That Strange, Ominous Calm - Collaboration Project by Rosie L

Dear Reader, the narrative is a tricky thing. It has a tendency to want to split into tributaries and form a delta of a tale instead of one straight path. There are so many choices, so many people whose footsteps we could follow in. Perhaps we should follow that young woman looking around anxiously, ushering a child down the dark street as fast as she can. Or perhaps the grandmother watching her from the cemetery, hazy like a memory. We could even look through the windows of the row of squat houses that frame the street, peering blank-faced out through the spidery mist. They look like prison cells, bricked up to stop something getting out. Here, come look at this one.

The living room is filled with flowers. The mass of petals almost burst out of the seams of this tiny building. The lights are off, and shadows cloak many of the more distant displays, but the ones closest to us gleam in the moonlight. A large bouquet of lavender roses is addressed to a Dear Bryony, but the rest are placed in vases and on windowsills, pale and elegant. At the centre of the room is a peculiar object that seems to serve as both a table and a footstool, but might have once started life as a desk, and it bears two vases of gardenias and a plate of decomposing food. The stool is bordered by a sofa on one side, and a small TV blaring a news station on the other. The flowers are still and perfect, the silent guardians of the house. A collection of white lilies glares out at us, warning us away. Whoever lives here is under their protection. Perhaps we should leave?

Wait.

A man walks into the room with a cardboard box under his arm. He’s tall, and of thin build, a vivid reminder that the human body is made of skin stretched tightly over brittle bones. His hair is dark brown, and he has enough stubble that it is thick enough around his upper lip and chin to be classed as a neatly trimmed beard. His light eyes are like islands on his face, surrounded by the breaking waves of smile lines and the sand spits of his thick, unruly brows. His skin is pale enough to make his dark circles stand out, the most colourful aspect of his design. He’s dressed in an ill-fitting black suit with a navy tie, apparently made for a shorter man.

Perhaps he shall be the protagonist for our narrative?

The TV continues to blare, but he doesn’t seem to hear it as he picks up his phone and feverishly taps at the screen until it begins to ring. The person at the other end picks up, their voice too distant to hear. He speaks rapidly, burning through the traditional greetings of a conversation before the other has any time to reply. That’s a feminine tone, don’t you think? She sounds sweet, if a little confused. Perhaps a sister, or a mother, or a friend. Perhaps it is Bryony of the lavender roses?

Our protagonist hangs up the call without warning, a gleam in his eyes. Adjusting his tie, he picks up the roses, plucks something that glints faintly from behind the TV, and walks out of the room. The TV is still blaring news.

Half an hour the news is of the brutal murder of one Bryony Webber.

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