Glyph 005

Part five of a story I wrote called Glyph. It’s rough and unfinished but should be entertaining. You can search for the other parts using the search box in the top right hand corner.

His memory was flawless. Apart from having absolutely nothing from before he was thirteen when he work up alone in a hospital bed with the doctor unable to find any trace of him on any database. Whatever put him there had left his body covered in tiny wounds and a long, thin and perfectly straight scar along the left side of his skull. From that moment onwards, Duncan had been building himself from scratch.

Duncan pushed open the large steel up-and-over door of his single room flat. The dank sunlight filled the single room, barely casting any shadows. It wasn’t sparse. Duncan just didn’t have much stuff. People who lived in what was a stack of converted storage containers didn’t tend to have a lot of possessions. Duncan lived at the very top of seven storeys of concrete. It gave him a great view first thing when he left his flat but was bitterly cold in the Winter. Duncan looked over the favela that this part of the city had become. He took a deep breathe of what would be the last mostly-clean air for a while and made his way down the bolted-on stairwell tower.

“How may I help you?” said the smartly dressed girl behind the front desk.

“I’m here for a 1 o’clock interview. My name is Duncan.”

“Please take a seat. Someone will be with you shortly.”

The girl’s irises were an unnaturally bright green. As Duncan took a step back towards the rigid plastic chair, the green of the girl’s iris looked like it began to bleed into the rest of her eye until two emerald pools stared out from her flawless pale skin. She then raised her hands and her fingernails glowed the same colour. Duncan watched as she moved her fingers in front of her like some kind of elaborate dance of sign language.

“That’s an augment I’ve not seen before,” said Duncan. The girl turned her head towards him and the colour quickly returned to the normal position. She made a small smile.

“It’s new,” she said, “Only got it last month. It’s so much quicker now.” Duncan sat down and let the girl get back to work. He was glad to sit. The nerves were building up inside him. He watched the people in the Central Auditerminal. Some were browsing the variety of shops that went all around the edge. Some were sitting, reading or on talking on phones. A few were taking pictures of the four grand exhibits placed in this room. Most people carried suitcases or bags. Some were passing right on through to check into their flights. A number of people walked past Duncan to climb the marble staircase next to him. They strolled around the mezzanine before disappearing into the exhibition galleries of the museum. After fifteen minutes, a woman came striding across the auditorium with a slightly frantic edge to the way she walked. Her hair was ash blonde with slightly lighter grey strands in it. She wore all black. She gave Duncan a well rehearsed smile of greeting that made fine dignified wrinkles appear. She offered Duncan her hand.

“You must be Duncan. Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Jonquil, the Deputy Curator here.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Duncan said as he shook her hand.

“Come this way, I’ll give you a quick tour first then talk about what you want to do whilst you’re volunteering here. It’s only me giving the interview I’m afraid as our Head Curator is in meetings all day.”

“That’s fine by me.”

“I’m sure you meet him soon.”

Copyright 2010. Pete Newcurator. Newcurator.com