Short Skates: Eighties
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII
This instalment contains some violence.
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She first knew she was in trouble when the bottle shattered across her face.
Green, tinkling gems of crystal spread out across her face, then went wheeling away from her, scattering on the ground like flecks of emerald.
She blinked, and did not bleed.
“Fucking hell,” said the man who threw the bottle, dressed in a black shirt, with jeans, suspenders and combat boots. His head was completely clean-shaven. “It’s true what they say about you.”
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“You’re her, aren’t you?” the man said, smiling. One of his teeth was grey and dead. “Lady Chaos. The Angel of Flanders. Katherine Wheels. The Rollerskater.”
She surveyed him for a few moments, and he did the same to her.
She was dressed in a blue, double-breasted blazer dress patterned with clouds, and a ruffled jabot around her neck. She wore her lilac hair in a curled pompadour. On her feet, she wore two golden rollerskates.
“Careful where you tread,” she replied. “I only wish to be left alone.”
“You’re the apocalypse,” he snarled. “The universe dies as long as you live.”
“The universe dies with or without me,” she replied. “It is the nature of things.”
“No,” the man said. “You’re a demiurge. You’re the demiurge. Come to cast us all into darkness as you keep us from ascension to the infinite.”
“Whatever you have heard about me, I assure you it is false.”
The man clicked his fingers, and three more men emerged from the shadows. They were standing in an alleyway between two blocks of flats in South London.
“There’s an election coming up,” the man said. “We’ve been tasked with ensuring you don’t interfere.”
“You think I’m working for Michael Foot?” the Rollerskater said. Humourless though her demeanour was, there was the faintest hint of a smirk as she said it.
“Nah,” said one of the gang, a young man wearing corduroy trousers and a linen shirt, clutching a plank of wood into which he’d hammered a number of nails. “But you might complicate matters for Mrs. Thatcher. We simply can’t have that.”
The Rollerskater bowed her head.
“Very well,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”
The man holding the plank of wood charged at her with a roar, swinging the wood. She ducked under his arm, impressive considering her height, and came into the back of him. She jerked her arm up, coiling it around the man’s upper arm, then pushed her calf into his shin, releasing her grip. He shouted in surprise and thudded to the ground, smashing his face against the paving stones in the process.
“Very impressive,” said the skinhead. “The way you move, it’s like dancing.”
“Fuck off,” the Rollerskater said in retort.
Another man launched himself at her, dressed in a frayed red jacket with gold hemming. His face was painted white, with a triangle in makeup around his left eye. He held an Armalite rifle, which he fired six times into her stomach.
He stood and waited for her to die, and she glowered at him, then placed her hand to her mouth. Into her palm, she spat the six bullets, which she handed back to him.
“This is the finest the British Government can send?” she said, more irritated than anything.
A third man leapt forth holding a long blade. He was dressed in a synthetic-fibre shellsuit with a cap. With a quick swing of his blade, he cut the woman’s head from her shoulders. He laughed in triumph.
The laughing quickly stopped when the body kept standing, unperturbed.
Her head began to melt, transforming into a puddle of pink slime that slid its way over to her leg. The headless body absorbed the head, and in turn, her head reconstituted itself on her shoulders.
She looked from man to man, who gazed back at her in awe.
“Are you done?” she said.
The skinhead raised an eyebrow.
“Then it’s true,” he said. “You’re indestructible.”
“Yes,” the Rollerskater said. “I am old, boy. Older than you can imagine. There is no trick you’ve thought of that hasn’t been tried.”
“We’ll see about that,” the skinhead said. “We’re not finished with you yet.”
The Rollerskater seemed almost to become taller. She held out a hand, and into it flashed a golden sword, whose tip she pointed at the skinhead’s throat.
“Listen to me,” she said. “You are tiny. Ants beneath my feet. You are like germs. You die in less time than it takes me to blink. I am not afraid of you, or your government. Do you understand me?”
The skinhead looked from the tip of the sword and back to the Rollerskater.
“Loud ‘n’ clear,” he said. “Watch your back, Katherine Osborne.”
He turned to leave, and there was a sudden burst of light.
“What—?”
He turned to look at it, and saw a golden pillar of light. Winds began to pick up, swirling around the alley. His eyes bulged.
“What have you done?” he asked.
What terrified him was that the impossible woman was equally perplexed.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I never do.”
The pillar began to shimmer and warp.
k-os listen to me
“How is it doing that?” the man in corduroy trousers wondered. “I can hear it in my teeth.”
you have to understand
“Who are you?” the Rollerskater asked.
The pillar fell silent, flickering, then vanished into dark space.
“What was that?” the skinhead asked, after a full minute of silence.
“Armageddon,” the Rollerskater replied. “Best of luck with the election. I don’t think I have to tell you I don’t have the right to vote.”
“What do you mean, ‘Armageddon’?” the skinhead asked.
But the Rollerskater did not reply. She simply melted into a puddle of pink liquid, and flowed away into the gutter and out of sight.
“What do you mean?” the skinhead shouted. “For Christ’s sake, what do you mean?”
Another time, another place…
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Illustration created using elements of an image by Rach Teo on Unsplash
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ARC FOUR: BLOOD MOON
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII