stereotype of an office with false walls and cubicles would have been much better. As it was now, everyone that walked by had a perfectly clear view of his computer screen and could stand behind him, reading over his shoulder. How would he ever be able to get anything done like this? Even at lunchtime, there was no privacy in this place. He had his book on the hard-drive anyway, password protected of course. Sometimes he managed to sneak a quick peek at it before the footsteps approached again. Not enough to get any words down.

He took a gulp out of his coffee mug and stared blankly at the sales figures on the screen. He wasn’t made for this job. He was made to write. Why couldn’t he write? Why couldn’t he have written ‘Featherhead’? No reason. No fair.

The hours dragged by. The story was still resting in its cocoon in the back of his head. Half finished, developing, growing like a baby. It felt like a pregnancy of the head but this child was no ordinary nine months. Not even an elephant’s 22. This half-formed monstrosity had been hiding away in there for years. If it didn’t come out soon, he would have to make a literary abortion. Throw the whole thing away and start over. He had a feeling though, that killing the story would only result in it coming back to haunt him. He would be bound to this story long after he’d stopped enjoying writing it. Maybe they could hate each-other to the end of his days. Twist and tear at each-other’s content while Day enjoyed a blissfully concluded relationship with his beautiful publication.

He passed the book shop on the way home. No need to hurry back to an empty flat, he might as well kill some time in the sweet smell of other people’s dreams. The window was all done up for the summer. So many bright new books. They looked inviting, the pages crisp and unturned. All those names on the covers, all those people that had been good enough. And then there was the poster. A3 size, white and bright colours.

‘June 2nd. Geoffrey Day signs his book, Featherhead. 12 noon to 2’.

June 2nd. That was only three days away. He could go on an early lunch, get in line with his copy. What would he say to Day though? That his book was the best he had ever read? He probably got that all the time. He certainly couldn’t tell him that he’d written Vic’s book. That Vic would have given his right arm to have written it instead.

He would go anyway. Just to see what Day looked like. What if he was younger than Vic? He was only 26, not an old age at all for an aspiring writer but there was nothing that said that Day couldn’t be young too. Younger. That didn’t really bear thinking about too much. Vic wasn’t a jealous or begrudging person but there was no reason to torture yourself when others were only too happy to do it for you.

The lock fought with the key for a couple of rattling seconds and then the door swung open on the emptiness and the smell of damp. Vic threw his jacket on the bed and went back out into the living room. For a second he stood still in the silence, feeling empty and tired. The long hours of the evening were still ahead of him. Nothing on telly. Too hard to concentrate on writing when the demons had woken up in his head, painting their dark, terrifying images of everything bad that might happen to Laura between wherever she was and the front door. Too much. Too much bad. The images got in the way of his story, tainted it. There was no use even opening the pad.

A walk was the best option. If he was lucky, it might purge the scary film in his brain. Seeing the soft summer evening outside, feeling the cool air against his face and walking. That might calm him down. It was worth a try.

He drifted along the street, down towards the city centre. At half nine, it was still bright. Bright outside, but dark in his head where the worry was treading around and around in the same old groove. He didn’t know why he had this gnawing fear inside of him. He couldn’t remember anything bad ever happening to him. Nice childhood. Never lost anyone he cared about. So where did the demons come from?

He could smell the sea now. Or at least he imagined he could. He had used to live by the sea and even the smell of the dirty river flowing through the city was watery enough to remind him of that house. From the quay he could even see a glimpse of where the river ran out into the sea. He felt tired. His throat hurt. What could you do when you wanted to go home but was told you were already there?

He had to cross the road to walk back up the other side of the river, but cars kept coming, thick and fast. For a split second, the old thought flashed through his head. What if he was to step out into the oncoming traffic? Just step out and take that big double-decker bus right smack on the face. Let it drive him off to sweet oblivion where the demons couldn’t get to him. Then she would know what it felt like to be lonely. But it was a stupid and selfish thought and he banished it from his mind before the second was over.

He got over to the other side and started walking along the water. The lights of the city reflected in the water, their mirror images carried out to sea. What hid underneath the surface, he’d rather not think about.

He was almost home again when it happened. Walking up the street, alongside a garden. Passing under the cherry-blossom tree that had scattered most of its petals along the pavement by now. The clock on the church up ahead showed ten o’clock. Still no word from Laura.

As he passed the circular stone formation outside the garden, he heard a voice call out his name. He turned his head. There on the bench, a woman was sitting, looking straight at him. Vic had never seen her before in his life, how did she know his name?

