Issue 9 - Gold Dust magazine

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Short story Sand Two girls go playing, but find unsuspected danger... The mouse scratched at the carpet, and the girl watched. The trap had sprung imperfectly, and rather than killing the poor beast instantly, had caught it awkwardly on the lower back, only maiming it. Its scratches were feeble little pulls at the carpet, attempts to drag its useless lower half free of the trap; its tiny eyes twitched, and its paws grasped a tuft of carpet, pulled it loose, grasped another tuft of carpet, pulled it loose. It let out short squeaking gasps. Ashley bent over it, fascinated. "Mom," she said. "What?" "Mom!" "What?" "There's a mouse in here. In the trap." "Is it dead?" "No. Almost." "Don't touch it, honey. I'll come in and take care of it when I get off the phone." In the next room, the long-distance conversation resumed. Ashley listened absently to her mother's half, staring out the window at the apartment building opposite theirs. The midday sun breaking through the clouds here and there dappled it irregularly. "…extra hours at the DMV. Well, I'm lucky to get 'em, but that doesn't make 'em any more fun, ya know? Hardly see Ashley anymore. Good thing she's old enough to take care of herself after school now. What? Fine, I guess. Holding it together. Well, yeah, it's all you can do, I suppose. I gotta run - have to play the exterminator now. Bye. Love you." The receiver clicked and Shelley walked into the living room. "Where is it? Oh. Disgusting." She frowned at the By Jens Rushing 2,300 words Horror dying mouse. "Honey, you wanna go outside for a little while? I'll take care of this. Go play with Jess." She tromped three floors down and knocked on her friend's door. A large hairy man answered. "Oh. Jess!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Jess!" He left the door open and receded into the apartment. Ashley stood in the doorway. Jess emerged, blinking and yawning from her bedroom. "Hi, Ashley. You wanna do something?" Ashley nodded. "Okay. Let's go outside." Jess strapped on her sandals and they headed out. The front doors of their building opened on a street roaring with trucks. The girls walked around the side of the building and 30 www.golddustmagazine.co.uk - Issue 9 - Winter 2007
made for the back, where Jess lifted up a bit of loose chain link fence while Ashley crawled through. Ashley reached through the fence from the other side and held it for Jess. "I want to show you something I found yesterday," Jess said. She led Ashley down the dank alley, ignoring the homeless man parked beside a dumpster. He had a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag and a short wiry beard flecked with grey. A faded red baseball cap was pulled down over his eyes. Ashley peered at his face in the half-light as she passed; he seemed oblivious of her. His teeth were spotted shades of grey and brown, and a scabrous growth crawled along his jaw. He gurgled something as she passed, and she skipped a few steps to catch up with her friend. Jess climbed over a short stack of rotting cardboard boxes at the end. "Come on." They emerged, glad to be out of the sour stench of the alley. A shallow concrete ditch ran through the space behind their building, a thin green rivulet coursing through it. Jess climbed down into the ditch. "It's right down here." She pointed down the ditch to a culvert that ran under the road. "We go through there, and it's just on the other side. It's weird! I never knew about it before." Ashley descended into the ditch and followed Jess to the culvert. She hesitated at the entrance, peering into the drip- ping tube. She saw a faint circle of grey light at the end. "It's okay," Jess said. "It looks pretty gross, but it's not bad. It's not far. Come on." She stooped and entered the culvert. "Come on!" She took Ashley's hand and led her in. "Hold your breath." Ashley followed, slipping occasionally. She put her hand out for stability and shuddered at the brief contact with the slick wall. "I actually think this is pretty cool," Jess said. "It's like we're exploring a cave." After an interminable period, they climbed out of the pipe. Ashley blinked in surprise. "Isn't it cool?" Jess said with a widening grin. "Can you believe we never knew about this?" On the alien side of the culvert, for unknown reasons, the beginnings of a playground had been erected. In a small open space, a fragment of free territory between the backs of crowding towers, someone had once installed a set of swings, some monkey bars, and a sandbox. Two of the four swings were broken and hanging, and broken glass littered the cement. Weeds pushed out of the concrete and entwined the monkey bars. Cigarette butts and fast-food wrappers dotted the sandbox. Ashley turned and looked behind her. She couldn't see her own building from here. Another blocked it out. Jess gave a little squeal of glee and dashed for the www.golddustmagazine.co.uk - Issue 9 - Winter 2007 Sand [cont’d] swings. She climbed on one of the two unbroken ones and started swinging ferociously, pumping back and forth, picking up speed and height. Ashley watched her. "Come on! 's fun!" Ashley stood at the mouth of the culvert and watched her. "Come on!" She repeated her entreaty. Ashley stepped gingerly over some broken glass and climbed on a swing and pumped back and forth. Jess squealed again and jumped off, skipping across the ground. Ashley dragged her feet and stepped off the swing. Jess climbed into the sandbox. She picked up an old piece of pipe that had been leaning against the wall and started flicking trash out of the box. Ashley watched her, then joined in. They cleared the sandbox to their satisfaction. Jess poked at the old and crusted sand, stirring it with the pipe. "Come on!" Ashley put a foot in the box. Jess took off her sandals and dug her toes in the sand. " 's cool. Feels good." Ashley followed suit. She dug her feet in, picking up handfuls of sand and building piles of it around her ankles, enjoying the coolness and softness of it. She wriggled her toes. "Let's see who can build the biggest castle," Jess said. She started scooping up sand and heaping it into a mound, with a few smaller mounds around it. Ashley watched her. "Come on, let's see who can build the biggest castle." Ashley made her own small mound. 31
Page 3 and 4: Gold Dust Gold Dust team Prose Edit
Page 5 and 6: The Beauty That’s In Me - page 40
Page 7 and 8: tions: 'APRIL 13. An extraordinary
Page 9 and 10: own life, and even a faint residual
Page 11 and 12: emaining people in your sphere of i
Page 13 and 14: means of a cushion-throwing game, w
Page 15 and 16: Short story Religion and Politics A
Page 17 and 18: For a moment, Stone just stared at
Page 19 and 20: infection associated with the accid
Page 21 and 22: a lot, as I've never seen Sarah wit
Page 23 and 24: they operate. People who want thing
Page 25 and 26: their misery. "Bastards," Barnaby s
Page 27 and 28: Short story Poem A Squadron Leader
Page 29 and 30: certain that I was not witnessed, a
Page 31: Short story JS BACH IN VENICE A con
Page 35 and 36: - Jess heard a rumble, like a truck
Page 37 and 38: tions. Such as love. Could it be? W
Page 39 and 40: She was eight months pregnant with
Page 41 and 42: malice, free from hate. She spoke s
Page 43 and 44: That's right Lucille, cry your path
Page 45 and 46: down to apply her usual comforting
Page 47 and 48: AUTUMN'S COMING (They whisper, as i
Page 49 and 50: £10 STAR POEM CONTEST POETRY COMPE
Page 51 and 52: ‘been chosen for its power to lif
Page 53 and 54: Writing competitions Grace Dieu Wri
Page 55 and 56: night oil after day-jobs or putting
Page 57 and 58: years with the world's largest news
Page 59 and 60: would get back to it once I had got
Page 61 and 62: GIV: I could get squashed by a truc
Page 63 and 64: ut if work is clearly laid out and
Page 65 and 66: philosophical, surreal. Nothing pol
Page 67 and 68: Contributors [cont’d] Louise Cyph
Page 69 and 70: Final Word... "Most writers can wri

Issue 9 - Gold Dust magazine

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