Novels

Novellas/Short stories

Fragments

Non Fiction

The Inquisitor

When I first presented to the writing group I attend, I was complimented on my use of humour in the writing. I've also been told by an English Literature graduate that I have a talent for capturing the moment of an emotion, even if I do tend towards the melancholy more than any other emotions (probably because high emotion offers more dramatic possibility, and when I try to do joy and happiness I wind up straying into the humour territory).

"The Inquisitor" is an attempt to go somewhere a little dark...

The Inquisitor - Part 1

I know that I'm not alone. I can sense the presence of another here, in the room with me. I can just barely hear the soft tread of their footsteps, somewhere behind me, I can almost imagine the sound of their breathing. The long, drawn out gurgling sound of water being poured into a glass brings the dry, raspy sensation in my throat into sharp relief.

Bound, hooded, I can neither see nor move. Without sight I cannot discern where I might be, and without the freedom of my own body I cannot take matters into my own hands to extricate myself from this situation I find myself in. I cannot even feel the restraints that keep me captive, only the sensation of pressure. I am in the thrall of a higher power, an invisible captor.

"So." The voice cuts through the silence, strange yet familiar, like a half-remembered echo from a past I once knew, or a dream I once had. The voice is everywhere in the room, in my ears, in my mind.

"So." It repeats itself.

"What do you want?" I ask, trying to sound fearless, and praying that I have succeeded.

"What do you want?" the voice mockingly echoes my words, emphasising 'you'.

"I don't know anything."

"I don't know anything" it sneers back at me. "You know everything. You know nothing. And we know all about you, oh yes, everything. What you've said, what you've done. Even what you haven't done, now there's the interesting part, what you haven't done. What you said makes you guilty, what you did makes you responsible. But it's what you didn't do that brings you here. You condemn yourself by your own inaction, I wash my hands of it all, I tried to help you, really I did. So spare me your protestations, your pleas of ignorance, ignore the fear rising in your breast, and tell me..."

A hand on my head, roughly grasping at the hood, pulling it off. And I am eye to eye with my captor, my tormentor, staring into the familiar stranger's face.

"...what do you want?"

Face to face with myself, the man in the mirror knows me better than anyone. He is the one person I cannot hide from. And he will always draw the truth from me, no matter how deep I hide it.