Serial stories
A weekly installment of gripping narrative that will leave readers hanging in suspense until the next segment is released, think of a gripping television drama but in a literary form.
I could hear the mosquito buzzing around my ear, swooping and swerving, coordinating its dance to the slight movements of my head. No doubt it was ready to pounce, but it was taking its time relishing the moment, enjoying the game. I wondered how something so small could have the arrogance of a mighty lioness tackling an ox when David and Goliath didn’t even compare to our difference in size. Perhaps it knew the great discomfort and hours of itching it would later cause, when it finally chose its moment as I was lost to sleep that night. The air was hazy and hot, it caused my thin cotton dress to stick to me uncomfortably. I desperately wanted to get out of it but I knew I would be told off for changing into my pyjamas before bedtime. My fingers clumsily clutched around the music box I was trying to dissemble in the hope of fixing it, I had not quite developed the dexterity which would allow me to perform challenges such as this without making the situation worse. An agitated yellow lizard was studiously observing me on the nearby stone wall. I ignored it, the novelty of these creatures had somewhat worn off since I had first arrived at the beginning of the summer. This memory lingers somewhat determinedly in the back of my mind, it was so many years ago that I question whether it is more of a memory of a dream inspired by loose fragments of previous recollections. The mosquito, the dress, the music box and the lizard may all have arisen from separate occasions yet my mind has pushed them together to form one of my only memories of my summer in the Italian farmhouse.
I was sat in the attic room of that huge stone palace, this was the house of my ancestors yet it couldn’t be more foreign to me compared with the industrial English town which I called my home. That summer was the first time I became acquainted with my Italian heritage, and also the summer in which I developed a fondness for cats. The house had three, a mother and two kittens which were soon adopted, no doubt unwillingly, by my sister and me. Staying on the estate in the middle of the Italian countryside, miles from any nearby town and, consequently, swimming pool, submerged me into a daze of intense imagination and truancy. One minute I would be writing page after page in my scrappy little notebook, of characters I had invented and forcing my sister to act them out with me, the next I would be breaking a plate. The stifling and yet soothing nature of my surroundings had cocooned me into a world where the boundaries were blurred, and yet encouraged me to develop more of myself. It was the first time I became aware of differences, of their benefits and disadvantages, and I was secretly proud that part of me came from this lonely house on the hillside as it was certainly different to most of the other children I knew. It was only later on that I began to resent these differences and it was a while before I could learn to accept them again.
During my attempts at some minor mechanical engineering, my father came and poked his head round the door.
‘Come downstairs, you might want to see this’.