The Untimely Ending of Lo

A Funny Sun(ny)day Submission

My name is Ben, and this is my pen. I write mostly fiction, mostly fantasy/magical realism with some poetry thrown in because why not. And sometimes I will write things that are not either of those even slightly. I will usually be attempting to make you laugh. So please bear that in mind!

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Happy Sunday everyone, I hope you’re all relaxing after a good week.

I’ve been use this week rewriting the start of a novel I’ve been working on, in order to submit to the Cheshire Novel Prize. My immense thanks to

Addam Ledamyen

for acting as an accountability partner, keeping me honest and on track!

So this week I offer something from my old archive, a short vignette, partly inspired by the Thursday Murder Club series and partly inspired by someone I used to work with. This is also my first submission to the Funny Sun(ny)day Digest.

I hope you enjoy!

The Untimely Ending of Lo

Two thoughts occurred to Lo at roughly the same time.

Firstly, he was pissed off. Not because of the situation, although even he had to admit the current predicament was ‘sub-optimal’, as his boss would have condescendingly noted. He was pissed off because had he known how the night would end, he would have snuck an extra pierogi or two before leaving for his evening ‘rounds’.

Secondly, he found it all quite funny. He had left Kyiv for Kent as he’d considered it the sensible choice for a youngish man trying to get out of the mob and into legitimate accountancy.

Following the Brexit vote, Kent, it turns out, had proved a chillier welcome than some of the more robust factions of Russian organised crime. And those guys still had creative ideas for pliers and toenails. He was used to ‘old school’, but the people of Kent, it turns out, still went to school in castles.

His best laid plans were left in tatters within weeks of arriving on the Dover shore. The only job he could get was collecting rent from those who shared his misfortune of being a recent immigrant but did not benefit from his massive six-foot five-inch frame.

The full moon glinted brightly on the top of the swelling water of the English Channel. Had it not been for his assailant’s dark hood they may have been blinded by the reflection shining from Lo’s wide, bald head.

The strength of the grip on his neck was surprising given the size of the individual compared to him. He was not well acquainted with the finer points of the martial arts. However, there was something in the confidence of the grip – just on the tender part below his right ear - that told him he was in significant danger. A twist of the wrists anti-clockwise or a flick of the hand downwards would mean either death, or a lifetime in a wheelchair respectively. Lo didn’t know that of course, he just knew he was pretty well done for.

Sweat started to gather down his back accentuating the chill of the wind. His tight black vest providing little protection against the freezing night or the icy grip of his pursuer. The cotton began to stick to his skin, and he couldn’t have told you if he was shivering due to the cold or the clarity. The clarity that the end brings.

He remembered first observing the white cliffs of Dover when he arrived in England. The vast, pale façade seemed welcoming, optimistic. A hopeful beacon of purity ahead of a man with a grim and blood drenched past behind. Now the cliffs just seemed cold and perilous. Hard and sudden with no room for mercy.

He inhaled as best he could and managed to croak out his final words.

“What kind of justice is this?”

He didn’t even feel the wrists move. A sudden, sharp movement and his body fell to the ground. He was dead before his temple hit the dirt.

Long fingers reached up and removed the hood. Cool calm eyes looked straight out to sea, glinting in the ghost light of the lunar landscape.

“That, you little tinker, is Grey Justice.”

A final graceful pirouette and the Ukrainian’s hulking, lifeless sack of a body was kicked over the cliff. It would be two days before any questions were asked. A further three weeks before his body washed up in Calais. Another eighteen months for a cause of death to be determined. And no one would ever know what happened.

Except for one person that is, Vivienne Grey, retired primary school teacher and amateur assassin.

That’s it for this week guys. Hope you enjoyed this short little intro to Vivienne - she may well return in the future.

Please do share this with anyone that you think might quite like my particular brand of nonsense…

And of course, please do subscribe!

As ever, stay fresh cheese bags!

Ben