Children Know

A funny thing happened the other day. Little C had two friends over to play with in the garden while I did what I usually do in the afternoons, which is relax with a beer and, in this case, Psych. Suddenly, the boys came running into my field of vision waving the pair of evil clowns I keep on my desk. And you know what they were shouting? “Evil! Evil!”

Advertisement

DF Part 10: Showdown

“Reality is like fabric. This is a dumb comparison but it’s the best I can come up with that you can understand. So, this fabric has a pattern. Many patterns, in fact, all made up of people. We see them all and when a new part of a pattern appears we notice. That’s about it.”

DF Part 8: Lullaby

There once was a boy named Lars

His life was a dank stinky farce

No love or happiness he had

But he had weird dreams

And they drove him mad

 

There once was a boy—

When Characters Go Rogue

I had such high hopes when I met Natalie Griffiths for the first time. She had just died (Stroke. Felled her like a tree.) without finishing her cigarette and she was bent on having another, however long it took. While she argued her case with her account manager Natalie managed to cause the death of her husband and antagonise said manager so much that she, the manager, bungled the procedure of preparing two deceased for the after life. On top of it all, Natalie — and her husband — escaped from the waiting room of the Great Beyond setting the stage for many ghost adventures. And a cigarette, obviously.

DF Part 6: A Bad Day to Travel

When my phone started beeping while it was still dark outside my first thought was ridiculous: that something bad had happened to Antonia. My second thought was sane, reminding me she was sleeping in the room across the hall. And then I saw the number calling and the hour, and the worry reignited.

DF Part 5: A Blast from the Past

The key clicked in the lock so loudly I winced. Antonia sobbed by my side. I had tried to comfort her but she didn’t want my comfort. She wanted to grieve and I followed Madeleine’s advice and let her.

DF Part 4: The Perfect Sauce

“I honestly can’t believe we did this,” Sonia said and laughed. I took a sip from my wine glass and mirrored the smile still lingering on her lips.

“We only did it because of you,” I said. “Everybody likes you.”

“Including you?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

DF Part 3: A Desperate Man

Do you know this feeling when you’re so tired you can’t really enjoy the fact it’s Friday night and you’re looking at two days of rest? This is exactly how I felt this Friday.

The Girl in the Street

“I’m really sorry, Lars,” Alicia said. I could see she meant it—she looked everywhere but at me and she nodded as she spoke, like she was trying to convince herself she was doing the right thing. “We just can’t go on like this forever.”

DF Part 1: A Bridge in the Sea

This is the first story in what was going to be The Dansk Finanzbar Chronicles, a series of loosely related short stories in the wonderful tradition of Raymond Chandler although my protagonist was not a private eye but a dreamer, a person who can change reality by dreaming about it, often involuntarily. Long story short, it didn’t work as I expected, so I turned it into a novel. This first story, along with a few others, I think, is good enough on its own, so I’m sharing it.

Author’s note: The ‘z’ in Finanzbar is German and not Danish but hey, that’s how I dreamed it and besides it’s a federation, so there.