When Disconnected

By Christine Jayne Vann

What connects you to reality, culture, time, and yourself?

This eclectic collection of eight short stories explores disconnect across an interesting range of scenerios and genres. These "tales to tug at the readers' hearts and broaden their minds" will give you a glimpse "under the surface of normality".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christine Jayne Vann
• Release date: Oct 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311307170

Christine Jayne Vann

Christine Jayne Vann was born in the Outer Hebrides and is a multi-genre author.Christine works as a web developer, and lives in Oxfordshire with her family, hedgehog and various squirrels. She runs the exotic pet resource website Crittery, and also enjoys geocaching.

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When Disconnected

Christine Jayne Vann

by Christine Jayne Vann at Smashwords

Copyright © 2015 Christine Jayne Vann

All rights reserved.

Discover other titles by Christine Jayne Vann:

When I Was Not Myself

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To those who think differently.

May you understand your strength.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Shill and Shadows

Emotive

Left for Dust

Shaded

Affinities

Timely Journey

Mingle

Startorn

About the Author

Foreword

I’ve always written, but what I’ve written should not always be shared. This is a collection of my short stories from the last decade that I believe should be.

I’m often exploring issues of emotional disconnect and the feeling of ‘otherness’. I know now why this is and I think I’m finally somewhere where these can be shared.

I hope that you will enjoy, think and experience these stories. I’m not so interested in what prompted me to write these, but in what they can offer other people.

I hope, those of you on the periphery especially, will find something in here to make you think.

Shill and Shadows

The grey cat perched on top of the rock, its tail waving lazily back and forth. Its eyes, a penetrating cast of smoky topaz, were fixated on the deep and glittering pool that lay below it. Fishes swam in flashes of silver and green and a few brown tinged leaves swirled in the currents that patterned its surface.

Soft grey clouds raced above the night sky, where moonlight splashed across the grey cat’s short tattered fur and swishing tail. It watched the fish for a long time, growling deep in its throat. Time passed as if dragged by the wind, passing in short gusts and then drawn to the motion of a single pool, hidden in the heart of a forest and encased by trees human eyes rarely saw.

Abruptly the cat stood up, arching its long back and yawning in a flash of sharp white teeth. It turned its head away from the water, its eyes now as cool as flecks of stone. A silver rippling ran across its pelt as it sprang down from its lofty perch and the moon cast shadows across its fur.

With tail held high the cat walked away, a gentle silent padding through the forest where it merged into shadows and was lost to the eye. The wind sighed as the tiny figure vanished, whistling through the trees with an echoing, lonely cry.

Claws pressed softly into the damp floor as a howling filled the air, a deeply uneasy cry for help that sent the cat hissing into the night.

Shill? a human voice cried out and the howling eased. Shill, come back here, it’s not safe!

The child pushed through the branches, her heart beating wildly in her chest. She was deeply afraid of the forest; childhood tales had given her plenty of nightmares. No-one went into the forest at night, alone. Marie had been told that all her life.

The wind sliced past her cheek, carrying her voice weakly past her. Shill!

Roots tangled her feet and she stumbled forward, eyes straining. One hand still held an old, iron lamp whose weak beam illuminated only a few paces in front of her. Darkness pressed against the tiny shafts of light, all the more oppressive for the faint contrast with the weak flames. She clutched this tiny flickering in her left hand, her knuckles turning white. This was no place for a human at night, nor even a small grey cat.

Marie shivered as the wind seemed to rush inside her, sweeping through her veins and turning the warm flowing blood to ice. Autumn leaves were dragged with the breeze; falling to her shoulders and adorning her like a cloak.

Her back prickled as their fragile skeletons fell down her braced shoulders, to be crushed beneath her feet. She could not see them once they fell and could only make out the long bare sweep of the branches above her head.

She had tried before to leave yet the ways through the forest were all alike, wide paths fading into tiny rabbit trails, smothered by the dense undergrowth and only sending her further in.

Shill? she called again, hating the soft waver of her own voice. She shivered again, and could hear the ice forming in her words, the soft cloud departing with each fearful shout. Shill, come back here!

The light in her hand spluttered and flared, blown out by a single icy breath. The forest grew suddenly deeper, as if it rushed in to fill the emptiness of the dead light. The flapping edges of her coat allowed the creeping edges of the night to slink inside.

She dropped the lamp with a frightened cry, as she gathered her coat back around her.

He is not just a damn cat! she cried out suddenly, her cheeks alight with silver tears. The adults had said so, and she’d not listened. She missed her pet, the soft grey companion of her childhood. She was frightened, but she could not abandon her friend.

Shill! Please!

Her voice echoed into the forest, silencing the rustle of the leaves and a soft, amused whisper seemed to answer her.

A cat?

Quiet, mocking laughter quivered in the night air, Marie backed away, tears dried, as a cold certainty took hold of her heart.

She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest as if she could keep all voices out. The stories are real!

Many voices seemed to merge within the laughter, male and females voices in a harsh and mocking union.

A cat? A deep voice asked quietly. Cat! A