She made a beckoning gesture at him and he was so taken by the surprise of it all that he walked over to her. She wasn’t exactly a bag-lady, not that scruffy looking, but she still looked quite rough. Forty, maybe fifty, it was hard to say. Long, straggly grey hair that looked like it was well overdue a washing. She was wearing a man’s leather jacket, a bad fit at that, and as he came closer he saw that she was actually holding a can of cheap lager in her hand. Her cheeks were red with criss-crossing of tiny blood vessels; the telltale sign of prolonged exposure to alcohol. And the smell.

Vic was just about to turn around and walk away when she said his name again.

“Victor…”

Not many people called him by his full first name. Sometimes the thought that his parents must have known how he would turn out and named him in a fit of ill-humoured irony. But he would probably still use it if he ever got the chance to put in on the cover of a book. It made a nicer rhythm when paired with his surname.

“…Victor Graham.”

It wasn’t a great name, it was no Geoffrey Day, but it would have to do. Not that that was the point, the point was:

“How do you know my name?”

Her eyes met his. There was nothing hazy or blood-shot about her eyes, they were clear, dark and deep like those of one of the characters in his book. He had spent a lot of words on describing eyes like those but he’d never actually seen any before.

“I know a lot about you,” she answered him.

“Who are you?”

She laughed a bit. The sound was thick with smoked cigarettes and didn’t make it far before it turned into a cough.

“Well, let’s just say… I’m your fairy godmother… fate has done its twisty dance and the cards have come up for you. You get a wish, lucky boy.”

“A wish?”

Vic looked around. Was someone playing a trick on him? He couldn’t see any cameras or suspicious looking people. That didn’t meant they couldn’t still be there.

“Yes, your standard run of the mill wish. Anything you want.”

“Of course I can make a wish, I make wishes all the time. Doesn’t mean they’ll come true.”

She looked at him smiling. Her eyes didn’t belong in that face. He felt like he was looking at a mask with eye-holes so well concealed that the mask looked like a real face. Then she said:

“This one will. I promise. If you don’t believe me, it doesn’t matter, does it? No harm to wish. If I’m wrong and you’re right, you haven’t lost anything!”

True. He was falling for this trick. Maybe he was just a gullible fool, but those eyes told him differently.

“Alright,” he nodded, “All I wish is that Laura is alright. That she’ll stop… that she’ll spend a bit more time with me.”

“No, no, no. That’s two wishes for a start, and it’s not what I’m talking about. Laura’s fine, don’t worry about her. This is your wish, it has to be about you. Can’t change no-one else’s fate, I’m your personal genie!”

“Okay… then there’s only one other thing.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“I wish I was… no, I wish I had written ‘Featherhead’.”

She nodded. Emptied the can of beer into her mouth and stood up from the bench, hiking her track-suit bottoms up around her considerable waist.

“Can do. Now, go home and get some sleep. When you wake up in the morning, your wish will have been sorted out.”

The woman walked past him and started wandering off down the street, humming along to some tune only she could hear. For a second Vic thought about calling her back but then he changed his mind. She was right, he had nothing to lose.

Back home in the flat, he turned the light on in the living room. Turned the telly on. Tried to watch a bit of some eighties B-film, but his mind was already being torn in two different directions and he didn’t want a third. Laura wasn’t home yet. Who was the old woman? Two major issues in his brain.

At half eleven, the more pressing one was lifted as he heard the familiar sound of the key in the lock. The tense breath that had been festering in his lungs for the last five hours was finally exhaled. Although Vic wasn’t religious, he said a quick thanks to whatever higher power might be listening. There was no need to take any risks.

Laura came into the room, her breath smelling only marginally better than that of the woman on the park bench. She started talking about something that had happened in the pub. Vic tried to listen, really did, but after five minutes it was clear that her story had lapped itself and was now treading already covered ground. His mind drifted back to what had happened earlier. Maybe he should tell Laura about it, see what she thought.

Well into her third recantation of the nights events, Laura suddenly shouted:

“You’re not listening! Alright, I’ll just say nothing then!”

Vic knew that there was no point in telling her that he knew every detail of what she was going to say already. He had heard them twice. He didn’t say anything, it would only make her angrier. Ten minutes later, she was asleep on the sofa, sitting in what looked like an extremely uncomfortable position. If she stayed like that for the whole night, she probably wouldn’t be able to turn her head in the morning. He looked at her creased clothes and smeared make-up. Tried to wake her up gently, but there was no response. Then he tried lifting her up but she started screaming at him, only half awake. He spread a blanket over her and walked into the bedroom. The sheets felt cold and damp but he told himself that if he could only fall asleep, tomorrow would be another day. Even if he wasn’t the author of ‘Featherhead’.