Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,39

ream.

The sight brought a smile to his face. He shifted out of his melancholy with some renewed hope; ambition found in the throes of vengeance. He flipped open the folder, checked the first sheet: a reaping license, photocopied. The second: a work sheet. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth: a biography. The seventh was a picture; he put the others to one side and held onto the picture. He stared at it intensely, his lips curling into an increasingly sinister grimace.

“You have just made a very powerful enemy,” he told the portrait of Michael Holland.

He scrunched the picture into a ball, revelling in its destruction, doing to it what Michael had done to everything he had worked on over the last few years.

One photograph didn’t matter, he had plenty, and he wasn’t going to forget that face. He threw the scrunched-up ball across the room, watching it bounce off the far wall and land anticlimactically next to the wastepaper bin.

He cursed and he sprayed a volley of spittle across his own desk, but he was already feeling better. He had a purpose now, he had a mission: he was going to kill Michael Holland.

Part Three

A spiral of cigar smoke snaked to the ceiling like a dancing cobra rising from its woven basket. It rose through the thickened air and dispersed against the yellowed paint, where a thin layer of grease had accumulated through years of casual neglect, spreading a cloud along the flattened surface.

The smoker coughed a watery cough, bringing a troublesome glob to his throat before sending it back down with a squeamish swallow. He placed the cigar into a nearby ashtray; wiped his mouth with the hairy back of a dirty hand; poked a finger into his nose, inspected the contents and then wiped them on his faded blue jeans.

He held the sports section of a national newspaper in his left hand, folded into a neat handheld scrunch and held off to one side. In his right hand he retrieved a greasy bacon sandwich from the plate in front of him and took a noisy bite without removing his eyes from the latest failures of the England football team.

Michael Holland sat on the other side of the diner, watching the hungry reader through tired eyes. It was early, he had been awake less than thirty minutes and along with his cup of coffee and slice of stale ginger cake, death was being served up for breakfast.

He watched the man take another large bite. A pool of grease infused with tomato sauce leaked out of the bread like blood from a gunshot wound. It ran a rivulet down his stubbled chin, heading towards his flabby neck before being wiped away by a grubby finger.

Michael felt sick. He’d had a few drinks the night before and had only just managed to settle his troublesome stomach. He didn’t mind dealing with death so early, but having to watch fat people eat and smoke their way to an early grave was unsettling.

“Is everything okay?”

Michael, slightly startled at the voice, quickly turned. A petite brunette waitress was standing over his table, a broad smile on her delicate face.

At the sight of her Michael’s face lit up. There was something so endearing and relaxing in her smile, something so sweet about the pinprick dimples on her cheek; so mesmerising in her green eyes, which reflected the light from the bright morning over Michael’s shoulder.

He had seen her in the back when he gave his order to a dole-faced woman with a pencil behind her ear and a stick up her arse. He heard her humming softly as she cooked up the breakfast currently clogging the arteries of the man opposite. He caught her smile then, thought he saw something there -- her eyes had lingered longer than simple customer curiosity required.

“Everything is fine,” Michael replied softly, holding eye contact as he described each syllable.

She beamed a wider smile, if that was possible. “If you need anything,” she trailed off, hooking a thumb over her shoulder towards the kitchen.

Michael nodded. She left a smile with him and then turned, heading straight back into the kitchen without acknowledging the other customer. Michael felt singled out, he felt sure there was a spark there. He watched her go; watched her walk. She made it to the kitchen and then spun on her heels, placing a supporting hand on the doorway as she shot a look over her shoulder, her eyes instantly meeting his. She smiled again, looked