James was halfway up the stairs when he saw the dragon.   Bright green scales covered its zig-zagging body.  Talons thrust out of its claws.  Fiery points of light shone from its eyes.  In the cavity between its jaws, its tongue writhed like a little dragon itself.
 
And the dragon laughed.  Yes, contained within the edges of the window, it was definitely laughing at him.
 
James wondered why he hadn’t noticed the stained-glass design until he’d reached the mid-point of the staircase, where the stairs twisted round and the window sat in the wall above.   Presumably it was because the clouds had moved outside, allowing some sunlight to penetrate.  This had brightened the coloured glass – bringing the dragon to life, so to speak.
 
The girl came up the stairs behind him.  At the sight of the dragon she stopped and took hold of his hand.  “I like this place,” she said.  “You chose well.”
 
James was relieved but he tried to sound flippant.  “Despite this big scary thing climbing the stairs towards our bedroom?”
 
“Especially with this.  Anyway, it isn’t scary.  It’s laughing.”
 
The room impressed her too  – the bed with its tapering wooden corner-posts, the walnut sideboard with its bowl of fruit and vase of sunflowers, the floorboards with their varnished finish.   She placed her bag on the bed, went and opened the door into the bathroom, and said:

“Wow!”
 
James came up behind her and, trying to keep himself from trembling, slid his arms around her sides and clasped his hands in front of her waist.  Above her red hair he saw that the bathroom looked as good as it did in the website photos.   Black-and-white Art Deco tiles on the floor and walls, a blue Victorian bathtub, a sink with long brass taps, a pewter basin and jug on a chest beside the toilet.
 
“This,” she said, “is going to be a lovely weekend, James.”
 
As he hugged her tightly, James wondered how he’d ever managed to get so lucky.
 
But then he found something else to worry about.  He realised he needed to use that bathroom – and the old guesthouse, charming though it was, didn’t seem to be well soundproofed.
 
“I’ll be a minute,” he said and closed the bathroom door on her.  He studied himself in the mirror that occupied the wall above the sink, trying to take heart from what he saw.  His hair as yet had more brown than grey.  His brow was only grazed, not furrowed, with lines.  His jawline hadn’t disappeared.
 
“I’m not,” he whispered, “old.”

Then, unable to delay it any longer, he went to the toilet.  He lowered his trousers, sat on the toilet seat and tried to empty his bowels as slowly, gently and quietly as possible. 
 
Suddenly he felt a violent shift of wind inside him.  He managed to grab the cistern-chain and tug it before the wind exited and made its terrible noise.   The toilet flushed loudly, prompting James to change tactics.  Desperately, he squeezed it all out as fast as he could, while the cistern made enough noise to cover the farting and splashing. 
 
It worked – everything was out before the cistern quietened.  He sighed with relief.
 
James cleaned himself, did up his trousers and re-flushed the toilet.  He couldn’t smell anything but he didn’t take any chances.  The room was equipped with a can of air freshener and he sprayed it around him.  Above the bath was a window and he opened that too.  Then, cursing whichever hotelier had invented the en suite bathroom, he returned to the bedroom. 
 
She’d taken off her green overcoat and he could see the tightly-fitting clothes underneath – the wraparound skirt that highlighted the lines of her slim-but-shapely thighs and buttocks, the silk tunic that showed the perfect curves of her breasts.  Again, James marvelled at his luck.
 
She said, “I need to use the bathroom too,” and went through and shut the door.
 
Half-a-minute later, the noises started in the bathroom.  James heard a huge, long rasping sound and then a series of shorter but more explosive ones.  Disbelievingly, he went to the door.  While the farting continued, he heard other things.  There were hoarse, grunting noises, suggesting an animal in great throes of effort.  Also, there were shrill, scraping noises that made him think of fingernails, raking across a blackboard – or indeed talons, raking across bathroom tiles.  He noticed a shocking smell too, seeping out past the edges of the door.  Sulphur.
 
Unable to bear it, James wrenched the bathroom door open.  But suddenly the vile noises and vile smell vanished.  The bathroom, he discovered, was empty.
 
*
 
“Table for one?” asked the bespectacled middle-aged lady who was the guesthouse’s proprietor.
 
“That’s right,” said James.
 
“Sleep well?”

“Very well, thanks.”
 
He had slept well, despite the dream – if it’d even been a dream.  But he couldn’t think of any other explanation for the sense of deja-vu that’d troubled him.  It was the first time his company had sent him on a sales trip to this city, so he definitely hadn’t been in the guesthouse before.  Why then did he have the feeling of having stayed here another time, in other circumstances?
 
Circumstances not of business, but of pleasure.  Circumstances involving a companion…  A woman.  But he couldn’t remember anything more definite than that.
 
James studied the back of hand.  These days, the veins in it looked hideously prominent.  And how long ago since he’d last been with a woman?  He sighed.  It must’ve been a dream.  One he’d nearly, but not wholly, forgotten.
 
The lady brought him breakfast on a tray.  Just then the sun emerged from behind some clouds and through the dining-room doorway he saw the hallway brighten with greenish light.
 
“That stained-glass window in the stairwell,” he said to the lady, “is very beautiful.”
 
“Yes.  All our guests remark on that.”
 
“But why is it laughing?”
 
The lady thought about it.  “According to the story – it likes to play jokes on people.”   

__________________________

©2011 Jim Mountfield

We’re in the alleyway behind the theatre, hurrying towards its rear door.  Hurrying because in the minute since we got out of our vehicles there’ve been crackles of machine-gun fire coming from a few streets away.  I hear someone say, “Better get inside quick, Mr Gilchrist.  Sounds like the end o’ history out here tonight.”
 
“End o’ history,” muses Mr Gilchrist.  “That’s appropriate.  Seein’ as I’m the end o’ history too.  Blues history.”
 
Then from behind a Dumpster full of garbage bags steps a young fellow holding a camera-phone in front of him.  At the sight of the phone my hands twitch but I don’t have my tools assembled.
 
Evan responds instead.  He reaches forward and clamps a hand round the fellow’s wrist.  His other hand closes into a fist and his arm folds and levers back.  It’s a thick arm.  It makes me think of a battering ram about to crash against a castle door.
 
Mr Gilchrist speaks.  “Now Evan.  I’m sure the young gentleman ain’t intendin’ trouble.  Just wants to take a picture o’ me.  Which is understandable, me bein’ who I am.”
 
Evan’s arm is capable of knocking the fellow’s face through the back of his head.  But there’s no question of that happening, now that Mr Gilchrist has forbidden it.  Slowly, he lowers his fist.  Then his other hand springs open and releases the fellow’s wrist.
 
“Why don’t you escort the gentleman inside?  And when I’m presentable he can take all the pictures he want.”
 
Mr Gilchrist smiles as he says that.  You could almost mistake him for a sweet old man. 
 
*
 
Later in the rehearsing room behind the stage the fellow gets his chance.  In a chair Mr Gilchrist poses with his guitar and the fellow levels the camera-phone.  Evan stands behind him, studying the phone’s tiny screen.
 
“How d’ I look?” Mr Gilchrist asks.
 
“I believe immaculate is the word, Mr G.”  The old man has changed out of his travelling clothes and is wearing a crimson shirt, a tie speckled with gold stars, a blue double-breasted jacket with peaked lapels.  A Homburg hat covers his remaining hair and wraparound sunglasses mask his eyes.   Just now it’s difficult to believe he’s in his eighties.  When he makes himself look, as he says, presentable, he could almost pass for someone half his age.
 
“I ain’t no spring chicken,” he explains as he poses.  “I ain’t young, nobody stays young, but it’s important to me that I look the best I can.  And it’s important too that nobody takes my picture when I ain’t lookin’ 100 percent.  That’s strikes me as disrespectful.  You take some picture o’ me when I’m lookin’ lousy, that shows you ain’t got respect for an ole man and his pride.  That’s why my employees have orders to stop people takin’ pictures o’ me unawares.”
 
More gunfire sounds outside.  With the whole world going to hell I find Mr Gilchrist’s pride reassuring.  The pride of this old man is one thing at least that shows stability.
 
*
 
It’s an hour since the announcement went up in the auditorium: “Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly give you the final aristocrat of the blues, Mr… Thomas…  Roosevelt…  Gilchrist!”
 
I’m lying on my stomach on a catwalk just above the level of the front lights.  Illuminated by the beams slanting down from those lights, my employer sits on the stage.  His fingers work at his guitar while his body leans forward from his chair, making sure all his voice goes into the microphone.  He still loves live performances but at his age they take their toll on him.  Now he doesn’t look as presentable as he did in the rehearsing room.  His face is creased with effort.  Sweat runs down it in lines and also blotches his shirt.
 
Then, looking at the audience below me, I see the thing that Mr Gilchrist hates.  A guy pushes towards the stage and raises a camera-phone above the heads in front of him.
 
I sigh.  What possesses these people – so eager to see the last living legend of the blues and yet so stupid?  After the contracts they signed when they bought their tickets?  After the body searches they underwent at the doors?  And they still smuggle in camera-phones?  Somehow not understanding that Mr Gilchrist does not want to have his picture taken?
 
Beside me lie my tools, a pair of shears attached to telescopic shafts.  I take hold of the shafts and lower them and the shears from the catwalk.  I feel no pity.  The guy signed the contract drawn up by Mr Gilchrist’s lawyers.  And in today’s anarchic world, with the cops and the courts so beleaguered, a sharp team of lawyers can sanction any punishment for breaking a contract.
 
I manoeuvre the shears until the camera-phone and the guy’s hand are positioned between them.  As hard as I can, I drive the shafts together, which in turn slams together the shears.  There’s resistance – the blades close on the ends of the bones in the forearm rather than on the wrist – and I have to twist and tug at the shafts until the camera-phone, and the hand in which it’s grasped, finally spring into the air and fall.  Not to the floor, because a last intact tendon or strand of skin leaves them dangling from the wrist-stump.  The guy brings the stump down to his face.  He sees the blood well from it and down the sides of his arm, like champagne frothing from an uncorked bottle.  Then he keels over.  The surrounding crowd are oblivious to his plight because they’re so enraptured by Mr Gilchrist’s music.  Probably they’ll trample him to a pulp.
 
I look towards the stage again and notice at its edge several red blots of blood from the guy’s wrist.  The furthest blot is a few inches short of Mr Gilchrist’s right shoe.
 
I shudder.
 
Blood on his shoe?  Hell, Mr Gilchrist would not have liked that.

________________________

©2010 Jim Mountfield

Jim Mountfield is mostly based in Scotland these days although he has lived and worked in several African and Asian countries.  He has trained as a magazine journalist and has written articles and stories for a number of publications on topics ranging from vampires to amateur-league Scottish football teams.