Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish by Andrew Buckley Read Free Book Online Page B

seconds anyway.
    He tried making notes of them, using the little coloured rocks at the bottom of his bowl, but he was never quick enough to get whole words out before he forgot them. So all he ended up with were a few letters that didn't make sense to him. But what he found, although he couldn't remember finding them, was that he could take these thoughts that popped into his head and throw them out of his head, out of his bowl, and send them hurtling out of the apartment.
    Sometimes he could even direct the thoughts at people. But after he'd sent the thoughts or pictures out of his head, he would forget that he ever received them and he never really knew who he sent them to, anyway.
    "Oh, that's strange, there's a castle here," said Jeremiah.
    All this started about two years ago and had been steadily increasing until he was at the point where he would get frustrated. But then he would forget being frustrated and everything would be fine again.
    "Oh, a castle," Jeremiah said to no one in particular.

Six.
    Jiffy's newspaper stand existed when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, or at least that's what he told the kids who tried to steal candy from his little shack on the corner of Marylebone Road and Albany Street, next to Regent's Park. Whether the statement was true or not is a secret that probably died out with the dinosaurs.
    "And I'll still be here when they come back an'all," he would shout as the children ran away.
    Jiffy retired at the age of sixty-five and lasted all of two hours as a retiree before returning to work, claiming that living with his wife was a hell of a lot more stressful than selling papers from the crack of dawn to the dead of night.
    When Nigel was fresh on the force, he was called out to Jiffy's newsstand twice a week due to constant reports of candy theft and dirty little buggers nickin' his walking stick when he wasn't looking. Nigel and Jiffy became fast friends, and even when the thefts were finally alleviated, Jiffy would still call twice a week so that Nigel would bring him a coffee and they could chat for a while about this or that.
    Jiffy, an elderly man who despised youth, refused to admit that he had ever been that young and foolish. He often tried convincing people willing to listen that he was born, had been a toddler, then skipped the teenage and young adult years to mature into the five-foot-three-inch old codger he was today.
    Nigel had come to see Jiffy as someone who was always up-to-date with the news, a streetwise gentleman who had seen the best of times and the worst of times and couldn't give a crap either way.
    Jiffy had come to see Nigel as a friendly copper who brought him coffee.
    Coffee was exactly what Nigel was on his way to pick up when he began to notice a slight change in the demeanor of London's people on this dreary, almost drizzly, morning. The homeless people weren't walking around muttering to themselves as they normally did. The average Londoners walked around with their heads down, not making eye contact with anyone and trying very hard to pretend that the world around them didn't exist. Today, everyone travelled around in excited little groups. People were actually talking to each other, which was practically unheard of in parts of southern England. The world around Nigel had changed, and he wanted to know why. He stopped in the little hippy-run coffee stall in the centre of Regent’s Park and bought himself a coffee and one for Jiffy. If something funny were going on with the world, then Jiffy would know about it.
    Nigel found the newsstand in the usual spot and Jiffy happily accepting money from people as they bought the morning newspaper. The difference today was the abundance of people buying papers and staring wildly at the front cover, pointing and exclaiming.
    "Amazing isn't it? Who would've thou—"
    "—always knew this would happen—"
    "—bloody weather—"
    "—yaknow, my aunt Ettie passed away last year, I'm thinking of digging her up just to make sure