by Dave Simmons

Created on: February 08, 2008

Just my Luck

(Originally a runner up in SFX magazine's Pulp Idol competition)

Norman Wakefield was not having a good day. But then, as far as Norman was concerned, very few days were good days. The world was rarely well disposed towards him, which was odd, because he wasn't the sort of person who would go out of his way to make trouble. The perfect life, it seemed to him, was to find a nice quiet job somewhere where nobody bothered you, try to keep your head down, wait forty or fifty years or so, and then pass away from some fairly painless disease, preferably one which caused as little mess and inconvenience as possible.

The world, however, had other plans.

It started when his car failed to, well, start. Closer examination revealed a peeping nest full of baby sparrows wedged behind the alternator. The bus was an hour and a half late, and then three arrived at once. Work was a cubicle tucked away in a IT support centre, where he fielded desperate calls from people whose cupholders had snapped off, people terrified that the illegal operation their PC had just performed would attract the attention of the police, and irate customers who demanded to know why, if they were paying for Internet service, they were expected to have to fork out for a modem as well.

Lunch was cut short by the canteen being closed due to a suspected outbreak of Foot and Mouth in the kitchens, leaving Norman to forage around the vending machines filled with excitingly wrapped chocolate. They seemed reluctant to leave their little wire springs, no matter how much money he fed them, and by the sixth attempt, he was out of change, and patience.

The afternoon callers seemed worse, if anything, and Norman began to wonder if they were doing it on purpose for some reason.

"It says 'press any key to continue'," said one particular specimen, earning himself pride of place in Norman's personal daydream of hell. "Which key is the any key?"

The bus home, surprisingly, was on time, and Norman then recalled where all his loose change had gone to. From the moment the overly pleased driver closed the doors and left, it started to rain. It stopped eventually, after a few miles walk, at about the point he was in sight of his front door.

Norman had had worse days, but he'd be hard pressed to think of one that was much better.

Finally, when he'd gotten home, there were two strangers in his living room.

The man was tall, fair haired, sparely built, and impeccably neat in a rather dated way. Given a set of waxed mustachios,

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