Barney Trimble

I am going to tell you a story from my school days. My prep school days to be precise. I suspect you will think this is a mere fiction. Well, it may be. It was a long time ago and memories have a way of slipping silently from shape to shape as the years drift on by. Looking back on it, it all seems so implausible and yet.. And yet, I remember it all so clearly. Recollections of one’s early school days can often seem so bizarre that it is simply impossible to think that they could be true.

"Some shortcut." The cat sat in the grass by the road, licked his paws. "Some shortcut." "Where's the girl?" "On the phone to her boyfriend." "Did he call before or after?" "During." "Probably for the best. You've already had lunch." The cat jumped away cackling as I aimed a lazy kick at it. The cobbled road into the village led straight to the water's edge before curling round in front of a row of cottages, each painted a different faded colour.

This started as the entry to a competition for a short story of exactly 100 words entitled "Last bus from Station 9". I liked the challenge of writing to a strict word count so turned it into a bigger project by reducing the word count by one per chapter. This is the result. The story focuses on Sam, a space bus conductor, who finds himself increasingly disenchanted with his job and life. Each chapter represents a snapshot of his day, with the whole story covering 100 days.